This has been a year of “never thought I’d see its,” to say the least, which culminated for me while watching the Disney parade on Christmas morning from the parks. Specifically, when I saw Portugal the Man perform “Feel it Still” in front of the life size Millennium Falcon at Galaxy’s Edge. Star Wars has always been popular, but there has always been a kind of social tension, it wasn’t something that people felt comfortable talking about in public. If you wore a Star Wars shirt to school like I used to all the time, kids would gang up on you for it with massive amounts of unjustified peer pressure. But after a long evolution, particularly with shows like Big Bang Theory making geekdom fun, and “popular” the Disney ownership of Star Wars is showing signs of mind-bending culture changes that were evident that Christmas morning. No longer were kids forced to keep their thoughts to themselves, Disney had made it so that Star Wars was just as popular if not more so in knowing which quarterbacks were coming out of the draft this year from which colleges. It was a shift in sentiment that I never thought would be possible, yet there it was. As I watched I couldn’t help but think that many of the same people who are those invisible Trump supporters loving the optimism of an optimistic tomorrow were the same people that spent thousands of dollars at Disney every year and would put on the mouse ears for a visit on Christmas morning to the parks to participate in their parade.
Thinking of that Millennium Falcon, after a recent trip to Disney World where I was able to ride that ride 8 times, and ride the new Rise of the Resistance and Flight of Passage at the new Pandora land at Animal Kingdom I have proclaimed that I thought Smuggler’s Run, which is essentially a flight simulator for the Millennium Falcon was a better ride for a number of reasons. As Rise of the Resistance has opened in December at Disney World and was a feature of the parade in promoting the ride to a hungry Christmas morning audience, a lot of people don’t know just what a miracle these rides are. Especially in regard to the Millennium Falcon’s Smuggler’s Run. I included a video on this article that goes into the details of just how impressive the engineering is on Smuggler’s Run. And even thought Rise of the Resistance has a lot more technical tricks to help make the magic happen, I think the engineering of Smuggler’s Run is so impressive that it’s in a category all by itself even if most of those miracles happen where nobody will ever see them.
Being a huge fan of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars I know a lot about the ship and how it should be laid out, so while I was riding it I was looking for flaws, which can be seen from my Instagram posts included here. As it is, the many mechanism that make the ride possible are completely hidden from even the most rigorous fan. There were little things that I could point out, such as parts of the cockpit altered to accommodate mass riders, and some of the internal pathways to the cockpit that were stretched to fit the needs of 1800 riders per hour. What is most clever is that the ride creates the illusion of walking into the Millennium Falcon’s interior and boarding the cockpit as a single experience when in reality there are seven cockpits on four giant rotary tables that are timed out to perfection for all the loading and unloading that goes on. Each ride vehicle gets its own wrap around screen and sits on a flight simulation platform that would have made NASA jealous a few decades ago. The technology and timing involved in this ride is incredible and all of it is done to ensure that the riders can not see the strings behind the scenes and can instead believe in the experience as a real one.
My perspective is coming from an older person who grew up on these movies. When I was a kid, my family couldn’t afford to get me the Kenner Millennium Falcon to play with so made my own out of a box. So, it is astonishing to me to read these modern critics of these rides and of the new Star Wars movies knowing how much better things are now than then. Having the ability to even visit a Millennium Falcon in real life let alone fly in it is bizarre and a huge step for science fiction and the art of modern storytelling. That Smuggler’s Run is a reality let alone other options like Rise of the Resistance in the same area is an astonishing achievement in any field of endeavor. But especially in storytelling where a ride goes to so much trouble to create an alternate reality in physical space is a jaw dropping enterprise. But then again, to host a concert by a pop culture group on a Christmas morning broadcast mainstream to the world is something I never would have thought would be possible. Knowing that, the prospects for other surprises in the future are very exciting.
But for my money, and well beyond sentiment, the Millennium Falcon ride Smuggler’s Run is the top ride in the world right now, and it will take years to match it by anybody. Also on Christmas Day my wife and I went to see Rise of Skywalker again and I couldn’t help but notice how full the movie theater was from very normal people wanting to see that movie after the day’s festivities had ended. The Millennium Falcon is one of the feature characters of that movie and it is fun, even though its just a machine. The well-known starship was so well featured in the film knowing that it was a kind of advertisement for the ride in Galaxy’s Edge. People watching the movie with their big drinks and overflowing popcorn could travel to Disney World and actually fly the thing—over and over again—and that is a new thing in the art of storytelling that we haven’t yet dealt with as a species, not only the ability to create a story to hold some abstract concept, but to physically participate in the intellectual inclusion of it into our collective subconscious—and with such swagger that Disney could feature it on a popular television broadcast with a modern rock group as part of the package.
I point it out because all things lead to other things and I can’t help but notice that we are expanding our intellect as human beings because of these kinds of technical innovations. The conflict that we hear about on the news is that the rigid orders of the past have not yet caught up to that notion. But the fans of the Disney experience, and through mythology like Star Wars, a new kind of vacationer is being created. Not a passive cocktail drink by the pools of some exotic destination, but the Disney participant that is looking for an above the line experience and is willing to pay a lot of money to get it. And for those people, Smuggler’s Run gives them a seamless experience of a reality that was only available to the imagination. Now it’s real, leaving it to be pondered what the next generation of entertainment will be. At this point, we can only wonder, because the evidence is quite jaw-dropping in its perspectives.
