“The year is 2021. The Intellectual Property Wars have been waging for decades…” What might sound like the beginning of a post-apocalyptic young adult novel is all too real for theme park fans today. As their respective parent companies race to create, borrow, or outright buy the hottest brands they can get their hands on, Disney and Comcast’s theme parks have become a pop culture battleground.
We spent an entire Special Feature here on Park Lore examining the age of the “Disney+ Park” – an era of increasing interchangeability and diminishing themes as IP floods into theme parks. And why not? With nearly $100 billion in acquisitions over the last two decades (and many unexpected IPs en route to Disney+ and Disney Parks), wouldn’t it be downright irresponsible for Disney to waste time with original mythologies, original worlds, or original characters? Wouldn’t it be a disservice to shareholders to build Mystic Manor instead of Ariel’s Undersea Adventure?
Which brings us back to 2024… Today, we’ll look back in the archives to discover… What was the most recent IP-free headlining ride at U.S. Disney and Universal Parks? How many years has it been since each debuted a truly original major attraction without a blockbuster movie, character, or brand as its reason for being? You might be surprised…
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1. Disneyland (1955)
It’s been a very, very long time since Disneyland Park hosted a major, IP-free attraction. At least in part, that’s because the park suffered a relative drought of major attractions, period, between 1995’s Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure and 2018’s STAR WARS: Galaxy’s Edge. (Attention was mostly focused on building then fixing its neighbor, California Adventure). Though major re-imaginings (Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, Haunted Mansion Holiday, and Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage) and C-Ticket rides (The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters) came online in the 2000s, none were IP-free.
So technically, it’s probably fair to say that Disneyland Park’s most recent IP-free anchor attraction was…
Opened: 1998 – 26 years ago
Gulp… the Rocket Rods. This doomed Tomorrowland thrill ride replaced the beloved classic and Lost Legend: The PeopleMover with “high speed” cabs that tackled the same convoluted course in a fraction of the time. “Earning” their own in-depth Declassified Disaster: Rocket Rods entry, the ride was an infamous flop, with frazzled operations that totally failed after just a few years. To this day, its abandoned aerial highways still criss-cross the land.
The Rocket Rods are long gone… So what’s the last major IP-free addition to the park before Rocket Rods? Well, you might count the Lost Legend: Captain EO, which by all measures was a headlining experience for its time despite the relative disinterest in 3D theater films today. Otherwise, we’d probably need to bypass all of the ‘90s and ‘80s (since they were defined by Michael Eisner’s “Ride the Movies” period) and end up on 1979’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad – more than 40 years ago!
2. Magic Kingdom (1971)
Major new additions tend to be fairly rare at Magic Kingdom, too, given that Walt Disney World’s first park is far more built out than Epcot, Hollywood Studios, or Animal Kingdom, as evidenced by its astounding ride count versus its sisters. Looking back through the park’s last twenty years is to see additions based on Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Winnie the Pooh, Lilo & Stitch, and Aladdin – some of which were intentional character-fueled overlays to otherwise original rides. Even its latest major project is based on the cult classic ’80s sci-fi classic TRON.
To that end, it’s not difficult to track the story back to Magic Kingdom’s last wholly-IP-free major attraction…
Opened: 1995 – 29 years ago
1995’s Lost Legend: Alien Encounter remains one of the most infamous attractions in Imagineering’s portfolio. The legend of “Disney’s scariest attraction ever” is still whispered across message boards and social media. And it wasn’t alone.
Alien Encounter was just one part of the park’s darkly sci-fi-centered New Tomorrowland. This gleaming neon cityscape was an early experiment in Imagineering’s “original mythologies,” an entire IP-free land combining Alien Encounter, the PeopleMover, Space Mountain, the Lost Legend: The Timekeeper, and even the land’s restaurants into one overarching story… without a single Pixar character in sight! Though short-lived, that original vision of the land remains a legend among Millennials and was unlike anything we’re likely to see from Disney anytime soon.
3. EPCOT (1982)
When EPCOT Center opened in 1982, part of its ambitiously different way of doing things was to intentionally omit characters altogether. EPCOT was designed to be free of Disney characters and instead focus on the realities of technology, industry, culture, and innovation – a “permanent World’s Fair” exploring humanity’s story rather than Mickey’s. In fact, the only “characters” seen in the park were the characters invented for it – namely, the hosts of the Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination!
