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.
