4. DINOSAUR

When Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened, it had only three rides. Even if it had more, Countdown to Extinction would still have been a standout. The ride – which is physically a near-identical clone of Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye – sends guests to the brink of extinction just moments before an asteroid strikes, killing off the dinosaurs. Their mission is to locate an Iguanodon and bring it back for study. Aside from pitch-black darkness, meteor showers, and muddy paths, guests have one big obstacle: a terrifying Carnotaur with wild eyes, bullhorns, and a very loud roar. The ride was fast-paced, frightening, and intense.

In May 2000 – two years after Animal Kingdom and Countdown to Extinction opened – Disney released a $130 million dollar film called DINOSAUR. Seemingly coincidentally(?), the film’s protagonist was an Iguanodon, and its antagonist was a Carnotaur, both of which had been the featured dinosaurs in the unrelated ride at Animal Kingdom. Shortly after, Countdown to Extinction got a name change to promote the film: DINOSAUR. Little changes occurred here and there, like placing a statue of the film’s Iguanodon outside the building and placing film clips into the pre-show to make the connection obvious. (For our part, we still don’t understand if the ride was designed to compliment the film and just opened years earlier than the film did.)

On the ride, the programming of the enhanced-motion vehicles were reduced to account for the children who would be riding now that it was tied to a PG-rated film, and deliberate attempts to make the ride less intense were undertaken. Today, the film DINOSAUR is mostly forgotten (it didn’t make as big an impact as Disney had hoped anyway, and the fifteen years since haven’t made it a cult classic) but the ride continues to borrow its name. That said, it’s still a pretty terrifying experience whizzing around the jungle in pitch-black darkness pursued by a horrifying dinosaur with scientists screaming over the radio that you’re not going to make it since a giant asteroid is barreling toward you.

3. The Dark Knight Coaster

In 1992, Six Flags partnered with roller coaster manufacturer B&M to build Batman: The Ride, the world’s first inverted roller coaster (wherein riders, four-abreast, are suspended beneath the looping track like a ski-lift). The ride was revolutionary, and ignited the construction of dozens and dozens of inverted coasters until most every major thrill park on Earth had one, even up until 2014. So when Six Flags announced that they would be building new coasters based on the gritty, dark Batman reboot, The Dark Knight, people were ecstatic. When Six Flags further revealed that the rides would be indoors and feature dark ride style elements, people conjured images of Revenge-of-the-Mummy style scenes with animatronics and detailed sets recreating the realistic and acclaimed film, morphing suddenly into a wild and out of control roller coaster experience in the dark.

No, nope, and huh-uh. Inside an oversized corrugated steel box at Six Flags Great America, Great Adventure, and New England were identical Wild Mouse coasters. Yep, the same transportable, carnival model of roller coaster infamously installed at Animal Kingdom as Primeval Whirl or California Adventure as Goofy’s Sky School was placed inside of a box and named after a gritty dark superhero film.

Along the zippy back-and-forth circuit of the family ride, it passes unmoving statues of Batman lit by strobes, billboards, and disco balls, all with the steel walls and concrete floor visible around you. It’s not that Dark Knight is a bad ride or that it wasn’t well done by Six Flags standards at the time… It’s just that it’s a horrible representation of the intense and realistic dark reboot of the Batman series that apparently inspired it. New England’s was eventually dismantled and relocated to Six Flags Mexico, but the three versions of the ride currently around today are a sincere reminder of how product placement can be done poorly, and a ride based on a film should at least match in tone and intensity.

2. It’s Tough to be a Bug

If The Dark Knight Coaster wasn’t intense enough to match its source material, It’s Tough to be a Bug had quite the opposite problem. Based on the G-rated Pixar film A Bug’s Life, this 4D theater presentation at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Disney California Adventure seriously misjudged its audience. 

The attraction begins playfully enough, with Flik – the kindly ant protagonist of the film – welcoming guests and naming them honorary bugs. He hopes to show off some of the incredible skills that insects have developed to live in this world so that we might leave with a better appreciation for the bugs all around us. Of course, that in and of itself ends up a harrowing experience, as air blasts simulate a tarantula’s poison quills shot at the audience, and a termite sprays guests with “acid.”

But then, all hell breaks loose. Hopper, the evil grasshopper from the film, appears suddenly in a cloud of fog and in the form of the one most incredible animatronic creations on Earth. He condemns humans for their treatment of insects, using old sci-fi film clips to show how we demonize his kind. When a 3D flyswatter doesn’t put an end to us, he fills the theater with pressurized fog that’s blasted from every corner of the room, filling it in seconds. Then, black widow animatronics rappel from the ceiling, dangling inches above guest’s heads. A pneumatic rod in each seat back then simulates a hornet sting in each guest’s back.

It’s absolute chaos, and families often go running out of the theater with screaming children. Signs outside warn that the attraction may be too intense for children, but there’s no way to adequately prepare them. Even kids who love bugs are traumatized from the experience. Our friends at Touring Plans collect guest tips, and one mother wrote in to describe her family’s experience at the show: “[My] 11-year-old refused to talk for 20 minutes after the fiasco, and the 3 1/2-year-old wanted to go home - not back to the hotel, but home.” Pretty wild for a 3D movie based on a G-rated film.

1. Splash Mountain

Splash Mountain tells the clever and timeless folk tale of Br’er Rabbit, a mischievous hare who lives down in the prickly briar patch at the base of Chickapin Hill, and who’s tired of working all day! So he packs his knapsack and decides to leave home forever to find the Laughin’ Place, where they say you never have to work, and you just sing and dance and laugh all day. But the dastardly Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear are hungry for rabbit stew, so they take a shortcut and set a trap. When Fox catches Rabbit, he threatens to skin him alive atop Chickapin Hill. But the clever Rabbit knows just what to do. He uses reverse psychology (“Oh please, Mr. Fox, whatever do you, don’t throw me into that there briar patch!”) to convince Br’er Fox to throw him down from the hilltop and into the briars… right back home!

It’s a clever story, and one that’s a little difficult to pick up amid all the singing and dancing of the hundred-animatronic cast along the 10 minute flume ride. But it’s not an original story. Splash Mountain is entirely based on the 1946 film, Song of the South. The tale of the Laughin’ Place is one of the parables that Uncle Remus tells to Johnny, Ginny, and Toby during the film – which blends live action and animation. “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” was the film’s big number, winning the 1947 Academy Award for Best Song.

Certainly, most visitors to Splash Mountain have no idea whatsoever so it’s based on a film. That’s because Song of the South has often been deemed racist due to its depiction of race relations in the Reconstruction-Era Georgia. While it’s had a number of theatrical showings over the years (most recently in 1986) and small bits and pieces have been included as special features on various Disney DVDs, the film has never been released on home video in the U.S. To be clear: despite what your friend’s cousin’s brother says, he does not have the movie on VHS or even Laserdisc. The film has been released in its entirely in Asian and European markets, but there has never been a home media release in the United States.

Maybe its for the best: film critic Roger Ebert – who had a well-known opposition to any attempt to keep a film from an audience – famously supported Disney’s non-release position. Disney CEO Robert Iger said in 2010 that there were no plans to release the film on home media, calling it “antiquated” and “fairly offensive.” That may be true, but it’s odd to think that the film inspired one of Disney’s most well loved (and expensive!) rides!