At least to our thinking, the inescapable truth is that at some point, Disney’s piecemeal infusion of IP was doing more harm than good. Like it or not, it became clear that the big picture reimagining the park needed simply wasn’t going to be done without characters in tow. And like clockwork, by the end of the 2020s, just about every pavilion will have an attraction or connection featuring a “host” character from Disney, Pixar, or Marvel.
But because that change is so new, it’s not too hard to trace back to the last character-free anchor in the park…
Opened: 2005 – 19 years ago
If you’re okay with reimaginings, it’d probably be Soarin’ Around the World (2016) and Test Track “2.0” (2012). To be on the safe side, we’ll say it’s the original Lost Legend: Soarin’, which opened at the park in 2005… 16 years ago!
4. Disney’s Hollywood Studios (1989)
Disney’s “studio”-themed theme park has a heck of a claim to fame: it has literally zero of its Opening Day attractions left! But as they say, that’s showbusiness for ya! Though often considered an underbuilt, half-day park, Disney has stocked Hollywood Studios with an impressive ratio of certifiable E-Tickets. But as you might expect from a park that celebrates the movies, precious few rides have been legitimately “IP-free.”
In terms of noteworthy, permanent attractions, 1999’s “Sounds Dangerous Starring Drew Carey” capitalized on the ABC star’s then-popular sitcom, but didn’t technically connect to it (and certainly wasn’t an “anchor attraction”). That same year’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster would be IP-free were it not for its reliance on Aerosmith. So what’s the most recent IP-free headliner?
Opened: 2005 – 19 years ago
Yep, in the tiny Venn diagram overlap of “Anchor Attractions” and “IP-Free” at Hollywood Studios, there’s really just one thing: the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show that was “gifted” to Disney World from Disneyland Paris… to celebrate the original Disneyland’s 50th birthday, 16 years ago.
5. Universal Studios Florida (1990)
Universal Studios Florida is often held up as the example of a “studio park.” Why? Because it’s ruthless. In its relatively short lifetime, it retains just one of its Opening Day rides. The rest – Lost Legends: Kongfrontation, JAWS, Back to the Future – The Ride, and Earthquake – have all been toppled in favor of fresher, hotter IPs. Come hell or high water, Universal Studios Florida will have the most flavor-of-the-week brands… sometimes at the expense of quality or longevity.
Yet despite its seeming reliance and dedication to IP, the park has had (to our count) two IP-free rides. While neither reach the originality of, say, Universal Studios Japan’s Space Fantasy: The Ride, they’re worth remembering! In 2008, the park opened the hilariously-generic Disaster: A Major Motion Picture Starring You with its play-up of disaster films and its reuse of Earthquake’s special effects. The other, though, is more recent by a hair…
Opened: 2006 – 18 years ago
The most recent, though, would be 2009’s Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit, an unusual roller coaster where guests select their choice of on-board music with the conceit of filming a music video and crowd surfing maybe? Okay, it’s maybe not the park’s most classic or beloved ride, but hey, it’s original!
6. Disney’s Animal Kingdom (1999)
When it comes to IP-free attractions, Disney’s Animal Kingdom is a noteworthy park. Why? Because it’s famously home to the last IP-free attraction in the entirety of Walt Disney World to date. Like EPCOT, Animal Kingdom was a park largely conceived without IPs built in. A park defined by Imagineer Joe Rohde’s striving for accuracy and realism, the park’s few odes to Disney IP – Pocahontas, Tarzan, and The Lion King – were theatrical.
But the ride’s most recent original anchor attraction was a doozy. In fact, it was the first new “peak” in Disney’s mountain range in years…
Opened: 2006 – 18 years ago
The crescendo of the park’s first decade must have been the 2006 addition of the Modern Marvel: Expedition Everest. The park’s first E-Ticket addition, Expedition Everest gave Walt Disney World a new iconic attraction and gave Animal Kingdom the first of its promised mythological creatures: the epic (and broken) Yeti.
