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

[HMF]

Toad was cool, but people malign MK Pooh far too much,

That might be true but Pooh should have probably been a new build rather than a replacement. What happened to Mr. Toad seems like a footnote after what happened to Imagination the very next year.

 

[HMF]

In some cases updating a ride based on an IP improves the ride. I'd classify The Incredicoaster at DCA in this way. I loved the original, California Screamin', but even though Incredicoaster is exactly the same ride, all of the Incredibles dressing definitely makes it more fun for me.

neither version of Screamin/incredicoaster are worthy of existing in a Disney Park as with all of Paradise /Pixar Pier.

 

[HMF]

MK's Little Mermaid another example imo. In 1989 I thought it'd make a great Fantasyland dark ride, and now we have it. BUT it just doesn't have the heart of a Peter Pan or Toad. It's not bad, it has great effects (especially Scuttle) yet it still feels like a poorly-written book report, at least compared to every other Disney Fairy Tale dark ride I've been on.

It's not even as good as the Little Mermaid ride they were going to build in the 90s that they even took the time and effort to do a literal virtual re-creation of as a bonus feature on a DVD release.

 

[HMF]

My wife and I had the “pleasure” of experiencing this show earlier this week. And I am on the record most times as being more positive than negative about the parks. But this was bad. It was truly bad, a once-and-done situation. I can’t even tell you what the plot was about. It is so hectic, overly fast-paced and loud…it is a mess from start to finish. When we walked out of the theater my wife said “I have no idea what just happened in there.”

Is the animation good? Sure, but what dots that matter if the story is incoherent and clearly panders to the younger TikTok crowd? It is designed for people with short attention spans. One scene runs into the next, Nick and Judy are investigating something and then just ends with a lame song and dance number. Oh, and of course you need the sloth laughing super slowly because you can’t do anything with Zootopia and not include that bit.

This is a move predicated on Iger’s IP mandate, could with his brand synergy. Zootopia 2 is coming out so we need this in the parks ahead of time to cross-promote. So this is the park version of jamming the square peg into the round hole. It makes zero sense why this is here. And to tie the Tree of Life into the Zootopia backstory is laughable, as well as dumbing down the significance of the park’s icon. Just a bad idea all around.

We know that Disney is willing to do stupid things to cross promote. The most glaring example of this is looming over DCA and wiped out a beloved classic.

 

[HMF]

Pandora is nothing but AK's version to The Land at Epcot...
Flight of passage - Soarin
Navi River journey - Living with The Land

That is a good analogy that I had never heard before.

 

[HMF]

That queue is almost indisputable evidence that the ride has seriously underperformed Disney's original expectations. They would not have spent the money to build it if they thought it would be mostly empty the vast majority of the time.

The queue is ironically better than the ride.

 

[Brer Panther]

I think that's a result of poor execution more than anything; I don't think there's anything inherent to Little Mermaid that makes it a worse option for a ride. Something like the Under the Sea scene could have been really impressive with different design.

For one thing, having us actually travel through the scenes and interact with the characters a little instead of going AROUND the scenes and just hearing songs would've helped.

 

[MrPromey]

MK's Little Mermaid another example imo. In 1989 I thought it'd make a great Fantasyland dark ride, and now we have it. BUT it just doesn't have the heart of a Peter Pan or Toad. It's not bad, it has great effects (especially Scuttle) yet it still feels like a poorly-written book report, at least compared to every other Disney Fairy Tale dark ride I've been on.

You've seen the old Tony Baxter concept, right?

THAT looks like the one we should have gotten.

 

[MrPromey]

I don't think we are disagreeing here. My Tron example was of an IP that was NOT massively successful and still had an attraction based on it. I agree that rides themselves are judged based on their own merits regardless of the IP they are based on, if any.

It's all about:

 

[James Alucobond]

For one thing, having us actually travel through the scenes and interact with the characters a little instead of going AROUND the scenes and just hearing songs would've helped.

You never really “interact with the characters” in a book report ride, nor do you travel especially more “around” anything in Under the Sea than in any similar attraction. The attempts at interactivity are often what feel forced (see TBA).

