MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
My problem with this very logical take is that you could go through quite a few of WDW’s recent rides - for instance Frozen and Resistance - and point to all the spots and platforms where it seems like there SHOULD be figures. This is one of the defining characteristics of modern Disney I keep going on about - they don’t build scenes, they place isolated but advanced AAs that gesture at the guests.
Mickey and Star Wars are modern trackless rides, and as such have a lot of empty corridors. There's definitely a sense of emptiness to them as a whole that i'm not happy about, but none of the empty space in them screams "looks exactly like an AA platform that was left empty", unlike the spaces in Tiana which definitely do appear to be exactly that. The scenery and few figures these rides have are all flattened tightly against the walls to allow the vehicles a wide berth. Especially with Mickey, we also knew from the very beginning that it would be a flat video screen ride with only a couple of physical figures.Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway has a ton of platform space for additional animatronic figures. And it doesn’t use them. Modern WDI often increases space and scale without filling it in.
Beauty and the Beast on the other hand DOES have a handful of platforms at least in the finale, some of which were occupied while other remained empty. But again the distinction is that this area was meticulously replicated directly from a setpiece from the movie. They could and should have added a couple of additional figures to fill these extra spaces (like Belle's father for one), but it's not like they were just random spaces that were built without reference material, they're movie accurate. And again, the space in the middle of the ballroom is completely occupied by the oversized ride vehicles. So all of the figures have to be shoved up against the walls.
Even Frozen doesn't have a whole lot of empty spaces that clearly looks like they were supposed to contain more figures, just a lot of flat narrow corridors. They also never advertised that they were including a massive cast of characters in this ride or the others mentioned. Unlike Tiana which will have at minimum 27 individual major character aniamtronics (10 returning from the film and and 17 new). A lot of them containing several duplicates throughout the ride, along with no doubt other non-central critters as well.
I am again not just basing this on my own observations. I was definitively told by my source (who has an excellent track record and who claims to have very recently personally seen finalized full scene mockups of the entire ride) that these spaces would in fact be occupied by animatronics when complete. Take that however you like though. I'm also not the only one even in this thread who has heard from imagineers who claim this ride "won't disappoint" when it comes to a large quantity of AA's and when comparing against Splash.
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