I’ve been writing these articles every day for the last ten years, except for a month of two here and there. And during that entire time, I occasionally do these Millennium Falcon articles about that fictional ship from Star Wars because simply put, I’ve been in love that that vessel most of my life. When I was little it captured my imagination in many positive ways and has been a very important part of my life. It has always represented to me what could be instead of what is, and the excitement of such an intergalactic hot rod that is like a deep space RV has always been something of a goal of mine to see as a reality. I have thought of building one myself. I have supported other people who have attempted to do so. And whenever there has been some kind of movie prop or promotional material regarding the Millennium Falcon, I would go way out of my way to see it. Recently when Disney was promoting Solo: A Star Wars Story at NKU in the Cincinnati area, I took a very rare day off work to go see it. I am not a guy who stands in lines for much of anything, but for that one I showed up many hours early just to see an exhibit in a cargo container set up in the university parking lot. So you might imagine dear reader what it was like for me to finally see the Millennium Falcon in real life at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and to actually get the opportunity to fly the thing in a simulator environment. I would call it a religious experience above seeing Moses come down off Mount Sinai to present the Ten Commandments. For me, it was bigger than that.
Over 20 years ago I was invited with a special contingent of people to attend a unique viewing of Star Wars at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. It was a museum dedication to the costumes and model props from the actual films and how the power of myth had helped shape our society. It was a big deal for me, I was there with the Joseph Campbell Foundation for which George Lucas himself was on the board of directors. I had at that point spent most of a decade reading Joseph Campbell and much of his source material from Nietzsche, to Thomas Mann, Carl Jung, James Joyce including Finnegan’s Wake which has turned out to be one of my favorite books ever, and many, many others—so this was a very scholarly group I was meeting in Washington D.C. I was able to meet Joseph Campbell’s wife Jean at this event and I had brought my wife and kids so the weekend was promising to be very intellectual and a great networking event. Publishers were there, filmmakers, producers, it was a good group.
I got to the event at the Smithsonian and we stopped at the actual model of the Millennium Falcon, the big one, from The Empire Strikes back that was over two feet long. I froze there looking at it for what turned out to be the rest of the day. Everyone else moved on, but I stayed there looking at that model close up for the first time for the rest of the day, and what turned out to be the rest of the weekend. I didn’t meet up with everyone later, but instead spent the rest of the weekend looking at the rest of the exhibit with my family and returning back to that Millennium Falcon model over and over again taking countless pictures of it from every angle in a time when you still had to develop film, before anybody had digital cameras or even a hint at an iPhone. I never forgot every little detail on that model and have been thinking about it every day since. So seeing the full sized model of the Millennium Falcon that the Imagineers had built at Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios, Florida was well beyond a mind bending experience for me. It was God himself sitting there for me to indulge in until my heart’s content. It was a massive collision of imagination and engineering wrapped up into infinite possibilities that for me were beyond exciting.
I have talked about how excited I was to be finally at Galaxy’s Edge to walk around in the world of Star Wars. Well, I do have a voluminous vocabulary, and I don’t have words for how I felt about this experience, of seeing the Millennium Falcon aaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnddddddd, being able to go inside it and fly it. It was the most exciting thing I can ever remember doing, not just in the function, but in the possibility of it in thinking that such a thing would never have been possible. If there is anything of a heaven in my life, I could put that experience on loop for all eternity and not feel like I missed any other opportunity at happiness. That experience for me was the definition of happiness and my only regret is that I can’t have that experience every day for the rest of my life,
I can only thank the Imagineers and for Disney as a company for building such a thing. I might even buy some Disney stock after this wonderful vacation experience. For all the talk about social justice from Disney ruining Star Wars, this experience went a long way for me to forgive them for their mistakes. Disney could have gone cheap on this attraction and done something on much less of a scale, like the AT AT at Star Tours which I’ve always loved, but wished had been full sized. That full-sized model of the Falcon was as detailed if not more so as the Smithsonian model I fell in love with all those years ago. It was so special to see it up close, to eat near it, to walk inside it, to be a part of it in a reality created by Disney Imagineers for the love of people like me. They didn’t have to go that far, but they did, and I feel so much better for the experience of it.
I’m a very positive person, I have lived through lots and lots of very distinct disappointments that likely would have killed most people. But I never remember going to bed at night and waking up the next day without hope in thinking that today could be the best day of my life. In a lot of ways my source of inspiration was always the Millennium Falcon, a beat up old ship that everyone thought was junk that always ended up saving the day, and by the time it has arrived to these new movies, is the last hope for everyone in surviving to a new day. That has always been my relationship to that fictional spacecraft. And to that effect, I can say that no matter how tough life has ever been, no matter how disappointing days could sometimes be, it was worth waking up each day to arrive at a point in life where seeing this full-sized Millennium Falcon was possible. To say that I am filled with exuberance is an understatement. Seeing that thing that is much more than a movie prop in symbology is one of those things that I will always say was one of the best things I’ve ever had the privilege to experience. And that in itself is saying quite a lot. It is a reminder that no matter how bad things get in life, its worth pushing through because somedays you have days like the ones I’ve just had where dreams do come true. The fight is worth it just to have such opportunities. So you should never cut yourself short and give up when things get tough, because they can always get better so long as you keep trying and working at it.
