The Enchanting Existential Dread of Aussie Theme Parks: Chapter Two - Hollywood On The Gold Coast
The Looney Tunes lineup outside Warner Bros. Movie World, in character costume.
Warner Bros. Movie World was built where Mickey Mouse feared to tread, and with no competition from the Disney parks whatsoever, tucked away safe in the southern hemisphere, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck could reign supreme over Australia’s Gold Coast as one of the most popular parks in our fragile ecosystem. Village Roadshow poured its fortune from video rentals accumulated from video rentals into Warner Bros. Movie World in 1991, which is younger than I am by a year. The debut of Warner Bros. Movie World was feted by celebrities like Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell arriving for its grand opening, and it was very glamorous to have so many Hollywood stars in town. The first ride I ever went on at Movie World was Batman: The Adventure Ride, which was hot on the heels after Batman Returns came out in 1992. I was a bit young to see it in theatres, but I was tall enough to go on the ride so my first taste of Tim Burton’s vision of Gotham City came from this attraction which was loud and imprinted on my memories as the big cat head launched towards me on the big screen. It’s been so long since I rode it that my recollection of the motion simulator has faded a bit, it’s all a nostalgic blur of giddy excitement to me now. It shook me around and pounded my senses, not much ride-through footage of it exists but what’s left of it indicates how sophisticated it was for the time with multiple screens conveying the experience.
This is from the Warner Bros. Movie World souvenir video.
Inside the Batcave, whooshing past at a fast pace.
One of the Batcave tunnels that you go through.
You can tell this is based on the two Tim Burton Batman films because of the trees and ice and snow, like it’s Edward Scissorhands.
A random snowplow appears to the left.
The Batmobile viewed from behind, approaching Gotham.
A duck-copter thingy flying into the distance.
An Oswalt Cobblepot Mayor sign!
Lots of sparks and explosions going on here.
Going through the icicle tunnel with the flight simulator.
The Batwing vehicle flies ahead as the duck plane zooms.
Explosions! (Source: Sunny Lin)
I didn’t go on the Gremlins ride when I was a kid, because Gremlins wasn’t a property I was familiar with at that age, yet I would be penalised for doing a Movie World retrospective without mentioning this little dark ride on our journey into Aussie theme parks. I missed out on The Great Gremlins Adventure when it was still operating. Considering my reaction to Rail Chase at Sega World Sydney, it probably would’ve frightened me, but looking back this was a neat little E-ticket to launch Movie World into the stratosphere of success with. What can you really say about Gremlins that hasn’t already been said? As a Taoist convert I guess the message about not tinkering with Chinese supernatural monsters you barely understand is a message I took to heart, the infamous “That’s how I found out there was no Santa Claus” scene is burned into the memories of people older than me, but if you asked me what my favourite Christmas movie was, I’d respond with either Elf or Gremlins. rather than Die Hard. Nobody really talks about how the Gremlins sing along to Snow White when it’s shown in the theatre, I always thought that was a neat little detail that the mogwai are big fans of Disney’s folly considering they’re from a rival studio’s IP. Unfortunately The Great Gremlins Adventure is only preserved in postage stamp sized video files and I have to annotate each picture to give you an idea of what’s going on, which is a shame about Australian theme park rides which go defunct because you really notice the improvements in camcorder technology as the years go by.
The mogwai tear up the projection booth in the pre-show area of the Gremlins ride.
A mogwai hangs from one of the lights.
Surprise appearance from Beetlejuice!
A wall of film reels teetering toward ruin.
The Horror Movies Film Vault.
Another mogwai hanging from a lamp.
A bunch of mogwai just hanging out.
A larger mogwai watching television.
More mogwai causing mayhem in the editor suite.
A mogwai wearing a jacket/hat combo.
A mogwai spinning to and fro in a booth.
Entering the prop dock through the ride.
I think this was supposed to be a hang-glider mogwai, but the 320p footage is too blurry to tell.
Some kind of snake-monster in the prop dock, I’m not sure what this is from.
A police car with blaring siren crashes.
Hey look! It’s Gizmo! Ain’t he adorable?
Laughing mogwai huddled in trash pile.
Another mogwai tangled in film equipment.
Mogwai tinkering with the plumbing.
The electrical wiring is malfunctioning.
End of the ride! (Source for above panels: Stellos Christakis)
A better view of one of the mogwai animatronics.
