MK Cars-Themed Attractions at Magic Kingdom

[mickEblu]

Because if you want to go see Colorado... You can just go to Colorado. The whole point of Frontierland is that it's supposed to be an escape to a time and place that doesn't exist anymore. Changing it to a "western US land" isn't an escape, it's lame soulless modernism garbage and one reason why Disney Parks are in such bad shape because most of the current group of un-Imagineers are thinking along the same lines as you are. It'll inevitably be sterile and lack the soul and originalism of Frontierland which is the problem with virtually everything churned out by Disney in the last decade or so.

Agreed. Especially true at the castle parks.

 

[Agent H]

He is overtly negative!

Okay. He has his opinions and he’s entitled to them. I would disagree with him on the
Quality of most past park projects but we do agree that this one is a bad idea.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I’ve been here longer than just about everyone here including yourself. Been here since the early 90’s. I go in and out. Honestly, I usually wind up leaving. It’s sad to see how toxic this place has become. Big echo chamber of anger, spin and lies. Almost feels like people get paid to bash on this site. It’s the same 5-10 people that post like it’s their job all day and every day. Don’t worry I’ll be leaving again shortly.

This use to be a fair, honest, and intelligent community. Not so much anymore.

It’s always funny when people out themselves as a sock puppet.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

definitely no proper budgeting nor anyone to keep it under control. to wit, using a couple of attractions with the same approximate budget...

• Pooh's Hunny Hunt cost approximately $100-110 million US dollars - or 11 billion Japanese yen - to build in the late '90s/early '00s, while DCA's Ariel's Undersea Adventure cost the same amount of money initially and an additional $50 million to fix in the early '10s (if memory serves, the MK installation was $150 million from the get-go). guess which attraction takes fuller advantage of the same basic conceit and evidently was a better ROI long-term?
• keep in mind that Mermaid also cost as much as (and in the end, even more than) Expedition Everest, the final major attraction built in the Eisner era, meaning it took Iger-era Disney as much money to build their "attempt" at a C/D-ticket borderline traditional Fantasyland dark ride as it took Eisner-era Disney to build show-stopping E-tickets under both their own and OLC's money

Good lord, I had no clue the disparity was that large.

Villains Land starts where Fort Langhorn is

And that's part of the issue I think, they're refusing to build beyond the berm. There's plenty of space to, but they don't want to spend the money prepping the land. At this point, I think all future MK additions/"expansions" will be replacements, because current leadership doesn't want to fork up the money.

 

[phillip9698]

I’ve been here longer than just about everyone here including yourself. Been here since the early 90’s. I go in and out. Honestly, I usually wind up leaving. It’s sad to see how toxic this place has become. Big echo chamber of anger, spin and lies. Almost feels like people get paid to bash on this site. It’s the same 5-10 people that post like it’s their job all day and every day. Don’t worry I’ll be leaving again shortly.

This use to be a fair, honest, and intelligent community. Not so much anymore.

It’s become a shrine/museum to Walt. Anything outside of what can be perceived as Walt’s original vision will be attacked.

But they completely ignore that Walt stated he didn’t want Disneyland to be a museum, it should be changing with the times.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

Another thought I had on the topic of Frontierland's theming- Disney is attempting to modernize the Frontier theme, by changing it from America of the 50s's fascination with cowboys and the wild west to America of the modern day's fascination with national parks and the natural beauty of America. But ironically enough, that theme is gonna be pretty outdated soon since the national parks are potentially... going the way of the Rivers of America, so to speak.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Hmm, let’s think this all the way through this time. Shall we?

What motivates corporations! Money! What brings money; people paying to enter the theme park along with merch and upsells. What are people who enter the MK not doing, well that would be going to TSI and riding the riverboat.

If people actually frequented those two areas by some considerable margin, then they wouldn’t be looked upon as extremely valuable underutilized real estate.

MK doesn’t have Fantasmic hitched to its river so there is very little of monetary value tied up to that real estate. Hence the easy decision to remove it.

This is a gross oversimplification. Most notably, Disney’s uniquely awful tangle of reservation systems such as LL heavily incentivizes the company to build and promote a very specific type of attraction to the detriment of any others.

You also fail to account for how Disney is very capable of driving guests in the direction they desire - they don’t WANT guests on RoA or Muppets because those attractions aren’t tied to their money-generating reservation system, so both are downplayed and even hidden. Muppets recently had its entire area aggressively redesigned and redecorated to make it LESS eye-catching and to emphasize the attraction LESS.

The time element is also key - both doomed attractions are very, very time-consuming by modern Disney standards, with Tom Sawyer Island in particular designed to entertain guests for hours. Disney doesn’t want guests entertained for hours or even for Muppets’ 20 minutes, they want them in shops or restaurants or spending money to acquire a LL reservation for the next sub-2-minute attraction.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

But they completely ignore that Walt stated he didn’t want Disneyland to be a museum, it should be changing with the times.

