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3. Journey into Imagination with Figment

Image: Disney

There's a whole lot we could say about EPCOT's Journey into Imagination that would make park purists livid. As we all know by now, the pavilion opened in 1983 and – like the rest of EPCOT's Future World – was anchored by a lengthy, informative, educational dark ride. Of course, rather than being a ride through the history of industry, Journey into Imagination whisked guests away on a colorful, vivid, joyful ride through "sparks of inspiration" like art, science, technology, literature, and performance. It goes without saying that that Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination is long gone.

In 1999, it was replaced with one of those totally-irredeemable, 100%-bad, zero-fan replacements Disney's too good at – the Declassified Disaster: Journey Into YOUR Imagination. A very, very, very bad ride, Journey Into YOUR Imagination axed the iconic Dreamfinder and Figment in favor of "Dr. Nigel Channing" (played by Monty Python's Eric Idle) leading guests on a tired tour of the "Imagination Institute" and its half-dozen illusions.

Luckily, feedback was so toxic that Disney arranged a quick fix. In 2001, the ride closed to become Journey Into Imagination With Figment. The ride keeps the Imagination Institute setting and Dr. Nigel Channing, but adds back the colorful, creative dragon Figment (albeit, in annoying form). Put simply: Journey Into Imagination With Figment is WAY better than Journey into YOUR Imagination, but nowhere near as good as Journey Into Imagination. Got it?

Image: Disney

So obviously, we wouldn't exactly call the current ride "good." More like "good enough." Granted, like Poseidon's Fury, the quick-fix, low-cost, Band-aid version probably should've gotten a proper redesign sometime in the last twenty years, but it limps along okay as a ride with no wait and few fans.

Still, we rank Journey Into Imagination With Figment as "so bad it's good." That's because frankly, it's insane. Yes, it's filled with twenty-year-old CGI animation, dumb "direct-to-video humor," and an unappealing setting. But it's also a whole lot of fun to see Figment (even in annoying form), to hear the iconic theme song "One Little Spark" again, and to see how relatively cleverly Imagineers reorganized the awful middle form of the ride to make use of its (few) strengths and add more of the fantasy, silliness, and musicality it needed.

The point is: the current Journey into Imagination is a mess. Absolutely. But no one would ride it arms crossed and pouting. It's an enjoyable enough experience in its way, and if you can overcome your (righteous) anger at the loss of the original or your (totally earned) frustration that Disney hasn't done anything to really fix the most broken ride at the resort, then at least you can laugh at how insane the ride's existence is at all.

4. Fast & Furious: Supercharged

Image: Universal

Please hold the tomatoes. Let us explain. 

Yes, Universal Orlando's Fast & Furious: Supercharged is almost certainly the worst ride at a major park in Central Florida. Like, it easy ranks among the worst of our worst rides of the century so far. It's also entirely inexcusable, because the ride opened at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2015 where it served as the "grand finale" of the famous Studio Tour and was very negatively received... so for some reason, Universal decided to copy it back to Florida as a standalone experience? And it wasn't even easy to do! Universal literally demolished the showbuilding that had housed Earthquake (later, Disaster) since 1990 and built a massive new ride building in its place. 

If you've been lucky enough to miss it, all you need to know is that Universal's Fast & Furious ride is neither fast nor furious. Despite Fast & Furious being the 8th highest grossing film franchise of all time (and by far the biggest box office cash cow in Universal's library), the ride sees guests load onto "party buses" (trams in disguise) where they're subjected to the same laughably-bad Musion projection scene and "action-packed" projection tunnel finale as in Hollywood. The busses buck and tilt while surrounded in CGI visuals about as convincing as a PlayStation 2 video game, all while fog machines blast pressurized fog. It's a delerious, pointless, and downright stupid experience.

Image: Universal

So far, it just sounds "bad," right? But something does make Supercharged "so bad, it's good": Universal Team Members. Apparently having either gotten approval to acknowledge the ride's awfulness or just having chosen to go completely rogue, the Team Members stationed in Supercharged make a laugh-out-loud experience. Seriously. The multi-room, multi-part pre-show designed for the ride (clearly an attempt to make it feel like more of a standalone experience since the ride itself is literally just the tram segment copied-and-pasted) gives Team Members a chance to ad-lib in call-and-response" to pre-filmed segments with the franchise's stars.

Saying the queue is more enjoyable than the ride is a pretty damning statement for a theme park, but in the case of Supercharged, it's very true. With the right combination of Team Members, the lead-up to the ride is a seriously good time. It's just a shame it has to end in the ride. 

 
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Comments

Nope. Figment and F&F are so bad that they're just bad. My father, a huge F&F fan came off the ride for the first time with the biggest "WTF" expression on his face I have ever seen. Everyone was just disappointed with Figment though.

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