Gee NO ONE has mentioned the Star Tours EASTER EGG! The Monsanto Mighty Microscope is seen in the background along with other equipenent at the beginning of Star Tours before you plung down. I remember going to Adventures thru inner space when it first opened. It scared me as a 10 year old! Like many other commentators, I too was afraid i would not return to normal. Worse yet I was convinced I saw the shrunken figures move at the top of the injector furthering my fear I might not "unshrink" at the rides end. You are absolutely correct in describing it as a horror ride. The heart beat of the atomic nucleus added a horror tinge to the ride, "Are molecules alive?" And that huge eye terrified me, to me it looked absolutely real, I mean it moved and watched you go by. I think i closed my eyes through half the ride my first two or three times I rode it! When I finally watched all the way through the ride, my paradigm changed and it became a thrill ride. When I was a preteen it was one of my favorite rides! Even though i knew by then it was all fake, it created my first sense of nostalgia. By 1976, as the park celebrated the countries Bicentennial, the ride was already outdated as the Carousel of Progress was given a patriotic paint job and replaced by America Sings. Those were the days when Disney rides were self contained stories, not rebranding of IP themes. I miss the rides that were completely original, we will never have that sort of experience again! Thanks again for a trip down memory lane!
Another banger! I had never properly researched this ride before and this looks much more foreboding than I thought, seems to be one that would linger with you after riding. I also really like the abstract nature of the visuals, it feels like it would be fun to just zone out and vibe on if it was still open today (although it would have inevitably got an Ant-Man overlay by now)
I second that on the Ant-Man overlay (though, even then, Ant-Man would probably be more on thematically appropiate than Guardains of the Galaxy, lol) Though, another place for where Adventures Thru Inner Space could return is as a temp overlay would be Space Mountain in Disneyland (they've done Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Ghost Galaxy from HKDL and Star Wars. Having them doing Inner Space would be cool.)
fr. my favorite ride to go on with my dad was the great movie ride. when I went back and rode what they replaced it with I couldn’t help but feel a bit heartbroken. they removed that detailed, immersive, unforgettable ride with something lazy and dull. they didn’t even do anything to the original building/queue, which made it feel like a giant spit in the face to fans of the original ride.
@@chillabrew_glycolinstall Honestly, we can all blame Universal for starting the trend of “I.P in, and Originality out” when they first opened The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
@@jonathanwallis3300 Disney used to be a brand equivalent to magic. The immaculate execution of unequivocal creative expression. Universal never really meant that, it was always just a place where you could ride the movies... MGM was supposed to be that place, not every single park, and that makes me sad panda 🐼 lol
What a fascinating take on this classic ride!! I first rode it the day after Christmas in 1968. For me (being in the safe care of my parents), this ride produced a real sense of awe and wonder! My only concern was being back to the correct size, after seeing the shrinking people from the line. In it’s latter years (going to D as a teenager) the ride became known as a “make-out” ride for couples. Kind of a modern day “Tunnel-of-love.” By then (early 80’s), the wonder and awe were gone, and it seemed just plain cheesy.
I didn't feel the need to mention it in the video, but I continue to hear that it's the single most influential reason that Disney put cameras in all of its attractions going forward.
@@unrooolieThrill rides I’m fine with. But the fact that they have to emphasize the “theme” part of the theme park by changing their original rides into rides based upon existing movies is becoming too common now. I don’t mind them but man I wish the parks weren’t consisting of nothing BUT them.
One of my lost favorites. However, on weekends, teens would scream while on the ride simply because the building made their voices carry everywhere. It was hard to have an existential crisis with that going on all around you.
Beautiful. The fact that Mr. Frees narrated both this attraction and HM were what made me somewhat hesitant to ride it when I was younger (something about Paul's voice at times can be genuinely unnerving), that and the fact that the actual layout of the show building made it seem like 'once you go in, you never come out'. As for successors and reboots; I always thought that Body Wars at EPCOT was the most direct, combining the shrinking aspect with a somewhat quicker pace. Also, the original Life and Health pavillion concept did feature an omnimover ride also through the human body by Rolly Crump, and in the original WESTCOT plans an attraction called "Cosmic Odyssey" by Tony Baxter also sought to 'expand' on the whole micro/macro theme.
@@PoseidonEntertainmentyup its just star tours in a body, ur like a white blood cell attacking a splinter. So they don't say it but essentially ur pus
As a kid, this ride was so much scarier for me than the Haunted Mansion ever was. I was convinced that the ride vehicles were shrinking down to doll size as I could see them in the queue. I even recently found a school assignment from about that time (I was in about 3rd grade) where I wrote that I was most afraid of "The Shrinker" as we used to call this ride. I had to watch other family members come out of the ride at the unloading area before I could be convinced to ride it myself. And when I finally did go on it, I kept my eyes closed for my entire first ride. I grew to enjoy and even love the ride eventually, and was sad to see it go, but was also excited for Star Tours when it opened. Now I wish that we could have a reimagined version with modern effects, but I don't see that ever coming to pass.
It would be cool to see how the ride would be executed today. I think that an encounter with bacteria as you shrink might be simultaneously awe inspiring, yet unsettling.
Unfortunately Disney seems devoid of such creativity these days. After all they own a perfect ip to remake such a thing in ant man and all they have is you shooting weird statues with lights on them
out of all of Disneyland's extinct rides this one has always intrigued me the most and is the ride I wish I could've ridden on the most for sure one of their most original concepts
I loved Alien Encounter. It got truly frightening. If you tried to duck down the seat restraints would then hold you down, blood splatter hitting you while a shrieking someone is being eaten alive. In pitch blackness. Was it over the top? A bit. But it was in a bygone era when Disney was actually brave and went to the dark. How I miss that. Thanks for another wonderful trip into theme park history. It’s much appreciated
I was under 2 and I lost the grip of my panda 🐼 Pooh bear around the microscope 👁️.....it scared me! I remember being unconsolable from it's loss.......my parents mentioned it to the park information/lost n found area and we came back the next day as the night shift repair crew had found him!!!❤ I still have that Panda Pooh bear! 🐼🐻🎉
That eye at the end always freaked me out! As a kid, I dreaded going past it, though I remember loving the ride, especially watching from the queue all the shrunken people passing by in the microscope! An hilarious story that can be found in David Koenig’s excellent book Mouse Tales is centered on Adventures Thru Inner Space. A Cast Member once watched as a very lovey dovey teen couple came to the attraction late at night. The teens asked how long the ride was, the cast member grossly overstated the ride length, saying it was twenty minutes long. As the ride was much shorter than they’d been told, the couple was very disrobed and just getting going around the time their omnimover car entered the unload station. A cruel, but hilarious joke by a cast member 🤣😂. Who knew existential horror was such a turn on!!
The incidental music accompanying the ride by BUDDY BAKER (not referring to the as always cornball song by the Sherman brothers) shouldn’t be neglected in any discussion of this ride. It’s quite evocative, with an array of bells, percussion and string sections, in a very mid-century modern kind of way (while not going as far as the avant-garde composers of the era such as Ligeti, Boulez, Messiaen, Maderna, Xenakis, et al)
Adventure through inner space is definitely an interesting ride. I wonder how park goers now would react to this extinct attraction. Though I prefer Star Tours as an attraction, there are definitely elements of this ride that I wish I could still experience today. Not to mention how this ride fits better thematically with Tomorrowland when Stat Tours is supposed to be a long time ago in a galaxy far away, which doesn’t really fit in as much.
