pdude81
Well-Known Member
Why did it have to be snakes?
Also will the updated Dino Bites sell a strawberry sundae served in a monkey head cup?
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DAK 'Encanto' and 'Indiana Jones'-themed experiences at Animal Kingdom
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
- Featured
Also will the updated Dino Bites sell a strawberry sundae served in a monkey head cup?
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I feel almost exactly the reverse of this -- Maelstrom wasn't a great ride but it was decent (most importantly, it actually fit the pavilion it was in); Frozen Ever After is quite bad and among the worst attractions built by Disney this century. It just fails at almost every level of design.
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
I don't think I would judge it quite that harshly.... There are real moments that are wonderful....especially the opening with Olaf and Sven... When you get up to Elsa's Castle is just sort of flops...and the back-projected faces are strange, but the overall is not bad....Like MMRR, it gets judged more harshly because of it's location and what it replaced... If it had been built in a Frozen Land section of Fantasyland like they did overseas, it would have been much more appreciated... Elsa's Castle scenes need something though...
James J
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
discos
Well-Known Member
Your example doesn't make any sense since Sleeping Beauty takes place in France which doesn't have any connection to Animal Kingdom. Encanto "having animals in the film" isn't the reason why Encanto is a good fit. The characters live in Colombia, a South American country that's so rich in agriculture, landscape, and has a vast species of animals. All of South America ("Tropical Americas") has so much to explore that aligns with Animal Kingdom's mission. Using the characters of Encanto is one way to explore it.
Indy is the same idea where some of his stories take place in these South American countries and him being an Archaeologist could still fit in with the park's mission. Again, there is a way to tie Indiana Jones into the "tropical Americas" just fine. Coco on the other hand, is a big stretch but Disney themselves have never mentioned Coco, and to be honest, what looks like Santa Cecilia in the concept art honestly looks like so many town plazas in South America. Let's not be too sure its Coco
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Bill Cipher
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
Antonio doesn't have to be the star to be an operative part of the narrative. The narrative could revolve around Antonio's animal friends getting lost or hurt, while the family (all acting as stars, maybe with Mirabel in the lead) must band together and use their powers to save them while traveling through the non-Euclidian geometry of the Casita. Indiana Jones could feature a narrative about some ancient deity with a connection to animals and nature. Maybe some archeologists have disturbed a fragile ecosystem with an improper excavation and the gods are angered. They unleash a giant ancient panther or other South American predator (a Carnotaurus perhaps?) and Indy must help us escape it. Coco prominently features the alebrijes, a mythological creature, so they could absolutely feature in a spinner attraction. Mythological animals are baked into Animal Kingdom's DNA.
With all that said, none of these particularly mirror the themes at play in their source material. Animals, nature, and conservation are not thematically relevant to the films Encanto and Coco which are about human familial relationships. Additionally, Indiana Jones as a franchise is mostly about fighting greed and keeping ancient powers out of the wrong hands; not exactly conservation. But just because these films don't feature these themes does not mean the story in these attractions are incapable of doing so. It's not hard to imagine at all, I was able to come up with these examples in just a few minutes.
For many years now Disney has been trying to stray away from book report rides and retelling the story of films on their attractions. As a sort of compromise to the IP mandate, many Imagineers would rather write a new story for these universes and characters instead of regurgitating what Hollywood has already put out. This is why we got Batuu instead of Tatooine; it's why Pandora, FEA, and Tiana's are all set years after their respective films.
In film or any other media, when writing a sequel to an existing work, a writer typically does not want to re-tread the same thematic beats of the first work in their continuation because there is an expectation that the characters grew and developed with those themes already. In a sequel, you want to tread new thematic ground. Why then, are so many theme park enthusiasts angered by the prospect of a new story in a familiar setting? If we truly want the themed entertainment industry to be recognized as a legitimate form of storytelling media then we should be encouraging continuations of existing films, not retellings of them.
We should also be encouraging original properties entirely separate from film but unfortunately executives seem to work extra hard to kill new IP, the very lifeblood of their industry. But that's a different discussion.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
I love how we can expect several years of complaints over whether these rides fit because their actual construction will be out of sight.
I’m going with white cheddar popcorn btw.
I’m going with white cheddar popcorn btw.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
I'll reassure people that in Indy's case the ride is being tooled to work in Animal Kingdom. It's not just clone of Disneyland or Tokyo's version.
I don't imagine they'd go to that trouble for Indy and not go to it for Encanto, which is a scratch-build, though I've heard less about what's happening in that ride.