It was bitter-sweet news for me to learn that the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular show at Hollywood Studios, Florida is closing at the end of fiscal year 2014 to make way for a new Star Wars land in the popular park. While I can’t wait to take my grandkids, and children to the new Star Wars land, since in our family, those films have so much reverence—I have a long history with the Indiana Jones show that I will always cherish. I wrote about my latest visit to the park in an article complete with footage from the show. Years ago, I nearly moved my family to Florida to be a stuntman in the show which was only supposed to run for 3 – 5 years according to casting agents 20 years ago. But, the show has been so popular that it has endured all this time. On the same day as I received this news, my friends at U.S. Wings let me know that they had a new Indy jacket limited edition that they were releasing based on the original measurements from Raiders of the Lost Ark made of kangaroo hide. Kangaroo hide is a favorite of mine as many of my whips are made from the common Australian hide and is very tough stuff. The jacket will cost $849 which is well worth the price giving more meaning to fans of the popular show in Florida. Once the show closes, it will mark the end of an era with Indiana Jones that the world will never see again. If fans of the films wanted to buy a special jacket to remember this time—now would be the time to do it.
Closing the Indiana Jones show along with the American Idol exhibit will free up a lot of space in the already packed park. Star Wars is the future of Disney—so it is only fitting that they make good use of the area. As much as I love the Indiana Jones show, it is dated and can only really be enjoyed in a nostalgic way. Star Wars will fill that space far better than the same space is used now—so it’s a great decision. But for me, Indiana Jones will always have a special place that can’t be matched any other way. I am happy I was able to take my first grandson to the show at least once. Crowds for the show from now until the end of 2014 will be intense and in high demand as fans from all over the country will flock to see it one more time. For those people I suggest remembering this year with an official jacket from U.S. Wings which is the closest thing to the jacket shown in the show that anyone will ever get anywhere. Here is the press release from U.S. Wings:
Limited Edition – Back By Popular Demand! We last manufactured a kangaroo Indy-style jacket more than 10 years ago, but we’re once again offering one in this outstanding leather! We’ve chosen to offer our authentic Indy-style “Legend” Jacket (which is based on the specs of one of the original movie jackets from three decades ago) in this ultra-durable material. Besides being a rather rare and unique jacket material, Kangaroo-hide is outstanding for its practicality: it’s perhaps the most rugged leather available while still being light in weight.
Features include two front cargo pockets with original-style pocket flaps, side-entry handwarmer pockets, pleated action back for freedom of movement (with correctly-sized small side gaps), small yoke on back panel, original-length side adjustment straps with rectangular sliders, an interior pocket, satin nylon lining, brass zipper, and plain cuffs & bottom. Also features a shorter overall length and a trimmer, more tailored fit in the body & sleeves. Our Kangaroo jackets have that desirable “rugged look” right from the start, because the hides come from wild Kangaroos, not farm-raised. The hides will display naturally occurring scratches, scuffs, and other range marks which adds character to the jacket. This will be a limited production run, so get this unique jacket while you can. A U.S. Wings exclusive. Made from hides imported from Australia.
Limited production run: once these jackets are gone, they will no longer be available.
Availability: These jackets will be available late Summer 2014.
As I’ve said in previous articles I have a U.S. Wings leather jacket of a similar style and I wear it every day. They don’t just look good, but are actually functional—which is basically why Indiana Jones wears that type of clothing no matter if the time period is the 1930s, the late 1950s—or the current time. There isn’t a better style jacket for a person who conducts their life with actual adventure. I have an A-2 variation of the same jacket that U.S. Wings is offering made of Kangaroo hide and let me declare how tough and stylish it is.
Just the other day I had people from outside the country visiting and we were meeting in downtown Cincinnati for dinner. It was a hot day and I had to high tail it to the city from about 30 miles out in 20 minutes, so I was speeding down I-75 during rush hour in heavy traffic with bugs and grit from cement trucks bouncing off my U.S. Wings leather jacket. Without the jacket, the ride down a busy highway at those speeds would be nearly impossible. At times I had to use the emergency lane which was filled with gravel to avoid crashing into cars coming to sudden stops in the wall to wall procession of cars heading south. I was late to dinner and parking downtown anymore on a motorcycle is a nightmare as the parking garages no longer allow them, so I was pressed. After a series of adventures parking in a safe lot about eight blocks from Fountain Square, I climbed over walls, up ladders, across rooftops and then back through heavy traffic in a full sprint dripping with sweat dressed in a suit. Protecting the suit was my U.S. Wings jacket which was covered with bugs that I was brushing off as I approached the restaurant and directed the hostess to take me to my table where the guests were already waiting with expensive wine and appetizers. I was stylishly late, but better yet, the jacket was dressy enough to match the surroundings, but tough enough to get me there without screwing up everything that was underneath. That is the gift of a U.S. Wings jacket.
This is why the actors of the Indiana Jones show in Florida have used jackets like these A-2 types for years. Indiana Jones wore them to allow the stunt men to do all the dangerous stunts with an added layer of protection that still looks good on film. In the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular, the actors use those jackets show after show, after show giving that added protection in the hot Florida sun as the stuntmen fall from the ceiling and rappel into the stage area five times a day for twenty years. The leather jacket doesn’t just to look good; they protect the people who wear them.
So in the year that the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular is closing for those who are willing to drop a couple thousand dollars to watch the show one last time before it closes, do yourself a favor—buy the new Indy-style “Legend” Jacket from U.S. Wings at the link provided. Don’t even waste your time thinking about it—because it is a real treasure that you can give yourself. I like the jacket so much I may even buy another one. The jacket U.S. Wings is offering is thinner than the one I use everyday, and would have its uses on hot summer nights in remote locations far from home—which is of interest to me.
I’m sure Disney will do something with Indiana Jones that will appease fans—but it won’t be the same as the era that we have all just moved through. That era of live shows at Disney World and Harrison Ford films will end in 2014 and for that a treasure is deserved—and I can think of nothing better than a new U.S. Wings jacket from their “Legends” collection to hang in a closet and remind the owner of a period in their life where Indiana Jones was new, fresh—and original.