I never really felt that Star Tours was a good fit but I understood its popularity. I liked it in Hollywood Studios before they actively tried to remove the studio theming a lot better. I don't think Disneyland would be missing much if it was removed and replaced with something else.
Adventure Thru Inner Space could easily be brought back as an Ant-Man & the Wasp-themed dark-ride attraction. Say what you will about the movie QuantumMania, but the concept - & especially the settings - could make for a pretty thrilling ride. Might even fit the EPCOT Pavillion theme of science & education better than Guardians of the Galaxy & cosmic rewind.
The idea you came up with to retheme cosmic rewind into an adventure thru inner space version is pure genius. It would be the definition of edutainment, and that's what EPCOT was at the core, it would be practically perfect.
I do have the idea thought out a bit more, but I was considering doing something like a "Fixing Epcot" series. Probably not anytime soon, but perhaps later this year.
@Poseidon Entertainment I think that would make a great series. I'm very interested in some of the ideas everyone has on that sort of topic on the revival of Epcot.
I absolutely loved this ride as a kid, although the spooky narrator definitely made me a bit uneasy in the beginning. However, I just loved the science theme of the ride!
This was one of my favorite rides. I was sorry to see it go. Im not so sure I could suspend disbelief now, but as a kid with the then technology, it was intriguing and fun.
I remember being really scared as a 5-year-old about to get on the ride until I could see the ride cars weren't really being shrunk (like it looked like from a distance in the line). The narrator was great, and it was a very interesting ride. Some parts of it looked a bit cheap even back then, but overall it was a good ride.
THANK YOU. Ever since learning of Adventure Thru Inner Space, and seeing parts of the ride with the narration, it's always struck me as honestly pretty horrifying. I've even asked on forums in the past if anyone who experienced the ride for themselves considered it a "scary" ride. The answer was a pretty ubiquitous no, but I still couldn't get it out of my mind that the ride could at least be interpreted as horror. The intensity of the narration, the alien nature of the journey, the coldness you describe, the giant eye watching you towards the end, it all gives me chills. There's a heartbeat at some point in the audio, I believe at the atom's nucleus section, and that really sends the horror home for me. Maybe you can hear your own heart beating, but no one can hear you scream in inner space. I remember a video that showed various footage of the ride with that heartbeat over it, and thought that was a good expression of how I feel when I think about it. Even the queue itself, while appealing to me in a retro sense, there's something about it that feels off, even a bit sinister. Seeing the ride vehicles "shrink" before your eyes in an endless cycle, all in the name of progress and furthering humanity's goals. Certainly the name Monsanto itself carries many more connotations these days. It seems that it would be easy to combine the careless progress of XS Tech from Alien Encounter with this concept. Like you say, it all could easily be interpreted as intriguing rather than frightening, and it is intriguing, but the dread is always there for me. If I had any musical capability, I'd make a dark reinterpretation of the ride's theme, Miracles from Molecules. Such an upbeat song for such an intensely existential ride.
I like how Tomorrowland is generally upbeat science fiction or adventure but the almost nihilistic tone of ATIS is a great contrast that I would like to see return.
The first time I entered the queue ( at about 6 years old), I was very scared about shrinking. Believe me, it seemed very realistic to a young kid back then. And you're right, the heartbeat/blinking nucleus was frightening! I heard adults at the time remark about it. But man, I miss it! I never skipped it when I went to Disneyland.
As a kid I loved this ride so much I made my parents take me on it again and again, much to their chagrin. One time we were in line and I pointed out to my dad that one of the buggies was missing in the tube showing them after they shrunk. He said that if you went on it too many times in one day, you'd keep shrinking and not come back which must be what happened there. I was good with one ride a visit then. Now, of course, I realize that one of the little model buggies broke so was removed but also shows you how completely successful the immersion was at Disneyland to a young mind like my own. As well as how much my father loved the existential horror of which you speak.
See, *this* is the kind of attraction I miss (or would if I had ever actually been on it, but I'm one of those people who misses Body Wars. What can I say, I was a nerdy kid who wasn't so much into action films and definitely not princesses. Edutainment was my jam!)
I am beyond grateful that i grew up when i did how i did where i did, i got to experience extraterrorestrial encounter. Dude it was amazing going into it just knowing it's a new ride and that's it. Ive never heard my disney weary scifi loving dad laugh harder on any ride ever! What a great memory. Miss u dad❤
This was great. And existential horror is a really valid approach. I loved this ride and never realized it may have been the edge and darkness that appealed to me. I was not into science and especially chemistry. But as existential, my generation X from early childhood were raised to understand in no uncertain terms that the world would end from nuclear science before we were 30. Hell even 3 mile Island made science an existential threat
I did go on this as a very young child, less than 6 years old, and I remember the eye scaring me, and I remember Star Tours when it was brand new. Many years later, but before the internet was ubiquitous, I remember having this vague unsettling recollection about this ride but not what it was called or what the theme was. I did rediscover it in my 20s and it still gives me a weird unsettling feeling now - mostly the nostalgia of this dark, scary ride that sits just on the periphery of my memory.
The introspective tone of this ride is certainly very different from the rapid-fire excitement that later Disney shrinking attractions like Body Wars or Honey I Shrunk the Audience would attempt to evoke.
Brilliant video! I've always been fascinated by this vintage attraction, but never knew the foreboding nature of the dialog. Thank you for your hard work! Can't wait for more!
Thank you for this video! I was born the same year that ATIS opened, and as a child I was TERRIFIED of this ride! “Can I possibly survive!?!,” and the giant eye are both burned into my brain! Thanks again!
I am loving every minute of poring through your content. I appreciate your work and editorial commentary so much. Excellent work, please keep it coming👏🥂😺
One of my all-time favorite rides! Trust me, it was atmospheric and fun. The meager video remnants we have don't do it justice. The colors were vibrant and exciting, not the washed out, faded stuff you see now. In its heyday (1967-1975ish), it was mesmerizing. It sure terrified youngsters! It might not be impressive to today's audience because Disneyland's once exclusive technology has been duplicated just about everywhere, and people see much more sophisticated effects routinely. But it was fun. I miss it. It never got old for me. ❤
I loved this ride during my visits as a kid in the 70s. I still remember the giant eye, and as a kid, I bought the illusion that those were really the shrunken seats we saw at the start. While I was terrified of the jumping heads in the HM attic, I have no recollection of anything remotely scary in this one.
I was always terrified riding this when I was 7 years old. I must have picked up on your horror concept then (44 years ago) because I distinctly remember my dad reassuring me that no matter what we would go back to normal size. I was terrified that if there was a power failure at the wrong time we would stay microscopic and be doomed! I was also scared of roller-coasters then too, coz even at a young age I thought about all the engineering failure modes of the tracks and wheels etc. That Paul Frees narration didn't help either. My father was careful to not break the magic for me, but in the end, realizing that it was all an illusion was what I needed to get over the dread. Goes to show what a great piece of imagineering this ride concept was, that I could totally and completely buy in to the story line.
The ride was great because it was free! When it was active, rides had tickets, A - E. A-tickets were the ordinary rides (merry-go-round, etc) and E-tickets were the most immersive (Haunted Mansion, Pirates, etc). But Innerspace had near E-ticket production values and immersion while requiring no ticket at all! It was easy to forgive its shortcomings :)
Thanks! I wouldn’t have recalled this on my own but when I saw the pictures I had immediate recognition , especially that giant eye looking at me. You’re making me think that my knee jerk horror at the thought of transforming into ant man might have been triggered by being on this ride.
