Yesterworld: The Tragic Fate of Stitch’s Great Escape - Disney’s Most Divisive Attraction

[Music] hey man hey so I've given this a lot of thought and I think your next video should be on a really classic Disney attraction like the Skyway rocket to the moon or the original version of Star Tours well actually I was thinking about covering one of my favorite attractions stitches Great Escape I loved lilo and stitch growing up and always thought that ride was a blast not to mention the history and drama surrounding that ride is fascinating I'm probably in the minority but man I've always really enjoyed that attraction and the character of stitch so I would love to explore it Quinn you can't say stitches name three times and one sentence are also are zoster world [Music] [Music] you hey that's not Simba when you think of Disney animation from the early 2000s chances are one of the first movies to come to mind is 2002 is lilo and Stitch a film that managed to connect with audiences of all ages due in part to its rather mature themes for an animated movie at the time showing a young girl affected by the death of her parents a struggling sister doing her best to meet the standards of a well-meaning social worker and of course our title character stitch aka experiment six to six a creature coming into a situation that he doesn't understand while trying to make some sense of what it means to be part of a family and for a movie primarily about an alien lilo and Stitch was Disney's most personal and human story yet the film was also a box-office success more than tripling its budget and becoming one of Disney's most merchandize Abell properties in years and with that combination in mind it seemed like only a matter of time before the franchise would make its way into the theme parks but what no one expected was for it to happen so fast in November of 2002 only a few short months following the release of the film rumors began to surface that stitch would soon be taking over the Magic Kingdom's extraterrestrial alien encounter an attraction that had proved to be a little too intense for young children and while the ride did have many hardcore fans Disney had been looking for an opportunity to replace alien encounter with something a little more family friendly and on October 10th of 2003 Disney officially announced that alien encounter would be replaced by the forthcoming stitches Great Escape and only two days later alien encounter was permanently closed reactions to the announcement were mixed to say the least as in addition to upset fans of the original alien encounter many fans of the park did not believe lilo and Stitch to be a franchise with the longevity of other Disney classics regardless Disney moved forward with the concept blocking off access to the show building while the attraction was under construction during this time Imagineers were faced with the challenge of creating an attraction under very tight development constraints Disney wanted the attraction to be up and running in less than one year and had already publicly slated stitches Great Escape to open in summer of 2004 before construction had even began not only that due to a very limited budget Imagineers were forced to repurpose as many assets from the original alien encounter as possible faced with these challenges the attraction ended up missing the summer opening date entirely and work on the attraction continued well into fall leaving park goers curious as to when they'd finally be able to experience what Imagineers have been up to for themselves ultimately on October 12th of 2004 an email was sent out to Walt Disney World pass holders inviting them to special exclusive previews of stitches Great Escape during the first week of November before the attraction would open to the public on November 16th during which Disney announced they would be hosting a very special event to celebrate the rides grand opening and while many did not know what to expect the grand opening ceremony was certainly one of Disney's most interesting creative decisions guests arriving to the Magic Kingdom on opening morning were greeted by a large inflatable stitch and as they made their way up Main Street would pass by signs warning them of a certain blue Menace that was wreaking havoc in the park they could also spot groups of law enforcement searching high and low for the little guy upon approaching the castle on opening morning guests would have a hard time not instantly noticing that something was not quite right as stitch had evidently covered the entire castle in toilet paper as well as having put his graffiti skills to good use spray-painting stitches King to the left of the castles archway the castle would only remain that way for a single day but despite its very short lifespan is something that Disney fans like to talk about almost as much as the attraction the castle was decorated for during the morning's opening ceremony Cobra bubbles making his only appearance as they walk around character to date warns the crowd that stitch is on the loose and that any sighting should be immediately reported to the United Galactic Federation after this the standard opening celebration began although park goers with a keen eye could spot stitch bouncing around from turret to turret high up on the castle before the celebration wrapped up Stitch would crash the ceremony bringing with him a massive group of Elvis impersonators before being captured by authorities and escorted off the stage although he apparently was not held for long as stitch could be spotted back on the castle at various times throughout the rest of the day in addition to giving interviews for local news in an alternate costume directly after the ceremony with the opening celebration out of the way guests were now free to make their way over to Tomorrowland and experience stitches Great Escape for the first time [Music] much better stitch is taken over so strap yourselves in for Disney's most experienced check out stitches Great Escape new at the Magic Kingdom goodness that's not yours visit upon entering the show building riders will be given a very short security briefing and forming them they were now guards for the Galactic Federation and that their job was to guard any prisoners until they had reformed after this very brief pre-show guests would move on to the next area of the ride where it quickly became very apparent just how much of alien encounter had been repurposed for stitches Great Escape the alien encounter pre-show featured one robot animatronic at a center desk with two teleportation tubes to his left and right as well as two animatronics of the character Skippy inside the teleportation tubes the stitches Great Escape pre-show also featured one robot animatronic at a center desk with two teleportation tubes to his left and right as well as two skippy animatronics inside the teleportation tubes however the pre-shows narrative was of course entirely different with the center animatronic