I don’t turn down media requests often, but I did the day I was visiting Hollywood Studios recently with my family. We had just parked for the day as swarms of people were migrating to the entrance when an interview request came over my cell phone. I told the producer that I was at Disney World and that I would not be giving any interviews for the entire day. Hollywood Studios for me was more than just a visit to an amusement park; it was a life centering expedition that was the climax of a vacation where I turned off everything for one week, including personal email correspondence. I had some difficult problems to work through and the best place to do it was at one of the most creative places on earth, Disney World, and more suitable to my personal tastes was Hollywood Studios. What sets Hollywood Studios apart from every other theme park in the world is that they go to the extraordinary trouble of having so many live performances as part of their attractions. Hollywood Studios has all the showmanship of a Vegas stage show, with the purity of imagination and family entertainment that is specific to Disney, and I relish those environments as a way to recharge my own creative impulses. So I spent the week leading up to our trip to Hollywood Studios reading books on the balcony of our Cape Canaveral condo, eating 24” pizzas, playing board games with family members till late in the night, playing miniature golf, visiting local tourist spots, throwing football on the beach, and preparing to see two of the greatest live stunt shows anywhere, the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, and Lights, Motors, Action, Extreme Stunt Show. My footage from these events can be seen in the video below. Media interviews were forbidden as my thoughts were pretty far down my own personal rabbit hole.
The reason for my self-imposed media exile was that I was thinking of a controversial and complicated thought that I had been wrestling with for about 6 months, and I needed to confirm my suspicions by visiting a known refuge for dreamers, and social statists alike who all desire the same thing. At Disney World no matter what the political affiliation, no mater what the personal philosophy, no matter what the demographic background, every visitor at least wishes to touch the face of greatness for just a moment, and at Disney World this experience is very expensive. But the Disney Company uses the money they make to purchase paradise from the hands of tyranny which exists just out of reach from the Disney Properties in Central Florida. I have said that my favorite place on earth is the Epcot Center located on the property, but very close to it is my love of Hollywood Studios, which holds within it the magic of imagination in the purist form that came directly from the mind of Walt Disney. Located on the Hollywood Studios property is the regional airplane that Uncle Walt used to buy up the Central Florida property in small increments to create his Magic Kingdom. If Disney had not bought up all that “worthless” property and had the vision to build all the wonderful things that are currently at the Disney World Complex, the earth would be on a march back toward the primitive tribal tendencies of mankind’s origins. It was the work of one man who made Disney World such a great place with the solitary intention of giving all human beings in the world the hopes that can only be created with thoughts produced from the mind.
A few days prior my oldest daughter flew into Orlando prompting us to pick her up at the International Airport that was built because of Disney World. The airport has a gigantic hotel in the center of it and is a marvel of efficiency. It is one of the busiest airports in the world and has direct flights to it that are only rivaled by places like Hong Kong, London or Paris. People fly to Orlando for one primary reason, and that is to attend one of the many parks that are in Central Florida—all of which exist because of Walt Disney. As we waited for my daughter to come down the terminal merge, my wife and I notice how many foreign nationals were filling the unloading area. There were clearly people from Brazil, Argentina, China, France, and Russia waiting around us as they all had matching t-shirts indicating their origins so they wouldn’t become lost from one another in a strange country. I saw some of those same t-shirts just a few days later at Hollywood Studios. They had traveled from around the world to see some aspect of Disney World. But why…………………that was the source of my quagmire? It wasn’t enough for me to rationalize that Disney World was just a neat place. There was more to it than that, and I needed the answer to complete my nagging thoughts. This is why I had to visit Hollywood Studios with my family and visit some of the attractions that are very dear to my heart. In some ways visiting Hollywood Studios was like returning home for Christmas to me. The ideals represented at that particular park are part of my very soul.
One of the things that most impresses me at Hollywood Studios is their live shows, the amount of instances where an actor/actress actually handles the attractions. This is most notable at the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular and Lights, Motors, Action, Extreme Stunt Show which to me are worth the price of admission by themselves. The Indian Jones show is housed on a huge stage that takes up nearly a sixth of the entire park grounds and holds 2000 people in the stands. It is quite a production by itself. But over at Lights, Motors, Action, that show features a grandstand that puts to shame most seating platforms at any state fair in the country, it is so massive that it rivals some football stadiums, and was built just for the stunt show which only plays three times a day. Those stands hold 5000 viewers for each show, and are truly colossal when taken into perspective. Only at Disney World could stunt shows be given these kinds of financial resources, which is why those two features are so valuable to me. I had my grandson with me and even though he was only 9 months old, the pictures of his visit will mean a great deal to him later. Plus I have a very strong belief that worldly impressions are written into the brain of children from a very young age, so it is my task to make sure he gets these experiences, even if he doesn’t consciously remember them.
Hollywood Studios because of their other theme parks is able to dedicate their attention to these live performances, which would be devastatingly cost prohibitive if attempted on their own. I did rough calculations of the amount of employees that Hollywood Studios employed on the grounds and the results are unfathomable. Hollywood Studios does not skimp. Even on their Great Movie Ride, they have theatrical performances where actors/hosts, interact with animatronics to provide a truly epic performance where they didn’t have to. The Little Mermaid stage play featured many live puppeteers where most theme parks would have relied on mechanical props that would give repeatability time and time again. Hollywood Studios is not just dedicated to memorializing the movie business, it is dedicated to the unique human touch that live performances provide and the employees bring a lot of heart and soul to each performance.