Quick question! Do you know why they never made a great hall recreation for the wizarding world? I feel it’s such an iconic set piece that’s missing from the park. Going to eat there would be super magical! Like going to the beauty and the beast be our guest restaurant
did anyone mention this was rebuilt in VR? on my quest 2 you can view this as some devs recreated it in its entirety in VR. very cool and completely free
When I first started watching this video, it glitched and there was no sound. And for a second I was like "ahhh that's clever. Sound doesn't travel in space so theres no sound over the footage of the rides promotional material"
I went on this ride MANY times as a teenager. I thought it was terrific and scary. You are right about the existential horror aspect. On the last day of operation for this ride I rode it three times in a row before it was shut down for Star Tours.
I rode this on my first trip to Disneyland, 1971. You might note that this attraction was free when tickets were still needed for most others. I remember riding it over and over. I also saw the pre-renovation Fantasyland and the live mule train in Frontierland.
I still don't see it as existential horror, but I appreciate you covering a beloved classic ride, which I would bring back, but maybe with updated technology
What do you disagree with? Is existential horror something more specific? I couldn't really find any well defined description of the genre, but it seemed to fit, at least superficially.
I loved this ride as a kid. I did get a slight sense of existential horror from the narration of the ride, but mostly for me it was a fun scientific look at a snowflake. I agree it could be redone and the effects updated, but for its time those effects were very cool. That may have been looking at it through the eyes of a kid, I admit.
I rode this several times as a kid and it was one of my favorite rides. I believe that dread you're talking about is what made it fun. I remember being mesmerized by the shrinking people going through the giant microscope. As you mentioned, the old video footage isn't doing it justice. I always felt if they re-introduced this ride with updated effects it would be a great re-edition to the land. I feel Disney needs to do this more but since their current leadership insists on injecting more and more IPs, this would just turn into "Ant-man the ride".
The last (and only) time I was at Disneyland I rode on this attraction. I've got to say that 10 year old me really enjoyed it, but the best part I think was standing in line and seeing the folks get shrunk down in that tube.....hey...it looked pretty real.
Growing up my dad always called this the "Monsanto Ride." He grew up in the 60s and he remembered the ride as kind of a silly experience where teenagers would make out in the dark while on the ride. I've never watched a POV of this defunct ride but I knew Paul Frees did the narration. I often think of him as doing funny voices for Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right and radio comedy for people like Stan Freberg. But the Haunted Mansion has always seemed like an odd exception but proof of his range as a voice actor. I love the Haunted Mansion. It's my favorite ride of all time and his voice as the Ghost Host is absolutely perfect. It comes off as a baritone version of Vincent Price. Prior to watching this video I'd never heard his voice for Adventure through Inner Space. But WOW! That is some incredible voice work. It's full of emotion and yes: terror. What an intriguing attraction and I guess it's proof that Frees really had a knack for horror.
As a kid, this was my favorite ride in all of Disneyland! I was so mad when they closed it down and had a grudge against its replacement Captain EO, but by the time Star Tours came out I was over it.
Storyland Glen NH had a very similar ride when I was very little. Journey to the Moon I think. Left you with the eerie feeling you can't explain, especially as a child.
As a child I've ridden adventures every time we went. The line moved fast. The damn eyeball freaked me out. In the 70s the fear transferred to the yeti on matahorn and haunted mansion. I was a traumatized youth.
I loved this ride as a kid. It was educational and fun at the same time. I'm not sure what IP they could link to it if they ever brought it back. Honey, I shrunk the tourist?
I vaguely recall going on this ride, and being initially frightened but then intrigued, (And, yeah, the eyeball was a horror, at the time.) This one is a ride mentioned by a many of the "They don't make 'em like this anymore" crowd; while I understand the nostalgia (dim memories are always happier memories), I have a feeling that these same persons would be less than impressed were they to travel back in time and do it again. That having been said, with the newer technology, I am surprised that there hasn't been an attempt to revive this, either as is (since people apparently still talk about it) or as a Marvel ride, the way they tried to revive the Flying Saucers as a tire ride in CarsLand, California Adventure. It would be fascinating to see what could be done with it nowadays.
One reason Adventure Thru Inner Space was popular was that it was one of the only “free” attractions, meaning it didn’t require a ticket to ride, as it was sponsored by Monsanto. Once Disneyland went to a ticketless system in 1982, it’s days we’re numbered.
All the epcot darkrides are amazing, and I miss a couple of them in particular dearly, but this seems like something else altogether 😢 ive never been able to experience anything outside of newer florida attractions but they have always inspired a sense of wonderment, like time literally stops and you get transported somewhere else. something like this seems amazing and i can only imagine what something like this, but traveling through the human body, would be like obligatory rip maelstrom
i think its really cool to think about it through this lens- ive never really considered the existential horror of the experience at all. it'd be interesting to see what disney would do if they ever actively tried to lean into something with existential horror
This attraction freaked me out as a kid. I really did believe were were turned into tiny humans as seen through the glass in the shrinking machine. Years later, as a teen, I realized the doom buggy turned left into a tunnel and not up the shrinking machine. Phew!
One of my favorite ride concepts. Maybe it wouldn't hold up today, but some version of it would be fantastic. I found the shrink effect in the queue to be terrifying! I was sure those people would never get big again.
My siblings and I really enjoyed "Adventure Thru Interspace" and we went to it every time we went to Disneyland after it was created, 'til we moved to Northern California in 1971. And yes, it was a bit creepy, with the narrator's concern and fear being well transmitted. The ride show was also creepy and surprisingly new every time we went. I think that such a ride, consisting of nothing but physical effects, would not be built today. But if it was updated, p'haps something like.a Journey to the Center of the Earth or some such, would be cool.
I'm old enough to remember this ride just a bit (and its accompanying song "Miracles from Molecules," which is Sherman Brothers camp at its very best and still a personal favorite!). I certainly never thought about it in a context of "existential horror"--though it was interesting hearing your interpretation of it in that light--but as a huge science museum buff, I really miss the time when Tomorrowland rides and exhibits built on real science and futurism. "Inner Space" and "Rocket to the Moon/Mars" were among the best examples of this. Too much of Tomorrowland now is based on licensed properties like Buzz Lightyear and Star Wars, which have nothing to do with Walt's original vision for that part of the park. (Case in point: a few years ago I was at Disneyland and, as always, paused at the sign at the entrance to Tomorrowland bearing Walt Disney's famous quote about how Tomorrowland provides a glimpse into the future of humanity. Just after I passed that sign, a Star Wars stormtrooper with a huge blaster rifle came up to me and said, "Have no fear, citizen: the First Order is here for your protection." Hmm....)
I can't say that I'm really a fan of IP in castle style parks. I like Fantasyland but only because it was always intended to showcase Walt's films. I could really do without Star Tours, Buzz Lightyear or Laugh Floor. They don't bother me too heavily, but I would much rather see something original in their place.
Omg this ride terrified me when I was 7 years old! When we got out my dad asked me if that was me he'd heard crying in there. I lied and told him it was my little brother.
I miss this ride even though I agree that it's not worthwhile to bring back in its original form. Thank you for a fresh perspective on Adventure Thru Inner Space. Star Tours can be thought of through the same existential horror lense.
@@PoseidonEntertainment Star Tours is in the old Adventure Thru Inner Space building and when Captain Rex goes rogue, Star Tours becomes part of the battle. At the end, Captain Rex is rebooted--which means that the next trip is Captain Rex's first trip. There was no previous trip--his memory banks have been wiped. If you don't remember it happening, did it happen to you?
