School might be out for the summer, but even vacation can offer teaching moments.
And Walt Disney World just served a big one with its new Disney's Hollywood Studios show, "Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After." This 17-minute production takes over the Sunset Showcase Theater, which recently hosted "Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy."
Perhaps Disney is hoping that this production will whet fans' appetite for the big Villains land that it is now building in the Magic Kingdom - the long-rumored land that Disney Experience Chairman Josh D'Amaro announced to great applause at the D23 event in Anaheim last summer. But any celebration of villains brings with it great risk. These are villains, after all - the people whose wicked and cruel actions set the stage for others to become the heroes we should be celebrating.
It's fine to spend time with the darkness that lurks in all of us. Heck, suppressing dark thoughts and feelings is the surest way to turn yourself into a real-life villain one day. Fiction offers a wonderful outlet through which anyone can explore the darkness in their life - to learn from it, to heal from it, and maybe even to help us find the joy whose perimeter it defines. That is why so many theme park fans also love horror and Halloween.
Some characters portrayed as villains do not ultimately turn out that way, either. Some villains retain the capacity for redemption and turn back to the light. (Anakin Skywalker, for example.) Others never were a villain, but simply were portrayed as such by people more evil than they. (Think of how Daily Bugle readers might see Spider-Man.)
True villains know this, of course, and exploit the benefit of such doubts. Which brings us to the premise of "Unfairly Ever After."
The Magic Mirror is hosting what amounts to an audience participation game show to determine which of Disney's villains have been treated most unfairly of all. Three villains ultimately "break through the glass" on the Sunset Showcase proscenium to reach the stage: Cruella de Vil, Captain Hook, and Maleficent. All three vamp through slickly produced song and spectacle to make the case they are simply misunderstood... and really were just trying to do right all along.
Which is exactly what a truly evil villain would say, right?
With the Magic Mirror, Disney Live Entertainment has crafted the perfect illustration of the useful idiot who appeases evil, and - by doing so - helps bring them to, and keep them in, power. Magic Mirror sets up the show with an original song that includes the absolutely delicious - and self-owning - lyric, "I don't judge; I just reflect."
Like a truly effective useful idiot, Magic Mirror tries to rope us into the trap by rooting for these losers. After their routines, the three villains return to the stage for the audience to vote, via applause, to decide which one was treated "most unfairly of all."
Magic Mirror declares a winner, bursting with joy at the thought of finally being released from their burden to the baddies. But here comes the betrayal - as anyone with any experience in this world should have expected. As another of the production's original song lyrics said, "what you see is what you get."
You thought you could trust a villain to do the right thing? The joke's on you. Which brings us to our "Summer of 2025" teaching moment - don't be a Magic Mirror.
For assistance in planning a Disney vacation, please contact our travel agent for a free, no-obligation vacation quote.
To see what is available at the Walt Disney World theme parks, please check out our one-page visitors guides, which include our reader rankings as well as on-ride videos and links to reviews:
Remember that whenever you buy tickets or book vacations through our partners, a small portion of that goes to support Theme Park Insider. So you can support independent media while getting a great deal at the same time.
Finally, to keep up with more theme park news, please sign up for Theme Park Insider's weekly newsletter.
As the old saying goes "every villain is the hero of their own story" so looks like this will run with that.
Unrelated Villains memories:
It was like 2013-2014 or something they did a random Villains event at DHS and did not block anyone out. Apparently no one high up thought that maybe doing a random one-time event with such popular IP, included with park admission, and not blocking out any Cast or APs, was a good idea. Spoiler alert...it was not. Total disaster of epic proportions. Traffic was so bad around DHS that people were stuck for literal hours and people were demanding to get off the buses in the middle of the road. Traffic to get into DHS was backed up out Buena Vista Drive, onto World Drive, all the way past the park perimeter. I'm sure it wasn't any better once people actually got into the park. They actually pulled a few people from their Guest Relations jobs into Temporary Assignment positions for a certain period of time just to deal with all the complaints from that one event. Before it happened of course I know at least one person specifically that was in the meeting room saying "this is going to be a disaster, you don't understand how many people are going to show up..." and of course was completely ignored.
Anyway, needless to say they did the event again the next year and I don't remember if it was a special ticket event, but pretty much everyone was blacked out lol.
They also did an after hours Villains upsell show (I think it was called Villains mix and mingle or something like that) in this same theater. And the reason I remember that is because instead of having them exit out the front through Sunset/Hollywood Blvd, they had people board the buses on the backstage road behind the theater. So we had like 15 buses lined up on that backstage road in the middle of the night to take those people back to their hotels.
Also there is a "Villains Mode" on Space Mountain. There was a Villains upsell event they did I think it was like 2021-2022 at MK after closing and they felt confident with how the Halloween version went so they did something similar with the Villains event. All you have to do select between "Halloween" "Holidays" and "Villains" by pressing it on the screen under the coordinator office (the screen is literally a cell phone mounted on the wall).
What do these have to do with this show? Well nothing really, but I felt like saying it.
Wow... Compared to the two new stage shows at EPIC.... this was.... lacking.
Why couldn't have the Monsters inc land gone here and not where Muppets vision 3d is? It's not like this is something that necessarily needs to go in this area of DHS.
@Velocicoasterfan - It's all about space. While the actual Monstropolis area for guests isn't going to be that large, the new coaster is going to be a pretty large building that will extend all the way and beyond the current park perimeter that was extended a bit when Galaxy's Edge was built. Not only that, but it would be weird to have to coaster right next to each other in a Disney park if this was adjacent to RnRC, even though they would be 2 very different experiences.
@russell: the obvious exception of course bring the proximity of Tron and Space Mountain. Which is, well, kinda weird
The difference between this and Tron/ space mountain is that these coasters belong to different lands. I'm sure imagineering could have manufactured some way to conserve space and create the illusion of distance.
I never remember, is it pronounced data or data?
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
I'm still not sold on this, and kind of agree with the general consensus that this is merely a placeholder and teaser for what Disney plans to do with the Villains in MK. Perhaps the ultimate goal of this show is for Disney to gauge the true interest in this IP (and yes, I know it all falls under the Disney umbrella, but Villains can be treated as its own IP just like Marvel, Star Wars, PotC, and HM). It seems like Disney has tried to put their best foot forward by providing this production with a lot of flexibility with a predominantly screen-based set and limited on-stage talent, though those seem to be the biggest complaints about the show. Considering how quickly they transformed this theater from the Cars show, it's pretty impressive what Disney has been able to pull off here.
I think it's clear this is not designed to be a long-term production, so given that it does seem like Disney has hit all of the marks while creating an attraction that gives them plenty of data for the upcoming addition to MK. I just don't see myself going out of my way to watch this in a park with plenty of other top level attractions.