Many animatronics of Gremlins cavorted about, causing havoc amongst the built environments, it was a dark ride with lots of grimy character and charm throughout. I was born the year Gremlins 2: The New Batch came out, and thus the sequel film and its first entry were mushed together for this attraction’s theming and plot (however thin on the ground the ride’s plot was). Lots of Gremlins would leap out at you in the Warner film archive, flashing industrial lights cast shadows on the cackling mogwai as your vessel passed by through the tunnel. The Great Gremlins Adventure was part of the opening wave of Movie World attractions, its replacement Scooby Doo: Spooky Coaster was also an atmospheric dark ride that relied on scares to thrill the audience, although this one stuck around longer and operates to this day as Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster Next Generation. Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster was a souped-up ghost train attraction which slid you under sharp pendulum blades and put you next to snarling supernatural creatures, based on the two live action Scooby Doo movies I’ve never seen with Matthew Lillard. The theming of this ride was excellent for what it was, and it remains one of the most popular rides at the park for a reason. The ride propels backwards at one point, and takes you back to the beginning at the pre-show area.
The carts going into the Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster attraction.
Knights guarding the entrance to another chamber of horrors.
Random skeleton sitting on the floor.
Monster lunging at you from above the ceiling as you speed past below.
Skeleton locked in a gibbet cage in the spooky dungeon.
More monsters in the spooky dungeon, or are they crooks in disguise?
Another spooky monster in the spooky dungeon that leaps out at you.
Some Edgar Allan Poe tier bladed pendulums swiping down at your vehicle.
This guy appears to be doing the Thriller dance pose as he pops up.
Hey kids! It’s Scooby-doobie-doo!
A good quality shot of the Wild Mouse Coaster track Scooby Doo: Spooky Coaster uses.
What is it with Wild Mouse Coasters and spiders? Between this and Rail Chase I mean.
All I know about the two live-action Scooby Doo movies is that one of them takes place on a tropical island, hence this scenery evocative of the film it’s from.
There’s Scooby-Doo again! (Source for above panels: Theme Park Review)
Looney Tunes Studio Tour was my favourite dark ride at the Warner Bros. Movie World park when I rode it for the first and last time, I’m dismayed that it’s gone because it featured the most intricate set-pieces for animatronics Movie World ever built. There’s Elmer Fudd shooting at things, Bugs Bunny ducking from danger, and all manner of nonsense going on. So little footage of it remains that I’ve had to resort to using the souvenir video like I did with Batman: The Adventure Ride because I haven’t got much to work with otherwise. It features the Looney Tunes characters on a boat ride down towards a thrilling drop like Bermuda Triangle without the aliens, and I’d be hard pressed to find another ride of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. It wasn’t too scary for young me, it had a perfect peaceful atmosphere and didn’t rough you up like Lethal Weapon often did, it was a fun ride for families of all ages and I miss it most of all among the defunct Movie World rides.
Elmer Fudd on the camera crew for this film set.
Bugs Bunny retreating from a hungry crocodile.
Elmer Fudd shooting his now-controversial gun at targets.
Foghorn Leghorn cutting down a tree by the river.
