The Rivers of America is the central organizing element of Frontierland and Liberty Square. Its replacement is specifically being designed to not be that, it is intentionally being hidden.
It’s the same reason the Main Street bypasses are not the same experience as Main Street proper even though in both cases you’re ostensibly walking along walls. Even if the walls were significantly plussed it still wouldn’t be the same. The visual permeability of different edge conditions changes our perception of them. A wall with street level windows is perceived differently than one without. People drive faster when subdivisions don’t have street trees because, despite the actual edge, the curb of the road, being similar, the perceived edges of the space are different.
The Rivers of America are an edge condition but visually transparent. The obvious anachronism of cartoon cars zipping around means what we’ve been shown, a new edge condition that is visually opaque. These are opposite things and people will not respond the same to these starkly different conditions. This visual openness is also important to the story of Liberty Square and Frontierland. Adventureland is also laid out along an edge, that is also water, but its edge is opaque. The buildings of Adventureland do not follow the contour of this edge, they follow their own pattern culminating in a plaza, a space that was defined by the buildings, not the wilderness. This is because, despite being played for laughs, the wilderness of Adventureland is inhospitable and untamed, it is something kept at a distance. Frontierland is the opposite story, it is the embrace and conquering of the wilderness. The buildings follow the contour of the river, they work with it, not ignoring its presence. It’s big and open, not closed and confined which is being proposed. Without that defining feature the entire space loses the thing along which it is shaped, along which its central story is centered.
Liberty Square and Frontierland also tell a story that is intentionally bookended. They didn’t just plop things down because there wasn’t an idea of what to do with the space. The Haunted Mansion and Thunder Mesa were intentional bookends to one story. The lack of a berm is also intentional, an opportunity that remains unique to the Magic Kingdom. The Haunted Mansion is the old haunted house on the hill, its presentation was setup as something isolated. Thunder Mesa was the intended weenie for the entire two land sequence, a culmination of the story of conquering the wilderness of the frontier, a massive edifice dotted with bits of human activity. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ended up filling that space and while visually smaller, is still something that exists as an isolated element, not something in the center of activity. These spaces are the ends of where we inhabit with more beyond our reach. Breaking this intentional bookend should also be done for strong storytelling purposes, not just perceived operational efficiencies. Efficiency is the last Key for a reason, and there are plenty of times where what operations wants is bad show. Theme parks are storytelling through built space and therefore the creation of space should have first and foremost a storytelling purpose. As much as operations gets input there’s a reason they don’t get to do the design work.