I don't imagine they'd go to that trouble for Indy and not go to it for Encanto, which is a scratch-build, though I've heard less about what's happening in that ride.
britain
Well-Known Member
I don’t think it’s so much that we are angered by new stories in familiar settings. It’s that we want to be IN the original story, even though sometimes our presence would ruin it.
With Pandora, they really couldn’t just put guests in the middle of the first film, due to the fact that humans are warring with the Na’vi. Guests as “tourists” kind of requires a different era of peace.
But remember the story about pitching Star Tours 2 to George Lucas: When they get to the Hoth scene they only have Wampas on the field of ice. And George says “where are the At-Ats?” And the Imagineer tells him, “Well this is after Empire happened.” And George tells him to loosen up and just send the guests into the battle of Hoth!
Whatever the storyline of the new Animal Kingdom version of Indy, it better end with a rolling boulder.
We need a little reminder that whatever makes the most fun experience should be what wins.
With Pandora, they really couldn’t just put guests in the middle of the first film, due to the fact that humans are warring with the Na’vi. Guests as “tourists” kind of requires a different era of peace.
But remember the story about pitching Star Tours 2 to George Lucas: When they get to the Hoth scene they only have Wampas on the field of ice. And George says “where are the At-Ats?” And the Imagineer tells him, “Well this is after Empire happened.” And George tells him to loosen up and just send the guests into the battle of Hoth!
Whatever the storyline of the new Animal Kingdom version of Indy, it better end with a rolling boulder.
We need a little reminder that whatever makes the most fun experience should be what wins.
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UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I disagree with this -- the overseas versions are arguably worse because they didn't have the constraints of using the existing Maelstrom location.
It's a poor ride. It feels half-finished and is quite barren in places, and doesn't really make any sense narratively. The AAs are nice (other than the projected faces), but that may be the one positive thing about the attraction. People love the Frozen characters; that's the only reason the ride works/is popular.
Cloning such a misfire when they had the freedom to build something better in other parks was a baffling decision.
To put it more simply, if Disney had told the imagineers to build a new Frozen ride from scratch at WDW, even just a C ticket like FEA, there's no way we would have gotten FEA.
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EricsBiscuit
Well-Known Member
So Encanto is a ride, not a walk through?
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
I’ve always heard it’s a ride…
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
I do not understand why the overseas version is identical to the Maelstrom version...I would think they would start from scratch completely... And I agree there are sections of the ride that could use a lot of help, I don't think it as a whole is terrible... THere is a lot of charm... Just needs a little more....
If the Snow Monster had been chasing you out of Elsa's Castle on the screens as you are moving backward and then trips and falls as you go through the fog bank perhaps it would then make sense that he is laying on the ground facing you as the boat shifts back to forward... It would give it a little more narrative. The castle scenes at the top do indeed feel barren though...and the Splashdown Room could have a little more going on... The "Summer tag at the end is classic Disney dark ride, and very charming... It's easy to bash it all, but there are some good things there.
I agree with you about the direct lift versions...there is no excuse for them not to have delivered a better ride...
SplashJacket
Well-Known Member
Hong Kong's seems vastly improved through small tweaks, so I don't hate it either. FEA's main issue is the ice castle, as you said.
The first Olaf scene is one of my favorite scenes in any Disney ride anywhere. Even the trolls scene is nice, as is the drop scene. They shouldn't have made the ride go through the ice castle, IMHO, there's no way to avoid the barrenness of the ice castle's interior, except not to build it.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
It would have helped if the Ice Castle interior actually looked like, you know, Ice.
The sets in those scenes should have been made of Lucite to create a prismatic effect, with iridescent Mirrors throughout to add reflections - top it off with Fiber Optics and Projections like in the Let It Go room (plus Laser Snow effects like the Magic from Hong Kong's Mystic Manor) and it could have been a stunning kaleidoscopic moment.
It's not like the castle in the movie wasn't cool to look at, nor is it like an Ice Castle isn't a place people would want to go to visit. They just didn't deliver on what would have made it impressive to see:
Instead they built things solid with painted blacklight shading to suggest ice, and it never pops the way it should:
EDITED To Add: Frozen on Broadway, whose Ice Castle also famously underwhelmed, at least built one that sparkled with more than 70,000 Swarovski Crystals. The simple curtain-out reveal was a disappointment to those expecting a creative staging of Elsa building the thing with her magic, but once it was unveiled it was at least dazzling to look at. Photos don't do justice to how it sparkled in person. If only the ride had used some real crystals:
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ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
Good choice. Figment popcorn bucket?