Better On A Boat

Here's an essay I wrote because I couldn't easily answer a friend's question during conversation this week. It doesn't really fit even the very-loose strictures of this blog, but I need to post it somewhere. So if you want to read 1200 words about theme park theory, or click each link and watch hours of ridethroughs, I hope you enjoy getting into the weeds with me. (Thanks to the brothers of Wedway Radio for the title.)

Storytelling amusement rides (as opposed to the pure thrills of an unthemed coaster, Tilt-A-Whirl, or drop tower) can have varied aims: to set a mood; to explore a location; to capture vignettes of character, place, and time; and sometimes to tell an actual story. For the purposes of this discussion, I'm going to talk about these experiences as works of Capital-A Art. (I understand some people need more explanation and context for that, but that's better-argued other places by other people. I'm interested in techniques here.) I'm also going to speak in absolute terms here, even though many effects are more incremental, and work only in tandem with other elements.

At their heart, these rides, like poetry or songs or film, try to bypass our rational conscious brain. Using sound, light, the architecture (façade is a French word, meaning "false front") and surrounding areas of a park, and even smells, this artform attempts to convince us to suspend our disbelief. Our conveyance certainly plays a big part in this process. (Rides have two basic types of conveyance: the visible and the invisible. Visible conveyance, here, means you're supposed to notice the vehicle: Peter Pan's pirate ship exists in the reality of the ride, like our hangglider in Soarin' or Spiderman's SCOOP. The invisible conveyance is supposed to be ignored once we're in, like the cars in the Fantasyland Snow White/Alice rides, the Doom Buggies in The Haunted Mansion, or classic old-school haunted houses. Both types, whether we're supposed to ignore them or not, still affect our experience.) 

Different forms of transport feel different, ever since cars and electrical power became common experiences around the same time (relative to human history). I'm going to talk too much about the history of transportation here, in a rough order of development, but it's probably necessary to belabor my point. 

When we walk, we control (as much as possible): speed, direction, our orientation relative to motion, even our eyeline height. When we walk, we are in control and our conscious mind feels that. We have agency.

An animal or boat can be steered to a point, but they both seem to have a mind of their own. A horse won't jump something too high, and without a powerful motor a boat is prey to the whims of many currents. And they're both dependent on navigable pathways. Chance takes a role, and human agency isn't complete.

A hot air balloon can be made to go up or down, and some rudders might help steer. Airships steer better, and actual planes can be steered really well. The winds and air currents can still affect us, but a human has a large measure of control, even if it's not us personally. We subconsciously feel the intent, and in art that feels like creative structure. (Soarin' Over California worked so well because it felt unstructured -- we suspend our disbelief, and fly on the air currents. Each discovery feels organic, and we just ignore the trappings of art, the cuts and score. Soarin' Around the World is too big a topic, and each scene is visibly working hard to be perfect, with no "mistakes" like the skiier falling to rebuild the illusion. SATW is too precious -- we happen to be there just when the whale splashes, so it feels like fake magic instead of a lucky accident.)

A railroad is structure incarnate: very limited pathways, decided years in advance, no diversions allowed. A human chose the available paths, and every second someone has picked which path, and the speed we move. An electrical bus-bar ride (like the old-school haunted houses or the Fantasyland dark rides) is like a train. You can choose which direction to look, but your path and speed are deliberately chosen. Our subconscious knows that, even as we consciously ignore that for the pleasure of art. 

A boat ride still feels more organic to us. There's rarely a pilot: we're floating on a river, we feel, and whatever's around that next bend just happens to be there -- a person couldn't have built this clearly ten-thousand year-old river just to trick and delight us. Our speed and direction are just as controlled as they would be on a bus-bar, but our ancestral relationship to waterways helps us forget that.

Obviously, some themes are better attuned to boating: Pirates of the Caribbean, log flumes, The Jungle Cruise. But storytelling rides can sometimes fool us better, hide the structure, and increase our enjoyment of pretending to believe, in a boat. Some nonboat rides are better themed to boats, but it's much cheaper to build a bus-bar. 

So why is it's a small world in a boat? It's not obvious thematically. The promotional materials made hay of "traveling the seven seas", even if we see The Eiffel Tower, The Taj Mahal, etc, which aren't exactly accessible by steamship. I think that one works better because it's so cartoony -- everything is deliberately fantastic, so perfect. The OG version from the 1964 New York World's Fair and Disneyland's transferred version funnel the boats through deliberately, obviously constructed blue concrete troughs. We're on water, and the floating feel constantly bounces us a little, just enough to nudge our subconscious into a more authentic mood. 

The IASW rebuild at Walt Disney World changed very little. The important change is from blue troughs to a flooded reality. We're still on a predetermined track, but each room has water up to the edge of the show scenes, and that fools us even more. We feel like we're randomly floating, which makes the exact same scenes more surprising in their details. Isn't it amazing, we feel, that we happened upon this? (This essay was inspired by the Alton Towers IASW-alike ride from 1981, Around The World in 80 Days. That ride is on a boat, presumably only because Small World is on a boat. It doesn't particularly need to be a boat ride -- anything even remotely resembling ...80 Days makes more sense to me as a hot-air balloon ride.) 