Like all Disney Parks, though, IP has been the name of the game in recent years, including some that mesh well (like AVATAR and The Lion King) and some that feel half-baked (like a short-lived UP takeover of the park’s bird show and Donald Duck and friends taking over Dinoland). Also like all Disney Parks, it looks like IPs are the path forward, too, with rumors of Indiana Jones and Zootopia swirling. So Expedition Everest seems likely to keep its title… at least for another decade or so.
7. Universal Islands of Adventure
Conceptually, Universal’s Islands of Adventure is a one-of-a-kind park we’re unlikely to see emulated ever again. Born after the “Ride the Movies” era but before the IP Wars of today, it’s an IP park… without blockbuster IPs. Rather than stuffing a park with lands themed to flavor-of-the-week film franchises (Despicable Me, Transformers, and Jurassic World), Islands’ whole “thing” is that it’s about timeless, intergenerational stories (Dr. Seuss, Marvel comics, Sunday funnies, Harry Potter, and Jurassic Park). It’s more like a library than a video store.
Even if its IPs are different than any Universal Studios park before or since, each of its lands is still fueled by someone else’s intellectual property… except one.
Opened: 2000 – 24 years ago
We told the story of the Lost Legend: The Lost Continent in its own standalone feature, but this single, mythological land was of Universal’s own creation. Divided into three fantasy realms depicting three far-flung lands of legend (The Lost City, Sinbad’s Bazaar, and Merlinwood), it likewise contained three anchor attractions: the Declassified Disaster: Poseidon’s Fury walkthrough, the Eighth Voyage of Sinbad stunt show, and the iconic Dueling Dragons intertwined inverted coaster, each loosely adapting myths in a sensational new way.
The Lost Continent was also one of the first places where change came to the new park. Though it was packed with technological thrills and incredible environments, Universal’s second gate suffered from the same criticism as its first: it had too few attractions for kids. In the park’s second summer, The Flying Unicorn was added to the Lost Continent’s Merlinwood. A standard Vekoma Junior Coaster (with no less than 29 identical clones across the globe), the Flying Unicorn let guests charge through the forests of Merlinwood in a train made of armor pieces assembled into a unicorn, conjured by Merlin himself.
Like Dueling Dragons, The Flying Unicorn was absorbed into The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (where the suit-of-armor unicorn became a wicker Hippogriff as part of Hagrid’s Flight of the Hippogriff). That means that Universal’s most-recent IP-free addition isn’t IP-free anymore. Technically, the only remaining IP-free attraction at Islands of Adventure (and actually, all of Universal Orlando) is Poseidon’s Fury, dating back to 1999 (or 2001 if you count its high-profile redesign that year).
8. Disney California Adventure
There’s no park that’s seen as complete a reimagining over such a relatively short lifetime as Disney California Adventure. When the park opened just two decades ago, it was widely criticized for not being “too much California, not enough Disney,” lacking the kinds of characters, stories, and romanticism guests expected. In fact, when the park opened in 2001, you couldn’t find an IP-based ride if you wanted! The park was instead stocked with “off-the-shelf” carnival rides & coasters (California Screamin’, Mulholland Madness, the Sun Wheel, and the Maliboomer), IP-free shows (Golden Dreams & Steps in Time), and the park’s only dark ride, the Declassified Disaster: Superstar Limo (which was IP-free unless you count the appearance of C-List ABC stars as IP.)
Several billion dollars in (over)correction later, that pendulum has arguably swung just as far in the opposite direction – “too much Disney, not enough California.” Characters were grafted onto every attraction. The Twilight Zone, Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story, Aladdin, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Incredibles, Frozen, Cars, Spider-Man… The result is that today, the park hosts beautifully-decorated lands that recall historic, idealized Californian places… but they’re almost exclusively filled with Disney, Pixar, and Marvel.
So every major attraction at Disney California Adventure on Opening Day was IP free… and believe it or not, not a single headliner since then has come online without a character tie-in. (Unless you’re a transportation buff and count 2012’s Red Car Trolley, which would be totally understandable!) So rather than the most recent, can you think of the only surviving IP-free anchor attractions at the park?
