Hollywood Studios Part 1: Identity Crisis
Having developed a partnership with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Disney-MGM Studios opened its third park in May 1989, operating as both a theme park and as a movie/television studio. This was very similar to Universal Studios, which may not be a coincidence. It was just a few years earlier when Universal announced it would open its Florida counterpart in December 1989. Disney-MGM Studios opened a full year before Universal, which experienced a number of delays.
To further drive home the similarities, one of the star attractions for Disney-MGM Studios was a backlot tour. Sound familiar? Here, guests would see props from movies such as “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Honey I Shrunk the Kid” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” It even contains a section called Catastrophe Canyon, which combines elements of Universal’s tram tour, notably the Mexican flood and the subway earthquake. Originally, this combination of a walking tour and tram ride would last over two hours. It was trimmed down to a more manageable 35 minute experience.
To further compete with Universal Studios, Disney-MGM Studios has a history of featuring unexpected characters you wouldn’t expect to find. Among them are Dick Tracy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Doug (yes, the cartoon from Nickelodeon), Goosebumps, Ace Ventura, and Power Rangers. None of them are currently at the park, but they made for some interesting times in the 90s and early 2000s.
Originally, the theme of this park was a celebration of film, drawing heavy inspiration from the golden age of Hollywood (the 1930s and 1940s). It centered around two star attractions: the Backlot Tour and the Great Movie Ride.
In addition, the intention was to have a functioning movie and television studio.
In this original park map, the purple represents the studio portion. That’s a sizeable percentage of the space. It was here where movies such as “Mulan” and “Lilo & Stitch” were produced, as well as TV shows such as the “Mickey Mouse Club” and WCW Nitro.
Disney parted ways with MGM after a war of lawsuits throughout the early 90s, resulting in Disney renaming its park as Hollywood Studios in January 2008. Over time, the production studios were shut down to make space for new attractions. The Backlot Tour closed in September 2014 to make way for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (opening 2019) and Toy Story Land (opening June 30, 2018). Its other signature ride, The Great Movie Ride, closed in August 2017 and will be replaced by a new Mickey Mouse train ride. Because of all this, Hollywood Studios currently feels like a park without a solid identity.
If you’re a veteran of Disneyland CA, you’ll find the following attractions here: Star Tours, Jedi Training (aka Jedi Academy), Star Wars Launch Bay, Muppet Vision 3D, Disney Junior Live on Stage, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, and Fantasmic. While Disney World doesn’t contain Indiana Jones the ride, Hollywood Studios features Indiana Jones as a stunt show. Some of you might even remember Beauty and the Beast live on stage. Well, that’s here too.
You might notice that many of these attractions are found (or were formerly) at Disney California Adventure (DCA). This is fitting. DCA was originally intended as a celebration of California. One of its areas is Hollywood Land. Both parks evolved over time as many of its original attractions were replaced in favor of drawing crowds. Because of these new attractions, both parks began to lose sight of its original intention. DCA became a miscellaneous park housing attractions that didn’t fit in Disneyland. This mixture includes Pixar attractions/areas, the Tower of Terror ride (which was replaced by Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy), a Little Mermaid ride, and a Frozen live show. In addition, the Pier is being rethemed into Pixar Pier, and Bug’s Land will become a Marvel Land. Meanwhile, Hollywood Studios is also a random mixture of properties, which includes Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Indiana Jones, Muppets, Pixar, Star Wars, and Aerosmith. One could argue that at least these are all film properties (except for Aerosmith), keeping to the theme of Hollywood. Then again, Disney is a film company, so any of its properties could fit into this category.
With so much to talk about here, I needed to split this into two parts. In Part 2, we’ll go through tips and advice for navigating Hollywood Studios.