quickly introducing himself as sergeants e-470 three bk-27 0 4 - 9 o - 100 he explains to the audience that there are two types of prisoners that we'd be dealing with on that day low threat level 1 prisoners and moderately threatening level 2 prisoners we are then introduced to the original Skippy who has been incarcerated for jaywalking poor Skippy after this an alert comes in on the screen above informing the audience that another level 1 prisoner would be teleported down although this one was coming in for a much more heinous crime [Music] this is followed up by an admittedly very cool special effect as this so called donut guy is teleported off of the TV screen and into the physical teleportation tube in front of the guests revealing himself to actually be none other than the other deformed Skippy animatronic from alien encounter although this time is covered in green jelly things then go horribly wrong as the audience is warned by gantu that the prison has an incoming level 3 prisoner who is described as being highly dangerous guests are then directed into the high-security teleportation center which was the same theater-in-the-round used in alien encounter before seating themselves as they countdown begins and being locked in place by the descending shoulder bars after this the main show began as the high-security prisoner experiment 626 was teleported in revealing to guess what was by far the most impressive part of the attraction stitches 39 inch tall animatronic was one of the most complex in the world at the time and he was accompanied by two plasma cannons that would track stitch as he moved with each cannon weighing over 1,600 pounds the story of the main show was very simple as after teleporting in stitch immediately begins spitting on the audience to confuse the plasma cannons which just like in the original film have the fatal flaw of tracking any of stitches DNA including his spit this causes the plasma cannons to fire wildly killing the power and plunging the feeder into total darkness allowing stitch to escape during this relatively brief stint in total darkness guess what here stiffs scurry around the feeder through the speakers in their headrests and feel stitch jumping on the shoulders an effect that was achieved by the seat shoulder bar shaking rapidly and would also here sit steel and eat a chili dog before letting out a large belch which would cause hidden sin spritzers to blast a very unpleasant smell into guests faces [Music] well onions stitch could also tickle the heads of guests during the darkness which was done using small air hoses the emergency power is then restored and stitch would continue to taut the cannons causing them to again fire haphazardly in every direction before they are shut down for good shortly after this stitch manages to hijack the teleportation system with his animatronic reappearing for a short time before teleporting out of the theater and being shown to land back on earth more specifically the Magic Kingdom being shown riding on the Astro orbiter this original ending had two separate variants and would show stitch on the astral orbiter during the day if you went on the attraction during daylight or show him on the same ride at night if you went during the evening the show would then come to a close and as guests made their way out of the theater would pass by various wanted posters for different aliens before exiting into either Mickey Star traders or merchants of Venus the ride did not go over very well with the vast majority of park goers with some publications going as far as to call the ride the worst attraction Disney had ever created common complaints included the obnoxious chili cheeseburger made many guests nauseous the very obvious reuse of many of the main set pieces from alien encounter these shoulder bars and seats proving to be very uncomfortable and overall just the lack of the Disney standard care not being put into the project some guests felt the plot of the ride was very weak as well and many aspects of the show just did not line up with the plot of the movie although that could of course be attributed to creative liberties taken while creating a standalone experience like stitches Great Escape overall very few people had anything positive to say about the ride when it was first released and most felt it was vastly inferior to what had preceded it the Orlando Sentinel had an absolutely brutal take on the ride saying if stitch were truly alive he would get his revenge for this he would snarl stick his tongue up his nose and then wrap his jaw firmly around Michael Eisner 's head his sad tale is a microcosm of what is going on at Disney where prices are up and creativity is down ouch these complaints were never addressed and remained a very common issue for guest relations during the ride run disney did make a few minor changes to stitches Great Escape in March of 2005 adding artificial dialogue of various gas into the periods of darkness just to help the audience better follow what was happening and changed the end of the ride entirely in this ending instead of being shown riding the Astro orbiter stitch lands on Cinderella's castle leading to a pretty interesting interaction the ride then remained unchanged for the rest of the decade and as the parks rolled into the 2010 s park goers began to wonder why stitches Great Escape remained open the attraction had been unpopular from the very beginning and as the years passed the attraction became one of the least populated in the park guests were also starting to notice that the ride was not being maintained as many of the speakers had stopped working throughout the years and by 2010 the ride had begun to break down mid-show frequently finally on October 2nd of 2016 Disney announced that stitches Great Escape would enter seasonal operation only opening during select dates during the parks busiest times the attraction remained in seasonal operation through January 6 of 2018 when without warning stitches Great Escape played what would become its final ever showing Disney officials had stated that the ride would remain on a seasonal operation scheduled throughout 2018 but in October of the very same year pictures surfaced online showing that the entire attraction including the pre-show area had been completely dismantled seemingly signalling the end of an attraction that few would miss as of 2019 stitches alien encounter character meeting inhabits the pre-show area of what was once stitches Great Escape this mean greet has been in place since 2017 when the ride was still operating on a seasonal schedule but has now outlived the main attraction what will permanently take the place of stitches Great Escape is unknown and with no official word from Disney the future of the show building remains unclear as always thank you all so much for watching and if you haven't already make sure to subscribe to the channel before you leave and we'll see you here next time on yester world you [Music]

