Back in the 1960’s Walt Disney and his Imagineers began work on a technology that they called audio animatronics. This technology which was used to give both human and animal robotic characters lifelike movements, has continued to be improved and perfected over the time. Now animatronics at Disney Parks can dance and we know that Walt Disney Imagineering is even working on nearly free roaming animatronics. One of the most advanced versions of the technology today, called stuntronics, is in use at Disney California Adventure when Spider-Man flies through the air above Avengers Campus. However, technology always has its off days.
The Spider-Man show uses a live actor at first, along with the amplified voice of Tom Holland, who also appears in the Spider-Man attraction in the land. The actor does some basic physical activity, before deciding to test out some new tricks. The actor leaves, and then the stuntronic is launched into the air, flipping around, before it lands out of sight on the opposite side. An Instagram video has gone viral showing that something went wrong in a show yesterday, and the stuntronic completely wiped out, crashing into the opposite wall. The audience was obviously not expecting this, as you can tell by the shocked gasps. Check it out.
This is a completely legitimate stuntronic failure. Not to be confused with an Avengers Campus Spider-Man viral video that went around a few months back that showed Spidey crashing into the side of the wall. That one, while it looked pretty good, was done through digital trickery, it never claimed to be legit. Having said that, hearing Tom Holland call for air bags just before he completely wipes out still makes this pretty funny.
The wall just completely disintegrates when Spider-Man hits it, and while part of that is likely due to the fact that the flying robot probably weighs quite a bit, that’s not all. The wall is actually designed to collapse like this precisely because Walt Disney Imagineering, who has been doing this for decades, took a malfunction like this into account. We’re talking about a lot of moving parts so it was only a matter of time before something like this did happen. The wall was repaired and the Spider-Man show resumed a couple of hours after the incident. I’m guessing a different stuntronic was used. They probably have spares.
Now that the inevitable has happened, it is cool to see just what happens. The wall gets fixed and the show goes on. There’s no real downtime or problems. That’s not to say there never will be, there are always problems here and there and we could see a malfunction significant enough to put the show on hold for an extended period. But not just any problem will cause that to happen.
