When I’m not in a theme park, I spend my time wishing I was in a theme park. While that usually means getting a look at somebody on social media at Disneyland and wishing I was there as well, the feeling isn’t limited to real theme parks. When I see a fictional theme park in a movie or TV series I feel largely the same way. And, perhaps the feeling is worse because that’s a place I’ll never even be able to go.
Sometimes, when a movie needs a theme park or amusement park for the story, they visit someplace real, even Disneyland has played itself in a couple of films. Sometimes a real park becomes a stand-in for something invented. Other times the fictional theme park is entirely invented, and thus has no restraints in its creation, which of course, makes it seem like the greatest theme park ever.
Walley World (National Lampoon's Vacation)
The greatest of all fictional theme parks has to be National Lampoon’s Vacation’s Walley World. It’s the ultimate destination vacation, as the movie is entirely about the attempts to simply get there. Of course, when they do, they discover the park is closed. Imagine getting to Orlando to discover not only closed Disney World attractions but a closed park.
Walley World is very literally inspired by Disneyland. However, Six Flags Magic Mountain was the park used to create Walley World in the original Vacation, and Magic Mountain is an excellent park, especially if you’re a serious roller coaster enthusiast. But, there’s something about the anticipation that builds up in the movie for Walley World that even the real Magic Mountain couldn’t possibly provide. Also, Magic Mountain doesn’t have a ridiculous Moose mascot.
Spooky Island (Scooby-Doo)
If there’s anything that Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights have taught us, it’s that horror and theme parks go great together. Universal is going so far as to build a permanent Horror Nights’ inspired spot in Las Vegas, but wouldn’t it be great if there was an entire, full-sized, theme park dedicated to horror? This is why Spooky Island from the Scooby-Doo movie would be so great to visit.
Entire attractions dedicated to horror themes, and even a Spooky Hotel, would have made Spooky Island a great place for horror fans to go, assuming there wasn’t somebody trying to steal your actual soul while you were on vacation.
Luna Park (Futurama)
There are several reasons that Futurama’s Luna Park is a theme park we’re desperate to visit. First off, it’s on the freaking moon. Maybe people in the future will find a theme park on the moon so common as to be dull, but we’re with Fry. It’s a theme park… on the moon. How could you not want to go? Also, Whalers on the Moon looks like fun.
Luna Park is also a fantastic park because, for all its futuristic elements, it’s also a total throwback. Luna Park was one of the first American amusement parks, built on Coney Island in the early 1900s. It also, perhaps not coincidently, included a “trip to the Moon” attraction. The symmetry is too good to pass up.
WonderWorld (Beverly Hills Cop III)
In a lot of ways, the theme park in Beverly Hills Cop III could be just any park. It was primarily shot at Northern California’s Paramount’s (now California’s) Great America, which (though it has seen better days more recently) was a nice enough place at the time. However, the film goes hard to make WonderWorld a true rival to Disneyland, making it a place that would be worth checking out.
WonderWorld has a full cast of original animal mascot characters like Mickey Mouse and his friends, and the park even has its own theme song, which was brilliantly written by Richard and Bob Sherman, the same duo responsible for some of the most popular Disneyland music, like the iconic “It’s a Small World” and the music of the Enchanted Tiki Room. That elevates WonderWorld beyond a simple theme park and into something quite special.
Pacific Playland (Zombieland)
If I found myself in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, I wouldn’t even need to be told there was a theme park or amusement park free of the undead before I headed there. I honestly can’t think of a place I’d rather spend the end of my days. Even if the rides aren’t actually working it would still be a lot of fun to hang out.
Pacific Playland is the destination for our band of heroes in Zombieland, and somewhat surprisingly, it actually is the zombie-free haven they believed it would be. They get inside and get to hang out and have some fun while zombies simply look on from outside the fence. Living in a theme park is literally the dream. It's why Disney is now building planned communities. It doesn’t work out in the movie, but now that you’ve seen it, if the zombies do come you know what not to do.
Action Point (Action Point)
Action Point, from the movie of the same name, is a bit of a cheat when it comes to fictional theme parks because, while it was filmed in South Africa, Action Point is based on a very real place, New Jersey’s Action Park, which became infamous for its attractions that were deemed so thrilling that many were legitimately dangerous.
Still, there was a reason that so many flocked to Action Park. There was truly nothing else quite like it, and the fact that the park no longer exists, in reality, makes the fictional version from Action Point that much more enticing. How bad could it be? After all our Action Point review said the movie version was quite good.
Jurassic Park (Jurassic Park/Jurassic World)
Is there a greater movie theme park than Jurassic Park? Yes, when the dinosaurs get loose people get eaten and that’s terrible. But other than that I mean? In Jurassic World, it’s clear that the park has been running for years without incident and that is the park that we need to actually exist.
The park looks massive, and the attractions are incredible. Oh, and also, it’s full of freaking dinosaurs. Who could possibly pass that up, even if there’s a slight chance you might get eaten?
When theme parks do their job, they make you feel like you've been transported to another place. The same is true of a great movie. So, theme parks in movies, when done well, must have even more magic to make us want to visit them.
