May 4, 2007

El Rio Del Tiempo 1982-2007


I was immensely devastated when I recently visited MiceAge.com and read this article By Kevin Yee.

I've only visited Walt Disney World in Florida once, in the summer of 2004. It was very exciting for me, because, as those of you who know me know, I grew up going to Disneyland in California and love the joint. (If you are also a Disney theme park fan, you probably already figured that out by the theme of my blog.) I was mostly looking forward to visiting The Magic Kingdom, which is essentially the “Disneyland Park” at the Disney World Resort, thinking it would be cool check out all the differences. That actually turned out to be kind of a disappointment, what I really fell in love with was EPCOT.

There are so many reasons EPCOT is just awesome, but I won't get into that right now. I’ll just explain, for those who do not know, that EPCOT is really two theme Parks in one,” Future World” and “World Showcase.” Future World is basically the concept Walt Disney had for the original Tomorrowland at Disneyland. There are different pavilions showcasing the history and future of different technologies. World Showcase is also comprised of different pavilions, well, “showcasing” different countries from around the word. The whole thing smacks of museum-like “edu-tainment” which is totally up my alley. (On the shuttle bus to the Airport at the end of our trip, a talkative driver polled the passengers as to which was their favorite of the resort theme parks, and I was the only one who cheered for EPCOT, and I cheered hard) The episode of The Simpsons, “Special Edna” (one of my favorites of the past 5 years) pretty much nails it in terms of what most people’s perceptions and/or opinions of the park are…



In recent years however as the older attractions became dated (i.e. better), the newer attractions they replace them with have been chipping away at the original concept. Edu-tainment goes out, and thrills or more conventional Disney character driven attractions go in. Kevin Yee’s article documents the most recent casualty, the “El Rio Del Tiempo” attraction in the Mexico pavilion in World Showcase.

“El Rio Del Tiempo” was quite possibly my favorite ride in all of Disney World. The MiceAge article gives a nicely detailed before and after, but I thought I’d give you my tour of this now gone Disney masterpiece. I’ll be using this fantastic video, with some low quality video and pictures I took with my digital camera on my visit. However, I think the best way I could convey the greatness to you is to recreate my facial expressions as I rode the thing (Please forgive my bad acting and disheveled appearance) So, here we go...

I was already excited to check out this ride to begin with, simply because, I am from Mexico and I was curious to see a World Showcase attraction from the point of view of someone from that actual country. First off, the ride is called “El Rio Del Tiempo”, which translates to “The River of Time”. What do you think that insinuates? One would expect a ride about the history of Mexico, right? Keep this in mind. The ride is an indoor boat ride like “The Pirates of the Caribbean” or “It’s A Small World”, that fact alone already wins super bonus points from me.

The ride starts off very similar to “The Pirates of the Caribbean” at Disneyland. You shove off from the loading dock into an indoor lagoon with a permanent nighttime sky. You ride alongside a quaint candle lit restaurant ala The Blue Bayou, only this one serves Mexican Food of course. To your left, opposite the restaurant, are Mayan looking temples, you then turn and enter the temple door and that’s where the ride really begins. The first section makes sense, it represents Pre-Columbian Mexico. You ride through ruins as a voice over talks about the ancient civilizations of Mexico. Every few feet there were these really cool rear projection screens showing life in ancient times, check it out…



I don’t know what it was about the rear projections that I really loved, I just think there is something older-school Disney about them. It reminded me of the use of rear projections at Disneyland (The Haunted Mansion, The Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln pre-show and The Flavor of Hawaii come to mind). The “Rio” rear projections were actually very impressive and sharp looking, considering their age, but of course, they didn’t photograph or video too well. I’m guessing I looked something like this as I rode though this section:


You then immediately go from “ancient Mexico” to this:



All of the sudden, for no reason, “El Rio Del Tiempo” became “It’s A Small World!” I must add that I planned my trip to Disney World at the last minute, unaware that the “It’s A Small World” attraction at Magic Kingdom would be down for a major rehab in the middle of that summer. I actually didn’t find this out until we were already there, which of course was a huge bummer for me since “Small World” is one of my favorite attractions at Disneyland and I was dying to see the Florida counterpart. Having said that, when we got to this section of “Rio”, nonsensical as it was, I estimate my reaction to be something like this:


I can’t emphasize how “Small World” like and Mary Blair inspired this section of the ride was (right down to the happy repetitive song). The video pretty much speaks for itself, but here are a couple pictures I took on my visit. They are, unfortunately, the only good ones I took of this attraction:



It was only well after we passed through this section that something occurred to me; if you try and follow the “Rio Del Tiempo” theme, (the chronological history of Mexico) you realize they just marginalized the invasion and colonization of ancient Mexico by the Spanish Empire by turning it into “It’s A Small World!” That’s so wrong! Yet, so Disney and so right!