I’ve thought extensively about Disney adding this type of ride design and smashing the Antman Franchise into it. Dipping into the nostalgia of JTIS (Journey Through Inner Space) and Quantimania being the latest Antman film released last year.
The way the narrator speaks is definitely creepy enough to give you a sense of concern. What's really missing though is microbiology. You want to scare the crap out of someone? Show them that there are millions of things living everywhere, floating in the air, wading around in the water, swimming inside your own body. They should have encountered germs or viruses that see the riders as a source of nourishment and the only escape is to go deeper, but then if you do that, you risk becoming perpetually stuck within innerspace, shrinking forever to oblivion. However you do have to go back, and so you have to encounter the realm of microbiology again. You could definitely do an Innerspace today that's a bit more action packed at times to really leave an impact on the riders, and maybe show that some of these horrors are actually beneficial for you to even be alive as an assurance that it's not all bad in the microverse, it's just a different scale of everyday life.
I was thinking about that as well. It would be interesting to see how the ride would be executed today. I think that encountering a virus but blown up to the size of the vehicles might be incredibly unsettling.
You know for all the talk about this ride i dont think ive ever seen any footage, not that ive ever sought it out. Looks incredible. I dont think any of my older relatives went anywhere but WDW so their Tomorrowland omnimover was "If You Had Wings" which they always talked highly of, id bet mostly because it was FREE to ride 😂and had A/C (big deal in the 1970s). Adventure Thru Inner Space seems like a much cooler concept and wouldve definitely had me freaking out as a younger kid towards the end. Great video!
I suppose IYHW would be an interesting counter-part video eventually. I actually know almost nothing about that ride other than having seen the occasional photo.
like the dive down terror and uncomfortable rabbit hole :-) ... the eye was freaky sometimes the first ride we'd ride in the park ( circa 1970s) ... never realized the narrator was the same voice as the haunted mansion ... it may have seen it's time and became dated to a sense, but the concept is still fresh ... and it could have been reboot with an antman overlay (thou i believe ip will soon become stale) plus today's technology to become an E ticket attraction ... and tomorrowland in a sense could have been shaped into a stark expo theme, a reference to an earlier image of the future but then departure to distant dimensions ... but instead we were blessed with below_Average Campus
I would rather Avengers Campus exist than try to turn Tomorrowland into something Marvel. It looks terrible in Hong Kong and I would hate it in Disneyland.
I am 62 years old, so when I experienced this ride, I was only eight years old. We were with our parents and some cousins at the time. To an eight-year-old, being 1969, there is not an understanding of reality versus fiction. The ride was so realistic and futuristic that with my limited child brain, I took it as reality. So somehow, I was put into the ride alone! When the narrator started saying that we were losing control and I may never get back, you can imagine my horror. By the time I left the ride and found my parents, I was in tears. So, was this ride scary and horrifying? Yes, if it was in the prospective of a Child's view. Of course, the next year, I was thrilled to ride it again, with my brother along my side.
Hey! It was the 60's! Yeah! You had a really great team of Imagineer's + the haunting voice of Paul Frees. People used their imaginations more back then. I like the idea of Cosmic having this theme instead of the current IP. It would be more TRUE to the original Epcot "spirit" You could use a little STEM in that park for the young visitors to get them interested in science. David O'Neal pointed out the appeal was sights, sounds, even darkness that played a role in the "mystery" of the attraction. That story was told in a short track space as well. But, the cars weren't moving that fast.
I saw a clip of the effect where it looks like there are little people in the glass tube and for reasons i cant explain it struck a chord of horror in me.
When I was a very young kid, perhaps 5yo in the late 70's, one of my first memories of Disneyland was riding Inner Space. It scared the crap out of me. Before we got on the ride, I saw the ride vehicles shrinking in the microscope and I thought that was real. Hey... kids are stupid. But as I grew older I really enjoyed the ride, and I was sad to see it go.
When I was young, I didn't realize there was any escape from the stretching room in the Haunted Mansion. I think the shrinking effect is brilliant in stimulating the imagination.
The trouble with Adventure Thru Inner Space and Powers of Ten is that the contemplative pacing just doesn't fly in the modern day with the typical theme park crowd.
Great video this ride would have been truly amazing to experience. As weird as this is sounds this ride concept could be repurposed today on Avengers Campus for a Quantum Realm Ant-Man ride using a similar ride system as Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.
@@PoseidonEntertainment I am no fan of Avengers Campus. That being said with Disney basically cancelling the expensive E ticket Avengers Campus Quinjet ride and allegedly replacing it with a cheaper King Thanos Multi-Verse Attraction simulator screen ride. Maybe an IP themed attraction loosely based on the Adventure Thru Inner Space ride would make better sense. The main issue I see is that Disneyland has very little room and a Quantum Realm Ant-Man ride using the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind coaster system. Would require too much area; maybe instead they could use an updated version of the omnimover system like the original ride. Or they could use the new Simworx AGV Dark Ride system concept.
Hey I definitely got an existential horror vibe from this attraction long before ever seeing your video, so I’m glad someone else felt the same reaction as me! :-) If you’re interested, there is a VR recreation of this attraction out there floating around the Internet somewhere.
I love this sort of old attraction. Imagine designing an entertainment center for children and being like, "you know what kids love? Existential horror while you explore a snowflake on a molecular level". Absolutely wild
Gee NO ONE has mentioned the Star Tours EASTER EGG! The Monsanto Mighty Microscope is seen in the background along with other equipenent at the beginning of Star Tours before you plung down.
I remember going to Adventures thru inner space when it first opened. It scared me as a 10 year old! Like many other commentators, I too was afraid i would not return to normal. Worse yet I was convinced I saw the shrunken figures move at the top of the injector furthering my fear I might not "unshrink" at the rides end.
You are absolutely correct in describing it as a horror ride. The heart beat of the atomic nucleus added a horror tinge to the ride, "Are molecules alive?" And that huge eye terrified me, to me it looked absolutely real, I mean it moved and watched you go by. I think i closed my eyes through half the ride my first two or three times I rode it! When I finally watched all the way through the ride, my paradigm changed and it became a thrill ride.
When I was a preteen it was one of my favorite rides! Even though i knew by then it was all fake, it created my first sense of nostalgia.
By 1976, as the park celebrated the countries Bicentennial, the ride was already outdated as the Carousel of Progress was given a patriotic paint job and replaced by America Sings.
Those were the days when Disney rides were self contained stories, not rebranding of IP themes. I miss the rides that were completely original, we will never have that sort of experience again!
Thanks again for a trip down memory lane!
Another banger! I had never properly researched this ride before and this looks much more foreboding than I thought, seems to be one that would linger with you after riding. I also really like the abstract nature of the visuals, it feels like it would be fun to just zone out and vibe on if it was still open today (although it would have inevitably got an Ant-Man overlay by now)
They definitely would change it to Ant-Man lol
OMG I love your videos! I'm so excited for what's next
I second that on the Ant-Man overlay (though, even then, Ant-Man would probably be more on thematically appropiate than Guardains of the Galaxy, lol)
Though, another place for where Adventures Thru Inner Space could return is as a temp overlay would be Space Mountain in Disneyland (they've done Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Ghost Galaxy from HKDL and Star Wars. Having them doing Inner Space would be cool.)
@@kirkvandewalker3574 The Ant-Man point is bone-chilling.