Porky Pig and Pepe Le Pew going fishing together. (Source for above five panels: Sunny Lin)
Lethal Weapon was a suspension loop rollercoaster I remember fondly, long since re-themed to Arkham Asylum now that DC superheroes are the prime source of IPs tapped for Movie World’s attractions, you were shown a clip from Lethal Weapon 2 in the lobby before you set upon the suspension loopers, and these things rattled you around like nobody’s business. It was one of the most iconic of Movie World’s rollercoasters for a long time and persisted as an E-ticket ride promoted in the commercials: RIDE LETHAL WEAPON was drilled into our skulls and so we did. It didn’t matter that the attraction itself had bugger-all to do with the Mel Gibson and Danny Glover buddy cop film franchise of the same name, or that the seating banged your head further than Quiet Riot-acceptable standards, it was once the best of the many rollercoasters the Gold Coast had to offer. One of the problems with Movie World’s specific theming is the attractions reflected the Warner Bros. Movie Studio’s hit films out at the time, which meant you wouldn’t get just superhero-flavoured rides because superhero movies weren’t the predominant genre at the time. Now everything at Movie World save the Fright Nights Halloween attractions has a bit of superheroes everywhere, because that’s what’s popular on the big screen. So instead of a rollercoaster themed after Shane Black tentpoles you get Justice League dark rides instead. Warner Bros. relies on its superhero properties a bit too much for my liking, what I wouldn’t give for an Enter The Dragon Bruce Lee attraction or a localised version of Harry Potter World but the rights for that are tied up with Universal. I like superheroes in moderation, but having them as the main course all the time isn’t a great source of variety, especially if you’re into anime or the Metal Hurlant comics. The lack of a Mad Max ride is criminal after the success of Fury Road, however George Miller did receive a Happy Feet live-show at some point. You used to have nods to hit movies at the time like the Maverick stage show or the Police Academy stunt show, but by and large as the years progressed Warner Bros. has been all over the place with its properties, I doubt we’re ever going to see a Jupiter Ascending motion simulator attraction at Movie World because that bombed at the box office. Wild West Falls used to be the Wild Wild West ride before that movie tanked, and henceforth became the generic Western themed attraction representing Westerns the studio made as a whole by proxy. I’ve never had the opportunity to ride Wild West Falls for myself, it could be great or it could suck, I don’t know. Most people who ride it seem to like it, and its unique theming makes it stand out amongst all those superhero rides like Superman: Escape and DC Rivals Hypercoaster. Movie World’s answer to Disneyland’s Splash Mountain was popular enough to remain in the park, so it can’t be that terrible.
I’ve always loved the Chinatown Lethal Weapon entrance theming, Arkham Asylum isn’t as cool.
The Wild West Falls ride is fairly basic when it comes to its theming, so I won’t cover it in detail like I did with Scooby Doo: Spooky Coaster, because like Storm Coaster at Sea World Nara Resort it’s a pretty simple attraction.
One property that Warner Bros. Movie World borrowed from Legoland is called The Lego Movie 4D: A New Adventure! - based on The LEGO Movie of course. There’s a lot I could say about The LEGO Movie which I’ll save for another time, but it’s one of my favourite movie franchises ever and any attraction derived from it sure has my attention. Sadly LEGO jumped ship to Universal and we may never see that LEGO Batman Movie sequel I was hoping for, and the repurposed 4D Legoland attraction is a reminder of just how fragile the relationship Animal Logic and Warner Bros. was. This is why I’m so peeved at the overexposed-ness of the superhero properties, they crowd out any other innovations the studio might have to offer as evidenced by Warner Bros. now trying to milk its Hanna-Barbera IPs like Scoob! for content. The LEGO Movie was this beautiful, idiosyncratic thing which the sequels may never have matched but I never missed a single one of them in theatres, I’ve seen the 4D film by clandestine means as I had no choice, and it’s pretty entertaining as a follow-up to The LEGO Movie for theme parks. I thought the mind-control plot was a bit silly in a good way, and considering this is for a theme park ride the animation wasn’t downgraded too much. It wasn’t originally built for Warner Bros. Movie World, the Legoland cross-branding is a bit distracting for the park immersion, however I’d rank this an eight out of ten due to my biased love for The LEGO Movie franchise because they do poke fun at the cheapness of hiring sound-alike voice actors in a way that feels very LEGO Movie. I’ve never been to LEGOLAND but according to my sources there’s not a lot of things for grown-ups to do there besides buy LEGO kits, and the Warner Bros. Movie World 4D attraction gives adults a chance to experience the ride without being hassled by LEGOLAND staff for being too tall or too old for certain rides at their park. That’s not a problem at Movie World, which bends over backwards to include attractions for all ages on top of their thrill rides for adults and teenagers.
The LEGO Movie stars mesmerised by Risky Business, Lord Business’ brother.
Warner Bros. Movie World is the youngest of the main theme parks, however It’s become an institution of its field and maintains dominance over the Australian theme park landscape as a survivor or hardships and attractions coming or going across the years. I haven’t had a reason to go back there in decades even if their rollercoasters are tempting to an older, braver me, and I suspect unless the attractions diversify from the superhero soup I’ll remain shaking my fist over the border in Sydney. I rag on Movie World a lot because I want it to create better rides which are suited to my taste, which in this millennium may be a pipe dream of its halcyon past. At least it’s still operating, which is more than you can say about its contemporaries like Wonderland Sydney or Sega World… the latter of which we’ll talk about next time.
