MK Villains Land Announced for Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom

[UNCgolf]

I also see Modernisme as a pretty specific branch of Art Nouveau that doesn't always mix well with the others. I guess we'll see. I'll honestly be satisfied if they pull off something that looks consistent and believable. The talk of interest in villains interacting with one another had me a bit worried that they were going to try to puzzle together a bunch of architecturally distinct locations ripped from across the film catalog. If it's a cohesive dark fantasy magical village nestled amongst the thorns under a single castle (Maleficent?), I'll be halfway to happy.

Yeah, even though Modernisme is essentially considered the Catalan version of Art Nouveau, some of, e.g., Gaudi's designs in Barcelona don't fit especially well with Art Nouveau IMO. There are definite similarities, but I don't think they'd mesh if you put them side by side (or combined them into one building).

 

[Bleed0range]

To be clear…no one knew how badly they understood Star Wars at that time. Now we know…

Complete miss.

They should fair better with a villain thing

Those things are absent because of budget cuts not because they didn’t think about it.

Also… (not directed at anyone in particular) it’s way off base to complain about the imagineers doing research for creative inspiration. That is exactly what they should be doing.

 

[Ayla]

It’s truly baffling sometimes.

A lot of these creatives have been shown to be extremely passionate about their field of work.

I love hearing an artist describe the choices they made to make something come to fruition.

Those "choices" are often severely limited.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Those things are absent because of budget cuts not because they didn’t think about it.

Also… (not directed at anyone in particular) it’s way off base to complain about the imagineers doing research for creative inspiration. That is exactly what they should be doing.

I’m all for research if it makes sense

The stories of 50 person junkets to Nepal to research a queue are legendary…and accurate.

Star Wars was a miss because they didn’t try to understand it.

They like deserts!
They like millennium falcon!
They like robots!

Nah…a little bit less superficial than that

 

[AdventureHasAName]

You don't need to travel to research 40 year old Disney cartoons. You purchase a Disney+ account and watch the films.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

You don't need to travel to research 40 year old Disney cartoons. You purchase a Disney+ account and watch the films.

But they are not making a cartoon, they are making a physical space and can be fit from how architecture in real life looks and from multiple angles

And I am sure they are watching the cartoons as well, it isn't one or the other (the cartoons they they generally do research trips for as well, so why it is now a bad thing?)

 

[James Alucobond]

I think it's hilarious/sad that Imagineering has to take a vacation *cough* research trip to design a land that any seven year old with a Disney+ account and a box of Crayolas could accomplish creatively.

You don't need to travel to research 40 year old Disney cartoons. You purchase a Disney+ account and watch the films.

If this land consists of a series of facsimiles of each villain's lair pasted next to one another, it will be a creative failure. Do you honestly think that's what they should be building? If you do, I'm glad you have no input.

Also, research trips are a minuscule amount of the project budget. Whether or not you think they're necessary, they are basically nothing when we're talking about projects that cost hundreds of millions. You could certainly cut them, but they're not the part of the process where excessive waste is actually happening.

 

[Bleed0range]

But they are not making a cartoon, they are making a physical space and can be fit from how architecture in real life looks and from multiple angles

And I am sure they are watching the cartoons as well, it isn't one or the other (the cartoons they they generally do research trips for as well, so why it is now a bad thing?)

Animators and engineers do have to do some work studying how things work in the real world to translate them into animated features or entire giant lands in an amusement park filled with of buildings. In this instance imagineers are as much artists as engineers too.

I’m not sure why this seems so hard for people to understand?

 

[AdventureHasAName]

If this land consists of a series of facsimiles of each villain's lair pasted next to one another, it will be a creative failure. Do you honestly think that's what they should be building? If you do, I'm glad you have no input.

Essentially, yes. It should look like an evil forest next to a dark village (like Epic Universe). And various lairs should populate the land. Yup, that's what I think they should be building. If the Imagineers want to research it, they could go down the street and buy a ticket.

 

[James Alucobond]

Essentially, yes. It should look like an evil forest next to a dark village (like Epic Universe). And various lairs should populate the land. Yup, that's what I think they should be building. If the Imagineers want to research it, they could go down the street and buy a ticket.

