3. Pandora – The World of AVATAR
Image: Disney / Fox
Location: Disney's Animal Kingdom
Fans practically rioted when Disney announced in 2010 that they'd acquired the worldwide, exclusive rights to build theme park attractions based on James Cameron's AVATAR. Despite becoming the highest grossing film ever upon its release, Avatar infamously failed to leave a mark in pop culture. That made Avatar a mostly-forgotten, PG-13 sci-fi action movie about humans waging war on a peaceful alien civilization of the native feline-like Na'vi to harvest their moon's resources... an odd fit for a Disney Park at all, much less Animal Kingdom, and especially on the expansion pad once set aside for the Possibilityland: Beastly Kingdom.
Image: Disney / Fox
But when Pandora – The World of AVATAR opened in 2017, fans' hatred was instantly silenced. Smartly, designers severed the land from the film, outright skipping the action film's militaristic human-led assault on Pandora and instead setting the land forward in time to (we imagine) hundreds of years after humans' attempts to mine Pandora out of existence have been thwarted. In the land, guests play the role of thoughtful eco-tourists, visiting the verdant moon to gaze in awe at its flora and fauna, collectively rolling our eyes at some distant, anonymous ancestors who thought they ought to strip it for profit.
Image: Disney / Fox
The 12-acre Valley of Mo'ara that we can explore is stunning, with its surrounding rocky alien cliffs and the majestic and awe-inspiring "floating mountains" of Pandora all around. The land also contains two spectacular attractions – an anchroing Flight of Passage E-Ticket and a family dark ride called Na'vi River Journey – as well as acres of trails through alien jungles past bioluminescent plant life and the overgrown ruins of old military operations, beautifully reclaimed by the planet.
Pandora is a wonder that probably succeeds in spite of its intellectual property rather than because of it, simply using James Cameron's film as a springboard for something with a life and story of its own. At the end of the day, this awe-inspiring land still lacks some of the "immersive IP land" formula since there's not really a Butterbeer or "magic wand" must-have equivalent, and since – admittedly – James Cameron's Avatar really isn't a world people were clamoring to step into. But now that it's here, there's no denying that Pandora is beyond belief.
2. Cars Land
Image: Disney / Pixar
Location: Disney California Adventure
We traced the unthinkable story of Disney's first theme park failure in its own two-part series – Disney's California Adventure: Part I and Part II – but after spending twice as much to fix the park as they had spent to build it to begin with, Disneyland's fledgling little sister ended up expanding from four lands to eight, with Cars Land as the highlight.
In the 2006 Disney / Pixar film Cars, hot rod racing legend Lightning McQueen finds himself driven off the road in the desert, where he cruises into the sleepy, neglected town of Radiator Springs. The quiet stretch of Route 66 is seemingly dotted with abandoned businesses, with the days of America's "Mother Road" long since surpassed by the interstate. Naturally, the film follows McQueen's growing affinity for the town and its eventual saving, transforming it into a neon paradise. That town is brought to life at Disney California Adventure as Cars Land, a to-scale replica in every way.
Image: Disney
The story of the land's development is a roadtrip in and of itself, as we explored in a standalone feature about its one-of-a-kind E-Ticket and Modern Marvel: Radiator Springs Racers, but one need only step into the town to be in awe of it. And while fans initially revolted against the idea (notice a trend?), the opening of Cars Land left jaws on the floor, especially thanks to the stunning backdrop of Ornament Valley and its iconic Cadillac Range, stretching around and engulfing the desert town and earning a spot on our countdown of the Seven "Natural" Wonders of the Theme Park World. (Here's a hint: if you've never been or are taking first-timers, enter Cars Land via the park's Pacific Wharf land, where the sprawling, endless desert mountains appear before you and rival any real National Park.)
Image: Disney
Cars Land benefits, too, from giving life to the stores and eateries seen in the film, including Flo's V8 Cafe (a rollickin' diner playing mid-century jukebox tunes sung by proprietor Flo and her friends). Cars Land is absolutely stunning in execution, and perhaps exists as evidence of the heights of modern Imagineering.
1. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
Click and expand for a larger and more detailed view. Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
Location: Universal Studios Florida and Universal's Islands of Adventure
When the first phase of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened to the public on June 8, 2010, it acted as paradigm shift in themed entertainment design. Sure, "a bug's land" at Disney California Adventure shrunk guests to the size of an ant, and DisneySea's Arabian Coast felt like a habitable, real, immersive world that kinda-sorta also felt like Agrabah from Aladdin. But never before had anyone attempted to build a headlining land that would physically and literally bring to life a to-scale build of an actual place seen on screen.
Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
Add to it series creator J.K. Rowling's firm (and founded) insistence that this Wizarding World be held to an unprecedented standard in the industry. Not only would the land be built to the "real" scale of the "real" Hogsmeade Village seen in the films (complete with cramped quarters not suited for theme park crowds), but those stores would be stocked only with items one might truly expect of a Scottish village outside of a magical school: robes, wands, scarves, Scottish food, pumpkin juice, and Butterbeer... with no LEGO set, Harry Potter action figure, or Coca-Cola in sight!
Image: Universal
Rowling had accidentally stumbled on the rules that govern the now de-facto M.O. for Disney and Universal: it's not about a ride, it's about a world; transporting guests to a world they want to inhabit. Though Disney's arguably been doing that since 1955's Frontierland, Adventureland, Fantasyland et al, the Wizarding World's big screen breakthrough set the stage for Cars Land, Pandora, Toy Story Land, Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, and upcoming Marvel lands. It's telling that each is often described in terms of its "Wizarding World level of detail" that's now become an industry benchmark.
Image: Universal / Warner Bros.
What really elevates the Wizarding World to the pinnacle of immersive lands isn't just its hard-fought commitment to being all-encompassing, masterfully scaled, and "real." It's that it expanded in 2014 with the opening of a second "half" – Diagon Alley – at Universal Studios Florida next door with the Hogwarts Express connecting them both. That means that, at Universal's first park, you can buy your wands, visit Gringotts, then step into London's Kings Cross Station and ride the train to the enchanted forests of Hogsmeade just like the heroes from the film. It's a cross-park, massively-scaled, and lovingly crafted way to truly become part of the Wizarding World.
While the countdown is over, on the last page we'll dissect some up-and-coming lands that just may rival the current "top 3" and be poised to overtake this list...
Comments
Hello Brian, thanks for this great article! I quite agree with your list. Personally, I would add Main Street USA to it (the original Disneyland version and the Paris version). Even without the big attractions, I feel transported in time and place, so it works quite well.