9-Eye

“I heard that.”

―9-Eye

9-Eye
Background information
Park attractions	The Timekeeper
Voice	Rhea Perlman

9-Eye was the deuteragonist of The Timekeeper.

Background

9-Eye was the assistant to Timekeeper, and the one who recorded the time travel experiment for the attraction riders. She was his latest development.

Role in the show

American pre-show

Before the show, guests are introduced to 9-Eye (also known as "Circumvisual PhotoDroid"). The nine eyes she had represents the nine cameras used in filming the show in the round, thus showing the view from them on each of the nine movie screens. Guests then can watch her training videos, which include a plunge over Niagara Falls, a flight into a barn full of dynamite in Topeka, Kansas, a swirling ride aboard a centrifugator, and hitching a ride on a space shuttle.

The Movie

After guests enter the theater, Timekeeper comes to life and has 9-Eye prepared for the journey through time. Timekeeper then turns on the machine for its first use, then watches from his control panel as 9-Eye is thrust back to the Jurassic age period in Earth's history. She narrowly escapes a hungry Allosaurus as Timekeeper sends her to the last great ice age about 12,000 years ago. As she starts freezing up, Timekeeper sends her to 1450, for what should be a demonstration of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press. However, Timekeeper has yet again messed up and sent her to a Scottish battlefield in which one warrior comes after her. Finally working the kinks out of the time machine, Timekeeper sends 9-Eye to the year 1503, at the height of the Renaissance. The machine is placed right in the middle of Leonardo da Vinci's workshop, where he is painting the Mona Lisa and working on a model of his Flying Machine.

9-Eye, being curious, picks up an item close to her, and is quickly noticed by Leonardo, who becomes fascinated by the strange female-programmed machine, and starts drawing her on paper. However, the meeting between 9-Eye and Da Vinci is unfortunately cut short. Her next stop in time is 1763 in a French castle, where a child named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is giving a performance to a crowd, which includes King Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour. The meeting is again short as she is noticed by the people, who start chasing her through the hallways. Timekeeper decides to send her to the 1878 Exposition Universelle, but the machine is stuck on fast forward, so she witnesses a Paris skyline in such a motion that the progress of the Eiffel Tower, symbol of the 1889 Exposition Universelle, is shown in the background. Finally, Timekeeper has the Machine stopped in 1900, just in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle.

Timekeeper announces that guests are just in time for a meeting between H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. 9-Eye hides from the fair-goers but not so that Verne and Wells are hidden. After a brief conversation about their conflicting visions of the Future, Wells walks away, leaving Verne with a model of his Time Machine, which Verne has just criticized as impossible. After a sarcastic comment about Time Travel from Verne, 9-Eye rebuts his claim and appears to the author. Jules Verne decides to take a closer look at her and tries to grab her. Timekeeper seeing this tries to bring her back to the present, but he also takes Verne. Timekeeper and 9-Eye, realizing their mistake, try to send him back, but he refuses after discovering he has finally arrived in the future he had always dreamed of. He begs for them to show him the world of today in 10 minutes or less, so he can return to 1900 and deliver his speech at the Exhibition (which makes Timekeeper ironically reply that he did it in 80 days).

They agree, and Timekeeper sets the Machine for today. He sends Verne and 9-Eye to a dark tunnel, which Verne believes to be a "dark future". They are unaware they are standing in a railroad tunnel. The next thing to happen is a collision between Jules Verne and a French TGV train, with Verne becoming a new hood ornament. From the train, Jules Verne and 9-Eye explore the modern streets of Paris (with Verne walking among the traffic, nearly causing an accident), which leads Verne, curious, to try driving. As such, Timekeeper puts him in the front seat of a race car, and Verne takes off, albeit in the wrong direction. From race car driving, Verne then enjoys a bobsled run.

After this bobsled run, Timekeeper sends Verne and 9-Eye to the bottom of the sea, to show Verne how his novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea has come to life. The scene changes and goes from underwater to flying. Jules Verne now stands in a balloon soaring over Red Square in Moscow, sharing it with a Russian couple on their honeymoon. Since Verne's presence is inconvenient, Timekeeper sends him to Roissy airport near Paris. The two Russian lovers are accidentally taken to Paris as well, where they could start their honeymoon. As Verne witnesses planes (the "flying wagons" as he calls them), he begs for Timekeeper to let him fly. An employee soon arrives, discovers 9-Eye and start talking to her. However, Verne, who ventured far from there, is arrested by policemen. With the help of the employee and Timekeeper's grip on time, Verne is finally freed (these two scenes were not part of Orlando's version). The screen then shows a flight through the air above the European countrysides featuring Castles and Mountains. Verne is shown in a helicopter, sitting dangerously close to its open door. After flying over Mont Saint-Michel, Neuschwanstein Castle, English countrysides and New York skyline (only in Orlando's version), Verne requests to go even higher. They take him to space, in order to show that another dream of his, space travel, has come true from his book From the Earth to the Moon. Time is running out, so Timekeeper and 9-Eye return Verne to the site of the Grand Palais of the 1900 Exposition Universelle. However, Timekeeper makes one mistake in the wrong year, and Verne is in the right place, but at the wrong time (in the 1990s). When they finally return Verne to his right time, H.G. Wells happens to go back to the site of his discussion with Verne, and therefore sees all that is going on with Timekeeper.

Wells is flabbergasted, and Verne and 9-Eye exchange goodbyes as Wells tries to understand what is happening. 9-Eye returns to the present time, and now that guests have witnessed a "flawless" demonstration of his time machine, Timekeeper decides to see the future. Timekeeper sends 9-Eye and selected guests to 2189, 300 years after the Exposition Universelle of 1889 and the completion of the Eiffel Tower (both evidenced by Timekeeper's clock, and by the appearance of the number "300" on the Eiffel Tower). As they explore a futuristic Paris aboard a flying car named Reinastella, they see Jules Verne and H.G. Wells appearing in what looks like Wells' time machine from 1900. A stunned 9-Eye questions how they got there, to which Verne replies "In the future, anything is possible!" The show ends as they jet off, and Timekeeper wishes everyone well. As guests leave, Timekeeper makes plans to see other important events during history and in the future with his machine and 9-Eye.

Gallery

9-Eye in Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast

Trivia

• When Le Visionarium closed in Disneyland Paris in 2004, the 9-Eye prop was moved to the first room of Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, as a reference to the attraction that existed in that place years prior.