Universal monsters and Disney villains are completely different tonally. You're basically talking about classic horror versus Broadway histrionics in a lot of cases. You're asking for a narratively disjointed copy of a largely thematically unrelated thing, so I reiterate that I'm glad your thoughts are your own and will have no bearing on the outcome.

 

[Casper Gutman]

The rage against Imagineers taking trips is really weird. The problem isn’t that they’re doing research, it’s that the research isn’t reflected in a quality final product. I don’t think anyone should begrudge the many expeditions that resulted in Animal Kingdom. The trips that resulted in Tiana, however…

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

I just hope the land isn't too "pretty". It needs to have some edge to it. An air of suspense and misery.

 

[Mike S]

I’d welcome any facsimile of this.

 

[James Alucobond]

I just hope the land isn't too "pretty". It needs to have some edge to it. An air of suspense and misery.

It has to have the right attitude to be sure, but it shouldn't be a decrepit village. Think of how many Disney villains are royalty, royal advisors, or nobility (e.g. Evil Queen, Tremaine, Queen of Hearts, Jafar, Scar, Hans, Magnifico, etc.). Even those that aren't are often still vain or foppish (e.g. Hook, Cruella, Ursula, Gaston, Ratcliffe, Frollo, Facilier, Gothel, etc.).

 

[AdventureHasAName]

Universal monsters and Disney villains are completely different tonally. You're basically talking about classic horror versus Broadway histrionics in a lot of cases. You're asking for a narratively disjointed copy of a largely thematically unrelated thing, so I reiterate that I'm glad your thoughts are your own and will have no bearing on the outcome.

Because no Disney animated films featured a dark forest and village?

There ... I just did their research for them.

 

[James Alucobond]

Because no Disney animated films featured a dark forest and village?

Do the villains generally inhabit those forests and low-born villages?

 

[UNCgolf]

Essentially, yes. It should look like an evil forest next to a dark village (like Epic Universe). And various lairs should populate the land. Yup, that's what I think they should be building. If the Imagineers want to research it, they could go down the street and buy a ticket.

Most Disney villains have no connection to an evil forest or dark village and wouldn't really make sense there.

Of course that's part of the reason I think Villains land is a bad idea. The villains are wildly disparate in setting, character, etc.

 

[AdventureHasAName]

Most Disney villains have no connection to an evil forest or dark village and wouldn't really make sense there.

Of course that's part of the reason I think Villains land is a bad idea. The villains are wildly disparate in setting, character, etc.

Well, no disagreement there ... it should have been it's own mirror-Magic Kingdom (with Malificent's castle) thrill ride park set where the Transportation and Ticket Center is. But that's not what they are building. *shrugs shoulders*

 

[lazyboy97o]

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How’d they do? Asking earnestly, this is not my field.

They did highlight Gaudi was modernism and that they were looking for inspiration from both.

These types of mood boards are not really good for such an assessment. They tend to be a bit too focused on the aesthetics of specific elements and don’t really tell you about the execution of such elements or the larger crafting of space.

While different architectural styles are most easily distinguished by their visual differences they are also defined by differences in theory, the ideas behind the aesthetic decisions. Most people associate Modernism with a lack of ornamentation and therefore erroneously mis-associate early styles. Art Nouveau is literally the “new art”. The famous maxim “form [ever] follows function” is from Louis Sullivan whose work was quite ornamented. Even the International Style, what most people think of as Modernism, isn’t actually devoid of ornamentation, it’s just different (eg. the completely functionless steel I-beams on the exterior of the Seagram Building). What holds these distinctive aesthetics together under one umbrella is a rejection of traditional, mostly classical ornamentation and a specific invocation of established aesthetics.

Looking to these more ornamented early Modern styles actually makes some sense for a villains land. It places it in contrast to the more traditional styling throughout the park without heading towards something that will read more like Tomorrowland.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Well, no disagreement there ... it should have been it's own mirror-Magic Kingdom (with Malificent's castle) thrill ride park set where the Transportation and Ticket Center is. But that's not what they are building. *shrugs shoulders*

That’s an even worse idea and proves the hypocrisy as there isn’t enough existing content to copy to create coherent spaces.