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Stitch’s
Great Escape
As much as I hate to do it,
I’ll have to jump on the bandwagon of folks who don’t like
what Disney has done to ExtraTERRORestrial: Alien Encounter in
the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland. I loved the movie, Lilo
and Stitch. I could watch it over and over. I even
purchased a Stitch beanie dressed up like Elvis. So my dislike
for Stitch’s Great Escape can’t possibly be attributable
to any prejudice against the character.
The preshow features a
security officer,
who suffers a bit from job boredom. You see, it’s his
responsibility to dispatch various levels of extraterrestrial
criminals to prison. Unfortunately, he’s tired and fed up
with only those prisoners who do trite things, like steal
candy and refuse to bathe.
Okay, admittedly, it sounds
pretty interesting so far, right?
Well, now the alarms sound
and as recruits, the audience is herded in to the receiving
facility, where naturally Stitch is going to be transported
before he’s moved to a high-security lockdown. When he
appears in the transporter tube, even the most jaded of prison
officials are taken in by his cuteness.
Then, Stitch escapes.
The theater goes to dark,
and you experience such indignities as Stitch spitting on you,
Stitch belching hot dog chili (from a tourist’s lunch that
he stole) on you, and jumping about from head to head. Of
course, you’re restrained in your chair, so you can’t do
anything about it—though from time to time, children who are
afraid of the dark become hysterical. (Actually, the revision
of this show was made in response to the trauma many children
suffered from the old show. However, Disney must realize that
a significant percentage of children are afraid of the
dark—heck, I’m not crazy about it myself—and even
knowing a cute little monster like Stitch is terrorizing them
isn’t going to ameliorate that fear.)
Well, to make a long story
short, Stitch isn’t apprehended. Instead, he escapes to a
place known as “Flor Eee Dah” on a beautiful green and
blue planet. As the show ends, he’s playing around on the
parapets of Cinderella Castle—a subtle allusion to
Stitch’s occasional greeting on the monorail: Welcome to
Stitch Kingdom. |
