News Zootopia and Moana Blue Sky concepts for Disney's Animal Kingdom

Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
SplashZander said:
I have no earthly idea why this myth continues. Avatar absolutely does have cultural relevance. I’ve been at UFC watch parties where the fight starts getting ignored because people start debating the strengths and faults of Avatar.

Every quantitative piece of data demonstrates it’s cultural relevancy (ticket sales, theme park attendance boost, etc), and only qualitative data describes otherwise. Personally, I’ve never been involved in an conversation regarding the strengths and fault of LotR, despite the fact that it has a book series, 6 movies, filming locations as tourist attractions, and an extremely high budget, highly advertised TV series.

That doesn’t mean it’s culturally insignificant, because whether something is or isn’t culturally significant is entirely arbitrary. For whatever reason, people just conclude that Avatar lacks cultural relevance without evidence.
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Lord of the Rings is a really odd counterexample here. College courses are taught just about those books. It shaped and solidified widespread popular conceptions of certain mythic creatures and stories the way Disney’s films did to classic fairy tales. Elements of the story and quotes from the films have entered the popular lexicon. Totally unrelated comic characters are named after figures from the story. The films launched several major acting careers. Lord of the Rings was heavily tied up in the 60s college counter-culture. Etc…

What is Avatar’s iconic scene? Where is Sam Worthington’s superstar career? Where are the passionate and omnipresent fan communities debating every minutiae of canon? I’m sure some MUST exist, but they’re nowhere near as ubiquitous as SW, Marvel, or even (shudder) DC fans.

It’s not something that can be quantified, but I find it very hard to argue Avatar has the kind of cultural coattails it’s box office suggests. When Star Wars or The Matrix or LotR or Avengers came out, you couldn’t escape their cultural influence. Avatar is just sort of… there.
 
Incomudro

Incomudro

Well-Known Member
SplashZander said:
I have no earthly idea why this myth continues. Avatar absolutely does have cultural relevance. I’ve been at UFC watch parties where the fight starts getting ignored because people start debating the strengths and faults of Avatar.

Every quantitative piece of data demonstrates it’s cultural relevancy (ticket sales, theme park attendance boost, etc), and only qualitative data describes otherwise. Personally, I’ve never been involved in an conversation regarding the strengths and fault of LotR, despite the fact that it has a book series, 6 movies, filming locations as tourist attractions, and an extremely high budget, highly advertised TV series.

That doesn’t mean it’s culturally insignificant, because whether something is or isn’t culturally significant is entirely arbitrary. For whatever reason, people just conclude that Avatar lacks cultural relevance without evidence.
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Like I said, clearly there is an audience for it.
Still, I've never seen or heard a person (I know that's anecdotal) say anything much at all about the first film despite it's massive box office numbers.
Never seen a person wearing a t shirt, and outside of WDW, I've never seen merchandise.
Like Nickelback.
 
SplashJacket

SplashJacket

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
Lord of the Rings is a really odd counterexample here. College courses are taught just about those books. It shaped and solidified widespread popular conceptions of certain mythic creatures and stories the way Disney’s films did to classic fairy tales. Elements of the story and quotes from the films have entered the popular lexicon. Totally unrelated comic characters are named after figures from the story. The films launched several major acting careers. Lord of the Rings was heavily tied up in the 60s college counter-culture. Etc…

What is Avatar’s iconic scene? Where is Sam Worthington’s superstar career? Where are the passionate and omnipresent fan communities debating every minutiae of canon? I’m sure some MUST exist, but they’re nowhere near as ubiquitous as SW, Marvel, or even (shudder) DC fans.

It’s not something that can be quantified, but I find it very hard to argue Avatar has the kind of cultural coattails it’s box office suggests. When Star Wars or The Matrix or LotR or Avengers came out, you couldn’t escape their cultural influence. Avatar is just sort of… there.
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I mentioned LotR as something that is culturally significant, yet I've never been involved in a conversation involving it, arguing that anecdotes about cultural significance tell next to nothing.

Cultural continues to broaden, especially with the internet. While certain genres become more or less mainstream, the amount of content and media out there is just so much greater. There's just so much more to talk about in terms of media, and with targeted internet deliverables, perceiving what is or isn't relevant is just so much harder since we're all caught up in our little ecosystems.

Look at the top 100 music artists for 1978 compared to 2022 and look at the hugely increased diversity in music.

Personally, up until the past couple of weeks, everything in all my feeds was just dominated by Avatar.
 
C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
Incomudro said:
Like I said, clearly there is an audience for it.
Still, I've never seen or heard a person (I know that's anecdotal) say anything much at all about the first film despite it's massive box office numbers.
Never seen a person wearing a t shirt, and outside of WDW, I've never seen merchandise.
Like Nickelback.
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You bring up a good point.
Dr. Zhivago. It was huge when it was released, was huge and still is one of the most succesful movies of all time.

Cultural Relevance is different than cultural impact. Avatar Toys never flew off shelves, kids don't wear T-shirts with the logo on it.

It does not past the first name test. Ask someone any of the main character's names, and usually you won't get them.
 
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SplashJacket

SplashJacket

Well-Known Member
celluloid said:
You bring up a good point.
Dr. Zchivago. It was huge when it was released, was huge and still is one of the most succesful movies of all time.

Cultural Relevance is different than cultural impact. Avatar Toys never flew off shelves, kids don't wear T-shirts with the logo on it.

It does not past the first name test. Ask someone any of the main character's names, and usually you won't get them.
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The average viewer for Avatar is definitely older than the average viewer of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Matrix, or The Avengers when they all came out. I also think the drive to merchandise Avatar came after its initial success (i.e. now).

