You absolutely know about Alien Encounter, but if you did not have the fortune of experiencing it, you can't fully understand just exactly what you missed.
You undoubtedly know it as the terrifying attraction that was just too scary to be in a Disney park. Imagined by George Lucas, and forced to close for five months by Michael Eisner because it wasn't scary enough, it made people scream, and did not at all fit what we think of when we think of the Magic Kingdom.
It did all that, yeah, sure. You sat in the dark, and shoulder harnesses moved to make it feel like an alien was standing on you. Wind blew across your face to simulate its wings as it flew across the catwalks. Rubber tubes ran along your neck to make you think its tongue was there, and water dripped on your face to give the feeling of drool. Speakers expertly placed made the sounds feel like they were really happening around the room.
A Cast Member's job was to walk around above you with a flashlight AND THEN DIE.
I will tell you, I saw it in its opening year, when it still had 60+ minute lines, and I was just 10. Despite knowing in my heart of hearts that what was happening was fake, I was still so disturbed, so frightened in the end that I couldn't eat lunch.
But then, later, I wanted to do it again to get a second taste of something truly, wholly unique to what the theme park had to offer. It was a scary ride, even when you knew it was fake. But, that's only part of the reality.
Without doing it yourself, what you probably do not realize about Alien Encounter is exactly what tone it struck. Yes, it was scary, but it was mostly goofy. Its horror was undeniably campy, like Evil Dead or something.
From the very start, Alien Encounter refused to take itself silly, starting with a tongue-in-cheek send up of corporate expansion -- starring Jeffrey Jones in make-up -- that would honestly play even better today. The company we were introduced to was cleverly named XS, and the idea of rapid expansion and market exploitation for profits was just blisteringly satirized.
The following pre-show set the tone absolutely perfectly for the attraction. A robot voiced by Tim Curry himself gave a display of XS's new transporter technology with a thick topping of dark humor, as he zapped an adorable creature back and forth. The Curry-bot, by the way, S.I.R., was a combination of voice acting and animatronic design that honestly belonged on the same pantheon as The Timekeeper.
Just in case you have no awareness, the bulk of the attraction was sitting in a large, circular theater. In the center was a glass tube, meant to represent a teleporter. Shoulder restraints kept you in place, and XS sent its Chairman -- again, Jeffrey Jones -- to meet you, but something went wrong and he was replaced by a giant, carnivorous alien, at one point represented by a giant animatronic in the tube. The tube exploded, and you spent the bulk of the attraction in the dark with a variety of sensory effects making you feel like the alien was browsing the audience and eating Walt Disney World guests.
The main event was scary, yes, but the perfect comedic timing of every line delivered as one thing after another went wrong just made for a richer experience than I feel like we remember.
"People of Earth, do not worry! As long as those beams are on, it can't fly out!" As the beams turn off.
"People of Earth, don't scream! If you remain perfectly quiet, it probably won't eat you!"
I remember being completely blown away that in the climactic moment where an alien explodes and dies and splatters the audience a voice over meant to be a guest sitting next to you screamed, "my mouth was open!"
This show was absurd. It knew it, and it embraced it. It wasn't just a gimmicky thrill fest, it managed to wrap those thrills and gimmicks with actual character and personality.
Oh, also, it was the thematic anchor of the wonderful refurb of Tomorrowland in 1994. The revamp of the world of Tomorrow was based around a science expo, displaying technology from across the stars as people visited the city. XS, and their transport technology, were the big show in town, and their existence and display were what helped to explain why this Tomorrowland was there. It's a little weird to think of Alien Encounter as being bigger than just the experience, and being important to the larger storyline of an entire Magic Kingdom land, but that's what it was.
Sure, maybe it didn't belong. That's a different debate for a different blog. I honestly have no clue how well it would have aged had it survived 26 years, and had we all seen -- or rather heard and felt -- its effects a million times now. Frankly, that's irrelevant here, because for what it was -- a masterful piece of both comical and horrifying place-making that was incredibly unique in its home park -- Alien Encounter was something to behold, and deserves recognition among the greats.
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