Extinct Attractions - Avengers: Power the Night
Welcome to Extinct Attractions. This week, I took a look back at a super attraction from the newly rechristened Disney Adventure World.
Last week, attendees of CinemaCon got the first look at Avengers: Doomsday, the first Avengers film since Avengers: Endgame literally broke the box office in 2019. While the trailer has not yet been released, one can find a recap of the footage shown here, which promises to be epic in scale with everyone’s favorite heroes around for the fun.
Disney is banking on the new film to get Marvel Studios back on track after falling into a bit of a slump since Endgame released. With multiple parks home to an Avengers Campus, nowhere is the success of the franchise more important than Paris with the newly re-christened Disney Adventure World. As one of the hallmark lands in a park trying to find a new identity, Avengers Campus has had high expectations on it since first opening in 2022, roughly tied with Disneyland Paris’ 30th anniversary.
A few months after the land opened, Avengers: Power the Night began to call the skies of what was then Walt Disney Studios Park home on January 28, 2023.
Now if you’re thinking to yourself, “Is this show exactly what I think it is?” I’d have to say yes and no. F.R.I.D.A.Y. recruited the entire crowd to help become Avengers, helped along by nighttime projections on the Tower of Terror as well as some drones and fireworks. The giant Tower of Terror was a perfect backdrop for the show, with plenty of space and some really high quality imagery available for animated characters.
To kick things off, Dr. Strange created a portal (cleverly using the drones to make a portal in the sky) with which the rest of the characters would be able to appear much more easily. It was just in time because the Hulk was ready to jump into the fray next before being joined by his buddy Captain America, who also had a really cool moment where he threw his shield “off” the tower where some drones formed it in the sky,
Via YouTube
Thor and his drone hammer were up next with power of lightning helping him take down his brother, Loki, before some other OG Avengers joined the fray, namely Hawkeye and Black Widow. With all of these Avengers in the mix, it was time for the fun part of the show featuring Baby Groot DJing a bit with a dancing Rocket Raccoon before he grew up (very quickly) and extended his branches over the Tower to give us a “We are Groot.”
Dr. Strange made his way back to the Tower with his portal to bring in two of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes in Scarlet Witch and Black Panther, both of whom got the chance to be a little involved with the drones, too. Not to be left out, Vision and Ant-Man both made an appearance, as well, but they were just the appetizer before Shang-Chi.
As the controller of the Ten Rings, we got the chance to see Shang-Chi utilizing them (via drones), flying around the sky before coming onto his arms, outshining Iron Man himself who was up next to shoot some things on the Tower. He quickly made way for Captain Marvel who leapt into the real world as drones that could fly away.
That moment was quickly usurped by the drones forming Nick Fury’s head in the sky, which pulled a Transformers to become the Avengers logo complete with fireworks and projections of the Avengers all throughout the night sky as an epic conclusion to the show.
While the show wasn’t much more than jumping from character to character, the use of drones was amazing. They moved so seamlessly with the projections on the Tower of Terror that it just made me want to see drone shows all the time. I know there are a lot of logistics to making them work, but when they do they are just stunning to look at.
In fact, Avengers: Power the Night was so successful that what was supposed to be a limited engagement through May 8, 2023 was brought back on September 1, 2023 until January 7, 2024. There’s no word yet on a revival later this year, but I’d say never say never.
Via Thunder Dungeon
As always, don’t forget to check out my interactive maps of the Disney Parks throughout the years where you can watch or learn more about all the attractions from every Disney park around the world.
Thanks for reading and have a magical day!