Avatar was sufficiently relevant to spawn an SNL skit 8 years later and another shortly after its original release, with both being some of SNL's most-watched videos on YouTube. And another recently.





 
D

doctornick

Well-Known Member
SplashZander said:
The average viewer for Avatar is definitely older than the average viewer of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Matrix, or The Avengers when they all came out. I also think the drive to merchandise Avatar came after its initial success (i.e. now).
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I was going to bring this up. Anecdotally, I think the Avatar fanbase skews older. When WoW came out, I had a number of middle age to older co-workers talking about it, essentially your classic "water cooler talk". I think the people who it has connected most deeply with aren't the folks who would wear Halloween costumes or buy toys or other branded merch (to bring up the common knocks against the franchise). Also, I don't think they tend to be among the younger folks who write memes or are active on social media quoting or discussing a movie. So I think compared to typical "standard measures" of pop culture it seems to not add up.

I'm not sure what the best way to measure something as nebulous as cultural relevance. It's probably one of those things that you'd need to define what you are talking about first, then compere the IPs in question. But my gut feeling is that if (for example) Disney added another ride to Pandora that a lot of people who be excited simply because they love and care about the movies.
 
Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
Avatar, like Marvel and LotR and Star Wars, is a four quadrant film - it pulls money from everyone. There is absolutely no reason to think it skews older then the others. It’s particularly silly to try and argue Avatar skews older then Matrix, which was rated R! There’s also no reason to think fannish behavior is exclusive to the young - look at what board you’re posting on!

My suspicion is that Avatar’s odd cultural place is due to the fact that the film, more then most other franchises, is driven almost entirely by its visuals. The plot is familiar and uninspired, the characters flat, the dialogue purely functional, the performances workmanlike - but the visuals are fantastic. That brings people into the theater, but limits it’s broader cultural relevance.
 
C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
My suspicion is that Avatar’s odd cultural place is due to the fact that the film, more then most other franchises, is driven almost entirely by its visuals. The plot is familiar and uninspired, the characters flat, the dialogue purely functional, the performances workmanlike - but the visuals are fantastic. That brings people into the theater, but limits it’s broader cultural relevance.
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This. Particularly with the second one the characters do not change from the beginning. There is very little to relate to compared to other properties.
 
_caleb

_caleb

Well-Known Member
Casper Gutman said:
Lord of the Rings is a really odd counterexample here. College courses are taught just about those books. It shaped and solidified widespread popular conceptions of certain mythic creatures and stories the way Disney’s films did to classic fairy tales. Elements of the story and quotes from the films have entered the popular lexicon. Totally unrelated comic characters are named after figures from the story. The films launched several major acting careers. Lord of the Rings was heavily tied up in the 60s college counter-culture. Etc…

What is Avatar’s iconic scene? Where is Sam Worthington’s superstar career? Where are the passionate and omnipresent fan communities debating every minutiae of canon? I’m sure some MUST exist, but they’re nowhere near as ubiquitous as SW, Marvel, or even (shudder) DC fans.

It’s not something that can be quantified, but I find it very hard to argue Avatar has the kind of cultural coattails it’s box office suggests. When Star Wars or The Matrix or LotR or Avengers came out, you couldn’t escape their cultural influence. Avatar is just sort of… there.
Click to expand...
I never agreed with the whole "Avatar has no cultural impact" argument until this post right here. You put it in a way that changed my mind. I don't understand why it is, but I think you're right that it just doesn't seem to have developed the sort of fandom other franchises have.
 
MagicHappens1971

MagicHappens1971

Well-Known Member
BrerFoxesBayouAdventure said:
Wanted to pop in and say I'd be utterly devastated if Dinosaur went away. Splash, Toad, UOE, 20k, and GMR are singular attractions but this is a whole darn land we're talking about here.
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“The whole darn land” is an atrocious embarrassment to the reputation of Disney theme parks. It needs to be razed, with that being said I would hope they would retheme dinosaur in those plans as I enjoy the attraction
 
BrerFoxesBayouAdventure

BrerFoxesBayouAdventure

Well-Known Member
MagicHappens1971 said:
“The whole darn land” is an atrocious embarrassment to the reputation of Disney theme parks. It needs to be razed, with that being said I would hope they would retheme dinosaur in those plans as I enjoy the attraction
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You say that as if Superstar Limo, Smuggler's Run, Webslingers, Mission Space, Frozen Ever After, and DL Pooh aren't worse blights on the parks.
 
D

doctornick

Well-Known Member
MagicHappens1971 said:
“The whole darn land” is an atrocious embarrassment to the reputation of Disney theme parks. It needs to be razed, with that being said I would hope they would retheme dinosaur in those plans as I enjoy the attraction
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Dinorama might be atrocious, but the rest of Dinoland USA is quite nice. No reason they couldn't replace the former (with Moana using it and combined with the Nemo theater to be a Oceania land) while keeping the latter intact and having dinosaurs represented in DAK.
 
Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
doctornick said:
Dinorama might be atrocious, but the rest of Dinoland USA is quite nice. No reason they couldn't replace the former (with Moana using it and combined with the Nemo theater to be a Oceania land) while keeping the latter intact and having dinosaurs represented in DAK.
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I’ve defended Dinorama and Dinoland at length before - they’re clever satirical areas that work together and that fit within and elaborate upon the larger themes of AK. I really wish that, instead of tearing Dinorama to shreds, they’d added a strong mid-range ride - perhaps a cheesy Dino-themed roadside dark ride that gets invaded by real dinos - and upgraded Dinosaur. Moana can be made to fit into AK, but the park needs expansion, not replacements. I actually wouldn’t mind a Zootopia land, but it doesn’t belong in AK - if I had my druthers, they’d steamroll Toy Story Land and put it there.
 

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