He is the new Michael Eisner.Is Bob going to narrate this , too…?
-
-
The new WDWMAGIC iOS app is here!
Stay up to date with the latest Disney news, photos, and discussions right from your iPhone. The app is free to download and gives you quick access to news articles, forums, photo galleries, park hours, weather and Lightning Lane pricing. Learn More -
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Disneyland celebrates the country's 250th birthday in 2026
- Thread starter Phroobar
- Start date
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
Yeah, the idea that the Midwest is nothing but flat cornfields is, well, wrong.
The driftless area is quite beautiful and could certainly be included.
The driftless area is quite beautiful and could certainly be included.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
My apologies, but you must remember that I'm a native West Coaster and that most of us here in this forum live West of the Rockies. We have a different eye for what is flat, what is hilly, and what are actual mountains. I have been to, and through, the lovely Midwest states several times. I realize they have some hills and curvature to them in spots, but I also realize the things that are called "mountains" there; like the Allegheny's or the Smokie's, are considered just big hills out West. That miles-deep ice sheet 15,000 years ago really did a number out there! So I went to Google...
The highest point in Ohio is Bellefontaine, at 1,549 feet.
The highest point in Michigan is Mount Arvon at 1,979 feet.
The highest point in Pennsylvania is Mount Davis at 3,213 feet.
Meanwhile, most Disneyland regulars in SoCal see the highest point in Orange County, California daily as Santiago Peak (we don't dare call it a Mount or Mountain since it's really just a big hill, so Peak will do) to the southeast of Disneyland at 5,689 feet.
And north of Disneyland lies the San Bernardino Mountains, with typical heights of 9,000 to 10,000 feet and the highest point at San Gorgonio at 11,503 feet. Which is dwarfed a bit more north in California by Mount Whitney at 14,505 feet.
*Those hills in the midground are roughly the suburb of Yorba Linda "Land Of Gracious Living", with elevations about 1,400 to 1,600, or slightly taller than the highest elevation in Ohio. They include Gilman Peak at 1,685 feet, and the fabulously named Andersen Bump at 1,581 feet.
Last edited:
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
Do you think us Midwesterners and Easterners in this forum are so stupid that we don't know what actual elevation is? Because BOY is that how that post is written!
Nowhere did people contest that the west coast and/or areas from the Rockies westward have tall mountains, simply that vast swaths of the country that you dismissed/characterized as flat nothingness are not just that.
I mean, if you think PA is flat, that just tells me you never left Philadelphia if you ever did visit there. Two thirds of that state is Appalachia. So perhaps consider that you are not actually a flawless monolith of geographic knowledge before you condescend to the rest of us.
Last edited:
Distorian
Well-Known Member
This is so silly. Do you think Mount Hollywood is flat? Do you drive to Malibu and think the Santa Monica Mountains are flat? Those are pretty comparable in size to the Appalachian mountains out East.
I'm in NJ. And let me tell you: When it rains, you can definitely tell there's a pitch in the cul de sac.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Certainly not. We are actually talking about making an IMAX movie flying over the relatively flat Midwest and South.
I definitely think you could get some great shots of the Midwest, but they'd be focused on manmade American beauty; the St. Louis Arch and Mississippi river traffic, the Chicago skyline, the human taming of great farmlands and cattle on the plains. The Deep South (SC, GA, MS, AL, AR) is even harder than the Midwest, at least for my pea-sized and uncreative brain; I could only come up with Fort Sumter and the colonial homes on the Charleston seawall, unless you want yet another skyline shot of Atlanta and thus give up on the more striking skylines of Chicago and Seattle.
But would you want to make an IMAX movie flying over Alabama's or Ohio's geography? I can't imagine audiences would thrill to this sort of thing from the air.
Especially if you paid an extra $20 for Lightning Lane...
Last edited:
TP2000
Well-Known Member
No, not at all. But none of those SoCal areas really lend themselves to IMAX movies either. They just aren't spectacular enough.
For example, you get a great view looking down from the Getty Center, but the view looking up the hill at the Getty Center isn't anything special, much less worthy of an IMAX film.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Incidentally, I left out Louisiana from the Deep South list above because you could do an airboat in a swamp, but that seems a bit cliche'. Still, it's doable and stereotypically American.
I struggle on how to capture the French Quarter in New Orleans from the air via IMAX. Much like the Charleston seawall, it's an environment that is much too small and confined to work with Soarin'. But maybe they'll come up with something?
I struggle on how to capture the French Quarter in New Orleans from the air via IMAX. Much like the Charleston seawall, it's an environment that is much too small and confined to work with Soarin'. But maybe they'll come up with something?
