Dragon's Lair: Disney's Animal Kingdom's Cancelled Attractions Part 12


Discovery River Boats Dragon Animatronic Concept Art Disney's Animal Kingdom

When Disney's Animal Kingdom opened it had an attraction that transported you around the park. But originally it was intended to have show scenes similar to the other rides in the parks. The main one of these would have been an encounter with the dragon from the Dragon Coaster in their lair.

Beastly Kingdom Dragon Concept Art Disney's Animal Kingdom

Welcome to Disney's Animal Kingdom's Cancelled Attractions. Today we are exploring the lost Dragon's Lair from Discovery River Boats. Be sure to check out the other parts of this series here.

The intention was to have little show scenes in each land to sort of advertise them to guests on the attraction.

The most expansive of these was supposed to be an animatronic dragon attacking the boat. It would have been located between Beastly Kingdom and Discovery Island.

But this would be yet another attraction at the park to fall victim to a common foe.

Synergy.

That's right. Disney decided instead of building the dragon, to build an equally massive animatronic of an upcoming Disney character, Aladar. He was the Iguanadon from the upcoming film Dinosaur. This also tied in the story of Discovery River Boats with the storyline of Countdown to Extinction/ Dinosaur as it showed the Iguanadon that escaped during your time travel adventure on that ride.

This then left a much less impressive "dragon" effect in the intended future location of Beastly Kingdom, which was essentially some rockwork and a fire effect. Not a worth replacement by any means.

Beastly Kingdom never ended up getting built, so it probably was a good thing the dragon never got built. But maybe this scene would have helped keep the Discovery River Boats around a little longer than it ended up staying at the park.

Would you have liked to see this animatronic come to the park? Let us know in the comments below. Be sure to come back next week when we discuss the lost Unicorn Attraction of Disney's Animal Kingdom. Check out the rest of the series here.

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