Guardians of the Galaxy – Cosmic Rewind is a roller coaster in Epcot’s World Discovery. Debuting in 2022, the attraction features the cast from the Guardians franchise as riders go on an adventure with them. The coaster is Disney’s first to launch backwards and also includes a few show scenes thanks to ride vehicles that spin. In this post, we’ll detail and review Cosmic Rewind.

Better late than never, right? Reviewing an attraction that is nearly two years old isn’t necessary but, in the name of thoroughness, here we are. Why the delay? To be honest, I wasn’t very excited about Cosmic Rewind and we focused our travel elsewhere for a while. Between a Marvel fatigue and questions about the Epcot fit, this attraction opening wasn’t at the top of my mind.

Those preconceived frustrations are worth examining but turned out to be nowhere near the headline of Cosmic Rewind. Now that we’ve finally rode the darn thing, I’m happy to say that the attraction is the best in Epcot!

For those unaware, I’ll give a brief somewhat short recap of the ride’s premise. Located near Mission: SPACE and in World Discovery, Cosmic Rewind follows their lead into space travel. Entering the queue puts riders in the cheekily named Wonders of Xandar Pavilion, a direct reference to the park’s former Wonders of Life Pavilion. The queue showcases the outer-world featured heavily in the Guardians of the Galaxy film franchise. Different exhibits and models showcase Xandar in different ways, many of them comical.

We’ll talk more about the fit of the ride later but I’ll say this for the queue – it’s trying. In fact, it’s trying really hard. There’s a nice mix of comedy, pre-ride info and making this area feel like a classic Epcot pavilion or queue. For the most part it works. Yeah, all of the information they’re presenting is about a world that doesn’t actually exist (I mean, as far as I know) but it looks good and is pretty convincing. Whether through the Galaxarium (planetarium but about a galaxy) or the exhibits comparing Epcot to the Nova Empire, this is all done with the park it belongs to, in mind. That’s much better than just designing a really fun roller coaster and plopping it down where there’s space. Any shot at Hollywood Studios in the prior sentence is indirect, I promise.

Before entering the pre-show, the queue ends with interviews from the Guardians of the Galaxy. Those feel a little bit phoned in to me but they do act as a nice transition from a pavilion full of exhibits to the ride.

Once in the pre-show, the plot of the actual attraction comes into focus. Irani Rael (Glenn Close) of Nova Prime explains that she wants us, the rider, to experience the Xandarian culture and will get us there by using something called a ‘Cosmic Generator’. First, we have to teleport to their ship right outside of Earth. Why we can’t just teleport straight to Xandar is a question I had but, admittedly, I’m not well versed in intergalactic teleportation.

Terry Crews then comes on the screen, playing someone named Tal Marik, and gives a very funny performance. He has the classic theme park ride trope of telling us how everything has gone wrong. We are teleported to the ship in a cool pre-show surprise, then the power goes out and the Cosmic Generator is stolen by some massive thing named Eson. Terry Crews (I’m just going to call him real name) calls the Guardians, Rocket Raccoon forms a plan for us to follow the massive thing through a jump point and steal the generator back before he can erase Earth’s existence.

This is all perhaps needlessly complicated with plenty of difficult prop and character names, Terry Crews and ‘massive thing’ notwithstanding, to remember. I don’t say this to be mean because there are a number of Marvel movies I enjoy, the ride is in step with comic book movies in that way. For better or worse, this isn’t Space Mountain. We’re here to (let’s see if I get this right) learn about Xandar, teleport to a ship, cosmic generate to another world, figure out why the power went out, track down a villain through a jump point, steal back the Cosmic Generator and stop massive thing from erasing our very existence. The stakes have never been higher! And no Drax, I’m not talking about meat. All of this is told well and executed brilliantly. But it’s still a lot.

Speaking of, there’s comedy to cut into this dense theme park ride plot. Drax is very focused on food and delivers some great one-liners. Terry Crews is fantastic throughout. Most of the jokes work pretty well and some are downright funny. That helps balance out the whole going back to the big bang and erasing the Earth’s creation darkness.

Much of the plot’s heavy lifting is done in those pre-shows, once on the roller coaster we’re just trying to get the generator back from the massive thing. While doing that, we’re listening to rock n’ roll in true Guardians of the Galaxy fashion. There are six different songs that can play and they all add a great soundtrack to the adventure. I’m not going to spoil the plot and a few of the surprises on the actual ride. If you’re reading this then you still exist, so you can probably guess the outcome. But getting there is a really fun adventure with a few, pun intended, twists.

