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DAK “Zootopia” is being created for the Tree of Life theater

Biff215

Biff215

Well-Known Member
DreamfinderGuy said:
There was definitely a huge attempt made to make Pandora work within DAK's overall story. It's about nature, the animals, and conservation. Pandora was threatened by the RDA much like how industrial giants threaten our real natural world. Even if you want to argue that the franchise doesn't belong, significantly more care was put into making it feel like it does than any other attraction shoehorn Disney has done
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I certainly don’t disagree, and I think it worked because Joe did everything he could. However, I still don’t think Pandora would have been his first choice for an IP (just my guess).

I don’t think we’ll ever see a DAK/Joe Rohde situation again with the dedication and influence one person has had on a theme park. It’s a shame that Disney let him walk.
 
A

AidenRodriguez731

Well-Known Member
Andrew C said:
Now do Zooptopia!
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I didn't say Zootopia fit either :)

But I will say that I think any movie could fit almost any park as long as the story works.
What I've seen from Zootopia isn't reading as it fitting for me but that won't really dampen my enjoyment of it as its out of the way + still I believe going to be a good show based on one of my favorite Disney movies.

Does that mean it shouldn't have gone somewhere else? No.

I think it would have been better as part of a whole Zootopia land in Hollywood Studios instead. (I would have actually preferred it to Monsters potentially) so that there is 1 land for each Disney divison (Star Wars, Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Muppets, Etc)

Still excited for Monsters though but feels like a Disney IP would have better worked with the park.
 
DreamfinderGuy

DreamfinderGuy

Well-Known Member
Biff215 said:
I certainly don’t disagree, and I think it worked because Joe did everything he could. However, I still don’t think Pandora would have been his first choice for an IP (just my guess).
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I don’t think anybody does, but he wanted a mythical/fantastical animal type area and Pandora fulfills that. Not much of a leap from Dragons to Banshees.
 
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AidenRodriguez731

Well-Known Member
DreamfinderGuy said:
I don’t think anybody does, but he wanted a mythical/fantastical animal type area and Pandora fulfills that. Not much of a leap from Dragons to Banshees.
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To me, it makes a lot of logical sense as well. It's more in the actual conservation message than even the original land was planned to be. I wouldn't say its his first choice but it would not be crazy to put it in the top 10. Plus I think people work better with interesting restrictions (as long as it doesn't get too strict) rather than complete free reign. Working under restrictions gives a little more creativity and even if you weren't 100% sold on Pandora, it's a beautiful land with some pretty great attractions imo.
 
Biff215

Biff215

Well-Known Member
AidenRodriguez731 said:
To me, it makes a lot of logical sense as well. It's more in the actual conservation message than even the original land was planned to be. I wouldn't say its his first choice but it would not be crazy to put it in the top 10. Plus I think people work better with interesting restrictions (as long as it doesn't get too strict) rather than complete free rein. Working under restrictions gives a little more creativity and even if you weren't 100% sold on Pandora, it's a beautiful land with some pretty great attractions imo.
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Thankfully it came out great and is now a Disney property, but don’t kid yourself, Pandora was all about securing an IP that set box office records after Universal got all the attention for utilizing Potter so well in their parks.
 
HMF

HMF

Well-Known Member
Biff215 said:
Thankfully it came out great and is now a Disney property, but don’t kid yourself, Pandora was all about securing an IP that set box office records after Universal got all the attention for utilizing Potter so well in their parks.
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Also one where they basically needed the creator's blessing and who would refuse to let them half- it unlike Star Wars.
 
UNCgolf

UNCgolf

Well-Known Member
Disney Analyst said:
Not like what I think makes a difference, but I personally think you could make most IP’s work with the right story :)
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I think you can too (especially in theory) but if it requires producing something with no real connection to the IP as it already exists in its movies/other media, then it seems like you'd be better off choosing another IP. For example, someone could potentially design an attraction about animals featuring the Terminator... but why would you want to use Terminator in that way?

I think Zootopia has other specific issues with the anthropomorphic animals too (and the apparent lack of any actual animals in the setting), but that's a separate discussion from IP usage in general.
 
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WorldExplorer

WorldExplorer

Well-Known Member
DreamfinderGuy said:
I don’t think anybody does, but he wanted a mythical/fantastical animal type area and Pandora fulfills that. Not much of a leap from Dragons to Banshees.
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Yes there is. One is a mythical being that has been featured in art and stories from around the world and been a part of our collective consciousness for thousands of years.

The other is a thing from a movie that came out like fifteen years ago.

They're only the same thing in that both aren't real. Mythical beings are not the same thing as something cooked up for a film, they do not occupy the same place in culture, and just putting something (anything) fake in the park was never the aim. It only works that way if you take shortened slogans as the entire description.

Pandora is too far down the list of ill-fitting decisions to complain about at this point, but if anything it was a backdoor to "well maybe they can make it work..." thinking that is now used to justify just shoving whatever the heck they want anywhere.
 
Dinoman96

Dinoman96

Well-Known Member
Yeah for my money's worth, Expedition Everest was the one true successor to Beastly Kingdom. Once again I'll let Jeremy Thompson of Roller Coaster Philosophy circa 2012 say it better than I can:

www.rollercoasterphilosophy.com

Disney’s Animal Kingdom

Visit the post for more.
www.rollercoasterphilosophy.com www.rollercoasterphilosophy.com

Alas, after more than a decade of service Camp Minnie-Mickey is not long for this world, soon to be replaced by the recently announced Avatar Land. While it’s nice that this land is finally being used to fulfill its potential, I do have to question if it’s a better fit for Animal Kingdom than the Beastly Kingdom would have been. Yes, thematically Avatar and Animal Kingdom share many of the same messages and I suppose Avatar is better here than at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. But it doesn’t feel like an ideal subject for Animal Kingdom’s long-missing third act that explores the kingdom of fantasy creatures. The concept of Beastly Kingdom was much more democratic, rooted in popular mythologies that have been shared by many peoples across history. Avatar, on the other hand, is a story world created by one man with a rather didactic message intended specifically for modern western audiences. As I’m sure we’ll be reminded by the many © and ® symbols scattered throughout this new land, Avatar distinctly “belongs” to a corporation instead of the popular imagination, and I’m not sure if that’s a right fit to complete the story arc for a park that otherwise is about communally sharing of worlds both natural and cultural.
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Thankfully the final product largely avoided the © and ® symbols being plastered everywhere but yeah. I highly doubt the suits at the top like Bobby boy, Tom Staggs (who looking into it, was the one who suggested Pandora going into Animal Kingdom when it was originally proposed for Hollywood Studios) etc, when looking to negotiate with James Cameron for Avatar rides/attractions at Disney parks, were thinking to themselves "golly gee, we sure can use this to finally fulfill Animal Kingdom's mission of having real, extinct and imaginary animals!" (look at what they're doing with the "Extinct" part years later, after all), they just simply wanted a big popular IP to compete against Harry Potter and also address AK's capacity/ride count issues. Of course Rohde ended up making the most of it, but yes.
 
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gerarar

gerarar

Premium Member
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