TP2000
Well-Known Member
And again with the Deep South, do we think they should waste a skyline shot of Atlanta? You can/should only have so many City skyline shots in Soarin', and I already gave them three: Seattle, Chicago, NYC.
If you throw the Deep South an extra serving of red meat in IMAX format and show Atlanta for 20 seconds, you'd need to get rid of either Seattle or Chicago. Atlanta is a big city with a thoroughly modern, if unremarkable skyline.
But like much of the Deep South, the Atlanta skyline sits out on a flat plain with no unique topography. An approaching helicopter holding the IMAX camera would have nothing to look at except the skyline itself. Atlanta also lacks an icon tower or architectural statement that brands it instantly, like St. Louis's Arch or Seattle's Space Needle; many folks outside of the South would struggle to know which city that was exactly. Atlanta? Kansas City? Minneapolis?
Compare Atlanta to our two other non-NYC skylines and you can see the creative problem there.
Seattle has 14,400 foot tall Mount Rainier to its south, the glacier covered Olympic Mountains to its west out over Puget Sound, plus the lakes and of course the Space Needle which instantly brands the locale.
I would definitely get a shot of a pod of breaching Orca whales in on the aerial action!
Or get a Humpback calve like this little guy to do a few jumps in front of the Space Needle again for the IMAX cameras!
Chicago may not have whale pods in Lake Michigan, but the skyline is iconic and very photogenic. Get a beautiful summer's day with sailboats fluttering in the wind, and that one is a slam dunk on a giant IMAX screen. And get those wind effects blowing harder than ever when your Soarin' carriage gets to Chicago!
If you throw the Deep South an extra serving of red meat in IMAX format and show Atlanta for 20 seconds, you'd need to get rid of either Seattle or Chicago. Atlanta is a big city with a thoroughly modern, if unremarkable skyline.
But like much of the Deep South, the Atlanta skyline sits out on a flat plain with no unique topography. An approaching helicopter holding the IMAX camera would have nothing to look at except the skyline itself. Atlanta also lacks an icon tower or architectural statement that brands it instantly, like St. Louis's Arch or Seattle's Space Needle; many folks outside of the South would struggle to know which city that was exactly. Atlanta? Kansas City? Minneapolis?
Compare Atlanta to our two other non-NYC skylines and you can see the creative problem there.
Seattle has 14,400 foot tall Mount Rainier to its south, the glacier covered Olympic Mountains to its west out over Puget Sound, plus the lakes and of course the Space Needle which instantly brands the locale.
I would definitely get a shot of a pod of breaching Orca whales in on the aerial action!
Or get a Humpback calve like this little guy to do a few jumps in front of the Space Needle again for the IMAX cameras!
Chicago may not have whale pods in Lake Michigan, but the skyline is iconic and very photogenic. Get a beautiful summer's day with sailboats fluttering in the wind, and that one is a slam dunk on a giant IMAX screen. And get those wind effects blowing harder than ever when your Soarin' carriage gets to Chicago!
Mr. Sullivan
Well-Known Member
First of all what are you talking about? The Deep South is many things but it is certainly not flat.
Second of all, I think for the south you can show the beautiful bayous of Louisiana, the gorgeous Smokey Mountains (the most beautiful mountain range in the country in my humble opinion), and then pop down to WDW. Seems pretty simple to me. I'm not sure why you're acting as if there's nothing beautiful to look at in this country outside of the coasts.
In Atlanta, there'll be a flyover of the coca cola plant for "Soaring Over America" sponsored by Coca Cola (c).
Disney Irish
Premium Member
Was thinking the same thing, although I think the museum (the original was better) looks better on screen than a bottling plant.
Distorian
Well-Known Member
Even the rolling farmland in NC, with its rows of red dirt and tobacco plants, is a beautiful sight. I’m not sure how it would actually look from the sky, but Jefferson’s Monticello and its surrounding grounds are historic and lovely. If you want to get really crazy they could fly over Stone Mountain in Atlanta lol
Disney Irish
Premium Member
You know, I'm reminded of the series that the Smithsonian Channel did in the 2010s called Aerial America that went over each state from a helicopter, similar to what I expect here with this attraction.
And speaking of the Midwest, here is a "best of" from that series from those episodes -
And speaking of the Midwest, here is a "best of" from that series from those episodes -
TP2000
Well-Known Member
No one has said that. Again, am I the only one who remembers Soarin' is an IMAX theater shot from an airplane?
