Disney’s new Avatar theme park is out of this world after taking FIVE YEARS to build

DISNEY unveiled a high-tech theme park this week – the stunning £400million land of glowing forests, floating mountains and alien creatures based on movie Avatar.

The 12-acre Pandora — named after the planet where the hit film was set — has taken five years to build and includes cutting-edge technology designed to dazzle visitors.

Along with an extraordinary man-made rainforest and rocky mountains, the land boasts spectacular rides.

You could easily spend several days exploring Pandora and not see it all — and that’s before you’ve even checked out Disney World’s other 40 square miles of theme parks,

But the top attraction here is Flight Of Passage, a 3D simulator which plunges riders into Avatar’s cinematic world on the back of a banshee, a huge winged dinosaur-like predator.

Blasts of air and mist hit your face as you ride and a woody aroma enters your nostrils.

Director James Cameron, whose 2009 sci-fi epic inspired the new land at the Animal Kingdom park of Walt Disney World in Florida, said: “All the mechanics behind it, all the engineering, all the stuff that goes into the imagery is amazing.” He’s not wrong.

Avatar ushered in an era of 3D movies and remains the highest-grossing film ever — making £2.1billion on a budget of £180million.

It tells the story of Jake Sully, a marine drafted in to help eradicate Pandora’s peace-loving Na’vi so the planet’s minerals can be mined.

But Jake switches sides after falling in love with the natives.

Cameron is currently making four sequels, the first of which is due in 2020.

He said: “I think back to when I was 19 and had a dream of a bioluminescent forest with glowing trees and little spinning, glowing fan lizards.

“I remembered those images years later when I started writing the script for Avatar.

“We made the movie and now here we are — literally a dream has come true, all around me. It’s an amazing experience.”

Everywhere you look is full of extraordinary hand-crafted details.

Chief designer Joe Rhode added: “We are taking our guests on a journey to this world in an experience
that’s as realistic and immersive as possible.”

Another attraction is the Na’vi River Journey, a boat ride through the alien landscape of Pandora gliding along a sacred river under a canopy of glowing plants and passing Pandoran creatures.

The journey builds to an encounter with the remarkable Shaman Of Songs, who stands nearly ten feet tall.

The latest technology makes her look hyper-realistic, with fluid movements and subtle facial expressions.

Joe said: “The shaman is even more extraordinary than we expected.

"There is a real edge to our Pandora, just like the rest of Animal Kingdom.”

Avatar’s green theme fits perfectly with Animal Kingdom’s environmentalist message, he added.

And the dramatic daytime beauty transforms by night when glowing plants and intricate night-time experiences add a dreamlike quality.

Its lush, layered blend of storytelling and technology have set a new standard for the theme park industry — something Disney has done time and time again.