Guests can enjoy a Spider-Man ride and a show with Spider-Man as both a human performer and a robot. “That is something that the director of live entertainment at the Disney Parks calls a robot sandwich. The human performer will come out, sort of dazzle the crowd, disappear behind the building that houses the Spider-Man ride. And then a robotics stunt double will launch from behind the building and soar through the air, strike a heroic pose and then disappear behind the building. The human performer comes back and continues his meet and greet responsibilities. And the transitions are supposed to be sort of seamless so that the crowd thinks it’s all one superhuman being capable of these amazing feats,” said Carras.
While the human performer does cool tricks and flips, Carras said the real star of the show is the Spider-Man robot. “The Imagineers at Disney programmed it to perform six different stunt combinations. So sometimes it’s somersaulting through the air. Sometimes it’s striking a pose in the air. It rotates through them depending on the show. And it can go up to 85 feet from the audience’s perspective on the ground and 65 feet from the launch pad where they’re swinging it. They sort of devised this advanced slingshot system to mimic Spider-Man flying from a web.”
The Spider-Man robot uses new technology created by Imagineer Tony Dohi and creative executive Dan Fields. “They wanted to mimic Spider-Man as much as possible. So they devised this really advanced slingshot system that involves a wire that they launch the robot from, and then it flies into the air, performs some stunt combination. And then it lands in a net, and they had to decelerate the landing. That is why they could not do it with a human performer. You can’t program a human to decelerate,” said Carras.
When COVID-19 hit, the Imagineers got to improve the robot, but they ended up making it less perfect. “When they first presented stunt combinations to the live entertainment team, it was actually too perfect. It was nailing the combinations with a swan-like precision and grace. But Spider-Man, the character is far from perfect. He is a teenage boy with a lot of pride who is just testing out his abilities. And so he doesn’t always look so graceful when he’s testing things out. So they went back to the drawing board and programmed the robot to look like it was sort of out of control as the real Spider-Man tends to be,” Carras added.
Aaaaaand… all of that being said, this is how the old version works.