Every bit as beautiful as Epcot’s France pavilion, the courtyard outside of Ratatouille: L’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy really ought to have been designated a “land” in and of itself. Though the Ratatouille attraction is the star, you’ll also find shops and a restaurant perfectly situated along the lifelike streetscape. In short, it’s the kind of area you’d like to visit, explore, and spend time in – arguably, the first such area for Walt Disney Studios Park.
That means that Ratatouille: L’Aventure not only gave the park an exclusive attraction worth talking about; it also made a very clear distinction: going forward, this park will shed its original concept and instead invite you to step into the worlds of your favorite Disney and Pixar films!
For Walt Disney Studios, that is perhaps the most spectacular news yet…!
For Epcot, the same proclamation was a little more controversial…
World Showcase
When EPCOT Center opened in 1982, it was a very different kind of Disney Park than any we know today (including Epcot). Purposefully exclusding characters in favor of two realms dedicated to the realities of industry and culture, EPCOT Center was a “permanent World’s Fair” meant to elevate Walt Disney World. Not coincidentally, there’s no park on Earth with as many Lost Legends as Epcot, with (quite literally) every single pavilion of Future World having its own in-depth feature as part of that collection.
Frankly, if that Epcot were still around, it would be a laughingstock in its own right, which is why (against the pleading of fans), Disney has worked hard to cover up the park’s ’80s influence, its educational lean, and its reliance on dated futurism. Among the tools they’ve used to do it are thrill rides, semi-scientific attractions, and, of course, characters.
We’re not even against the infusion of characters in Epcot (even if we do wish it were done with a little more polish and a little less piecemeal, given that it currently mixes ’90s Disney classics with Pixar outliers and now Marvel superheroes, majorly draining the Future World’s once-cohesive philosophy), and their role in the Future World’s current rebirth is a reality that could actually turn out to be a phenomenal strength.
Far fewer characters have made it into the park’s World Showcase and its pavilions dedicated to international countries, probably in part because of the pavilions’ focus on food and drink over overlay-able attractions, and the sheer reality that there’s no Disney character that can easily be moved into, say, Canada, Morocco, or Japan without making some imaginative leaps that even Disney doesn’t seem ready to do.
That said, things changed forever when in 2014 (just as Ratatouille opened in Paris), Disney announced that one of World Showcase’s few existing rides – the odd-but-classic ’80s Lost Legend: Maelstrom) would close up shop so that its place in the Norway pavilion could make way for the new princesses in town.
Yes, after a few seasons meet-and-greeting in Norway (the closest World Showcase gets to the fictional kingdom of Arendelle), Anna and Elsa of the multi-billion dollar Frozen franchise would star in a new ride in World Showcase – the Modern Marvel: Frozen Ever After. As you can probably tell from its inclusion in our Modern Marvels series, we celebrate the animated adventure as a spectacular dark ride in its own right, even if it’s easy to understand why Epcot purists hold a grudge.
In any case, the result is the same: Frozen had thrown open the gates. World Showcase was at last available and attraction real estate for Disney’s high-earning intellectual properties.
The arrival of Pixar’s Coco replacing the Gran Fiesta Tour in Mexico was a given, and a Mary Poppins attraction may or may not be en route to the UK pavilion (pending the fallout of the 2020 pandemic). A Beauty and the Beast singalong swiftly stole the spotlight from the long-running “Impressions de France” travelogue film in France… Oh… and…
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure
On July 15, 2017, at Disney’s semi-annual D23 conference, the announcement was made that the Ratatouille ride would indeed become the second big-budget character attraction at World Showcase – just one of a slew of IP-rides on the docket for Epcot leading up to Disney World’s 50th Anniversary in 2021. There, the ride will be named Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (which is somewhat nonsensical when you think about it… We prefer the long-rumored Ratatouille: Kitchen Calamity name as indicated on official artwork below, but which was obviously passed over).
Did the announcement garner the same critical feedback, accusations, and hate as Frozen? Nope. Most fans don’t seem to be enraged about the Ratatouille ride. While some will doubtlessly chalk that up to Disney fans increasingly “cutting their losses” with Epcot and agreeing to disagree with its current direction, we ask: Why should they be enraged?
The ride was built from scratch in a brand new showbuilding added onto the existing France pavilion. “No Epcot classics were harmed in the making of this attraction,” so how could Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure be anything but a net gain? If you’d prefer characters had never come to Epcot, it’s easy enough to walk past this attraction not even knowing it’s there.
Aside from being in English, Epcot’s carbon copy of the ride includes the typical kind of “live-and-learn” improvements such clones always include. (For example, the trackless vehicles are known to have worn groves into the attraction’s flooring in Paris, frazzling computers and requiring an undesirable refurbishment and total floor replacement.) Unfortunately, the decade-old footage created for Paris’ ride is also reused in Florida – evidence of the inherent problem with multi-media based rides.
Though fans will likely debate the merit of adding characters to Epcot for the rest of the park’s lifetime (or theirs), at least we can all agree that if characters are going to make their way into World Showcase, this is how it should be done: in well-done, anchor dark rides that at least pay homage to the cultures and stories of the countries they’re meant to celebrate.
In some ways, it’s funny to think that Future World lost so many of its classic, lengthy, grand dark rides (having been systematically replaced by technological thrills like Test Track, Soarin’, Mission: SPACE, and Guardians of the Galaxy) and that now we’re seeing classic, lengthy, grand dark rides created for World Showcase instead!
From Paris to France
To be honest, we don’t expect Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure to radically alter Walt Disney World in the same way that the resort’s 2022 additions are meant to. It’s likely that – like the film that inspired it – Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure will spend a year as the talk-of-the-town, and then become a familiar, comfortable, beloved staple of Epcot rather than a resort-defining anchor. That’s probably exactly what Epcot and World Showcase need!
Ratatouille set Walt Disney Studios Park on a new course, reorienting the ship and pointing it toward immersive, cinematic lands that let guests step into Disney and Pixar films rather than into beige soundstages.
Ratatouille plays a roll in the ongoing reorienting of Epcot’s World Showcase, too… And given that it’s a technological, heartwarming, and fun family attraction, we’re ready to start armchair Imagineering how World Showcase’s other pavilions could host spectacularly-scaled dark rides of their own…
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If you enjoyed our in-depth look into the Ratatouille attraction in both Florida and France, Gold and Platinum Passholders can “zoom out” to explore the increasing presence of Pixar in our Disney•Pixarland Special Feature! Otherwise, make the jump to our Modern Marvels page to dig into another astounding attraction.
Then, use the comments below to let us know: is Ratatouille a step in the wrong direction for Epcot and World Showcase? Or is it exciting evidence that the inevitable character invasion of Epcot might at least bring some great E-Tickets to the park?