There are certainly pirate-themed rides, and Small-World knockoffs, that run electric cars through the scenes, but they don't feel the same. The jerky car movement makes it more difficult for us to deny the agency of the creators' decisions, so it doesn't seem like anything just *happens*. (At the risk of going too far afield in this discussion, I've also ridden a few hybrid types. During the rain scene in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, our hunnypot starts rocking, as if the room is flooded, which is a fun cartoony effect after we've bounced with Tigger earlier. Pigeon Forge boasts The Jurassic Jungle Boat Ride, which uses a boat on a mechanical track. The speed is always controlled by the (loud) mechanisms, not water flow. We're always aware that the boat isn't floating free, though the ride has different, and frankly bigger, problems being convincing. I haven't yet been to Singapore, to ride the other notable hybrid form of fully-controlled boat.) 

Using a boat doesn't necessarily improve a ride, if the ride has other problems. But, if it can be fit into the theme, adding real water to the ride gives it a more natural tone, makes it more organic. Humans like to play, and we like to believe. Riding on water, instead of sparking metal, somehow makes that easier.

The Queen's Corgi (2019)

A quick introduction to this review. I wanted to raise some money for all the worthy causes out there, and a month ago I found a terrible movie. So I gave a small group of friends this challenge: if at least three of them donated $81.00 (a dollar, per person, per minute of film) to a bail fund or similar organization in support of BIPOC, I would watch the terrible movie and give them a detailed report. This is my preliminary report.

What do you need to know about this film? Well, first off, it's written by the writers of Gnomeo and Juliet (but not Sherlock Gnomes). It was produced in Belgium. It has a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes. And, disappointingly for me, they redubbed it for American release. I like Jack Whitehall, who originally played Rex. I even really like Jon Culshaw's impression of Trump, which I hear 20ish times a year on Radio Four's Dead Ringers.


But the American cast is ... less impressive. Trump's voice actor did it under a pseudonym. And the top-billed actor is also clearly a pseudonym (cartoon fans will recognize the joke). Almost like they were ashamed of this.

Too bad Joey Camen didn't use a pseudonym -- he plays the only human character of color in the film. The UK cast avoided voiceover brownface by casting an actual person of Asian descent, but this film couldn't be bothered. (I can't find any decent biographical info on Camen -- please tell me if I'm offbase here.)

I assume the redubbing was done to accomodate script changes, presumably to Americanize the script -- I remember a few things that probably weren't in the original, like using "pee" instead of "widdle" or something. Also, for some reason, the swans in St. James' Park were called "evil geese." I mean, do they assume kids in America haven't heard of swans?

But then, the whole thing is divorced from anything real anyway. Prince Phillip is ugly, but he's also a total dick the whole time. I feel like he was probably the original antagonist in the first draft of the script, but that got rewritten to avoid controversy.

Which, I mean, how do you avoid controversy when Donald Trump's visit is an inciting incident in your film? This movie does it by writing him as a goofy child, which would be fun if it were Gerald Ford or Reagan. But real-life Donald Trump owns no dog. He would never pet a dog, or be nice to a dog, or (as portrayed in this film), push a dog around in a plush carriage and speak to it in babytalk. (If that sounds like fun to watch, let me remind you: ZERO PERCENT.)


Just one more small roundup of Trumpy things about this film, and then I'll move on, I promise. Melania (who, in the American version, has a wery-wery veird accent) mentions how big the President's hands are. He's gracious when he has to eat English food, which is the biggest lie in this entire film. This movie wants to make a few broad jokes about the man and move on, as if the entire world population isn't excruciatingly familiar with his monstrous effect on literally all our lives.

But then this movie doesn't expect us to be familiar with anything, not even other movies. It rips off Puss In Boots' big-eyes trick. It rips off the traffic cone road crossing from Toy Story 2. It somehow thinks a training montage, a la Rocky, is fresh and intriguing grounds for comedy. It thinks we've never heard a single riff on the rules of Fight Club.

There are a few jokes that I almost liked -- the film is set at Christmas, so out-of-nowhere, a group of dogs sing "Jingle Bells," a nod to the novelty record which might well be funny in a better movie. Similarly, a bigger role for the swans would probably work as comedy. I also like how kindly Elizabeth is portrayed here; all real-life personality aside, it's sweet to see her enjoy the dogs so much.

To sum up, this is absolutely the worst film I've seen in 2020, but it was for a good cause. If you have a few extra dollars, might I recommend you send them to the Equal Justice Initiative? Or a local bail fund for protestors, many of whom are still locked up in our COVID-hotspots? Or the Navajo Nation COVID fund?

If you donate, and send me a picture of your receipt, I will gladly answer any questions you have about this movie. Thanks for your time. Don't watch the film.