Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
If someone blames Slaphead for something above his pay grade…it’s just a day ending in “Y”
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
News Bruce Vaughn Returns to Disney as Co-Lead of Walt Disney Imagineering
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Uh huh…great research paper
But WDI still destroyed budgets and delivered less out of more…but we all have our takes on things. Everybody has got one…as they say
I don't recall ever seeing anyone saying that on these forums.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
I believe there is truth in that there were bigger losses of talent due to or around Covid, and a lot of newbies brought in, who knew nothing of the ethos. I think we’ve seen it in the odd ways projects have suffered, odd very uncharacteristic things, even considering the usual budget cuts or constraints that impact projects.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Which recent projects would have been developed since then?
HMF
Well-Known Member
I certainly have not. It seems silly in retrospect that I used to want to work for them. That being said, I am not sure it is lack of talent in WDI or the stifling nature of the IP mandate or a combination of both.
Agent H
Well-Known Member
There’s a big difference between saying they are the best imagineers and not saying they’re the talentless hacks that think along the same lines as a corporate bean counter some people (not you from what I’ve seen) say they are.
phillip9698
Well-Known Member
This is such a woeful misunderstanding of what people have been saying to push back against your assertion that the current imagineers are essentially talentless hacks who couldn't hold the jock of the people who came before them.
There are very few people in the entirety of human history who have created something remarkable without leaning on both those who came before them and a support system which fostered innovation. You often discount those two points entirely when you want to rag on current operations.
Im in a hiring position in the engineering department at my place of employment. I can hire someone with the most impeccable educational and professional background around, but if i just hire him and let him be, then he wont be worth nearly as much as someone with fewer credentials but has been on the job for years. What i need to do is pair him with people who understand the culture, expectations, and contain the "wisdom" of the job if i want to eventually get the best out of this person. And when he finally does gain all the tools we need, we have to ensure the project itself is up to snuff. Because at the end of the day all the talent in the world cant save a horrible plan.
Right after COVID (this would have to have been 2023 I believe) I was flying to Orlando for a work conference out of the ATL airport, and I was in line to get on the plane and I noticed the two folks in front of me (a husband and wife) had Imagineering bookbags on - they were probably in their 50's and I struck up a conversation and asked "Oh do you work for WDI?" and they responded "We used to, before we were laid off." The conversation continued a bit basically about how they had worked there a number of years but gotten the axe during COVID and frankly, they didn't have great things to say about how WDI was being run at that point. Of course, some of that is clearly clouded by the fact that they were laid off from their careers but it was an interesting interaction nonetheless.
They were clearly old enough to have worked with the likes of Tony Baxter, Marty Sklar, Joe Rhode, etc. so I can see what Bruce means that folks were let go with no way for them to nurture and mentor the next generation based on that singular interaction.
They were clearly old enough to have worked with the likes of Tony Baxter, Marty Sklar, Joe Rhode, etc. so I can see what Bruce means that folks were let go with no way for them to nurture and mentor the next generation based on that singular interaction.
Nubs70
Well-Known Member
Sink or Swim is not a good on-boarding plan no matter which position.
Tha Realest
Well-Known Member
I mean this tracks. They stopped and stalled production during the early days of Covid. There were many reported layoffs or early retirements by Imagineers during Covid (Rodhe was in the middle of Lookout Cay IIRC, which didn’t start construction until over an year after he left). And the forced relocation to Lake Nona of large swaths of imagineering was a functional forced attrition to many (Kevin Lively was public about his reluctance to relocate to Florida).
DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
Now that I’m thinking back on it, wasn’t there also a major reorganization involving creative roles under Chapek?
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
I mean, it's a fact Chapek did not understand or respect creatives. While Imagineering was always a revolving door of talent, going to competition, or being laid off... something changed, which looked to lead to issues that seem uncharacteristic.
I think about Toontown at Disneyland, the amount of times they had to fix stuff after the fact, the EPCOT redo, Tiana's not living up to its potential.
There have been nuggets of good work, usually helmed by Imagineers that had experience still (Disneyland Treehouse, new Haunted Mansion Queue). But then you something like the new Haunted Mansion shop, and the weird AI art they put up...
So just a lot of weird stuff lately, that feels off.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Kim’s response to that really made me think less of her. Still very disappointed.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
Uncharacteristic of her - which led me to think she was less involved in the shop, or let someone else make decisions, and had to try and save face...
DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
Ok, this is what I'm talking about... I try not to copy-paste AI results but I don't have the bandwidth for summarizing today:
"In 2020, Bob Chapek, then CEO of Disney, reorganized the company's media and entertainment businesses. The key change was the creation of a centralized Media and Entertainment Distribution (DMED) group, which handled all content distribution and monetization, including streaming services (Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+), while creative content creation was split into three separate groups: Studios, General Entertainment, and Sports. This reorganization aimed to streamline Disney's streaming strategy and consolidate control over content distribution."
Now what the internal impact of that would have been, I have no idea - I don't know the ins and outs of Disney culture. But I'm sure it was another major change, in addition to Covid and streaming.
Regarding the Haunted Mansion stuff, I wasn't up on that so had to Google it. They put an AI picture in the Haunted Mansion store, is what I gathered? That one's hard to understand without context. My thought is - there could be a cute anecdote behind it. Maybe someone saw that art on Redbubble, loved it / had a personal connection to it, and thought it would be a fun little detail to have in the shop. Or, alternately, maybe it speaks to something more institutional like things getting done in a rush or haphazardly. It seems like in the internet era people jump to conclusions quickly, but again, hard to say a lot about a single photo - it's not like DL is plastered in Redbubble AI or something.
I do have my thoughts on recent Disney design - I think many things are great but a common complaint is that the work doesn't look "filled out" or detailed enough. I've wondered if this comes from loss of institutional knowledge or other places, like budgets. I should add the caveat that after a few years of post-Covid skepticism, I'm pretty firmly in pixie duster territory these days though.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
The big issue is the barn itself is terribly out of scale and not in theme with either the mansion, New Orleans or Tianas.
The AI art was the most obvious “we don’t care” example of the entire project.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
I mean, I am sure they could have designed a different building, but I feel the size of the building is mostly a byproduct of being asked to build a shop in 2025, in a tight space next to the mansion.
For me, it's the uncharacteristic choices, or the various issues after the fact. Stuff like the AI art, or the drainage problem that caused flooding in the store. Or ToonTown issues by the fountain, or under the fake grass... the Donald Duck boat spray pad...
These just seem unusual. Disney was known for taking long to do things, but they were usually done correctly the first time. For the most part.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
The size of the physical shop is not the issue.
It’s the scale of the exterior design. And the actual design itself. It doesn’t actually look like a carriage house. It’s a barn - and is a replica of one you can buy online - intentional or not.