IMO, the issue is staging, the static nature of a bunch of the supplementary figures, and the massive narrative leap at the end. The first two Ariel figures are posed and positioned supremely awkwardly, which gives a really poor first impression, and the static nature of the fish really takes you out of the experience because in order for anything underwater to be believable, it has to be moving pretty much all the time. This is a case where I think much more extensive projection mapping could help a ton (even at the expense of some of the current static figures), plus a rethink on placement of a couple of the central animatronics. The problem of flow at the end is largely unfixable, but I actually think the attempted improvement of showing Ursula dying does more harm than good. I might just put the focus more on the loss of Ariel’s voice and its return. Change the screen with the bad graphic of Ariel getting legs right after Ursula to instead show her voice being absorbed by the nautilus necklace, then make the scene after Kiss the Girl into a set of proper Eric and Ariel animatronics standing amongst fog on the ship deck, her voice returning to her from the necklace.

 

[DisneyHead123]

You never really “interact with the characters” in a book report ride, nor do you travel especially more “around” anything in Under the Sea than in any similar attraction. The attempts at interactivity are often what feel forced (see TBA).

IMO, the issue is staging, the static nature of a bunch of the supplementary figures, and the massive narrative leap at the end. The first two Ariel figures are posed and positioned supremely awkwardly, which gives a really poor first impression, and the static nature of the fish really takes you out of the experience because in order for anything underwater to believable, it has to be moving pretty much all the time. This is a case where I think much more extensive projection mapping could help a ton (even at the expense of some of the current static figures), plus a rethink on placement of a couple of the central animatronics. The problem of flow at the end is largely unfixable, but I actually think the attempted improvement of showing Ursula dying does more harm than good. I might just put the focus more on the loss of Ariel’s voice and its return. Change the screen with the bad graphic of Ariel getting legs right after Ursula to instead show her voice being absorbed by the nautilus necklace, then make the scene after Kiss the Girl into a set of proper Eric and Ariel animatronics standing amongst fog on the ship deck, her voice returning to her from the necklace.

I’m not sure if this is a controversial opinion or not, but my take is that the era of department store window rides is simply over. (With the exception of rides aimed primarily at young kids.)

The next-gen dark rides in the US have largely added more razzle dazzle and wow factor with a frenetic pace, trackless vehicles, and a multi sensory approach. Some of the overseas parks have branched out with things like Beauty and the Beast and Pirates of the Caribbean. Thinking we’ll see more of this in the US soon.

 

[James Alucobond]

I’m not sure if this is a controversial opinion or not, but my take is that the era of department store window rides is simply over. (With the exception of rides aimed primarily at young kids.)

I think Frozen Journey and Lantern Festival demonstrate otherwise, though they also demonstrate that each scene needs to now be impeccably done in order to impress unless there are other novel elements.

 

[jah4955]

It's not even as good as the Little Mermaid ride they were going to build in the 90s that they even took the time and effort to do a literal virtual re-creation of as a bonus feature on a DVD release.

You've seen the old Tony Baxter concept, right?

THAT looks like the one we should have gotten.

????? I only knew about the Kevin Rafferty double-decker carousel from his autobiography.

 

[flynnibus]

Expedition Everest, Disney World's latest non-IP ride is a ghost town in the mornings and still rn it's pretty empty. 15 minute wait for a rollercoaster is VERY light. Especially considering its quality.

Rollercoasters also notoriously split the customer base in terms of ability to ride. It is also at nearly the furthest corner of the park from the entrance.

Navi River Journey is usually considered to be a lesser attraction than it, yet it has 3x the wait right now in the same park.

Tron is also 3x Space Mountain's wait right now. I'm not saying that these are definitive numbers or anything but there's something there imo when these rides ROUTINELY get higher waits than their nearby non-IP counterparts.

HM and Mermaid are equals right now.

Equating wait times with attention or linear popularity is a fallacy.

Wait times are an intersection of two things..not one. They are a function of
how many people are getting in line vs the attraction's throughput
AND
people's tolerance for waiting for that attraction.

Demand/interest influences both those columns. Interest in getting in line is dependent on attention/desire to participate... and wait tolerance will increase the more the ride is popular. Wait times are generally self-regulating because Wait Tolerance serves as a soft-limit to how much people are willing to wait given the conditions at the time.

So seeing a high wait time is a good indicator of people's interest because they are willing to invest to ride (wait tolerance is high)... but low wait times doesn't necessarily mean no/low interest.. because the important factor of throughput is there. An attraction with high throughput is going to keep line waits down more than one without. That's part of the ride design, independent of interest/popularity. And in some cases, wait tolerance is high simply because the customers have been conditioned to know wait times will ALWAYS be high for that attraction, so they have to adjust their tolerances or never experience the attraction. (notable for attractions with very low throughputs.. like a M&G).

