Disney's Live Action The Little Mermaid

[Phroobar]

I'm displeased the only shout-out the Mesopotamians get in modern society is from the Ghostbusters movies.

They communicated, right? Otherwise, how could the writers of Ghostbuster have even known about them to unfavorably tie their culture to a comedy about the end of the world?

Dan Aykroyd says: "Gozer is based on several things. For one, there's a Gozer Chevrolet dealership in upstate New York. A little more to the point, though, is the fact that Gozer was a name that related to a documented haunting in England -- the one Poltergeist was based on, in fact. During this particular haunting, the name Gozer appeared mysteriously throughout the house, written on walls and things. So we figured we might as well take something that had been reported in the public domain as an actual occurrence and use it in the film as our main demon and supernatural force."

 

[TP2000]

Oh, crap. I just realized this is The Little Mermaid thread and I'm blabbering about Spaceship Earth.

This is partly my fault gang, sorry.

 

[MrPromey]

I'm not qualified to assess the soundness of any story for any ride, as I'm not trained to write narration, or even trained to pick out the wallpaper for the CM break room. I'm just a reasonably intelligent theme park customer who goes on those rides.

On this topic of "including more cultures into the story" perhaps I am influenced because I am an American that has a fondness for native American cultures, particularly of the West Coast that arrived here at least 12,000 years ago, so maybe I was misunderstanding your point. As the PC craze now is to pretend all cultures are equal, even though they clearly were not when it came to technology.

You seemed to infer (again, I may have misunderstood) that Spaceship Earth needed to include many more of the world's cultures. Even though many of those cultures were thousands of years behind the cultures the dark ride is mostly covering; the Europeans and northern Africans who invented and moved human communication technology forward from 1500 B.C. to the present day.

The native cultures of the Americas and Australia were many centuries behind Europe, and they didn't invent or create anything that hadn't already been invented in Eurasia and Africa a thousand years or more before. The lone exception seems to be the Egyptian Papyrus Circa 1500 B.C. vs Chinese Paper Circa 100 A.D. issue. So add a quick line into the narration that mentions Chinese paper coming along a thousand years after Egyptian papyrus.

But to remove or replace any of the current show scenes, just so we can add in something like a Salish speaking longhouse storyteller in western North America circa 1700 A.D. seems pandering and silly to me.

So he admits to slandering the Mesopotamians!

... and he's Canadian! I didn't think they were genetically capable of slandering anyone!

First Sir_Cliff steps in with his "facts" and now this!

Today, I have been rocked to my core.

 

[MrPromey]

Oh, crap. I just realized this is The Little Mermaid thread and I'm blabbering about Spaceship Earth.

This is partly my fault gang, sorry.

We're all doing it - I think it's been a nice distraction, actually - considering the way the other convo's been going.

 

[LittleBuford]

You seemed to infer (again, I may have misunderstood) that Spaceship Earth needed to include many more of the world's cultures.

I didn’t imply it, I stated it openly.

The rest of your post isn’t something I can respond to without getting bogged down in the sort of discussion that I know will lead nowhere. Suffice it to say that there’s a reason schools and colleges no longer promote such simplistic and one-sided narratives of human history.

 

[TP2000]

Suffice it to say that there’s a reason schools and colleges no longer promote such simplistic and one-sides narratives of human history.

I would hope so. If you're spending 4 years and $100,000 on a college education, you should come away with more information than you can get on a 15 minute theme park ride.

 

[Andrew C]

Leave SSE alone. Add more pavilions in World showcase. Done.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The "Great Wall" would have been picturesque history. If not for "The Wall" the Mongols would have changed Chinese history.

So the Yuan Dynasty wasn’t a thing?

 

[GimpYancIent]

So the Yuan Dynasty wasn’t a thing?

Meh. The Mongols had to work at it. 1279 and old Genghis got what he wanted. The great wall had its impact.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Because fixing something declared offensive (even if it really isn't) boosts Disney's ESG score.

The only metric that matters today.

You have encased yourself in a media echo chamber divorced from reality.

Disney World has been ruining attractions for more than two decades. I’m not sure why we have to pretend that ESG is somehow the retroactive cause of that.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I’ve seen no evidence that Disney is set on destroying the ride. You’ll forgive me for not taking the pronouncements of my fellow forumites as proof of anything.

A forumite with, as far as I’m aware, absolutely no history of inside info.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I'm upset that SSE left out the contributions of semaphore.

I think we need a section on the development of yelling.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Meh. The Mongols had to work at it. 1279 and old Genghis got what he wanted. The great wall had its impact.

It really didn’t. When Chinese dynasties were at their strongest their northern borders extended well beyond the areas where the Great Wall was built (it wasn’t one wall in one location). Focus on the wall and its rebuilding and refortification coincided with declines in dynastic power. One easy way through the wall was just to bribe the soldiers at a gate and walk through.

The most famous section of the Great Wall (Badaling) near Beijing that’s been restored was built during the Ming Dynasty, the second to last imperial dynasty and the last Chinese dynasty to rule China. The Qing Dynasty that followed was a Manchu dynasty.

 

[GimpYancIent]

It really didn’t. When Chinese dynasties were at their strongest their northern borders extended well beyond the areas where the Great Wall was built (it wasn’t one wall in one location). Focus on the wall and its rebuilding and refortification coincided with declines in dynastic power. One easy way through the wall was just to bribe the soldiers at a gate and walk through.

The most famous section of the Great Wall (Badaling) near Beijing that’s been restored was built during the Ming Dynasty, the second to last imperial dynasty and the last Chinese dynasty to rule China. The Qing Dynasty that followed was a Manchu dynasty.

Woah professor, I could, but am not interested nor motivated to discuss multiple centuries of Chinese history. However, in your vast knowledge, do you have references to Chinese mermaids?

 

[TP2000]

Leave SSE alone. Add more pavilions in World showcase. Done.

Thank you. That's exactly the solution and correct answer we needed. I couldn't agree more.

 

[TP2000]

A forumite with, as far as I’m aware, absolutely no history of inside info.

Agreed. Which is why I explained I have no training for ride narration, or even appropriate training to pick out the wallpaper for the Spaceship Earth CM break room. I'm just a guy of average intelligence who has been on the ride more times than I should have.

 

[Tha Realest]

Leave SSE alone. Add more pavilions in World showcase. Done.

The company doesn’t seem to have an appetite to build more, and not when there are problematic historical issues to address.

If the D&I set were really honest and sincere about said things, inserting underrepresented nations into the tapestry of World Showcase is the most reasonable means of doing so.

 

[TP2000]

If the D&I set were really honest and sincere about said things, inserting underrepresented nations into the tapestry of World Showcase is the most reasonable means of doing so.

1988 World Showcase = USA, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, Germany, Morocco, Mexico, Norway, Communist China

2028 World Showcase = Nunavut, Ukraine, Somalia, Malawi, Pakistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Syria, Communist China

I'd love to see how they market that relaunch of World Showcase. And the Food & Wine Festival would be... interesting.

 

[LittleBuford]

1988 World Showcase = USA, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan, Germany, Morocco, Mexico, Norway, Communist China

2028 World Showcase = Nunavut, Ukraine, Somalia, Malawi, Pakistan, Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Syria, Communist China

I'd love to see how they market that relaunch of World Showcase. And the Food & Wine Festival would be... interesting.

It’s a rather poor joke given that your imagined 2028 lineup would include some wonderful examples of architecture as well as delicious food.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Woah professor, I could, but am not interested nor motivated to discuss multiple centuries of Chinese history. However, in your vast knowledge, do you have references to Chinese mermaids?