Classic Disney attractions were a different breed. The stuff they've done recently are just so uninspired :/
fr. my favorite ride to go on with my dad was the great movie ride. when I went back and rode what they replaced it with I couldn’t help but feel a bit heartbroken. they removed that detailed, immersive, unforgettable ride with something lazy and dull. they didn’t even do anything to the original building/queue, which made it feel like a giant spit in the face to fans of the original ride.
Who would have guessed IP would be the death of creative innovation?
@@chillabrew_glycolinstall Honestly, we can all blame Universal for starting the trend of “I.P in, and Originality out” when they first opened The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
@@jonathanwallis3300 you can't blame universal for Disney losing their creative integrity
💚💚💚
@@jonathanwallis3300 Disney used to be a brand equivalent to magic. The immaculate execution of unequivocal creative expression.
Universal never really meant that, it was always just a place where you could ride the movies...
MGM was supposed to be that place, not every single park, and that makes me sad panda 🐼 lol
What a fascinating take on this classic ride!! I first rode it the day after Christmas in 1968. For me (being in the safe care of my parents), this ride produced a real sense of awe and wonder! My only concern was being back to the correct size, after seeing the shrinking people from the line. In it’s latter years (going to D as a teenager) the ride became known as a “make-out” ride for couples. Kind of a modern day “Tunnel-of-love.” By then (early 80’s), the wonder and awe were gone, and it seemed just plain cheesy.
I didn't feel the need to mention it in the video, but I continue to hear that it's the single most influential reason that Disney put cameras in all of its attractions going forward.
@@PoseidonEntertainment I wouldn’t doubt that for a second!!
Back when Disney rides were original, creative, and thought provoking experiences.
its sad times have changed, everything has to be IP and a thrill ride
@@unrooolie *family thrill ride
The better times.
The new ones provoked me to think about going to universal instead
@@unrooolieThrill rides I’m fine with. But the fact that they have to emphasize the “theme” part of the theme park by changing their original rides into rides based upon existing movies is becoming too common now. I don’t mind them but man I wish the parks weren’t consisting of nothing BUT them.
One of my lost favorites. However, on weekends, teens would scream while on the ride simply because the building made their voices carry everywhere. It was hard to have an existential crisis with that going on all around you.
This is the “old spirit of Disney”! How I miss it today, at Disney Parks!!!!!
Beautiful. The fact that Mr. Frees narrated both this attraction and HM were what made me somewhat hesitant to ride it when I was younger (something about Paul's voice at times can be genuinely unnerving), that and the fact that the actual layout of the show building made it seem like 'once you go in, you never come out'.
As for successors and reboots; I always thought that Body Wars at EPCOT was the most direct, combining the shrinking aspect with a somewhat quicker pace. Also, the original Life and Health pavillion concept did feature an omnimover ride also through the human body by Rolly Crump, and in the original WESTCOT plans an attraction called "Cosmic Odyssey" by Tony Baxter also sought to 'expand' on the whole micro/macro theme.
I wish these had come to fruition. I also never managed to ride Body Wars which I'm disappointed to say.
@@PoseidonEntertainment Body Wars was effectively Star Tours but with more motion sickness...
Yes! It's the voice in my dreams!
@@PoseidonEntertainmentyup its just star tours in a body, ur like a white blood cell attacking a splinter. So they don't say it but essentially ur pus
As a kid, this ride was so much scarier for me than the Haunted Mansion ever was. I was convinced that the ride vehicles were shrinking down to doll size as I could see them in the queue. I even recently found a school assignment from about that time (I was in about 3rd grade) where I wrote that I was most afraid of "The Shrinker" as we used to call this ride. I had to watch other family members come out of the ride at the unloading area before I could be convinced to ride it myself. And when I finally did go on it, I kept my eyes closed for my entire first ride. I grew to enjoy and even love the ride eventually, and was sad to see it go, but was also excited for Star Tours when it opened. Now I wish that we could have a reimagined version with modern effects, but I don't see that ever coming to pass.
It would be cool to see how the ride would be executed today. I think that an encounter with bacteria as you shrink might be simultaneously awe inspiring, yet unsettling.
Unfortunately Disney seems devoid of such creativity these days.
After all they own a perfect ip to remake such a thing in ant man and all they have is you shooting weird statues with lights on them
Lol 😂 how cute
out of all of Disneyland's extinct rides this one has always intrigued me the most and is the ride I wish I could've ridden on the most
for sure one of their most original concepts
I loved Alien Encounter. It got truly frightening. If you tried to duck down the seat restraints would then hold you down, blood splatter hitting you while a shrieking someone is being eaten alive. In pitch blackness. Was it over the top? A bit. But it was in a bygone era when Disney was actually brave and went to the dark. How I miss that.
Thanks for another wonderful trip into theme park history. It’s much appreciated
love the John Carpenter-esque synths in the intro and throughout
This was my favorite attraction as a kid!
I like your idea of retheming the Guardians of the Galaxy ride! If they absolutely need a Marvel IP, they could use Ant-Man
I was under 2 and I lost the grip of my panda 🐼 Pooh bear around the microscope 👁️.....it scared me! I remember being unconsolable from it's loss.......my parents mentioned it to the park information/lost n found area and we came back the next day as the night shift repair crew had found him!!!❤ I still have that Panda Pooh bear! 🐼🐻🎉
That eye at the end always freaked me out! As a kid, I dreaded going past it, though I remember loving the ride, especially watching from the queue all the shrunken people passing by in the microscope!
An hilarious story that can be found in David Koenig’s excellent book Mouse Tales is centered on Adventures Thru Inner Space. A Cast Member once watched as a very lovey dovey teen couple came to the attraction late at night. The teens asked how long the ride was, the cast member grossly overstated the ride length, saying it was twenty minutes long. As the ride was much shorter than they’d been told, the couple was very disrobed and just getting going around the time their omnimover car entered the unload station. A cruel, but hilarious joke by a cast member 🤣😂. Who knew existential horror was such a turn on!!
I've read Realityland, but I'll have to look into that book too. He has the best anecdotes.
@@PoseidonEntertainment my favorite chapter is Be Our Guest. Some outstanding anecdotes regarding guests in that chapter!
The incidental music accompanying the ride by BUDDY BAKER (not referring to the as always cornball song by the Sherman brothers) shouldn’t be neglected in any discussion of this ride. It’s quite evocative, with an array of bells, percussion and string sections, in a very mid-century modern kind of way (while not going as far as the avant-garde composers of the era such as Ligeti, Boulez, Messiaen, Maderna, Xenakis, et al)
I didn't have any context to who wrote the music, but it's absolutely fantastic.
Adventure through inner space is definitely an interesting ride. I wonder how park goers now would react to this extinct attraction. Though I prefer Star Tours as an attraction, there are definitely elements of this ride that I wish I could still experience today. Not to mention how this ride fits better thematically with Tomorrowland when Stat Tours is supposed to be a long time ago in a galaxy far away, which doesn’t really fit in as much.
I never really felt that Star Tours was a good fit but I understood its popularity. I liked it in Hollywood Studios before they actively tried to remove the studio theming a lot better. I don't think Disneyland would be missing much if it was removed and replaced with something else.
@@PoseidonEntertainment studios was great pre 2014
That first shot of “brought to you by Monsanto”. lol
I adored this ride. I remember going on it at least 3 times in a row. Of course in the late stages of the ride there was practically no wait.
Adventure Thru Inner Space could easily be brought back as an Ant-Man & the Wasp-themed dark-ride attraction. Say what you will about the movie QuantumMania, but the concept - & especially the settings - could make for a pretty thrilling ride. Might even fit the EPCOT Pavillion theme of science & education better than Guardians of the Galaxy & cosmic rewind.