A M&G with a 45min doesn't mean it's 3x more popular than POTC with a 15min wait.

Everest keeps a low wait time because it's a people eater in capacity in a smaller park and isn't for everyone.

 

[flynnibus]

It’s not about the amount of people waiting in line…it is about the amount of merch the IP sells….the Disney exec’s most likely sees Zootopia selling better then A Bugs life….this has been happening for awhile…see Winnie the Pooh evicting Mr. Toad

Which is why they never should have used zootopia.. it's not gonna sell merch now, because it never sold merch to start with either. Even cute-sy characters like Clawhauser are chumps compared to their predesesors like Heimlich

 

[Brer Panther]

You never really “interact with the characters” in a book report ride, nor do you travel especially more “around” anything in Under the Sea than in any similar attraction. The attempts at interactivity are often what feel forced (see TBA).

Well, maybe "interact" was a poor choice of words. But, for instance, Winnie the Pooh does have the characters acknowledge your existence and bring you into the story a bit more (Gopher wishes you a "happy winds-day", you get to bounce through the forest with Tigger, you're menaced by Heffalumps and Woozles). I believe Disneyland's Pinocchio attraction also has Jiminy Cricket acknowledge you.

In Little Mermaid, only Scuttle, Flotsam and Jetsam really acknowledge you. Most of the characters don't even have actual dialogue, they just sing the songs from the movie. Somebody else suggested this, but why not have Ursula actually try to tempt you into making a deal with her instead of just sitting there singing "Poor Unfortunate Souls" to no one in particular?

IMO, the issue is staging, the static nature of a bunch of the supplementary figures, and the massive narrative leap at the end. The first two Ariel figures are posed and positioned supremely awkwardly, which gives a really poor first impression, and the static nature of the fish really takes you out of the experience because in order for anything underwater to be believable, it has to be moving pretty much all the time.

This is a very good point. The static fish figures all look incredibly cheap - it just screams "WE RAN OUT OF MONEY".

The next-gen dark rides in the US have largely added more razzle dazzle and wow factor with a frenetic pace, trackless vehicles, and a multi sensory approach. Some of the overseas parks have branched out with things like Beauty and the Beast and Pirates of the Caribbean. Thinking we’ll see more of this in the US soon.

We already have several rides like that, we don't need any more.

I'm fed up with frenetic-paced, trackless dark rides that park the riders in front of screens multiple times. They're not immersive, they're not fun, they're not impressive, they're mostly just disguised simulators.

 

[MrPromey]

Everest keeps a low wait time because it's a people eater in capacity in a smaller park and isn't for everyone.

And it's important to note that it was designed and built in an era when Disney had a much stronger motivation to design people-eaters and reduce wait times since they'd not yet been able to monetize the waits.

With LL and ILL, they're able to create attractions that in some cases, perhaps feel more intimate and interesting at the expense of capacity since people are now motivated to either put up with the longer "standby" line or pay extra to avoid most of it.

Now that most attractions are seen as profit-centers for the parks, the waits are a good thing (up to a certain point) for the business rather than something they want to reduce as much as possible.

Observationally, it seems that TBA has reduced capacity with the changes to the ride system and the need to space out ride vehicles for the story moments to properly play out during the dark ride portions. I'm not claiming this was done as an evil money-making scheme but given the common wait times for SM during its operational life, I don't think this is a decision they'd have ever considered making prior FP being turned into the LL up-charge it is today.

 

[Brer Panther]

At the risk of sounding stupid, what does TTBA stand for?

 

[UNCgolf]

At the risk of sounding stupid, what does TTBA stand for?

I think the second T was a typo and he meant Tiana's Bayou Adventure.

 

[James Alucobond]

In Little Mermaid, only Scuttle, Flotsam and Jetsam really acknowledge you. Most of the characters don't even have actual dialogue, they just sing the songs from the movie. Somebody else suggested this, but why not have Ursula actually try to tempt you into making a deal with her instead of just sitting there singing "Poor Unfortunate Souls" to no one in particular?

The conceit is that Scuttle is telling you the story, so it makes sense that he addresses you while the others generally do not. I guess it also therefore makes sense that the story is told kind of poorly, but I doubt that was intentional.