I Am More Excited Disney Is Fixing Buzz Lightyear Ride After Riding Next-Gen Version

The Disney Parks team is always working to improve their attractions with changes to existing rides and even entirely new versions of attractions introduced to different Disney theme parks around the world.

One of these rides that has seen many iterations over the years is the classic Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin attraction. There is a version of this ride at every Disney resort around the world. I just rode the newest version of this ride, and it made me very excited for Disney's announcement about changes to our Buzz Lightyear ride coming soon.

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Disney's Improved Buzz Lightyear Ride System

Versions of the Buzz Lightyear attraction have opened over the span of 20 years, from its 1998 debut in Magic Kingdom in Florida to the most recent pure Buzz ride opening in Shanghai Disneyland in 2016. The technology available to deliver a good ride experience on these attractions has come a long way since it was first introduced. You can even see a big improvement from the Magic Kingdom version of the ride that opened in 1998 to the Disneyland Park version of the ride that opened in 2005.

There is a version of this shooting attraction in every single Disney theme park around the world. In all of the Disney Parks except for one (soon to be two), the ride system is used for a Buzz Lightyear-themed attraction. At Hong Kong Disneyland, they changed their version of the Buzz Lightyear ride into the Marvel Ant-Man ride in 2019. The ride still follows the same path as the previous version, which originally opened at Hong Kong Disneyland in 2005, the same year that the attraction opened at Disneyland in California.

The key change, as Disney has opened new versions of the attraction, has been in the gun system and the ease with which guests can use the gun. The ride is a slow-moving omnimover that moves through different show scenes with targets. The ride car has two seats and two guns. Some versions of the ride also have a joystick to control the rotation of the car towards targets.

The gun system varies dramatically with the different versions of the ride. In the current Walt Disney World version, the guns are fixed in place, and there is almost no clear indication of where they are aiming. Compare that to the new Hong Kong Disneyland version of the attraction, and it is a night-and-day difference.

During a recent visit to Hong Kong Disneyland, where I was covering the 20th anniversary celebration of the park for Mickey Visit, I had a chance to experience a number of the different attractions at the theme park. One of those rides was Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle!, which has gotten me very excited about the improvements coming to the Buzz Lightyear attraction in the United States.

Seeing the Hong Kong Disneyland version of this attraction gives me a whole new understanding of what the changes to the Buzz Lightyear attraction might look like.

Disney's Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle!

Let's take a closer look at the version of the attraction in Hong Kong Disneyland.

Guests enter the S.H.I.E.L.D. Science and Technology Pavilion at Hong Kong Disneyland, where they witness a surprise attack by Arnim Zola and his Swarmbots as they try to steal a valuable data core. Guests team up with Ant-Man and the Wasp to defeat the Swarmbots by shooting them from their vehicles. The ride vehicles wind through different show scenes, including one where guests are shrunk down to be ant-sized, before a final battle against the digital version of Zola seen in the Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie. The finale room also features video footage of other Marvel characters thanking riders.

Similar to the version of the attraction in California, the guns onboard the Hong Kong Disneyland version of the attraction can be picked up and maneuvered. In all other ways, they go beyond that version of the ride. These guns have a clear indicator laser to show where you are aiming. The guns also light up and have a haptic, buzzing feedback on the gun when you hit a target. The entire thing makes the game so much more dramatic and engaging. The ride scoring system has also been updated with a clearer display of your current score.

The rest of the Ant-Man ride is actually not as good as the classic versions of the Buzz Lightyear attraction. Rather than creating new Audio-Animatronics figures or physical sets, the Ant-Man ride relies a lot on darkness and screens to get the story points across. I understand why they did this there. You can't pull off the same flat sets and simple Audio-Animatronics with the grittier Marvel story that you can with the Toy Story characters. That said, I felt that the finale moment was lacking a little bit, as it was just a wall of big screens, whereas in the Buzz Lightyear version, it would have been Buzz Lightyear and Zurg battling. The screens do add energy and depth to the ride. A combination of the screens and physical sets would make a perfect version of this ride.

The other downside of the Hong Kong ride changes is that the vehicle can no longer be controlled by a joystick. The ride is now on a directed path.

Despite the lacking nature of some of the changes, the ride illustrates what the new technology can bring to the ride experience.

Will Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin Deliver?

Disney has the opportunity to deliver that perfect version of the attraction with these new changes to Buzz Lightyear at Magic Kingdom. The Disney Imagineers are applying all that they've learned from the different versions of this attraction around the world to this major overhaul.

Now, the Magic Kingdom Buzz Lightyear ride should be the best version of this attraction around the world, as it combines the new technology with the original, whimsical Buzz Lightyear sets and storyline. The new version of the attraction at Magic Kingdom will bring in a lot of the things that I loved about the Hong Kong version of the ride. Here's what we learned about the new attraction when the changes were announced.

New blasters will be included on the Star Cruisers to allow for better aim! This will also fix a problem we've long complained about—currently, you have no idea where you are aiming. The new blasters will include an “always-on” laser with two different colors per ride vehicle. The blaster features will include new lighting, sound, and vibration effects.

The ride vehicles will be equipped with new video monitors that provide real-time scoring updates and other features. The ride vehicles will also be updated with a new design inspired by the colors of Buzz Lightyear and Star Command.

In addition to these changes, they are also enhancing the ride with a new Audio-Animatronics figure and generally updating the attraction.

All of these new changes have me very excited to experience the new attraction. The Hong Kong Disneyland version of the ride has only increased my anticipation for the Buzz Lightyear overhaul. It will be a fantastic addition to Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom. You can see all the details on the closure of Buzz Lightyear and what we know about the opening of the new ride. The Walt Disney Imagineers are moving quickly with this project.

Currently, this attraction is one of the easiest Walt Disney World Lightning Lane Multi Passes to get. I wonder if this improved tech and overall experience will put the attraction on the level of Toy Story Mania, the other Toy Story-themed point scoring game.

The Magic Kingdom in Florida isn't the only park with a version of this attraction. Could the ride improvements come to Disneyland?

Could This Come to Disneyland in California?

I'm curious to see if we will get a similar improvement to the attraction at Disneyland Park, which would also benefit from these improvements to the ride experience. I wonder if Disneyland has considered making these upgrades as well, but has chosen not to due to the somewhat unclear future of Tomorrowland. The entire area feels like it could use a refresh, and we generally wonder if there is a pause on new major improvements until there is a clear path forward.

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The improvement is comparable to the changes made to the Disneyland Park dark rides, including Alice in Wonderland, Snow White's Enchanted Wish, and Peter Pan's Flight, where they brought in new technology to modernize the classic attractions. In those cases, it was clear that the rides were not going to be retired, so it may have been an easier argument to make the modernizations.

I am sure that in at least some of the future Tomorrowland plans, the Buzz Lightyear attraction is on the chopping block, so it's less likely Disney would greenlight investment in improving the attraction. Still, even if we are going to have Disneyland Tomorrowland for at least another five years, I think that making this improvement would make sense. The short-term benefit to guests could make these improvements worth it.

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