Mega Rants - Stitch’s Great Escape

MegaSoulhero I’m a huge fan of Disney theme parks. I’m currently a Disneyland passholder and I’ve been to Walt Disney World 3 times. So I think it’s about time that I talk about a specific attraction at one of the Disney theme parks. And I’m gonna start with the atrocity known as Stitch’s Great Escape. Located in Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. This attraction has divided Disney park visitors. There are people who hate it, and there are people who know nothing about quality. WHAT A WASTE OF SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY!!!! This is a really terrible attraction! Since it finally closed recently, I decided I might as well talk about it.

This attraction replaced another attraction called Alien Encounter. I never got to experience it myself, but I heard it was too scary for children. So they closed it and “tried” to make it more kid friendly. So what did they do? They made it practically the same exact attraction but replaced the scary alien with Stitch and dumbed it down. Basically as a way to trick people into thinking that it’s a fun kids attraction. Everyone loves Stitch. I totally understand. And he definitely deserved his own ride. What we got, however, was absolute crap. I remember going to WDW years ago when I was young and when Stitch’s Great Escape was still kind of new. My dad forced me to go in it. I hated every second of it. I was crying and wanted so desperately to get out of there. We went back to WDW a few years later. And guess what happened. He forced me to go in it again! And it was just as bad! Apparently, Disney has a lot of faith in it. They put a lot of effort into promoting it. They even decorated Cinderella’s castle to make it look like Stitch vandalized it. Which I actually thought was pretty funny. The sad thing is, the promotion was a lot better than the attraction itself. By the way. I’ve noticed that whenever they have some sort of Lilo and Stitch related thing in the Disney theme parks, it always centers around Stitch! I’ve never seen a legit Lilo and Stitch attraction! Only Stitch attractions! Even when being included in shows like Mickey and the Magical Map, the Lilo and Stitch portion is always just Stitch! Lilo is an important character in the movie! Debatably more so than Stitch! But since Stitch is more marketable, they decided to slap his face on just about everything.

Now let me talk about the attraction itself because I really do think it is very awful. The story makes absolutely no sense. They recruit random humans (the theme park guests) to be security guards to watchover the prisoner (Stitch). He just so happens to be their most dangerous prisoner and yet they have the new recruits keep an eye on him. Which involves us sitting down with uncomfortable restraints lowered down on us. Yeah. Because of this, we can’t leave! At least in It’s Tough to be a Bug they give you the option of walking out of the theater! When Stitch’s Great Escape begins, all I want to do is leave! It’s almost as if WE’RE the prisoners! Oh and apparently the restraints are so our DNA isn’t confused for the prisoner’s DNA. But then why didn’t we have to wear them during the preshow in which they were doing a teleportation demonstration? By the way, I should point out that the Stitch animatronic is pretty cool. Sure it’s not as amazing as the animatronics in some of the more modern attractions, but it’s still has pretty great and lifelike movements. There’s only one problem. They wasted it on Stitch’s Great Escape.

Stitch escapes, as the title promises, and he runs around the room while messing with the recruits. That right there is the entire attraction. And it is torture! He spits on you, jumps on your shoulders (which kind of hurts), and he even burps after eating a chili dog! It smells really bad! All this happens in a dark room! One character even says “don’t let the prisoner out of your sight.” Kind of hard to do when it’s pitch black in there! They try to lighten the mood with awful dialogue while all this is happening. None of the jokes are funny! Stitch is extremely annoying! I feel like it’s trying to appeal to kids, I mean the robot in the preshow oils himself which is supposed to be funny even though it’s really not, but at the same time you’re in a room with a creature walking around in the dark! At least Alien Encounter knew what it wanted to be! I also want to point out that there are some plot holes. The attraction is supposed to take place before Stitch met Lilo. There’s a moment when Stitch refers to himself by name! Even though Lilo was the one who gave him that name! Assuming this is non-canon, who else would’ve given him that name? And how does he end up on Earth and the aliens don’t know what Earth is? It’s almost as if they just decided to make the attraction about Stitch and not care about having it actually make sense since all people care about is seeing Stitch. Which itself is underwhelming. All that waiting just to see an animatronic for a couple of minutes and having to sit in darkness with 4D effects happening? The cannons that fire at Stitch are pretty cool. It’s too bad that they constantly miss their target!

Stitch’s Great Escape sucks! It’s the worst thing to ever happen to Walt Disney World! It’s even worse than that Drew Carey attraction! I’m so glad they finally closed this. I’m surprised it took them this long to do that. I heard rumors that it might be replaced by a Wreck-it Ralph attraction. I honestly wouldn’t mind that. Stitch’s Great Escape was truly terrible. It’s too scary for kids and too boring for adults. At least we don’t have to worry about it anymore.

Comments

I hope they replace this attraction with something more tolerable. Something more interactive would work. - visitor

Sounds Like A Terrible Ride - Cartoonnetworkfan1990