To conclude our celebration of Mickey’s 89th birthday and our very early look at Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, why don’t we take a walkthrough of the upcoming ride?
As with any attraction, the story begins in the queue. The facade of the Chinese Theater and the first part of the exterior and interior queue will be the same as they were for The Great Movie Ride, with the original lobby still very much intact. Obviously the displays will be different, but otherwise it will still have all of its original charm.
Things start to change where the large pre-show theater showing classic movie trailers once stood, just before guests would board their “journey into the movies”. This large room has been broken down into two identical pre-show movie theaters where guests will be going to see this new Mickey Mouse cartoon about the trio (including Minnie and Pluto) heading to the park for a picnic, with the screen ultimately opening up and guests walking through it to the load area of the attraction. Guests will then board Goofy’s train in a train barn before embarking on the ride.
The attraction begins with a trip through the park, followed by a tunnel. In the tunnel scene, guests encounter Minnie and Mickey in the car driving alongside them. Mickey and Minnie will be audio-animatronics figures here, inside of a physical car that will travel alongside guests through the entire scene. A maquette of the classic duo in the car can be seen at the preview of the attraction currently at Walt Disney Presents.
The next scene appears to be a stampede or “running of the bulls” type scenario, where the cars break apart and try not to incur the wrath of the stomping creatures. This is followed by a trip to the carnival, which somehow ultimately ends with Mickey and Minnie caught up in a twister. The twister may or may not be a reference to The Great Movie Ride, which was famously set to have a twister scene before some arguments over the Wizard of Oz led to the scene being cut and replaced with Sorcerer Mickey Mouse.
The twister drops guests and the characters in a tropical locale with 4 separate rooms, one for each car of the 4-car train to pull into. These individual rooms have a large screen and water effects that will spray guests as they teeter near the edge of a waterfall.
The train cars then go down a drainage pipe into the big city. Guests somehow end up taking a detour into a dance studio, where an audio-animatronic Daisy Duck is giving lessons. The cars will dance while in this dance studio, similarly to Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters at DCA.
Guests end up in a alleyway leading to a large factory, where they may come up close and personal with a giant furnace before being saved by Mickey and Minnie.
Once guests are safe, they arrive back in the park for a picnic. This scene includes audio-animatronic figures of Mickey, Minnie and their dog, Pluto. Guests then head to the unload station, disembark, and go back through a movie screen in a new postshow theater, to eventually exit out the same exit doors as The Great Movie Ride.
Do keep in mind that all of this will be combined with cutting-edge trackless ride technology, an original musical score and theme song, over 10 audio animatronics, and the first-ever “2.5D” effects (think of it as 3-D without the use of special glasses), so text probably does not do every scene justice. Also keep in mind that many of the events that will take place in each scene are still a secret, so Runaway Railway has plenty of tricks up its sleeves.
If all of this sounds exciting, well, sadly we still have 18 months or more to wait for this attraction to open, but it sure does sound pretty cool. Of course, stay “tooned” to WDWNT.com for the latest on Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
Some screenshots were collected from a video by Attractions Magazine, which you can see here.
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Doesn’t seem like a nice consistent storyline. Jumps all over the place. I’m sure it will be an enjoyable and fun ride, and I understand the need for a change with the GMR, but I don’t know, I just don’t understand THIS change
“Jumps”… in a way, quite typical for cartoons .. :-)
Animated film in general, is not what we call classic cartoon which encomprises exageration, the non logic and (literally) flattening out the 3D world in many sequences.
THIS change was because of the amount of money that TGMR took our of the parks budget. The IP’s involved were mostly other studios. that costs them. the ride itself was in terrible shape, and very costly to fix.
this will be easier to maintain
“Jumps”… in a way, quite typical for cartoons .. :-)
Animated film in general, is not what we call classic cartoon which encomprises exageration, the non logic and (literally) flattening out the 3D world in many sequences.
…
Not a consistent storyline…. !? Oh…
The whole attraction is co-product of the NEW Mickey Shorts. It’s really consistent with those !
For instance just look : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dWj2k4FMM8
Train, split up, tunnel, waterfall.. etc … Most is allready in that one cartoon … :-)
Wow! The ride seems so cool with so many unexpected turns!
The intellectual laziness or outright lack of imagination, a polite term for stupidity, has never been on greater display on what was just described in this appalling article. Where exactly are the magical and imaginative elements along with the cutting edge technology that Disney regularly put on display with the creation of every new attraction? And to think that the great movie ride is going to be replaced with this monstrosity of an attraction is just another slap in the face to Disney’s customer base.
It’s more imaginative than “look, here’s a scene from a movie, here’s a scene from another movie, oh no, Hijacking! Here are a few more scenes from movies and a montage of clips from movies!”
^ I agree that the ride, as described, sound dreadful. Looks terrible from the artwork as well. Cartoon simulators generally suck and not a fan of Mickey Mouse cartoons.
My expectations couldn’t be lower
I never said it wasn’t imaginative or that the GMR didn’t need updated/replaced. But for this to be the centerpiece of the Park… bad replacement
Whether the innovation is here or not, it’s still more present than their competitors over at Universal who have stagnated and produced some of the worst rides I’ve ever been on due to their love of 3D.
A site that credits another when taking material?! What an idea!
Wonderful article as always. I especially love the link to Attractions Magazine where you found the source of some photos instead of copying and pasting them. I wish some other people would extend the same courtesy……
Not mentioning any names (Chip & Company, they definitely do that)
Universal called they want their screen based attraction back. I think King Kong is trackless too
And still doesn’t work…
I love that Disney is doubling down on the new Mickey Mouse cartoons (that are made to look old). They are hilarious and all the kids I know love them. The company successfully resurrected Mickey and made him relevant to today’s kids.
Although the story jumps around a lot, I think this sounds fun. It seems like a dark ride (which I love), plus some new (or at least new combination) of special effects. I’m assuming a lot of those surprises we arent hearing about will make this quite a visual feast to ride through. But we’ll just have to wait and see.
This seems like a wild ride- even for me.
Hope they include Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, even if he is just a quick “hidden” character in the ride. Because, you know, it really all started with a rabbit!
I have a ride in Mexico with a better song, better story, better Animatronics and Tequila! Quack quack quack
People love to criticize & claim “doom” long before a newattraction opens.
And then when it opens and is amazing & immensely popular like Flight of Passage, they’re either not heard from, or foolishly try to save face by ridiculously claiming “it’s not that good”.
Trolls.
Soarin Flight of passage is only popular since it’s the only new attraction to open in a decade at Animal Kingdom and second with air conditioning. It’s not even running at full capacity every time I ride the whole top floor is empty. It did nothing to stop WDW’s drop in attendance
Back back back over the falls of bad IP based attractions
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