Next we enter a cave, with many rear projection screens; these are supposed represent Modern Mexico. That’s right; we are already at modern Mexico in scene 3! (If you know the slightest bit about Mexican history you know that there’s quite a bit in between, including a couple revolutions.) At this point you basically have to throw out the entire “River of Time” concept because the rest of the ride will have nothing to do with that. This super misleading theme made me love the attraction even more. The cave section plays exactly like a "Visit Mexico" ad from 1982, complete with water skiing, scuba diving and film of cliff divers in Acapulco as well as “Los Voladores de Papantla”...



Did you catch that second scene?? Here it is again in slow motion along with some video I took on my digital camera...



Eww, they’re getting ready to have an orgy! With Mariachis serenading them no less! Neither video captures how the girls looked exactly like the Aerobicise girls and how slimy the guys were. It basically looked exactly like a scene from a 1980s sexicomedia. Sick! My reaction to that projection was something like this series:


Next we make a turn and arrive at the most infamous part of this attraction. I don’t even know where to begin with this one (again with some silent video I took on my digital camera)...



I'm still speechless! It’s so ridiculously un-PC and offensive you could feel everyone in the boat get uncomfortable. I laughed, how could you not laugh! (Begin sarcasm) That’s Mexico folks! Annoying street vendors and beggars! (End sarcasm) That this section lasted until 2007 is unbelievable. It was so ludicrous, I was simultaneously appalled and loving it, which I think looked something like this series:


Next we arrive in “Mexico City”. There we see a Xochimilco boat and a painting of the Paseo de la Reforma on the wall. It’s nighttime and there’s a celebration with fireworks for some unknown reason. To your left is a carousel of marionettes:



The video does not capture how truly frightening those marionettes are. Kevin Yee hit the nail on the head with the description “nightmarish puppets that scared the be-Jesus out of many a rider”. They reminded me of those scary puppets on Mr. Rogers when they go to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, only 30 times larger. Since the video is somewhat blurry and misses out on all the scary details, I’ve re-edited it to give you a sense of the feelings you had seeing this in person:



At this point I think I reacted like this:


And with that, the ride has come to an end. But before you disembark, there is yet another “Small World” inspired touch with this map mural on the wall:



Overall, "Loved It!" (said in Oprah voice.) I rode this ride about 5 times! It wasn’t hard, it really never had a line. One time I had the boat all to myself. My friend Marcus didn’t care to experience the magic five times.

Another point I forgot to mention was that all of the people who work in the pavilions at World Showcase are actually from that respective country, which adds so much to its appeal and to the immersive theming there. They are college students studying abroad, (or so they claim, they could be indentured servants for all we know.) I was desperate to ask the girls working there, (they were all girls for some reason) what they really thought of the ride, this representation of our country, when they first rode. (I would have asked in Spanish, of course.) But, I sadly never worked up the nerve. They did always give me peculiar looks as I disembarked with a huge grin on my face, like this one:


I must admit that I’m sort of conflicted about the changes they made to this ride. They really didn’t physically alter the attraction at all, aside from removing the killer marionettes, the only major changes were to all the rear projections. The Three Caballeros is one of my all time favorite Disney classics and it does have something to do with Mexico. The film also has many prominent Mary Blair touches, and hence, does mesh well with the Mary Blair touches that were in the ride already. My question is, why fuck with perfection? I guess I’ll have to someday reconcile with the fact that my personal taste will always be a little off. At least I’m glad I got to see it the old way.

Credits:
I couldn’t have given you this tour without the fantastic Mexico pavillon video by ru42 which you can see in its entirety on YouTube or at this website.

No comments: