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

[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.

 

[DisneyHead123]

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.

I think of those rides as more like “Gen 1.5”. I realize I’m being extremely arbitrary here, lol, but they do have many wraparound scenes and use of cool projection mapping that brings in an immersive element.

Don’t get me wrong, if you removed everything except the “department store window” elements, those rides still look amazing. That’s definitely a fair point.

 

[DisneyHead123]

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.

I like Remy and Runaway Railway, but I agree they already have those and don’t need to build more.

I think it’s kind of a fun exercise to think of what a novel immersive dark ride for 2025 and beyond could look like. (Again, excluding rides for little kids, which also have a place.) For example, thinking of Ariel’s circular cave where she keeps all of her treasures… something like that could be remade to be a full 360 experience in a circular room with some eye popping projection mapping effects, maybe even in the ride vehicle. With the right ride system you could even move vertically through it.

 

[BrianLo]

Kinda like making Tony Baxter the bad guy in the Big Thunder backstory that modern imagineers were clever enough to make cause old guys like Tony didn’t understand storytelling?

That was more in the vein of Harrison Hightower. It definitely was not a slight.

 

[MrPromey]

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.

yup - fixed now.

 

[MrPromey]

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

As someone else mentioned, they had a low quality rendering of it on one of the TLM DVD releases back in the day:



Cheesy flat rendering aside, it would have used a Peter Pan ride system and would have been multi-story using some of the same rooms for both the surface and underwater scenes with the semi-transparent barrier acting like the surface of the water from both above and below so you would pass through some of the same scenes twice with different perspectives and partially different things to see. Watch it a second time and you might notice some things in the first half you missed on the first viewing related to this.

And there would have been elements like the boat side opening and curtain of moss opening that would have been an interaction with the ride vehicles along with it in general feeling like riding through the scenes rather than past them.

You'll notice both elements kind of exist in entirely static form in the actual ride since that effect couldn't have been done with the omnimover.

Here's him talking about it briefly while building expectations up for the one they actually did build:



The sad/funny part is that rendering was for a version they were planning for DLP and DL back in 1995 and this is him lamenting on how the one Disney was building at the time, he expected to be so much better because of all the new technology that became available in the 20 years since when they'd put the original design together for that one.

 

[Tom Morrow]

I think it’s kind of a fun exercise to think of what a novel immersive dark ride for 2025 and beyond could look like.

The two best examples are Rise of the Resistance and Monsters Unchained.

 

[MisterPenguin]

The two best examples are Rise of the Resistance and Monsters Unchained.

Pfft. You transfer to different vehicles less then three times. We need four- or five-transfer vehicles for a *good* dark ride!!!!

 

[WondersOfLife]

I was scrolling on Facebook and saw a post about the new Indiana Jones ride... Saw 3 comments say "it should have been emeperors new groove."

....I rest my case.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

I like Remy and Runaway Railway, but I agree they already have those and don’t need to build more.

I think it’s kind of a fun exercise to think of what a novel immersive dark ride for 2025 and beyond could look like. (Again, excluding rides for little kids, which also have a place.) For example, thinking of Ariel’s circular cave where she keeps all of her treasures… something like that could be remade to be a full 360 experience in a circular room with some eye popping projection mapping effects, maybe even in the ride vehicle. With the right ride system you could even move vertically through it.

Tbh, I know it would be a certain disaster because it would be technically a feat and more effort than its probably worth but I thought it would be cool to see something like DK's system used for something like a boat ride instead. I had this reoccuring idea in my head of a Hades themed boat ride where you meet multiple villians in the Underworld who all want to rise up. You see visually the River about to drop off into a water fall with little comical signs pointing to the drop off point and just as you are about to go over the falls, magical sound effect and lighting + boat movement makes it feel and look like you're suddenly flyign and being pulled in, perhaps by a villian saying that you aren't going to get off that easy.

Would this effect be a technical nightmare with water & DK's already somewhat unreliableness? Yes.

Would this be practical in the slightest to get a good looking effect? Probably not.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

I was scrolling on Facebook and saw a post about the new Indiana Jones ride... Saw 3 comments say "it should have been emeperors new groove."

....I rest my case.

I love Emperor's New Groove.

I dislike how often people say to just put the "Wrong Lever" scene as a ride and call it a day.

Feels like it wouldn't really get the point at all of the movie across and its a fairly short scene more suited for a part of a ride or a show.

 

[WorldExplorer]

I was scrolling on Facebook and saw a post about the new Indiana Jones ride... Saw 3 comments say "it should have been emeperors new groove."

....I rest my case.

Modern Disney trying to cash in on the funniest Disney movie ever. Hm...

 

[lazyboy97o]

I was scrolling on Facebook and saw a post about the new Indiana Jones ride... Saw 3 comments say "it should have been emeperors new groove."

....I rest my case.

And how much of this is because of exactly what @Tom Morrow has been saying about people just wanting to do this?

In a park of amazing authenticity and detail, something Disney park fans supposedly appreciate, many insist the park needs more obvious fakery. Completely missing how that gets us to lousy content such as Better Zoogether.

 

[Touchdown]

I was scrolling on Facebook and saw a post about the new Indiana Jones ride... Saw 3 comments say "it should have been emeperors new groove."

....I rest my case.

I want a New Groove ride, but I want it to be a Mr. Toad dark ride. Vehicles are carts, pulled by a lama. By Mr. Toad style I mean cheap cardboard cutouts, because they lend themselves to zany and the characters can comment about being disrespected with a cheap ride. Finale is in Yzma’s workshop with potions turning guards into animals (via simple turntable) as we escape. Please do it Disney, it will be cheap, will delight fans and give AK added capacity with not much space. Better yet make it a duel ride Ala Toad and double the capacity and give a nod to that fanbase.

 

[Brer Panther]

I think it’s kind of a fun exercise to think of what a novel immersive dark ride for 2025 and beyond could look like. (Again, excluding rides for little kids, which also have a place.) For example, thinking of Ariel’s circular cave where she keeps all of her treasures… something like that could be remade to be a full 360 experience in a circular room with some eye popping projection mapping effects, maybe even in the ride vehicle. With the right ride system you could even move vertically through it.

I think projection mapping can be used in dark rides to great effect (remember how they refurbished Disneyland's Alice in Wonderland dark ride in 2014?), but screens shouldn't just be used as a fill-in for animatronics and sets.

 

[jah4955]

Thank you. I

As someone else mentioned, they had a low quality rendering of it on one of the TLM DVD releases back in the day:



Cheesy flat rendering aside, it would have used a Peter Pan ride system and would have been multi-story using some of the same rooms for both the surface and underwater scenes with the semi-transparent barrier acting like the surface of the water from both above and below so you would pass through some of the same scenes twice with different perspectives and partially different things to see. Watch it a second time and you might notice some things in the first half you missed on the first viewing related to this.

And there would have been elements like the boat side opening and curtain of moss opening that would have been an interaction with the ride vehicles along with it in general feeling like riding through the scenes rather than past them.

You'll notice both elements kind of exist in entirely static form in the actual ride since that effect couldn't have been done with the omnimover.

Here's him talking about it briefly while building expectations up for the one they actually did build:



The sad/funny part is that rendering was for a version they were planning for DLP and DL back in 1995 and this is him lamenting on how the one Disney was building at the time, he expected to be so much better because of all the new technology that became available in the 20 years since when they'd put the original design together for that one.

Thank you! I had goosebumps seconds into it. THIS!

 

[MrPromey]

Pfft. You transfer to different vehicles less then three times. We need four- or five-transfer vehicles for a *good* dark ride!!!!

What about - and please hear me out - a ride that includes a vehicle... to transfer you between the other vehicles?!

 

[DisneyHead123]

Tbh, I know it would be a certain disaster because it would be technically a feat and more effort than its probably worth but I thought it would be cool to see something like DK's system used for something like a boat ride instead. I had this reoccuring idea in my head of a Hades themed boat ride where you meet multiple villians in the Underworld who all want to rise up. You see visually the River about to drop off into a water fall with little comical signs pointing to the drop off point and just as you are about to go over the falls, magical sound effect and lighting + boat movement makes it feel and look like you're suddenly flyign and being pulled in, perhaps by a villian saying that you aren't going to get off that easy.

Would this effect be a technical nightmare with water & DK's already somewhat unreliableness? Yes.

Would this be practical in the slightest to get a good looking effect? Probably not.

In the Little Mermaid ride shown on the DVD, the point where you get pulled underwater looks very cool, like you actually see a visual barrier of where the waterline is that extends around kinda 360. Since the final ride ended up with some light and bubble projections to represent the water, I’ve wondered if Imagineering had some creative effect in mind to create what you see on the DVD version.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

I think projection mapping can be used in dark rides to great effect (remember how they refurbished Disneyland's Alice in Wonderland dark ride in 2014?

Yes, that’s an excellent example. I think Alice is one of the best attractions at any Disney park - it’s pretty close to perfect.

It’s such a simple set up that I can’t understand why it hasn’t been copied for other parks.

 

[DisneyHead123]

I think projection mapping can be used in dark rides to great effect (remember how they refurbished Disneyland's Alice in Wonderland dark ride in 2014?), but screens shouldn't just be used as a fill-in for animatronics and sets.

I think the difficulty that Disney faces is that once audiences started having access to high quality digital media in their pockets, the animatronics became somewhat less impressive as design elements. As a kid in the 80s I was wowed by Peter Pan, today I think it’s a cute ride. That may be because I’m older, or it may be because animatronics of that sort still would have been visually very novel in the 80s. Computer graphics were Oregon Trail style green blocks and cartoons were something kids had limited access to.

I feel Disney has experimented in trying to do a few high tech animatronics with their own wow factor. To me this works when they are willing to spend a ton of money on a filled in ride (Rise, Tokyo Frozen) - but often those animatronics are so cost prohibitive it doesn’t happen. I’ve said before that I’m actually curious if a return to lower tech, cheaper animatronics with more filled in scenes (a la Mansion and Pirates) might actually solve this problem.