When my wife and I dined at the Sci Fi Drive In restaurant, the employees were all happy to be working, and projected a feeling of competency. The same level of attention radiated to even the gift shop attendants. While my wife and I watched our grandson as my kids rode the Tower of Terror a rainstorm erupted and we sought shelter in a gift store where a nice woman with a heavy Kenyan accent showed us to a nice spot in the store where the air conditioner was running on overdrive so we could cool down the baby and get him out of the direct rain. She didn’t have to be nice in that situation, but she was. She was happy to be working there, and it showed. This was the usual experience, not at all the exception.
But the epic performance that easily could have been shown on Broadway in New York was the Fantasmic firework show that took place in an amphitheater setting behind the Tower of Terror ride. For over a half hour Hollywood Studios put on a firework show, a light show, a stage show, and a puppet show on a lake of fire with a giant fire-breathing dragon all rolled up into one performance. They had built another 5000 seat theater similar to the one at Lights, Motors, Action and it was filled with thousands of voices cheering on Mickey Mouse as he battled the dragon from Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia. A gentle roar emerged from the crowd that was as ambitious as a crowd at a football game. As I watched it looked like at least a 100 employees where working to make the Fantasmic show work in a section of the park that was only used for one show at the end of the day. The show itself was just another example of the audacity of Walt Disney World to build huge theaters only to be used once a day. Hollywood Studios seems to almost show off their vast employment ability by providing jobs that no other place of business could afford to make available.
No government on earth at any level of endeavor could create the kind of jobs that are created at Disney World. Hollywood Studios is able to provide large quantities of jobs to creative oriented people just because they are such a large organization that is so profitable they can provide jobs that require such incredibly large overhead. And that is why so many foreign visitors packed the Orlando airport and Hollywood Studios. There is only one country in the entire world and really only one individual from that country that could even envision a place like Disney World. As I studied the vast packs of people from other countries navigating the streets of Hollywood Studios with great enthusiasm the concept hit me like a ton of bricks. The countries where these visitors came from are completely unable to produce any version of Disney World on their own. The only way they could get close to such a place was to save enough money to fly to the United States and visit the place for themselves, a world created by Walt Disney with sheer imagination.
Most people come and go from Disney World without any inkling as to what they saw or why they liked what they saw. They only know as they travel back to their hotels and rest their tired bones in beds that are not their own, leaving them in debt from a vacation that cost between $2000 to $10,000 to do correctly, that they tried really hard to get their families to Disney World for some mysterious reason that dawned on them when they arrived at the front gates in the morning. At Hollywood Studios I took a mental survey all day long counting employees, both in front and behind the scenes, and the general philosophy of the entire place and I realized that the cost of the $90 admission ticket per person was paid for with just two of the major stunt shows, Indiana Jones and Lights, Motors, Action. The rest of the park was just value added, bonuses if visitors had the courage or wherewithal to understand what they were seeing and how important it was to see. Most people who I watched leave at the end of the day saw a lot, but remembered very little except what their cameras would reveal to them later as their minds were on information overload. For most visitors they left Disney World a couple grand poorer, and wondering if it was all worth it because they saw so much that they can’t remember anything. But I don’t have that handicap, and neither does my family. I was much honored to see that my kids enjoyed most at Hollywood Studios the exhibit dedicated to Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream and the Animation Art Gallery. Those two exhibits were hidden in the back of the park and were the least visited areas by far. My kids didn’t want to leave them as we spent nearly 1/5th of the entire day in that small section of the park as the key to all of Disney World was contained within the displays.
Disney World sells hope, dreams and the power of imagination to people who are short on supply. On the other end, Disney World supplies thousands upon thousands of good jobs to people who wouldn’t otherwise have them. There is more wealth in just Orlando because of Disney World than most of the counties that visited from across the world’s oceans, and all that activity was driven by one man who simply wanted to open up the minds of all people and plant dreams upon their thoughts hoping to make their life just a little bit better. Disney World is expensive, but they more than give back the value of their efforts if visitors can maintain the ability to absorb everything.
One of my son-in-laws is from England and under the simmering nighttime lights toward the close of the day; he proclaimed how grateful he was to be able to attend a Disney World park. He stated that like the many visitors I had seen that day from countries all over the world that he feared that he might never make it to such a place in his lifetime. Now he has been to the Epcot Center and Hollywood Studios and his imagination was on overdrive. It was for people like him that Disney dreamed a dream of creating Disney World. Disney offered the experience to everyone who could come up with the price of admission, but he knew that only a handful out of thousands would walk away at the end of each day aware of what Disney World was all about. It is a credit to the company of Disney that they have not forgotten who their founder was, and fight to this very day to keep his dream alive without pretentious input on the behalf of arrogant CEOs who wish to leave behind their own mark of greatness. For Disney it was never about being great—just being good.
When I arrived back to the condo that night sitting by the raging stormy waters of the Atlantic I read the reviews to the new Disney film, the Lone Ranger and saw that like Man of Steel, critics had panned the film a dud. The modern-day progressive critics can’t stand a clean hero who saves the day with a white hat and stallion which is what the Lone Ranger represents, and they are hoping desperately that the film falls on its face as a financial loss for Disney. Those same critics chastise the Disney Company for the high cost of their theme parks and their empire-like status over so many treasured stories, like Pixar films, Marvel Comics, Star Wars and of course the great classics. They despise the Disney Company because they are a successful organization that makes good things for people. Without Disney, much of the world would not currently know anything of goodness, because it is the foundations that were set by Walt Disney which carry on to this very day that are the only hope for large portions of the world to touch ideals that are bigger than their statist lifestyles could garner for them under any other circumstances.
