Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show

Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show
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Logo (above) and finale scene (bottom)
Disney's Hollywood Studios
Area	Streets of America
Status	Operating
Soft opening date	March 14, 2005
Opening date	May 5, 2005
Replaced	Studio Backlot Tour - Residential Street
Walt Disney Studios Park
Area	Backlot
Status	Operating
Opening date	March 16, 2002
General statistics
Attraction type	Stunt show
Designer	Walt Disney Imagineering Walt Disney Creative Entertainment
Site area	53,949 m2 (580,700 sq ft)
Capacity	5000 riders per hour
Duration	35 minutes
FastPass+ available
Wheelchair accessible
Assistive listening available

The Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show is a performance show at the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

It is based on the original show, Moteurs... Action! Stunt Show Spectacular at Walt Disney Studios Park in Disneyland Resort Paris, France, which premiered with the park's opening in March 2002.

Revolving around a series of energetic stunts featuring automobiles, the show had its soft opening on March 14, 2005, and its grand opening on May 5, 2005, as part of the Happiest Celebration on Earth festival at the Walt Disney World Resort marking the fiftieth anniversary of Disneyland, the first Disney park. One aspect of the festival was each of the four Walt Disney World theme parks opening a new attraction previously running at another Disney resort.

File:1963 Herbie.jpg

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The show runs for just under 40 minutes of car-based action, and includes pyrotechnics, jet ski chases, and physical stuntwork. The cars are followed by cameras, and film, both shot during the show and pre-recorded, is shown to the audience on a billboard television screen; some shots are from the Disneyland Resort Paris version of the show. This is to make the show look like a real movie shoot. Herbie, the Volkswagen from The Love Bug, previously made an appearance in an intermission in the middle of the show, but was later replaced by Lightning McQueen from Cars.

The show arena has scenery inspired by Villefranche-sur-Mer; a Mediterranean village in the south of France. The arena's construction forced Studio Backlot Tour at the theme park to be almost halved in length, as the arena was built inside locations used by the backlot tour.

It was previously sponsored by Koch Industries through its Brawny division from its opening until 2015.

Vehicles

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A motorcycle performing a jump.

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Stunt man falling.

The show has more than 40 vehicles in the show and backstage in the maintenance garage. The primary car which the action revolves around, referred to as the "hero car," is a custom-built design for the show, while the pursuit cars are Opel Corsas. The 3 different hero cars are all painted red and the pursuit cars are black, to easily allow guests to tell the difference between them. The show also includes specially-designed cars that look identical to the others used in the show, two of which are red "hero" cars. One has the bodyshell oriented backwards to allow the driver to appear to be driving in reverse; the other has a seat and steering wheel bolted onto the side of the car away from the audience, so that the car can be driven showing that there is no driver in the driver's seat.

One of the black "pursuit" cars is cut in half behind the front doors so that it can appear to explode during a scene in the show. The cars, while they appear simple and plain, are reinforced with rally car roll cages for driver safety and powered by 1400 cc 150 horsepower (110 kW) motorcycle engines mounted directly behind the driver's seat. The cars have four forward and four reverse gears, allowing them to be driven backwards at high speed.

The cars have a bump shift for easier gear shifting: the driver bumps the shifter forward to go up a gear, and back to go back a gear. In order to reverse, the driver twists the top of the shifter and bumps it forwards or backwards. The emergency brake automatically releases when the driver lets go. The show cars are lightweight, at 1,322 pounds (600 kg). The cars are rear-wheel drive to suit the slips and slides of the show. The drivers wear heavy protective suits; to keep the drivers cool in the Florida heat, a cooling system in the rear of the car pumps water through the suits. The show also features jet skis on the small canal at the front of the theater, and motorcycles which maneuver around the cars.

The show

The show starts off with the "Ballet Chase." After lots of action, the scene ends with the hero car, along with three pursuit cars, jumping a bridge, the hero car facing backwards as well as a specially designed pursuit car being blown in half. Afterwards, they introduce the hero car driver and tell of a twin car that was designed so that the driver faces out the back, making the backwards jump much safer. The next scene, the "Blockade" has multiple obstacles in the way. The hero, in the end drives up the back of a truck bed, over the "touch" truck, and down onto an airbag right before the scenes ends. The third hero car, with the driver on the side is now shown, with the driver hidden. After choosing a kid in the audience in chosen to "drive" the car, they eventually will "lose control" of the vehicle and it will turn around showing the driver. The second to last sequence, the "Motorcycle Chase" has the stunt coordinator falling from about thirty feet from a building into an airbag. They will also have the hero jump on a jet ski before the final part of the scene where the hero shoots at barrels starting a fire. One of the pursuit motorcycle driver falls off his motorcycle into a fire, which is real. He is wearing multiple layers of clothing and special paint that is on fire, not the clothing. This takes about thirty minutes to fully put on. They show the finished product with scenes that are prerecorded before the final scene begins automatically. The hero comes out before heading back behind the scenes, coming out a few seconds later driving out of a second-story window, down the "Blockade" truck bed and up a central ramp. Explosives fire when it jumps into the tunnel under the grandstands. After the explosives, all the pursuit cars and motorcycles, as well as all four versions of the hero car come out. These include the main car, reverse car, driver on the side car, and the motorcycle.

External links

• Walt Disney World Resort - Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show
• YouTube Show Video (Flash video software or a web browser supporting H.264 is necessary to see the content.)