The idea you came up with to retheme cosmic rewind into an adventure thru inner space version is pure genius. It would be the definition of edutainment, and that's what EPCOT was at the core, it would be practically perfect.
It'd be a great successor to Body Wars and would fit into Epcot perfectly!!
I do have the idea thought out a bit more, but I was considering doing something like a "Fixing Epcot" series. Probably not anytime soon, but perhaps later this year.
@Poseidon Entertainment I think that would make a great series. I'm very interested in some of the ideas everyone has on that sort of topic on the revival of Epcot.
I absolutely loved this ride as a kid, although the spooky narrator definitely made me a bit uneasy in the beginning.
However, I just loved the science theme of the ride!
This was one of my favorite rides. I was sorry to see it go. Im not so sure I could suspend disbelief now, but as a kid with the then technology, it was intriguing and fun.
I remember being really scared as a 5-year-old about to get on the ride until I could see the ride cars weren't really being shrunk (like it looked like from a distance in the line). The narrator was great, and it was a very interesting ride. Some parts of it looked a bit cheap even back then, but overall it was a good ride.
Only barely remember being in this as a little kid 40 years ago but once was enough.
I loved Adventures through Inner Space and would most definitely go on it again today in my adult years
THANK YOU. Ever since learning of Adventure Thru Inner Space, and seeing parts of the ride with the narration, it's always struck me as honestly pretty horrifying. I've even asked on forums in the past if anyone who experienced the ride for themselves considered it a "scary" ride. The answer was a pretty ubiquitous no, but I still couldn't get it out of my mind that the ride could at least be interpreted as horror. The intensity of the narration, the alien nature of the journey, the coldness you describe, the giant eye watching you towards the end, it all gives me chills. There's a heartbeat at some point in the audio, I believe at the atom's nucleus section, and that really sends the horror home for me. Maybe you can hear your own heart beating, but no one can hear you scream in inner space. I remember a video that showed various footage of the ride with that heartbeat over it, and thought that was a good expression of how I feel when I think about it.
Even the queue itself, while appealing to me in a retro sense, there's something about it that feels off, even a bit sinister. Seeing the ride vehicles "shrink" before your eyes in an endless cycle, all in the name of progress and furthering humanity's goals. Certainly the name Monsanto itself carries many more connotations these days. It seems that it would be easy to combine the careless progress of XS Tech from Alien Encounter with this concept.
Like you say, it all could easily be interpreted as intriguing rather than frightening, and it is intriguing, but the dread is always there for me. If I had any musical capability, I'd make a dark reinterpretation of the ride's theme, Miracles from Molecules. Such an upbeat song for such an intensely existential ride.
I like how Tomorrowland is generally upbeat science fiction or adventure but the almost nihilistic tone of ATIS is a great contrast that I would like to see return.
The first time I entered the queue ( at about 6 years old), I was very scared about shrinking. Believe me, it seemed very realistic to a young kid back then.
And you're right, the heartbeat/blinking nucleus was frightening! I heard adults at the time remark about it. But man, I miss it!
I never skipped it when I went to Disneyland.
As a kid I loved this ride so much I made my parents take me on it again and again, much to their chagrin. One time we were in line and I pointed out to my dad that one of the buggies was missing in the tube showing them after they shrunk. He said that if you went on it too many times in one day, you'd keep shrinking and not come back which must be what happened there. I was good with one ride a visit then.
Now, of course, I realize that one of the little model buggies broke so was removed but also shows you how completely successful the immersion was at Disneyland to a young mind like my own. As well as how much my father loved the existential horror of which you speak.
See, *this* is the kind of attraction I miss (or would if I had ever actually been on it, but I'm one of those people who misses Body Wars. What can I say, I was a nerdy kid who wasn't so much into action films and definitely not princesses. Edutainment was my jam!)
I am beyond grateful that i grew up when i did how i did where i did, i got to experience extraterrorestrial encounter. Dude it was amazing going into it just knowing it's a new ride and that's it. Ive never heard my disney weary scifi loving dad laugh harder on any ride ever! What a great memory. Miss u dad❤
This was great. And existential horror is a really valid approach. I loved this ride and never realized it may have been the edge and darkness that appealed to me. I was not into science and especially chemistry. But as existential, my generation X from early childhood were raised to understand in no uncertain terms that the world would end from nuclear science before we were 30. Hell even 3 mile Island made science an existential threat
I rode it many times. The ride appeared at the same time that "Light Shows" were a thing. It was a very cool ride, a lot of fun, and relaxing.
I did go on this as a very young child, less than 6 years old, and I remember the eye scaring me, and I remember Star Tours when it was brand new. Many years later, but before the internet was ubiquitous, I remember having this vague unsettling recollection about this ride but not what it was called or what the theme was. I did rediscover it in my 20s and it still gives me a weird unsettling feeling now - mostly the nostalgia of this dark, scary ride that sits just on the periphery of my memory.
The introspective tone of this ride is certainly very different from the rapid-fire excitement that later Disney shrinking attractions like Body Wars or Honey I Shrunk the Audience would attempt to evoke.
Brilliant video! I've always been fascinated by this vintage attraction, but never knew the foreboding nature of the dialog. Thank you for your hard work! Can't wait for more!
A wonderful attraction! Thought provoking, creative effects, imaginative theming…everything Disney lacks today.
Thank you for this video! I was born the same year that ATIS opened, and as a child I was TERRIFIED of this ride! “Can I possibly survive!?!,” and the giant eye are both burned into my brain! Thanks again!
I am loving every minute of poring through your content. I appreciate your work and editorial commentary so much. Excellent work, please keep it coming👏🥂😺
One of my all-time favorite rides! Trust me, it was atmospheric and fun. The meager video remnants we have don't do it justice. The colors were vibrant and exciting, not the washed out, faded stuff you see now. In its heyday (1967-1975ish), it was mesmerizing. It sure terrified youngsters!
It might not be impressive to today's audience because Disneyland's once exclusive technology has been duplicated just about everywhere, and people see much more sophisticated effects routinely. But it was fun. I miss it. It never got old for me. ❤
I loved this ride during my visits as a kid in the 70s. I still remember the giant eye, and as a kid, I bought the illusion that those were really the shrunken seats we saw at the start. While I was terrified of the jumping heads in the HM attic, I have no recollection of anything remotely scary in this one.
I was always terrified riding this when I was 7 years old. I must have picked up on your horror concept then (44 years ago) because I distinctly remember my dad reassuring me that no matter what we would go back to normal size. I was terrified that if there was a power failure at the wrong time we would stay microscopic and be doomed! I was also scared of roller-coasters then too, coz even at a young age I thought about all the engineering failure modes of the tracks and wheels etc. That Paul Frees narration didn't help either. My father was careful to not break the magic for me, but in the end, realizing that it was all an illusion was what I needed to get over the dread. Goes to show what a great piece of imagineering this ride concept was, that I could totally and completely buy in to the story line.
The ride was great because it was free! When it was active, rides had tickets, A - E. A-tickets were the ordinary rides (merry-go-round, etc) and E-tickets were the most immersive (Haunted Mansion, Pirates, etc). But Innerspace had near E-ticket production values and immersion while requiring no ticket at all! It was easy to forgive its shortcomings :)
Thanks! I wouldn’t have recalled this on my own but when I saw the pictures I had immediate recognition , especially that giant eye looking at me. You’re making me think that my knee jerk horror at the thought of transforming into ant man might have been triggered by being on this ride.