Opened: 2001 – 23 years ago
For better or worse, the “most recent” IP-free anchor attractions at Disney California Adventure are two opening day ones… Yes, every major project at the park since its debut in 2001 has had a major IP attached! The first to remain is, of course, the Lost Legend: Soarin’. Like at Epcot, the newer “Around the World” overlay was set in 2016 (weirdly but expectedly cancelling the “Over California’ version… at California Adventure) but it’s not so massive a reimagining that we’d count it as a new ride altogether.
Similarly, the park’s Grizzly River Run has survived since Opening Day without a character overlay… Which is especially odd since fans have spent the last two decades practically begging for this one, single, specific ride to get one!
It seems so obvious that Grizzly River Run should become home to the Lost Legends: The Country Bears, who were evicted from Disneyland in 2001. That would add much-needed whimsy, music, and Audio-Animatronics to the ride’s course. The other option? The “Wilderness Explorers” from Up already tookover the neighboring Redwood Creek Challenge Trail… the addition of Russell, Carl, Dug, and Kevin along the ride’s course would also add some levity to the otherwise barren journey.
8. Universal Epic Universe
Set to open in 2025, Universal Orlando’s third main gate is the park that’s meant to change it all. Universal Epic Universe is being position as the park that will change the gravity in Orlando forever – something even Disney Parks loyalists wouldn’t mind since it might spur the lumbering, slow-moving Walt Disney World into action in a way Universal has rarely managed to before).
Chief among Epic Universe’s milestones is that it’ll be the first major U.S. park built after the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which rewrote the rules of the industry when it premiered at Islands of Adventure in 2010. As a result, Epic Universe will be the first U.S. park built with immersive, cinematic, single-IP lands from the get-go. The park will open will Super Nintendo World, the Universal Monsters-themed Dark Universe, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic, and How To Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk. That might make it seem that Epic Universe will continue Universal’s long streak of exclusively featuring IPs that it’s owned or licensed for its parks… But that’s not quite true…
Opened: 2025 – Coming Soon
Yep, believe it or not, we actually have an IP-free headliner coming soon in this country, and it’s at the most unlikely of places – a Universal park. Especially in a place like Epic Universe (where anchoring IPs are literally the park’s claim to fame), the presence of a major, headlining ride free from a known character or brand is pretty jaw-dropping…
But then again, so is Celestial Park – the absolutely massive land that’ll serve as the centerpiece of Epic Universe. A cosmic “world between worlds,” Celestial Park will be a sprawling, poetic, beautiful, and tranquil space that’s something of an original, in-house IP in its own right. Reigned over by a statue of Luna, goddess of the moon and orchestrator of the worlds’ movement through the night sky, this space will be sub-divided into subtle sub-sections representing the five elements: water, earth, fire, air, and space.
It’s the last of those realms – space – where guests will find Starfall Racers. Something of a spiritual successor to the resort’s long-departed Dueling Dragons, Starfall Racers will send guests soaring through dual, multi-launch tracks as they race through space.
But in a clever departure from the aggressive and intimidating dragons, our friends at Orlando Park Stop suggest that Starfall Racers will focus its intensity on something unusual: grace. The two intertwined tracks have an almost dance-like quality, rising and falling and circling around one another, exemplified by a track maneuver literally trademarked by the ride’s manufacturer (Mack Rides) called a “Celestial Spin.” In that move, the two trains will arc upward and take turns inverting over top of one another.
It’s pretty amazing that Universal’s willing to let the heart of its newest park – and indeed, the signature thrill ride within – open in the year of our lord twenty twenty-five without an attached IP… And for now, that makes Universal an unlikely champion in this quiz! Will Disney retaliate by finally empowering its Imagineers to create their own new characters, worlds, and stories again? We’ll find out…
IP Free for ___ Days
The end of the “IP Wars” is no where in sight, and neither is Disney’s reliance on its built-in (and acquired) brands to power expensive Imagineering projects. Is the era of originality over? Maybe for now… But as exceptional 21st century projects reveal, Imagineers are still more than capable of developing Modern Marvels: Mystic Manor, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Tower of Terror, Expedition Everest, and many more…
Speaking of IPs, don’t forget to make the jump to our list of 9 unexpected IPs en route to Disney+ and Disney Parks, or dive into our Imagineering Originals mini-series to explore Imagineering’s original worlds and homemade mythologies and the in-universe shopping and dining that they bring…
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