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I've got a question for all you Walt Disney World experts here?

According to IMDB trivia section on "Tower of Terror"(you know that lame t.v. movie with Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst) it says: "Disney used this TV movie to test the waters of turning Disney Theme Park attractions into movies. What followed was Mission to Mars (2000), The Country Bears (2002), _Pirates of the Carribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)_ , The Haunted Mansion (2003) and others".

What theme park ride was Mission to Mars based on? The only one I can think of is "Mission Space" but that ride opened 4 years after the movie was released. Usually I know almost everything when it comes to Walt Disney World trivia, but this has me a bit stumped. Do any of you know? Thanks.

T/P fan

There was a ride [I think] called Mission to Mars at Disney World. It opened with the original opening of the park, but later got replaced by several attractions and now [I believe] is Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin.

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"See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve." - The Joker

-http://www.solarius.com/dvp/wdw/mars-mission.htm

-Aaron

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• Author of Hocus Pocus in Focus: The Thinking Fan's Guide to Disney's Halloween Classic
and The Thinking Fan's Guide to Walt Disney World: Magic Kingdom (Epcot coming soon)
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• Twitter - @aaronspod

..But everything's better with Guttenberg!

*tlm

Didn't check Aaron's link yet, but from what I remember reading in several books, Mission to Mars opened in DLR as a replacement for Flight to the Moon (which got outdated after 1969). It was replaced at DLR by...something else, I don't remember. In WDW-MK I think it was one of the premiere attractions, and was replaced by Alien Encounter (which in turn was replaced by Stitch's Lousy- I mean Great - Escape). I remember loving Mission to Mars as a kid, the only time I remember riding it was in 1993 and 1995.

Haven't seen the Mission to Mars movie, so I can't comment, but I wonder why Disney decided to make a movie based on an extinct attraction. Oh well, maybe that means we'll one day see a movie based on Alien Encounter.

Escapay

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Well, welcome to the theme park board, Sotiris! Come on in, the water’s fine! Just don’t drink it- that weird smell is bromine.

I’ve never seen it, but I didn’t know Mission to Mars was connected to two Disney attractions. I knew it was related to Mission: Space but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of the older attraction. I don’t like Mission: Space much, I only rode the “orange” version once and it hurt my chest afterwards. It’s a cool idea but that scared me away from doing the ride again and I never took my family on it because I thought it would make them sick. The space flight simulator at the Kennedy Space Center is much wimpier but it’s funny because that one has a pre-show with actual astronauts saying it’s the most realistic simulator they’ve ever tried haha.

I'm really not into the theme parks, so I'm afraid my stay here will be short.

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Mission: Space isn't a favorite attraction of mine but I do like it well enough. I'm not familiar with the Mission to Mars movie; I need to get to work but I'm guessing it was Miramax or Hollywood or Touchstone...

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