Quick question! Do you know why they never made a great hall recreation for the wizarding world? I feel it’s such an iconic set piece that’s missing from the park. Going to eat there would be super magical! Like going to the beauty and the beast be our guest restaurant
Lack of space I suppose. I can't see where they would put something like it.
did anyone mention this was rebuilt in VR? on my quest 2 you can view this as some devs recreated it in its entirety in VR. very cool and completely free
How do you find it?
When I first started watching this video, it glitched and there was no sound. And for a second I was like "ahhh that's clever. Sound doesn't travel in space so theres no sound over the footage of the rides promotional material"
I went on this ride MANY times as a teenager. I thought it was terrific and scary. You are right about the existential horror aspect. On the last day of operation for this ride I rode it three times in a row before it was shut down for Star Tours.
I rode this on my first trip to Disneyland, 1971. You might note that this attraction was free when tickets were still needed for most others. I remember riding it over and over. I also saw the pre-renovation Fantasyland and the live mule train in Frontierland.
I still don't see it as existential horror, but I appreciate you covering a beloved classic ride, which I would bring back, but maybe with updated technology
What do you disagree with? Is existential horror something more specific? I couldn't really find any well defined description of the genre, but it seemed to fit, at least superficially.
ATI and THM. These were my two favorite rides as a kid (and still are);
I loved this ride as a kid. I did get a slight sense of existential horror from the narration of the ride, but mostly for me it was a fun scientific look at a snowflake. I agree it could be redone and the effects updated, but for its time those effects were very cool. That may have been looking at it through the eyes of a kid, I admit.
I rode this several times as a kid and it was one of my favorite rides. I believe that dread you're talking about is what made it fun. I remember being mesmerized by the shrinking people going through the giant microscope. As you mentioned, the old video footage isn't doing it justice. I always felt if they re-introduced this ride with updated effects it would be a great re-edition to the land. I feel Disney needs to do this more but since their current leadership insists on injecting more and more IPs, this would just turn into "Ant-man the ride".
The last (and only) time I was at Disneyland I rode on this attraction. I've got to say that 10 year old me really enjoyed it, but the best part I think was standing in line and seeing the folks get shrunk down in that tube.....hey...it looked pretty real.
Growing up my dad always called this the "Monsanto Ride." He grew up in the 60s and he remembered the ride as kind of a silly experience where teenagers would make out in the dark while on the ride.
I've never watched a POV of this defunct ride but I knew Paul Frees did the narration. I often think of him as doing funny voices for Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right and radio comedy for people like Stan Freberg. But the Haunted Mansion has always seemed like an odd exception but proof of his range as a voice actor. I love the Haunted Mansion. It's my favorite ride of all time and his voice as the Ghost Host is absolutely perfect. It comes off as a baritone version of Vincent Price.
Prior to watching this video I'd never heard his voice for Adventure through Inner Space. But WOW! That is some incredible voice work. It's full of emotion and yes: terror. What an intriguing attraction and I guess it's proof that Frees really had a knack for horror.
That's strange, I've never heard of this DefunctWORLD before! I can't seem to find them in RUclips's search results either! Fascinating!
I got to experience Alien Encounter, I super wish I could say the same with this attraction. Great video!
As a kid, this was my favorite ride in all of Disneyland! I was so mad when they closed it down and had a grudge against its replacement Captain EO, but by the time Star Tours came out I was over it.
I remember being on this ride… I couldn’t have been more than 10. I WAS scared, LOL! The giant eye really chilled me, for some reason.
Storyland Glen NH had a very similar ride when I was very little. Journey to the Moon I think. Left you with the eerie feeling you can't explain, especially as a child.
As a child I've ridden adventures every time we went. The line moved fast. The damn eyeball freaked me out. In the 70s the fear transferred to the yeti on matahorn and haunted mansion. I was a traumatized youth.
I loved this ride as a kid. It was educational and fun at the same time. I'm not sure what IP they could link to it if they ever brought it back. Honey, I shrunk the tourist?
Every time I’m on Everest and it’s the yeti part I duck because it feels so close to you and it looks so scary
I was just talking about this ride yesterday!
I vaguely recall going on this ride, and being initially frightened but then intrigued, (And, yeah, the eyeball was a horror, at the time.) This one is a ride mentioned by a many of the "They don't make 'em like this anymore" crowd; while I understand the nostalgia (dim memories are always happier memories), I have a feeling that these same persons would be less than impressed were they to travel back in time and do it again.
That having been said, with the newer technology, I am surprised that there hasn't been an attempt to revive this, either as is (since people apparently still talk about it) or as a Marvel ride, the way they tried to revive the Flying Saucers as a tire ride in CarsLand, California Adventure. It would be fascinating to see what could be done with it nowadays.
One reason Adventure Thru Inner Space was popular was that it was one of the only “free” attractions, meaning it didn’t require a ticket to ride, as it was sponsored by Monsanto. Once Disneyland went to a ticketless system in 1982, it’s days we’re numbered.
All the epcot darkrides are amazing, and I miss a couple of them in particular dearly, but this seems like something else altogether 😢 ive never been able to experience anything outside of newer florida attractions but they have always inspired a sense of wonderment, like time literally stops and you get transported somewhere else. something like this seems amazing and i can only imagine what something like this, but traveling through the human body, would be like
obligatory rip maelstrom
i think its really cool to think about it through this lens- ive never really considered the existential horror of the experience at all. it'd be interesting to see what disney would do if they ever actively tried to lean into something with existential horror
I've heard that some children on the ride were terrified because they unfortunately thought they were actually shrinking...
I'm not surprised. I think that's the fun of the illusion.
Remember when some rides weren’t based on preexisting intellectual property?
Always entertaining topics 👏🏻
This attraction freaked me out as a kid. I really did believe were were turned into tiny humans as seen through the glass in the shrinking machine. Years later, as a teen, I realized the doom buggy turned left into a tunnel and not up the shrinking machine. Phew!
One of my favorite ride concepts. Maybe it wouldn't hold up today, but some version of it would be fantastic. I found the shrink effect in the queue to be terrifying! I was sure those people would never get big again.
I just love all your videos! What was so cool about this ride is it had that really fun magical Twilight Zone feel.
I agree. I felt that the original Universe of Energy had that same tone as well.
I like the horror aspect of this ride, it also makes me laugh thinking around some of the older generations being afraid of science now 😂😂
My siblings and I really enjoyed "Adventure Thru Interspace" and we went to it every time we went to Disneyland after it was created, 'til we moved to Northern California in 1971. And yes, it was a bit creepy, with the narrator's concern and fear being well transmitted. The ride show was also creepy and surprisingly new every time we went. I think that such a ride, consisting of nothing but physical effects, would not be built today. But if it was updated, p'haps something like.a Journey to the Center of the Earth or some such, would be cool.
I'm old enough to remember this ride just a bit (and its accompanying song "Miracles from Molecules," which is Sherman Brothers camp at its very best and still a personal favorite!). I certainly never thought about it in a context of "existential horror"--though it was interesting hearing your interpretation of it in that light--but as a huge science museum buff, I really miss the time when Tomorrowland rides and exhibits built on real science and futurism. "Inner Space" and "Rocket to the Moon/Mars" were among the best examples of this. Too much of Tomorrowland now is based on licensed properties like Buzz Lightyear and Star Wars, which have nothing to do with Walt's original vision for that part of the park.