Channel: Yesterworld Entertainment

Views: 5,372,612

Keywords: yesterworld, stitches great escape, the history of stitches great escape, disney lilo and stitch, magic kingdom stitche's great escape, disney lilo & stitch ride, magic kingdom stitch ride, alien encounter stitch ride, stitch animatronic, abandoned stitch ride, abandoned alien encounter stitch ride

Id: Q6wB6r9LBwo

Length: 13min 45sec (825 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/rivercountrybears]

This was a great video (as usual). It’s a shame the attraction didn’t reflect the things that made everyone fall in love with the movie (Lilo, Hawaii, themes like family dynamics, love, etc) Lilo and Stitch deserve some loves in the parks, as long as it’s done right and not a hasty coverup of a cult classic attraction

[u/chagomebago]

I know a ton of people really didn’t like this ride , but it was easily one of my favorites , mostly due to the fact that I loved the movie and there weren’t many other Lilo & Stitch things in the parks besides meet and greets

[u/BludgeonVIII]

Fuck the animatronic on the right side of the thumbnail looks like something out of FNAF back when it was still scary.

[u/nocleverusername190]

This ride just reminds me of when I went to WDW in '99 and kept my eyes shut (I was 9) during Alien Encounter: Extra Terrorestial.

Id give almost anything to go back and actually experience it again.

[u/[deleted]]

There should be a bot who just posts the videos.

[u/pnoeric]

Seize the future.... with XS! (Skippy forever!)

[u/PatriciaMorticia]

The eyes on the covered animatronic make Stitch look like he has huge bags under his eyes. Looks kind of off.

[u/FraternityMan]

I can fuckin smell it now hahaha it was great though!!!

[u/Skeleton_Warrior]

This probably wouldn't be such a bad attraction by itself if not for the fact it replaced the beloved Alien Encounter.