AvP Galaxy Visits the Disney World Alien at the Bowers Museum!

Posted by RidgeTop on December 2, 2020 (Updated: 26-Aug-2022)

Last month while visiting Southern California, I made a point to stop at the Bowers Museum situated in Anaheim. Currently running is the ‘Inside the Walt Disney Archives: 50 Years of Preserving the Magic’ exhibit, featuring artwork, costumes, props, and more from Disney’s extensive theme park and film-making history.

Thanks to the adventures of theme park tourist ‘Adam the Woo’ I was surprised to discover that one of the artifacts on display was the ‘Big Chap’ Alien from The Great Movie Ride, which operated at the Disney’s Hollywood Studios Park (formerly Disney’s MGM Studios) in the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida from 1989 to 2017.

 AvP Galaxy Visits the Disney World Alien at the Bowers Museum!

 

This was one of my first introductions to the Alien when I was quite young, and I experienced the attraction a number of times during Florida visits until my last ride in 2014.

For a bit of history: In the late 80’s and early 90’s, then Disney CEO Michael Eisner was looking to add attractions to the theme parks with more appeal to teen and adult visitors. He initially wanted a full-fledged Alien based attraction, which Disney ‘Immagineers’ pushed back on, as they did not fancy the idea of an R-rated property featured prominently in the park. Instead an original sci-fi horror attraction called ‘ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter’ was developed with contribution from George Lucas.

The ‘ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter’ was also an excellent attraction in its own right which I loved experiencing as well, and which received quite a few complaints from parents for being too scary, even though there were multiple warning signs placed in the queue. Disney retained the rights to use the Alien in their theme parks, and Eisner got his way in a sense by incorporating an Alien segment aboard the Nostromo as part of The Great Movie Ride.

Unfortunately the ‘ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter’ closed in 2003. The replacement attraction for The Great Movie Ride, ‘Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway,’ opened this year.

I was really glad I got to see this impressive Alien up close, take some pictures, and pay my respects. It was bittersweet, as I much preferred seeing it taunting me surrounded by steam blasts and siren lights aboard the Nostromo. Now that Disney fully owns the rights to Alien, who knows… maybe one day Disney will rethink its stance on R-rated properties, or at least this specific one.

Here’s a selection of photos I took of the display:

BowersAlienBowersAlien-2BowersAlien-3BowersAlien-4BowersAlien-5BowersAlien-6BowersAlien-7BowersAlien-8BowersAlien-9BowersAlien-10BowersAlien-11BowersAlien-12BowersAlien-13BowersAlien-14BowersAlien-15BowersAlien-16BowersAlien-17BowersAlien-18

I also put together a video for our YouTube Channel which you can check out below:

While this exhibit was planned to go until the end of October, the run has thankfully been extended until the end of February 2021. However, due to changing COVID-19 regulations in California, the museum is currently closed, and hopefully will be available for reservations again soon or have the exhibit’s run extended further into next year. Check out The Bowers Museum website for further info.

Post Comment

Name:

Comments: 1
  1. I wish there were more alien/Predator related exhibits around, I’m a huge Frank frazetta nerd, and I went to a frazetta exhibit in downtown Austin for South by Southwest in 2014 or 2015. it actually wasn’t super well advertised, but when I got there and paid admission, I saw that it was also an exhibit of Robert Rodriguez films, and there were a lot ofset pieces and replicas from the movie Predators, so I was blown away to be in an exhibit of two of my favorite things that weren’t really related. There was no cell phones or cameras allowed in the exhibits, although I did get a picture of the front building which had a huge illustration of the death dealer in the window, but seeing something like predator armor and busts up close in their full scale was awesome. There’s also a horror exhibit at the Texas Renaissance festival that has a small section containing the smart disc and helmet from the set of Predator 2, but I wish someone would take the time and energy to piece together another full exhibit for aliens and predators because I’m pretty sure people would definitely pay the money for it


AvPGalaxy: About | Contact | Cookie Policy | Manage Cookie Settings | Privacy Policy | Legal Info
Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube Patreon RSS Feed
Contact: General Queries | Submit News