The Motiongate Dubai theme park, the largest Hollywood-themed park in the world, has recently opened up “The World of the Hunger Games,” a lavish section of the park devoted to the dystopian world of Panem in all its garish, high-fashion glory. Because when I hear dystopian horror, I think theme park.
Image: Lionsgate Film.
Entertainment Weekly recently posted a full look at the park, following its opening last weekend, that showcases Motiongate’s ambitions for the section. The Panem-themed attractions include a Capitol Bullet Train roller coaster, the Hall of Heroes, and the Panem Aerial Tour multimedia experience, which EW says is a “4D multimedia hovercraft experience.)
#TheWorldOfTheHungerGames Capitol Bullet Train coaster at #MOTIONGATEDubai pic.twitter.com/AyKvdgGDIq
— MOTIONGATEDubai (@motiongateDubai) October 26, 2017
#TheWorldOfTheHungerGames Hall of Heroes in the Panem Aerial Tour queue at #MOTIONGATEDubai
#DubaiParksAndResorts pic.twitter.com/9vO6Ta0dtK— MOTIONGATEDubai (@motiongateDubai) October 25, 2017
So, yes: in order to celebrate the world of The Hunger Games, which features a harrowing exaggeration of a media-obsessed society where the foppish upper class entertains itself by watching children die, Motiongate built a consumer attraction in one of the major boom towns of the modern, hypermediated capitalist age… My head hurts.
Anyway. Um. It looks pretty fun. Here, watch Caeser Flickerman tell you all about it. That’s probably not ironic at all.