I treasure our visit to Hollywood Studios for deeply personal reasons. I feel calibrated in ways that are better than what I’ve felt in over a decade. I felt as at home at the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular as I do in my own living room. I feel I know every person who worked that stage, and worked as stunt people even though I have not met any of them. They knew the same as I did about Hollywood Studios, and they understood how special the place was, and is to the minds of the world. There are lessons that should be taken from Disney World that government everywhere would do well to follow. I left the park that day feeling deeply sorry for the people who had to fly 10,000 to 20,000 miles to arrive at a park I only had to travel 1000 miles to attend. I wish that they lived in a culture that could produce a comparative experience, but they don’t. Only in America can such a place exist, and only America can produce people like Walt Disney without crushing them out of relevance with statist controls over their very minds.
When I turned down the media request that morning upon arriving at Hollywood Studios, now the answer to why is known—I consider the place to be sacred–that nothing of the outside world should penetrate under any circumstances, and I held to that oath. My daughters watched me hang up the phone to the producer who had called me, and understood without any words needing to be exchanged. In our family there is nothing more sacred than the thoughts that the mind produces, and there is no place on earth more dedicated to thought and imagination than Disney World. When we visit, the rest of the world goes on hold. When I visit such places I touch the most essential parts of my character, and find thoughts that my mind has been desperately trying to push out into the light of day. And for that even though Walt Disney has long since left the earth, he has handed to me a baton of understanding that his Disney World complex was designed to invoke. I know what to do with that baton, and understand the meaning behind the meanings. What is sometimes obvious to all, are simply the contorted images of fatigue that can be seen at the gates of Disney World at the end of the day. Most people see and hear the same things, but they are unable to absorb the information and understand the value. They only sense that something important happened and they immediately begin saving their money for the next visit. But the lesson of Disney World is not that it is to remain an empire in Central Florida, but that the ideas are intended to spread to the far corners of the world to take hold and improve the lives of everyone. The lessons of Disney World are not to copy the business plan of the Disney Company, but to spread the message that underlies everything that the company represents, the telling of stories that are important to the soul of all human beings and their need of mythology to communicate their hopes and dreams to others representing their innermost values. For me it is in the stunt shows at Hollywood Studios. At many levels, I feel an affinity for the danger, the glory, and the explosive hype of the stuntmen who must bring to reality the thoughts of a writer with their finger on the pulse of mythology and the yearnings of the human race fighting against all forms of statism. At Disney World the fight is in the imagination, but in the reality outside the property borders it is quite literal, and the great quest to attend the parks every year from visitors is to escape for just a few hours that horrific realization that no place but Disney World can provide such a safe haven for those with thoughts in their minds and the courage to use them.
Another one of my most treasured books is a little thing that has old yellow worn pages and a paper back cover that has been looked through so many times that the pages are constantly trying to fall out of their binding. It’s a little book my mother gave me during an intensely hot Liberty Township summer in 1981. Our home had no air conditioning and I had to sit in front of a fan to read the flapping pages in order to stay cool enough to comprehend the text. I have read the book dozens and dozens of times since 1981 but never more than that summer and its contents have stayed with me my entire life. The book is called The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark by Derek Taylor and was written as a fly-on-the wall reporter from the set of the famous film, which George Lucas knew was going to make movie history. He knew then what millions all over world soon discover—that Raiders of the Lost Ark as a traditional throw-back to the kind of films that Hollywood used to make in the 1920s, through the 1950s was special so he allowed Derek Taylor to write a book about the making as they went along. As much as I loved the movie, which I saw 6 times in a two month period during that hot summer of 1981, I loved reading about how they made the film. And of all my reasons for loving the film, from the story, to the special effects which are still fantastic to this very day, to the acting, to the set design, to the incredibly good music, it was the stunts which most captured my imagination. More specifically, the stunt co-ordination by Glenn Randall, which had a very distinct look that all films since have been measured against. Randall was and is simply the very best in his field of occupation and his work never shined brighter than it did in Raiders where Steven Spielberg as the director and George Lucas as the executive producer knew enough about film to stay out of Glenn’s way and let him make movie magic with some of the best stunts that would ever be done on film.
This brings me to the present day where at Hollywood Studios in Florida they have a live stage show called The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular which is personally directed by Glenn Randall, and has nearly the exact same feel as the stunts from the film performed live 5 times a day every day of the week, year after year since 1989. The stage show is impressive; the stunt gags are some of the absolute best there is of its kind, and it is the closest that one can get to the magnificent stunt co-ordination of Glenn Randall anywhere. His trademark style is all over the production and the show is for me a kind of recalibration to my senses. I absolutely adore it.
The show is getting old, even though it’s still wonderful, there is talk at Hollywood Studios that Disney is going to expand the park to include more Star Wars themed attractions with a $200 million dollar Star Wars land, which will be the largest expansion in the history of the Disney parks. Even though I cannot imagine Hollywood Studios without The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular there is a danger that it might be cancelled to incorporate the new Star Wars expansion as the theater is currently right across from the Star Wars: Star Tours exhibit that is technically one of the coolest rides of its kind. The Star Wars expansion is being viewed by Disney as their version of what Universal Studios did with Harry Potter. It will be an all-encompassing experience that will be built in conjunction with the new films also produced by Disney, and will be the newest hot thing in Florida going into 2015 and 2016. So Hollywood Studios is going to be changing, which ignited in my mind a strong desire to take my family to Hollywood Studios to see The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular while it’s still there.