Whether or not the plot is super followable while on the attraction is in the eye of the beholder. Some will be really tuned into the show scenes that the ride quickly but efficiently passes by. Others will enjoy the amazing roller coaster with a really fun and loud soundtrack. There’s no right or wrong way here, I think both parties will have an amazing time.

That’s because the roller coaster itself is amazing. Largely in the dark, the ride vehicles twist and turn seamlessly with the tracks curves. It’s the smoothest roller coaster I’ve ever ridden. While it moves quickly (up to 60 MPH) and is a thrill ride, I don’t think people need to worry about motion sickness much on this one unless they try to turn their heads too much.

The way the ride vehicles turn to look at some of the props, projections and scenes is jaw-dropping. While the vehicles do slow down at times to give you a better view, it’s more than that. This isn’t a slow scene while the coaster climbs a hill like on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. There’s a number of different things to look at throughout the ride that you can sufficiently spot because of how ingenious the ride system is.

On top of the technical achievement, it’s just a blast. Even ignoring those scenes and the plot, the rest of the coaster is a mix of Space Mountain and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. They pull off the feeling that you’re on a ship with the Guardians, or at least are partnering with them. It is one of the best roller coasters I’ve ever been on both from a technical and just sheer fun side.

Going by just the ride and not the theme, Epcot desperately needed an attraction like this. There are plenty of rides I enjoy in the park but fun and modern was sorely lacking. For that reason alone, Cosmic Rewind makes Epcot a much better park.

In light of that, my quibbles with the attraction are minimal. I’ve mentioned a few of them in passing and the other ones come down to fit and longevity. What fits and what doesn’t in the current Epcot has been hashed over so many times now that I’m not sure it’s even a conversation worth having. I don’t love, and probably never will, having a Marvel property about a made up world in Epcot. Learning about Xandar isn’t compatible with what the park’s goal is, no matter how hard they try.

But I’ll say it again, they did try and I appreciate that. In that same vein, I’m not totally sure what Epcot’s goal is anymore. I still believe it’s to educate us about the different parts of Earth and how it works, entertain and make us feel united. Even before Cosmic Rewind there were holes in that and the attraction does follow that thesis if you take out a few keywords. Suffice to say, for being a roller coaster based on a Marvel property, this fits into Epcot much better than expected.

When they started building this in 2017, I thought the biggest issue would be that it’s a Marvel property coming to Epcot, not that Marvel would be having problems. Comic book movies have slowed exponentially at the box office and aren’t as sure of a thing as they were five years ago. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 came out last year and did good business so maybe this point is moot but I can’t help but wonder how this, and all Marvel theme park properties, will age in 10, 20 or 50 years.

This is probably a blog post in and of itself so I won’t get too far into the weeds. I just have real questions on if the next generation is going to watch Guardians of the Galaxy. That’s not a knock on the franchise, I mostly like those movies! But will these films have the lasting impact that Star Wars or the films represented in Fantasyland have?

Of course, I don’t have the answer to that. I didn’t try to steal the Cosmic Generator and see if it would spit me out 20 years in the future. Spider-Man seems like a safe bet, as that character is timeless even if Web Slingers isn’t. The good news is that Cosmic Rewind is great enough to withstand any loss of popularity by the franchise it’s based on.

An interesting comparison are the two other recent Walt Disney World E-tickets, Flight of Passage and Tron Lightcycle Run. The latter smartly stays away from significant IP characters in the attraction and opts to just look incredibly cool. No one needs to be familiar with Tron to enjoy that ride.

Flight of Passage brings back a few characters from the movie but also puts the rider as the main character. Cosmic Rewind is most similar to that but leans into the Guardians characters a little harder. It won’t be alienating to go on the ride and not know who Peter Quill and Drax are, but it will be less funny. All of the Marvel attractions will be worth keeping an eye on because it remains to be seen how popular they will be decades from now.

The good news is that doesn’t tend to matter when you build really fun and interesting attractions. That’s exactly what Cosmic Rewind is. Characters don’t matter much when you can go save the world while listening to classic rock. Especially if you can do all of that while riding one of the most fun roller coasters ever created!

Have you been on Guardians of the Galaxy – Cosmic Rewind? Let us know your thoughts or any questions you might have in the comments below. Planning a trip to Walt Disney World? Check out our Disney World Trip Planning Guide to help you out. Looking for Disney World discount tickets? You can find them here! If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!