The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Disney explores another small world
Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure ride opens at Epcot on Oct. 1.
ORLANDO,FLORIDA— Future trips to Epcot may have more joie de vivre after Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure opens. Walt Disney World is introducing the dark ride to the theme park’s France pavilion, and it uses giant sets, smooth moves and a pack of rats to transport visitors over the Atlantic and under the feet of chefs.
Disney annual-pass holders who signed up for previews had a chance to see the Remy ride in action over Labor Day weekend. Employees checked out the attraction for several days, and members of the media took several spins, too. It officially opens to the public Oct. 1, 50th anniversary of Disney World.
The storyline uses a tried-andtrue Disney concept, shrinking the audience. While aboard the six-person ride vehicle — which is fronted by a set of whiskers — passengers watch Remy plan a meal, zip into the pantry, dodge the feet of kitchen workers and mops and get a whiff of a French bakery.
“We have the ability to kind of shape the ride profile, to make the rat vehicle move in a way that we want you to feel like you’re moving like a rat,” Matt Beiler, a producer with Walt Disney Imagineering, said Sept. 3. “So when we want to dance around the rooftops of Paris, it moves slowly and calmly. But when you’re being chased by Skinner through the Gusteau’s restaurant, the rat scurries.”
The new ride is a twin to one the opened at the Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris in 2014. At Epcot, it was built in an area that was previously considered backstage. There’s also a new restaurant there called La Creperie de Paris. The established true-toFrance architecture of the pavilion becomes more relaxed, curved and tilted as one approaches Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. It’s a style that Pixar people coined as “crookedology,” Beiler said.
“You see it expressed in the downspouts and how all the windows don’t necessarily line up,” he said. “It’s a Paris that’s been lived. It’s a Paris that’s settled a bit . ... Even the theater itself, sort of tilted a little bit.”
“I just love the fact that it’s very immersive,” said Kartika Rodriguez, vice president for Epcot. “When you look at this space, you come in, it feels like you’re transported to France. The architecture is absolutely beautiful and stunning in this space, the bold palettes and colors.”