Devil's advocate, Walt also said “I love the nostalgic myself. I hope we never lose some of the things of the past." I am sure there are some things from Disneyland he wouldn't want ever being replaced. People tend to use the "Disneyland isn't a museum" quote to justify change for the sake of change, without the context that he also said that really early on, like in the 50s iirc. Back then Disneyland was like, mostly undeveloped land and concrete.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

This is a gross oversimplification. Most notably, Disney’s uniquely awful tangle of reservation systems such as LL heavily incentivizes the company to build and promote a very specific type of attraction to the detriment of any others.

You also fail to account for how Disney is very capable of driving guests in the direction they desire - they don’t WANT guests on RoA or Muppets because those attractions aren’t tied to their money-generating reservation system, so both are downplayed and even hidden. Muppets recently had its entire area aggressively redesigned and redecorated to make it LESS eye-catching and to emphasize the attraction LESS.

The time element is also key - both doomed attractions are very, very time-consuming by modern Disney standards, with Tom Sawyer Island in particular designed to entertain guests for hours. Disney doesn’t want guests entertained for hours or even for Muppets’ 20 minutes, they want them in shops or restaurants or spending money to acquire a LL reservation for the next sub-2-minute attraction.

Offhand Disney just did a video on this idea, specifically with Disney sabotaging the RoA/TSI. Haven't watched it myself yet, but it's relevant haha.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I’ve been here longer than just about everyone here including yourself. Been here since the early 90’s. I go in and out. Honestly, I usually wind up leaving. It’s sad to see how toxic this place has become. Big echo chamber of anger, spin and lies. Almost feels like people get paid to bash on this site. It’s the same 5-10 people that post like it’s their job all day and every day. Don’t worry I’ll be leaving again shortly.

This use to be a fair, honest, and intelligent community. Not so much anymore.

You usually end up leaving a “fair, honest, and intelligent community?”

Since you’ll be “leaving again shortly,” I wish you safe travels.

 

[HauntedPirate]

It’s always funny when people put themselves as a sock puppet.

Yeah, I wonder which banned former member it is.

 

[HauntedPirate]

You usually end up leaving a “fair, honest, and intelligent community?”

Since you’ll be “leaving again shortly,” I wish you safe travels.

I'd say something more along the lines of... "Don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya".

 

[Ayla]

I assume that now-deleted message was their brilliant response to me?

This feels like we're talking to a ten year old but this account's been around since 2019 so unless they've logged on to a parent's account... man, I just don't know.

They changed their username. It used to be Schmidt...both still on ignore.

 

[Agent H]

I did. It was really good.

Offhand Disney just did a video on this idea, specifically with Disney sabotaging the RoA/TSI. Haven't watched it myself yet, but it's relevant haha

 

[Jedi14]

At this point, I’m ready for them to announce a closing date for the river.

 

[Jayspency]

At this point, I’m ready for them to announce a closing date for the river.

I am not unfortunately (or fortunately)

 

[Disstevefan1]

At this point, I’m ready for them to announce a closing date for the river.

That's a great question. I wonder what will be the closing date?

 

[Disstevefan1]

I am not unfortunately (or fortunately)

 

[TheMaxRebo]

That's a great question. I wonder what will be the closing date?

I think it could be a ways off as they still have to do the laydown yards and stuff

Wonder if they wait for some positive news to bury this in (parade debut, etc) or just hold off for a while including after Destination D23

Actually, that might be my guess - focus on new stuff that is coming and maybe give us some more on Villains land, etc (the stuff people - especially the hard core fans attending) at the event and then like a week or two after, probably on a Friday, announce the River's closure date

 

[Bill Cipher]

Tin foil hat time. This is speculation and reading way too much into a promotional video.

I don't believe this layout is actually meant to be representative of the MK Cars attraction at all. I know it plays during the segment of the video dedicated to the MK Cars ride, but the surrounding B-roll footage shows the Imagineers in the room discussing the layout next to a 3D print of a traditional Omnimover shaped vehicle, some kind of vehicle wheelbase, and a smaller mockup of a different ride vehicle.

Neither of these seem to reflect the other info we have about this ride. I know it plays during the segment of the video dedicated to the Cars ride, but it's just not adding up. The layout also has a lot of long straightaway segments which don't seem to reflect the concept they outline in the narration, a ride that's supposed to favor rugged and varied terrain over speed. Also, the ride is still being described as a race, so wouldn't there need to be two tracks like the ending of RSR? I think this B-roll might be related to a different project but can't place what it is. The small concept vehicle reminds me of how a Figment-esque system is rumored for Encanto but this layout doesn't seem like it would work for that attraction either. It's also hard to read the intended scale of the crude paper model so I can't seem to land on a definitive project. Would love to hear everyone's ideas though.