There is a raging debate about which movie themed park is better in Orlando, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, or Hollywood Studios, and for me, its Hollywood Studios. I can see where people, who are into the latest and greatest–the most hip, might be bored at Hollywood Studios, as that particular park focuses on the kind of Hollywood that George Lucas was trying to pay tribute to in his Raiders of the Lost Ark film. That Hollywood is the cinema experience of Walt Disney, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and screen writers like Ayn Rand as the entire park is dedicated to that era. I love the Universal Studio parks immensely, but personally, nothing touches Hollywood Studios as they have went to the extra trouble of performing massive live stage plays like The Indiana Jones StuntSpectacular and Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show while providing the feel of strolling down the city streets that built Hollywood in the first place. It is that extra touch of detail that put Hollywood Studios over the top of places like Universal which says a lot, given how much I feel for those parks.
I was not disappointed. The Indiana Jones Stunt Show was spectacular, the fight at the flying wing was there, the temple scene from the beginning of Raiders was there, and the epic fight in the streets of Cairo were done to the live perfection of a dance number. It was wonderful to share in that experience with my family before things change dramatically at Hollywood Studios forever. I’m not against the Star Wars expansion by any means. Star Wars is my very close second favorite film series ever just a hair behind Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Movie stunts often get overlooked in movies, but in Raiders, it was impossible to ignore them. Glenn Randall and his friend Terry Leonard did some of their best work on that film, which is why I still love it more than any other movie done. Of course I enjoy the work of Harrison Ford and the direction of Steven Spielberg, but for me, it has always been about the stuntmen in Hollywood that I love so much about the type of films that are celebrated at Hollywood Studios in Florida.
Watching The Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular for me is like going home to that old book my mother gave me as she wanted to encourage me to read how my favorite movie was made, hoping I would fall in love with reading. It worked as I have read thousands of books since. I have often thought of becoming a stunt man myself, including playing the character of Indiana Jones at Hollywood Studios when I almost moved there with my family in the early part of the 21st Century. I have a few friends in Hollywood who are stunt co-coordinators on current film and television projects and I have thought often of taking them up on their offer to work in pictures. I won’t name their names here as I am taboo among the entertainment labor unions for good reason – as I don’t support any collective endeavor like labor unions. To me, it is the labor unions that have put the clamps on the kind of Hollywood I love, the kind that Hollywood Studios in Florida celebrates — the kind of Hollywood that Raiders paid tribute to in 1981. But my brain power is needed elsewhere even though I love the feeling of an achy body that has bounced off the pavement a few times and leaped from high places into an airbag at the bottom. There are times when I think the best job in the world would be to live in a tent in Florida and report to work every day at Hollywood Studios to play out stunts as Indiana Jones. Watching the actor who currently plays Indiana Jones at The Stunt Spectacular may have the best job in the entire world in my opinion. I would be inclined to do such a job untill I was 60 or 70 years old and never tire of it.
But I have too many hobbies as it is, and of course my brain is involved in a complex web of activity that reaches into an all-encompassing strategy that is epic in its own modern-day scope. A lot of people count on me to do the things I do, and my adventures are over-the-top in ways that are a bit different from Indiana Jones, but perilous in less obvious ways. However, deep in my mind, I do think often of the stunt work by Glenn Randall as it was communicated to me in the great Derek Taylor book from years ago. In that way, I feel more attuned to the actors on the stage at the Indiana Jones StuntSpectacular than just about any other place I vacation anywhere in the world. There is a piece of my very soul that is on that stage and it is wonderful to visit during the scorching hot summers of Florida that remind me so vividly of reading The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark by Derek Taylor as a little boy sitting in front of a fan at a home that did not have air conditioning in the blistering August month of 1981.
It is not an accident that people of all ages from all places love Star Wars. Star Wars is about all the purest notions present in the minds of humanity.
Whenever there is a big Star Wars event, such as this latest one at Hollywood Studios fans from all over the country show up in costume to celebrate unbridled creativity and the spirit of adventure.
As for the ride itself, here is a sneak peek at the actual ride itself.
As a boy I was without question the fastest kid in my entire school. Nobody could run faster than me, in dodge ball I was always the last kid standing and I was one of the strongest. I won the pull-up contest in the winter Olympics event in the fifth grade; in fact I won the school equivalent of a gold medal. I was always really good at sports, all sports especially basketball and hockey, so of course a very pretty, very popular girl wanted to “go steady” with me, in the fifth grade. Now to the adults in my life, it looked as though I was headed in the right direction, cute girlfriend, the gym teacher was telling my parents that scholarships were in my future from any school of my choice because my physical abilities were unusually proficient, and aside from being very combative with my teachers, my future looked bright, except for that one small problem, I spent hours and hours and hours in the basement of my home playing Star Wars with my brother. My family couldn’t afford all the toys that Kenner was producing, so my brother and I built our own, all inspired from the Star Wars galaxy.
A very pretty girl who rode my bus was persistently letting me know she was interested in me. Under pressure from all the other “popular” girls that rode my school bus, and the boys that would soon become the “jocks” in later years, I told the little girl I’d go steady with her. Such a girl promised to be very adventurous. It was well-known that she would probably take off her clothes for me and let me do pretty much whatever I wanted, because she had said so to her girl friends intending me to find out. So I said yes.
At home that night I was doing the usual thing, eating my dinner as fast as possible so I could go downstairs and play Star Wars. During dinner that girl called me.
“Hello,” I said to her as my mom handed me the phone. My parents looked proudly at one another.
