Moteurs... Action! Stunt Show Spectacular

Moteurs... Action! Stunt Show Spectacular

Logo (above) and finale scene (bottom)
Disney's Hollywood Studios
Area Streets of America[1]
Coordinates 28°21′14″N 81°33′41″W / 28.3538°N 81.5615°W / 28.3538; -81.5615
Status Closed
Soft opening date March 14, 2005
Opening date May 5, 2005
Closing date April 2, 2016[2]
Replaced Studio Backlot Tour - Residential Street
Replaced by Star Wars Land
Toy Story Land
Walt Disney Studios Park
Name Moteurs... Action! Stunt Show Spectacular
Area Backlot[3]
Coordinates 48°51′54″N 2°46′41″E / 48.865°N 2.778°E / 48.865; 2.778
Status Operating
Opening date March 16, 2002
General statistics
Attraction type Stunt show
Designer Walt Disney Imagineering
Walt Disney Creative Entertainment
Site area 53,949 m2 (580,700 sq ft)
Audience capacity 5000 per show
Duration 38 minutes[1]
Wheelchair accessible
Assistive listening available

The Moteurs... Action! Stunt Show Spectacular or Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show is a stunt show performed at Walt Disney Studios Park in Disneyland Paris and formerly performed at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The Moteurs... Action! show originally premiered with the Walt Disney Studios Park when it opened in March 2002. The Lights, Motors, Action! version of the show debuted three years later at Disney's Hollywood Studios as part of the Happiest Celebration on Earth festival, in which each of the four Walt Disney World theme parks opened a new attraction that been copied from another Disney resort.

Revolving around a series of energetic stunts featuring automobiles, the show runs for just under 40 minutes, and includes of car-based action, pyrotechnics, jet ski chases, and physical stuntwork. The cars are followed by cameras, and film, both shot during the show and pre-recorded, is shown to the audience on a billboard television screen. Herbie, the Volkswagen from The Love Bug, previously made an appearance in an intermission in the middle of the show, but was later replaced by Lightning McQueen from Cars. The show arena has scenery inspired by Villefranche-sur-Mer; a Mediterranean village in the south of France. The arena's construction at Disney's Hollywood Studios forced the Studio Backlot Tour at the theme park to be almost halved in length, as the arena was built inside locations used by the backlot tour.

The show was previously sponsored at Walt Disney Studios Park by General Motors through its Opel division and at Disney's Hollywood Studios by Koch Industries through its Brawny division.[4][5] The show closed at Disney's Hollywood Studios on April 2, 2016 for the construction of Star Wars Land and Toy Story Land.[2]

Vehicles

A motorcycle performing a jump.
Stunt man falling.

The show has more than 40 vehicles in the show and backstage in the maintenance garage. The primary "hero" car, which the action revolves around, is a custom-built design for the show, while the pursuit cars are Opel Corsas. The hero cars are all painted red while the pursuit cars are painted black, to easily allow guests to tell the difference between them.

The show also includes specially-designed cars that look identical to the others used in the show, two of which are red "hero" cars. One substitute hero car has the bodyshell oriented backwards, to allow the driver to appear to be driving in reverse; the other has a seat and steering wheel bolted onto the side of the car away from the audience, so that the car appears to be driving without anyone inside the vehicle. One of the substitute black "pursuit" cars is cut in half behind the front doors, so that it can appear to explode during a scene in the show.

All the cars, while they appear simple, are reinforced with rally car roll cages for driver safety and powered by 1400 cc 150 horsepower (110 kW) motorcycle engines mounted directly behind the driver's seat. The cars have four forward and four reverse gears, allowing them to be driven backwards at high speed.

The cars have a bump shift for easier gear shifting: the driver bumps the shifter forward to go up a gear, and back to go back a gear. In order to reverse, the driver twists the top of the shifter and bumps it forwards or backwards. The emergency brake automatically releases when the driver lets go. The show cars are lightweight, at 1,322 pounds (600 kg), and are rear-wheel drive to allow the cars to drift. The drivers wear heavy protective suits; to keep the drivers cool, a cooling system in the rear of the car pumps water through the suits. The show also features jet skis on the small canal at the front of the theater, and motorcycles which maneuver around the cars.

The show

The show's finale

The show starts off with the "Ballet Chase," featuring a red "hero car" being chased by four black "pursuit cars." This scene ends with the hero car jumping backwards off of a ramp, and a specially designed pursuit car being blown in half.

While the next scene is being set up, they introduce the hero car driver explain how a second hero car, designed so that the driver faces out the back, was used for the backwards jump.

The next scene, the "Blockade," is set in a marketplace, with the car chase taking place around obstacles such as trucks and farm stands. The scene ends with the hero car driving up the back of a truck bed, over a second truck, and landing on an airbag.

As the third scene is being set up, a driverless hero car is shown, and an audience volunteer is brought down to drive it via "remote control." After the volunteer appears to lose control of the vehicle, it is revealed that the car actually does have a driver, who is hidden on the far side of the vehicle out of sight of the audience.

The fourth sequence, the "Motorcycle Chase," begins with the "hero" on a motorcycle, being chased by motorcycles and in cars. The "hero" later switches to a jet ski, and eventually faces his pursuers on foot. This scene features a stuntman falling thirty feet from a building into an airbag, as well as the rider of one of the pursuit motorcycles catching on fire.

As the final scene is set up, they explain the specially treated clothing that allowed the final rider to be safely set on fire.

The final scene begins with footage being shown on the large video screen of the previous stunt sequences edited into a finished film. As the film on the screen reaches its climax, fire erupts in the canal area at the front of the stage. The hero car appears on stage, being chased by a black pursuit car, and heads behind one of the buildings. A few seconds later, the hero car reenters from the second story of the building, down the bed of a truck parked in front of the building, and jumps a ramp across the canal directly towards the audience. Fireworks and explosions are set off as the car exits through a tunnel under the grandstands.

References

  1. 1 2 "Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show". Walt Disney World. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 Smith, Thomas. "Experience Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show One More Time at Disney's Hollywood Studios". Disney Parks Blog. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  3. ↑ "Moteurs… Action! Stunt Show Spectacular". Disneyland Paris. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
  4. ↑ Francois Piette (16 November 2013). "Actu - Opel sponsor principal du nouveau parc à thème de Disneyland Paris". Vroom.be. Retrieved 3 February 2016.
  5. ↑ Georgia-Pacific Corp. (14 January 2005). "Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and Georgia-Pacific Form 10-Year Strategic Alliance". prnewswire.com (Press release). Retrieved 3 February 2016.
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