You are looking down and across whatever the IMAX dome is showing. In huge, panoramic scale.
I've been to the Smokeys; specifically Knoxville and the national park drive. Lovely country, with lovely people. But do those gently rolling hills of East Tennessee lend itself to a Soarin' film format that 2 minutes earlier was covering the Rockies and Polynesian Volcanoes and calving glacial sheets thundering into the icy Pacific? I'm not sure it does. In Soarin' Over America, the gentle rises of the Smoky Mountains are now competing against almost the entire continent, after all.
To make this work for an IMAX flying theater, you need big, bold topography, or else iconic and huge manmade creations.
Charleston, South Carolina is one of the most beautiful and most charming cities in the USA.
But you can't show that beauty in an IMAX domed screen shot from the air, because you just end up with this...
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
This totally isn't condescending at all.
Please explain how this doesn't come across as though you think that everyone disagreeing with you (i.e. people not from the coasts) is a complete moron.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I thought of something we could for the Midwest, or even Pennsylvania, for Soarin' Over America! 
I spent several long business trips over several years in Columbus, Ohio, when my firm had a hugely important Honda account. Practically lived there for a time in one of those horrible residence inn type hotels. And what do you do on a weekend in Columbus? You go to the OSU game, of course! And you pre-party the night before the game. Then you tailgate in the parking lot before the game. Then after the game you either celebrate or drown your misery in one of the many bars near campus.
But the game itself? It can be magic in those massive football stadiums all the state schools have in the Midwest. For some bizarre reason the OSU marching band crashes into Hang On Sloopy at every halftime, and the whole stadium goes absolutely nuts. This was in the late 90's, about 25 years after Hang On Sloopy topped the charts and I was baffled, but according to Google they are still doing it in 2025. Crazy!
Have the Soarin' IMAX camera do a sweeping flyover of the OSU stadium, or the similar ones in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, etc. during game day!!! Get the marching band on the field in formation and in Dolby stereo in the Soarin' theater, have the entire crowd of 100,000 wearing school colors, and capture that huge American experience like you could only see in Soarin' IMAX format! That could be great! Daytime pyro from the top of the stands is a must, and put Easter eggs of guys still tailgating out in the parking lot!
And don't tell anyone, but I think I see a small hill in the distance!
I spent several long business trips over several years in Columbus, Ohio, when my firm had a hugely important Honda account. Practically lived there for a time in one of those horrible residence inn type hotels. And what do you do on a weekend in Columbus? You go to the OSU game, of course! And you pre-party the night before the game. Then you tailgate in the parking lot before the game. Then after the game you either celebrate or drown your misery in one of the many bars near campus.
But the game itself? It can be magic in those massive football stadiums all the state schools have in the Midwest. For some bizarre reason the OSU marching band crashes into Hang On Sloopy at every halftime, and the whole stadium goes absolutely nuts. This was in the late 90's, about 25 years after Hang On Sloopy topped the charts and I was baffled, but according to Google they are still doing it in 2025. Crazy!
Have the Soarin' IMAX camera do a sweeping flyover of the OSU stadium, or the similar ones in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, etc. during game day!!! Get the marching band on the field in formation and in Dolby stereo in the Soarin' theater, have the entire crowd of 100,000 wearing school colors, and capture that huge American experience like you could only see in Soarin' IMAX format! That could be great! Daytime pyro from the top of the stands is a must, and put Easter eggs of guys still tailgating out in the parking lot!
And don't tell anyone, but I think I see a small hill in the distance!
TP2000
Well-Known Member
This totally isn't condescending at all.
Please explain how this doesn't come across as though you think that everyone disagreeing with you (i.e. people not from the coasts) is a complete moron.
Because I've been there, and I know for a fact that much of the Midwest and South is relatively flat. It's a topography that doesn't lend itself easily (or at all really, without manmade structures) to the Soarin' IMAX format.
Now, certainly you could do a movie like Soarin' Over Kansas. But I'm not sure how many Lightning Lanes you could sell for that.
To showcase the beauty and Americana of much of the Midwest and South, where natural beauty mainly hugs the flat ground or maybe some softly rolling hills, you are going to need to focus on manmade structures when working with the unique format of a Soarin' IMAX dome theater. Much like you can't show too many skylines in this movie, there's only so much rolling farmland and softly curving tree-covered hills you can show before you build a line of complaints at Guest Relations.
What about that national park way up in the Michigan UP? It's got craggy and dramatic cliffs sort of like Maine, but it's on the freshwater Great Lakes. They aren't massive, but they are striking as I recall. That could be something to work with for the upper Midwest!