It’s not a movie set, but visitors to Disney World’s new Pandora-World of Avatar land are in for a cinematic experience. The 12-acre land, inspired by the Avatar movie, opens in Florida in late May at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. It cost a half-billion dollars to build.
The marquee attraction is Flight of Passage, where a 3-D simulator plunges riders into a cinematic world. You feel like you’re riding on the back of a banshee, a bluish, gigantic, winged predator like something out of the Jurassic era. Wearing 3-D glasses and straddling what resembles a stationary motorcycle, you’re strapped in, then the lights go out, a screen in front lights up and you’re swooped into a world of blue, gigantic aliens called Na’vi, with moon-filled skies, plunging waterfalls, jumping marine animals and towering ocean waves.
Much of Pandora is hard to distinguish from the rest of Animal Kingdom, Disney’s almost 20-year-old zoological-themed park with lush landscaping, an emphasis on conservation and a Noah’s ark range of animals.
At night, though, Pandora transforms into a sea of color with glowing lights on artificial plants and even in the pavement. It’s difficult to distinguish what is real.
“We were trying to get as close as possible to fool the eye,” Disney creative executive Zsolt Hormay said.
The enormous blue Na’vi aliens from the Avatar movie appear sparingly, really just on Flight of Passage and a second attraction called Na’vi River Journey. Before going on Flight of Passage, visitors walk through a mountain tunnel until they stumble upon a laboratory that includes a Na’vi floating in a tank.
“It’s not as simple as a guy in a costume painted blue walking around out here,” Pandora-World of Avatar design and production leader Joe Rohde said.
Na’vi River Journey is an indoor river ride in the dark, lit up by glowing creatures and plants. The ride culminates with a Na’vi woman beating drums as the voices reache a crescendo.
Jon Landau, executive producer of the original movie, said he hopes Pandora does for visitors what the film did for movie-goers.
“I hope when people come to Pandora and their eyes will be open and they will look at the world a little differently when they go back across the bridge,” Landau said.