(Case in point: a few years ago I was at Disneyland and, as always, paused at the sign at the entrance to Tomorrowland bearing Walt Disney's famous quote about how Tomorrowland provides a glimpse into the future of humanity. Just after I passed that sign, a Star Wars stormtrooper with a huge blaster rifle came up to me and said, "Have no fear, citizen: the First Order is here for your protection." Hmm....)
I can't say that I'm really a fan of IP in castle style parks. I like Fantasyland but only because it was always intended to showcase Walt's films. I could really do without Star Tours, Buzz Lightyear or Laugh Floor. They don't bother me too heavily, but I would much rather see something original in their place.
Omg this ride terrified me when I was 7 years old! When we got out my dad asked me if that was me he'd heard crying in there. I lied and told him it was my little brother.
I miss this ride even though I agree that it's not worthwhile to bring back in its original form. Thank you for a fresh perspective on Adventure Thru Inner Space. Star Tours can be thought of through the same existential horror lense.
I'm not sure if I understand your angle on Star Tours.
@@PoseidonEntertainment Star Tours is in the old Adventure Thru Inner Space building and when Captain Rex goes rogue, Star Tours becomes part of the battle. At the end, Captain Rex is rebooted--which means that the next trip is Captain Rex's first trip. There was no previous trip--his memory banks have been wiped. If you don't remember it happening, did it happen to you?
What about 'The Black Hole'? Existential Horror if I ever saw it...! =)
I’ve thought extensively about Disney adding this type of ride design and smashing the Antman Franchise into it. Dipping into the nostalgia of JTIS (Journey Through Inner Space) and Quantimania being the latest Antman film released last year.
very nice, back when lot of disney was original and put more effort into their rides
The way the narrator speaks is definitely creepy enough to give you a sense of concern. What's really missing though is microbiology. You want to scare the crap out of someone? Show them that there are millions of things living everywhere, floating in the air, wading around in the water, swimming inside your own body. They should have encountered germs or viruses that see the riders as a source of nourishment and the only escape is to go deeper, but then if you do that, you risk becoming perpetually stuck within innerspace, shrinking forever to oblivion. However you do have to go back, and so you have to encounter the realm of microbiology again. You could definitely do an Innerspace today that's a bit more action packed at times to really leave an impact on the riders, and maybe show that some of these horrors are actually beneficial for you to even be alive as an assurance that it's not all bad in the microverse, it's just a different scale of everyday life.
I was thinking about that as well. It would be interesting to see how the ride would be executed today. I think that encountering a virus but blown up to the size of the vehicles might be incredibly unsettling.
You know for all the talk about this ride i dont think ive ever seen any footage, not that ive ever sought it out. Looks incredible. I dont think any of my older relatives went anywhere but WDW so their Tomorrowland omnimover was "If You Had Wings" which they always talked highly of, id bet mostly because it was FREE to ride 😂and had A/C (big deal in the 1970s). Adventure Thru Inner Space seems like a much cooler concept and wouldve definitely had me freaking out as a younger kid towards the end. Great video!
I suppose IYHW would be an interesting counter-part video eventually. I actually know almost nothing about that ride other than having seen the occasional photo.
like the dive down terror and uncomfortable rabbit hole :-) ... the eye was freaky
sometimes the first ride we'd ride in the park ( circa 1970s) ... never realized the narrator was the same voice as the haunted mansion ...
it may have seen it's time and became dated to a sense, but the concept is still fresh ... and it could have been reboot with an antman overlay (thou i believe ip will soon become stale) plus today's technology to become an E ticket attraction ...
and tomorrowland in a sense could have been shaped into a stark expo theme, a reference to an earlier image of the future but then departure to distant dimensions ...
but instead we were blessed with below_Average Campus
I would rather Avengers Campus exist than try to turn Tomorrowland into something Marvel. It looks terrible in Hong Kong and I would hate it in Disneyland.
We all know it would get an ant man re theme if it was still open today
I am 62 years old, so when I experienced this ride, I was only eight years old. We were with our parents and some cousins at the time. To an eight-year-old, being 1969, there is not an understanding of reality versus fiction. The ride was so realistic and futuristic that with my limited child brain, I took it as reality. So somehow, I was put into the ride alone! When the narrator started saying that we were losing control and I may never get back, you can imagine my horror. By the time I left the ride and found my parents, I was in tears. So, was this ride scary and horrifying? Yes, if it was in the prospective of a Child's view. Of course, the next year, I was thrilled to ride it again, with my brother along my side.
Beautiful Video! Thank You!
We need a remake of the ride "Colonoscopy Adventure Thru Uranus" will be great!
Whelp
Hey! It was the 60's! Yeah! You had a really great team of Imagineer's + the haunting voice of Paul Frees. People used their imaginations more back then. I like the idea of Cosmic having this theme instead of the current IP. It would be more TRUE to the original Epcot "spirit" You could use a little STEM in that park for the young visitors to get them interested in science. David O'Neal pointed out the appeal was sights, sounds, even darkness that played a role in the "mystery" of the attraction. That story was told in a short track space as well. But, the cars weren't moving that fast.
I saw a clip of the effect where it looks like there are little people in the glass tube and for reasons i cant explain it struck a chord of horror in me.
When I was a very young kid, perhaps 5yo in the late 70's, one of my first memories of Disneyland was riding Inner Space. It scared the crap out of me. Before we got on the ride, I saw the ride vehicles shrinking in the microscope and I thought that was real. Hey... kids are stupid. But as I grew older I really enjoyed the ride, and I was sad to see it go.
When I was young, I didn't realize there was any escape from the stretching room in the Haunted Mansion. I think the shrinking effect is brilliant in stimulating the imagination.
i loved that ride i was enraged when it was replaced with yet another roller coaster
I rode this with my dad when I was like 3yo. It scared me enough that I remember hiding my face in his jacket for half of it
The trouble with Adventure Thru Inner Space and Powers of Ten is that the contemplative pacing just doesn't fly in the modern day with the typical theme park crowd.
Great video this ride would have been truly amazing to experience. As weird as this is sounds this ride concept could be repurposed today on Avengers Campus for a Quantum Realm Ant-Man ride using a similar ride system as Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.
You're the third person to suggest that and as much as I dislike AC, at the very least another ride would do it some good.
@@PoseidonEntertainment I am no fan of Avengers Campus. That being said with Disney basically cancelling the expensive E ticket Avengers Campus Quinjet ride and allegedly replacing it with a cheaper King Thanos Multi-Verse Attraction simulator screen ride. Maybe an IP themed attraction loosely based on the Adventure Thru Inner Space ride would make better sense. The main issue I see is that Disneyland has very little room and a Quantum Realm Ant-Man ride using the Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind coaster system. Would require too much area; maybe instead they could use an updated version of the omnimover system like the original ride. Or they could use the new Simworx AGV Dark Ride system concept.
I went on this adventure as a little kid. Scared the bejeezus out of me.
Given the release of the Rocks Jungle Cruise I always thought that an Innerspace movie would be good to do
Hey I definitely got an existential horror vibe from this attraction long before ever seeing your video, so I’m glad someone else felt the same reaction as me! :-) If you’re interested, there is a VR recreation of this attraction out there floating around the Internet somewhere.
I love this sort of old attraction. Imagine designing an entertainment center for children and being like, "you know what kids love? Existential horror while you explore a snowflake on a molecular level". Absolutely wild
Quote of the month ☝
It WAS scary to enter the MAGNIFICATION at first! ❄🔬👁🗨