Surfin’ Through Outer Space: Retrofuturism in Disneyland’s Space Mountain
Location
Moore Auditorium
Start Date
20-6-2026 10:00 AM
Description
Despite Walt Disney’s claim that Tomorrowland is a “step into the future,” many of its attractions reveal a romantic longing for past visions of the future. I argue that the effect of Space Mountain, a space-themed indoor roller coaster that opened in Disneyland in 1977, is to remind guests of mid-twentieth-century space exploration in its depiction of rocket ships and the promise of space. For its first nineteen years of operation, Space Mountain was without music. But in 1996, the Imagineers determined that music would be a critical element of the ride. To that end, they built new rockets with onboard sound systems. The sound designer Eddie Sotto worked with the composer Aarin Richard to score the coaster as if he were scoring a film. Sotto and Richard’s soundtrack, which accompanied Space Mountain from 1996 to 2003, fused an unusual combination of sounds. Whereas 1950s sci-fi film music might not seem such a surprising choice, the 1960s surf-music rendition of Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Aquarium” from Carnival of the Animals is certainly unexpected. As I’ll argue, all evoke retrofuturism.
Recommended Citation
Nason, Ryan, "Surfin’ Through Outer Space: Retrofuturism in Disneyland’s Space Mountain" (2026). Theme Park Music and Sound. 2.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/tpms/2026/saturday/2
Surfin’ Through Outer Space: Retrofuturism in Disneyland’s Space Mountain
Moore Auditorium
Despite Walt Disney’s claim that Tomorrowland is a “step into the future,” many of its attractions reveal a romantic longing for past visions of the future. I argue that the effect of Space Mountain, a space-themed indoor roller coaster that opened in Disneyland in 1977, is to remind guests of mid-twentieth-century space exploration in its depiction of rocket ships and the promise of space. For its first nineteen years of operation, Space Mountain was without music. But in 1996, the Imagineers determined that music would be a critical element of the ride. To that end, they built new rockets with onboard sound systems. The sound designer Eddie Sotto worked with the composer Aarin Richard to score the coaster as if he were scoring a film. Sotto and Richard’s soundtrack, which accompanied Space Mountain from 1996 to 2003, fused an unusual combination of sounds. Whereas 1950s sci-fi film music might not seem such a surprising choice, the 1960s surf-music rendition of Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Aquarium” from Carnival of the Animals is certainly unexpected. As I’ll argue, all evoke retrofuturism.