“Hey sweetie, what are you doing? I heard you said you’d go steady with me?” the little girl said.
I was looking at the clock. It was about 6:15 PM and I wanted to build a spaceship with some shoe boxes my mom had left in my room. I didn’t want to hang on the phone with some stupid girl. “Auh, yes.”
“So, can you get your mom to bring you over?”
“Tonight? To your house?” I said looking at my mom. I was thinking of the possibilities. This girl was one of those girls back then that had both parents with full occuapations so she was home by herself most of the time. In fact, during the summer, in her neighborhood most of the kids were home by themselves all summer because their parents were always working or too tired to pay attention to what the kids were doing.
“Yes silly, to my house. My mom is going to be gone till 9 and my dad is on a business trip. I’m here by myself and I want you to come over.”
I looked at my mom, my dad, and my brother who was ready to go downstairs and play Star Wars. “What are we going to do?”
The girl giggled on the other end of the phone. “We’ll think of something.”
I knew what that meant. This little girl had let quite a few of the boys she had “gone steady” with, see her naked, so that was what the girl had in mind. She figured that would seal the deal with me.
My life flashed before me. I realized that if I went to that girl’s house once, she’d want to do it again, and again. She’d also want to talk on the phone all the time like a lot of the girls from that time were doing. I did not want to spend my time talking to some stupid girl on the phone. I just wanted to see her naked, but not to get wrapped up in wasting my time. My heart’s desire was to go into the basement and play Star Wars.
“I don’t think I want to go out with you,” I said to the girl.
“What?”
“It’s a school night, and I’m busy.”
The girl started crying. My dad’s face dropped and my brother went downstairs knowing I was going to be off the phone soon. He was younger than me, in kindergarten at the time, so wanting to see a girl naked wasn’t even a relevant thought.
“Nobody has ever broke-up with me before. We’ve only been going out for a couple of hours. Is it because I’m ugly? I’ll do anything you want.”
“It’s not because you’re ugly. It’s just that I……..I’m busy.”
The girl hung up, I went downstairs and played Star Wars. The next day at school, all the girls’ friends were angry at me for breaking up with their friend. One girl who knew me very well because her brother played with my brother and I said, “You broke up with her so you could play that stupid, gay, little Star Wars thing you guys do. Isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said honestly.
“I thought so. Well, I’m going to tell her why.”
She did, and from that day on, that girl and all her popular friends shut the door to me out of that rejection. She never really got over it, until we were seniors in high school and my friend and I had a ghastly reputation for excessive speeding, violent fights and other aggressive behavior, and were getting ready to leave school for the day when she came running across the parking lot to stop me. She asked me for a ride home from school.
I looked at the girl; she looked old at only 17. She had been having sex for many years, and virtually every popular boy in school had either seen her naked, or had sex with her in some form or another. She figured because of my reputation I’d want to spend time with her. I think she really needed a ride home, but she was looking for a chance I think. I instantly felt bad for her. She had been very attractive just a couple of years before, but now her skin was blotchy from where she went to the tanning bed too much. She actually had wrinkles around her eyes. Looking at her I couldn’t help but think she reminded me of a sperm suppository that had semen oozing out of the pores of her body.
“No, I can’t.”
I was surprised that her eyes actually welled up with tears. “Why, are you going to go and play Star Wars again?”
I looked at her to assess her pain. It was obvious she was trying to go back in time to fix something in her life, and I felt compelled to help her. But not compelled to stop doing what my friend and I were about to do.
“Sorry, but we’re getting ready to catch Rambo II. The movie starts in 45 minutes.”
I started up my car and skidded out of the school parking lot as was usual. That was the last time I ever saw or spoke to that girl.
The people who grew up successful and happy had little things like Star Wars in their life to help them through tough times. People like that girl, that filled the empty moments in her life with the penis of a young boy, in an attempt to steer that boy where she wanted ended up sick, diseased and terribly broken before they even hit 20 years old.
It is the child in all of us that must be kept alive, and not destroyed in some mindless pursuit of some perceived economic, or social value. The truth of mankind can be found in events like Star Tours.
Because there are many, many more discoveries that must be made for the human race to advance forward, we are a long way from completing the human adventure. So complacency of thought in the mundane realm of food and sex is not enough. When the entire world has the tools of academia at their disposal, it still takes the wondering adventurer, the outcast, the geek, to see what was always there.
What is sometimes obvious to all, are simply the contorted images of fatigue that can be seen at the gates of Disney World at the end of the day. Most people see and hear the same things, but they are unable to absorb the information and understand the value. They only sense that something important happened and they immediately begin saving their money for the next visit. But the lesson of Disney World is not that it is to remain an empire in Central Florida, but that the ideas are intended to spread to the far corners of the world to take hold and improve the lives of everyone. The lessons of Disney World are not to copy the business plan of the Disney Company, but to spread the message that underlies everything that the company represents, the telling of stories that are important to the soul of all human beings and their need of mythology to communicate their hopes and dreams to others representing their innermost values. For me it is in the stunt shows at Hollywood Studios. At many levels, I feel an affinity for the danger, the glory, and the explosive hype of the stuntmen who must bring to reality the thoughts of a writer with their finger on the pulse of mythology and the yearnings of the human race fighting against all forms of statism. At Disney World the fight is in the imagination, but in the reality outside the property borders it is quite literal, and the great quest to attend the parks every year from visitors is to escape for just a few hours that horrific realization that no place but Disney World can provide such a safe haven for those with thoughts in their minds and the courage to use them.
The Overmanwarrior 