The re-imagineering from AE to SGE was weakly done. It feels like they just stuffed Stitch in there. There is not really an entertainment, a thrill element, or much of a story for that matter. It is just, well, there.
This is true. I loved Alien Encounter because it was truly scary and I’m into that but as was mentioned above, my opinion is that the Stitch overlay doesn’t work. I think Disney decided AE was scary, they needed to tone it down, and Stitch was a cute, lovable alien with which they could keep the space theme but tone down the scares. However, as mentioned above, they swapped the alien for Stitch, I couldn’t tell you what the story is it’s so weak, and so I’m not sure what the point of the attraction is. That plus they release a really disgusting chili cheese dog scent that makes me want to puke.
I think also that it might have failed in terms of trying to be less scary, and therefore just created a more lame version of the same type of attraction, because small children don’t want to sit with shoulder restraints in a dark room.