9. Microscopes in space
Tribute to: Adventure Thru Inner Space (1967 – 1985)
Found in: Star Tours (1987 – Today)
Location: Disneyland
When Disneyland’s New Tomorrowland opened in 1967, it was a radical redesign that cemented the land’s most definitive form: a Space Age inspired utopia of white spires, upswept roofs, and gentle curves supporting a “World on the Move” brought to life by swirling rockets, churning subs, kinetic sculptures, and the Lost Legend: The Peoplemover. But even then, the land’s highlight was the Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space.
The first ever ride to use Disney’s fabled Omnimover ride system, Adventure Thru Inner Space invited guests into a curving queue leading to the base of the Mighty Monsanto Microscope where a chain of Omnimovers would advance into the microscope’s base… then appear to emerge out of the other end barely an inch tall. It was a brilliant and iconic set-up for one of Disney’s first rides that “shrink” guests to an infinitesimally small stature to view the inner structures of atoms.
Eventually, Inner Space was replaced by the original STAR TOURS… but its DNA lived on. In fact, one of the most recognizable parts of Inner Space – its curving queue – remained in place for Star Tours, merely swapping the Microscope for the parked StarSpeeder upon which C-3PO is running diagnostics. Meanwhile, on the ride, the Mighty Microscope was snuck into the ride film just as guests crashed out of the space port… It was even added to one of the three endings in the upgraded Star Tours: The Adventures Continue three decades later!
It’s interesting to consider that the Mighty Microscope’s “cameo” appearance (and the iconic curving queue) were exported to subsequent installations of Star Tours and its successor as they spread to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris. That means that, although Adventure Thru Inner Space ever only existed at Disneyland, its “DNA” lives on not just in California, but in Florida, Japan, and France as well! And speaking of Star Tours…
10. Career-changing Droid
Tribute to: Star Tours (1989 – 2010)
Found in: Star Tours: The Adventures Continue (2011 – Today) and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (2019 – Today)
Location: Disney’s Hollywood Studios
In the pantheon of classic Disney attractions, the original STAR TOURS is truly legendary. It’s remembered as the ride that changed Disney Parks forever, birthing the Age of the Simulator and the “Ride the Movies” era in one, and proving that Disneyland could grow and adapt to changing pop culture, even if it meant showcasing characters and stories that were not Disney stories!
It also introduced one of the most beloved “original” parks characters ever, R-3X, a hapless pilot Droid (an in-cabin Audio-Animatronics figure voiced by Paul Ruebens of “Pee-Wee Herman” fame) who’s “still getting used to his programming.” With “Captain Rex” at the controls for his first ever solo flight, our routine trip to Endor became a mad dash through the galaxy aboard the Lost Legend: Star Tours.
Beginning in 2010, the four Star Tours clones around the world (California, Florida, Tokyo, and Paris) were upgraded to Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, bringing 3D, 4K visuals and a randomizer capable of sending riders to different planets for different character encounters each time.
The “new” Star Tours, however, was narratively a prequel to the original taking place years before. Since we’d been aboard Captain Rex’s first flight in a Starspeeder 3000, he couldn’t possibly be aboard the Starspeeder 1000 of the prequel ride.
Though Imagineering snagged a worthy replacement (C-3PO!), fans still loved and missed Rex, who we named among the most-beloved “lost” Disney Parks characters. Thankfully, he made a cameo even in the updated version, where Rex can be found sparking and sputtering garbled lines (of his Star Tours dialogue!) in the Starport’s Droid Customs, packaged and awaiting return to a manufacturer for reprogramming.
Apparently, the reprogramming worked. When Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened, it presented yet another slice of time within the Star Wars story set a few decades after Star Tours and on the remote, impoverished planet of Batuu. There, in Oga’s Cantina bar, DJ R-3X is an attraction unto himself, playing remixed and reimagined music that’s a much needed injection of Star Wars sounds in the otherwise grounded land.
11. The golden monkey
Tribute to: Kongfrontation (1990 – 2003)
Found in: Revenge of the Mummy (2004 – Today)
Location: Universal Studios Florida
Like Earthquake, another of Universal Studios Florida’s headlining attractions was the Lost Legend: Kongfrontation. Expanding on the single scene along Hollywood Studio Tour, the Floridian version had guests climb aboard Roosevelt Island aerial trams in an evacuation of New York. Naturally, the raging ape intervened in elaborate (and harrowing) encounters. Kongfrontation felt like a timeless, evergreen classic… but with Universal’s (and recently, Disney’s) constant push to include blockbuster properties at any cost, no ride really lasts forever.
Kong was quelled in 2003. The record-breaking showbuilding the ride had taken place in was large enough for something equally ambitious: the Modern Marvel: Revenge of the Mummy. The incredible dark ride / coaster combo has (perhaps surprisingly) outlasted the classic it replaced by several years and become a fan favorite in its own right. Of course, as one of the first of Universal’s classics to be replaced, nostalgia was high when Kong breathed his last banana breath.
As a last testament to the building’s original occupant, riders who glance around the ride’s Treasure Chamber full of glistening golden chamber of piles treasures and gems might notice a golden statue of Kong beating his chest. The monkey’s memento is barely a foot tall, so look toward the front of the room on the left. (In Hollywood, the treasure room contains an even harder to spot golden E.T. since the ride there replaced E.T. Adventure.)
12. Hopper’s hardware
Tribute to: “It’s Tough to be a Bug” (2001 – 2018)
Found in: Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure (2021 – Present)
Location: Disney California Adventure
“It’s Tough be a Bug” originally opened in 1998 at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. But during the design of Disney California Adventure, Imagineers were tasked with “borrowing” as many existing attraction concepts as they could to keep the park’s development costs low. A copy of the film served as an opening day attraction for the West Coast park, albeit in a standard theater (accessed via an underground “ant hill” queue) rather than in the Tree of Life. The following year, the park’s need for more family fare saw the show annexed to the new “a bug’s land,” shrinking guests down for a fun fair of family flat rides.
A Bug’s Land was an unfussy but essential part of California Adventure for 16 years, providing a shaded, playful, colorful, and delightful mini-land (not to mention adding four rides to the park’s ride count). But you can’t beat synergy, and Disney’s multi-billion dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe came calling. “It’s Tough to be a Bug” ended its run (which had been intermittent thanks to promotional “sneak peek” showings anyway) in March 2018, and the rest of A Bug’s Land was squashed that September.
Though the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its debut, the Marvel-themed Avengers Campus opened to the public in 2021, re-using the former “a bug’s land” plot. The flat rides were exterminated, but the 3D theater wasn’t. Instead, it was re-used as (the appropriately-bug-themed) Web Slingers: A Spider-Man Adventure with grafted on structures meant to show the “adaptive reuse” of an old Stark Motors facility by the Peter Parker-led Worldwide Engineering Brigade.
When a friendly Spider-Bot accidentally gets caught in self-replication mode, guests are hurried through the W.E.B. facility to board prototype SLINGR vehicles and web them up. Seeing new hero tech juxtaposed against the old manufacturing facility is part of the fun. But one piece of equipment in particular is notable for Disney Parks history fans…
Imagineers are good at making fake “history,” but the electrical cabinet and switches on the wall over the ride’s loading area aren’t fake history; they’re real history. As pointed out by @DisneyRemnants on Twitter, close examination reveals that the box is actually a show control unit for the impressive Audio-Animatronic of the villainous Hopper who used to antagonize guests during “It’s Tough to be a Bug.” It’s even still labeled “Hopper – It’s Tough To Be a Bug – DCA.”