A new behind-the-scenes video from Walt Disney Imagineering offers the irresistible and unlikely opportunity for a baseball pun when describing updates to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. As we were watching ongoing testing this morning during our visit to Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney Imagineering was posting a behind-the-scenes video of work that they’ve done to enhance the presence of bats in the opening scene for The Wildest Ride in the Wilderness. Here’s the latest!
More Than 2,000 Bats Call Big Thunder Mountain Railroad Home
As part of upgrades made to the opening scene lift hill on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Walt Disney World is going all in on bats!
Imagineering offered a really insightful video on the process of plussing this first show scene, beyond what they had previously announced. For fans familiar with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, you’ll recall that the previous version of the ride did have bats, but not in the quantity that we’re talking here. Imagineers referred to the swinging bats of yesteryear as “airline bats”.
The video starts by saying that Imagineers were able to get started on the design process after they scanned the entire mountain. From there, they could work in a digital space to play around with the placement and quantity of bats.
Imagineers have added new types of bats. In total, there were more than 2,000 bats added to the scene, including “rockwork bats”, rockwork bat clusters, and showset bats (in addition to keeping the airline bats.
When it reopens, guests can expect to find the following changes at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad:
- All-new trains
- All-new roller coaster track
- Refreshed Audio-Animatronics throughout the attraction
- Returning effects that haven’t been present for years
- Rainbow caverns that come to life as the mountain pushes back against our presence
- Actual gold out on the mountain for the first time ever
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!