There’s nothing like a weekend trip to Lagoon to inspire ideas that are impossible to think of anywhere else without the aid of powerful hallucinogens. After spending a day being strapped into giant scary-looking contraptions designed by disturbed mental patients, propelled through the air at ridiculous speeds, dangled upside down while being flung around in circles, and otherwise jerked and thrown around until the vomit you release is intermixed with loose gray matter from your brain, all kinds of crazy ideas start to make sense.
Such is the case with my brilliant idea for a Star Wars-themed amusement park.*
Actually, it kind of makes sense, sort of. I mean, we already have a Disney-themed amusement park, with people roaming around dressed as Disney characters such as Goofy and Mickey Mouse (at least, I assume they’re people dressed as them. Maybe the Disneyland people convinced the actual Mickey Mouse and Goofy to help them out). Would it really be that different if, instead of Goofy wandering around acting, well, goofy, we had a fully armored Boba Fett stalking around, carrying his blaster and staring at small children until they cried?
No more need for creepy carnival ride employees. The ride attendants would all be smartly dressed as stormtroopers and line up in ranks to meet you with a full military salute as you entered the park. Overhead, the speakers would broadcast the voice of Darth Vader reminding you to keep your head, hands, and feet inside the ride at all times. There could be a roller coaster resembling an X-wing and celebrating the destruction of the Death Star by weaving through a giant trench like the one in A New Hope. People watching the ride would be free to pay a quarter to soak you with water out of squirt guns that looked like laser turrets.
Forget Boba Fett, though. Goofy’s place would immediately be taken by the obvious replacement: Jar Jar Binks. Tell me with a straight face that you’ve never noticed an uncanny resemblance between them. Picture a little kid with a balloon clutched in his hand, walking around and peering up at the rides and crowds of people, and suddenly being swept up into a big bear hug by an alien shrieking, “Mesa so happy to see you!”
All of the employees selling admission tickets would be chosen on a basis of being extremely short and would all be dressed as Yoda. They would, of course, be required to mess up their syntax and, for good customer relations, say cheerfully to each customer, “May the Force be with you!”
Park managers would be required to wear cloaks and carry lightsabers on their belt.
The park’s fastest roller coaster would be called “Jump To Lightspeed.” If it encountered a mechanical problem, such as the car being derailed and skidding flaming into the parking lot, it would be referred to as a “hyperdrive malfunction.”
Nightly entertainment would feature bands such as the cantina band from A New Hope** as well as an all-Wookiee a capella group. A guy dressed as Admiral Ackbar would do standup comedy shows.
So you see, it really isn’t that different from a Disney-themed amusement park. What’s weirder, short green aliens with pointed ears or short black cartoon characters with big round ears? Okay, I don’t know either. But I bet Yoda would kick Mickey Mouse’s cartoon-animated rear in a lightsaber duel.
Oh, and let me know if you know of an all-Wookiee a capella group looking for some work.
Remember to become a follower of my blog, and may the Force be with you.
*Correction: It was my mother's idea. Really.
**”Figrin Da’n and the Modal Nodes.” Don’t ask me why I know that.
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Found your blog from a friend commenting on your facebook.. This. is seriously the -coolest- idea I've ever heard. And would make crazy money! Disneyland has some Jedi training thing though. They half-jacked your idea. :(
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