The Lights, Motors, Action!: Extreme Stunt Show (or sometimes referred to as Moteurs... Action!: Stunt Show Spectacular), was a stunt show performed at Walt Disney Studios Park in Disneyland Paris and at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The show was designed to be and look like a movie set, and the show is dedicated to show the process of how action movies are created.
Revolving around a series of energetic stunts featuring automobiles, the show runs for just under 40 minutes, and includes scenes of car-based action, pyrotechnics, jet ski chases, and physical stuntwork. The cars are followed by cameras, and film, both shot during the show and pre-recorded, is shown to the audience on a billboard television screen.
History
The Moteurs... Action! version of the show originally opened on time with the premiere of Walt Disney Studios Park on March 16, 2002. The Lights, Motors, Action! version of the show debuted three years later at Disney's Hollywood Studios during the Happiest Celebration on Earth festival, in which each of the four Walt Disney World theme parks opened a new attraction that have been copied from another Disney resort. The entire show has now been demolished.
Herbie, the Volkswagen from The Love Bug, previously made an appearance in an intermission in the middle of the show, but was replaced by Lightning McQueen from Cars in 2011. The show arena has scenery inspired by Villefranche-sur-Mer; a Mediterranean village in the south of France. The arena's construction at Disney's Hollywood Studios forced the Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic at the theme park to be almost halved in length, as the arena was built inside locations used by the backlot tour.
The show was previously sponsored at Walt Disney Studios Park by General Motors through its Opel division and at Disney's Hollywood Studios by Koch Industries through its Brawny division. On January 15, 2016, Disney announced that the Hollywood Studios location would close on April 3 for the construction of Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge and Toy Story Land. The Paris version of the show closed on March 13, 2020; nearly 18 years after it initially opened; the closure was expected as part of the Walt Disney Studios park expansion but the closure date was moved up owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in France.
Summary
Queue
When the show is not running and when the audience is exiting or entering the stadium, queue music is played, while the billboard television screen shows trivia questions about films and movies with car chases and destruction in them.
Pre-show
The pre-show features clips of action scenes involving car chases from various action thriller films including The Rock (1996), Con Air (1997), Enemy of the State (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Speed (1994), and Ronin (1998). The Disney's Hollywood Studios location does not include the clips from the latter two films.
Show
The main show starts off with the "Ballet Chase," (Sequence 7A) featuring a red "hero car" (Hero 1) being chased by five black "pursuit cars." This scene ends with the hero car jumping backwards off of a ramp, and the fifth (a specially designed pursuit) car being blown in half.
While the next scene is being set up, they observe the film and how they film with a low camera angle. They also explain how "Video Assist" works, and they introduce the hero car driver explain how a second hero car, (Hero 2) designed so that the driver faces out the back, was used for the backwards jump.
The next scene, the "Blockade Chase," (Sequence 8) is set in a marketplace, with the car chase taking place around obstacles such as trucks and farm stands. The scene ends with the hero car driving up the back of a truck bed, over a second truck, and landing on an airbag.
As the third scene is being set up, a driverless hero car (Hero 3) is shown, and an audience volunteer is brought down to drive it via "remote control." After the volunteer appears to lose control of the vehicle, it is revealed that the car actually does have a driver, who is hidden on the far side of the vehicle out of sight of the audience.
The fourth sequence, the "Motorcycle Chase," (Sequence 3) begins with the "hero" going into a motorcycle shop and commandeering a blue one, (Hero 4) being chased by two black pursuit motorcycles and three cars. The "hero" later switches to a red jet ski (which was then turned black due to the first version breaking down), and eventually faces his pursuers on foot. This scene features a stuntman falling thirty feet from a building into an airbag, as well as the rider of one of the pursuit motorcycles catching on fire.
