News Remy's Ratatouille Adventure coming to Epcot

mikejs78

Premium Member
I think Rat will be fine as long as it isn’t marketed as a huge addition. It’s not the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I imagine it will be received better than Mermaid, Mine Train, or Navi River Journey.
Knowing Disney it will be marketed as the largest expansion in the history of Epcot. ;)

Well, the way Disney marketing markets a new cupcake....

This right here. NFL was meh, TSL is not that great, and even Pandora, which I really like, is a ride and a half short. I know Rat isn’t a land, but I hope it’s a good ride under all that steel and facade work.

Your personal preferences aside, TSL has turned out to be pretty popular (and is a lot less "Meh" than I was expecting), and Pandora is still drawing massive crowds.

Keep in mind: they've opened whole parks with fewer rides that they've opened in the past couple.of years. (DHS: 2 rides at opening; DAK: 2 or 4, depending on what you consider a ride)...

With that being said, more often than not when I ride it, I hear someone say to their ride companion “is that it?” Just because people wait for it doesn’t mean they love it. Yes, long lines usually indicate a good ride (and indicate success to Disney) but if you accept anecdotal evidence, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train doesn’t satisfy its riders as often as it should.

Anecdotal evidence is just that: anecdotal. I love Mine train (while conceding that it has flaws and is too short...). And I suspect I'm not alone. Let's look at some real evidence:

@lentesta's TouringPlans conducts many, many user surveys of attractions. 7DMT gets 4.5/5 stars for every age group except preschool (4/5 stars) and grade school (5/5 stars). That's pretty popular.

Now, no voluntary user survey system is perfect, and a scientific study would be preferable, but in absence of that, this is decent data and above any anecdotal evidence you or I could provide.

This exactly. We had a 6pm FP on our last trip and the FP line was an hour long. In Feburary. We didn't bother.

YMMV. Had two FPs for it during President's Day week, waited < 10 minutes each time.

In their defense (which I hate to do) the haunted mansion rooms were at least a legitimate proposal.

So was Fire Mountain, at one time....
 

Coaster Lover

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
I think people are suggesting that it won't have 3D all of a sudden because the 3D effect currently isn't working and it's being shown in 2D mode for the last week or so

Can a 3-D effect simply "not work"? The videos I have seen seem to show a substantially better projection (like they pulled out the projectors and replaced them with upgraded 2-D projectors... I know Disney has a new agreement with Panasonic...

 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Can a 3-D effect simply "not work"? The videos I have seen seem to show a substantially better projection (like they pulled out the projectors and replaced them with upgraded 2-D projectors... I know Disney has a new agreement with Panasonic...
Yes. Even if one projector is down or out of alignment, one room would have an awkward or poorly projected image.
 

Coaster Lover

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Yes. Even if one projector is down or out of alignment, one room would have an awkward or poorly projected image.

I guess my question is then, could they (or would they) easily switch everything over to 2-D if there was an issue with one projector? Can you just simply flick a switch on these projectors to turn off one of the two lenses and project just a 2-D image (and look as good as it does in the videos)? Or do the recent videos from Paris seem to indicate that they intentionally made this change (i.e. made the change as a way of testing the ride in 2-D as opposed to making the change as a stopgap measure until they could get a new projector in/fixed?)
 
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yensidtlaw1969

Well-Known Member
Mildly related - I rode Ratatouille in Paris for the first time last month, and one of the things that leapt out at me (aside from the well-discussed floor/screen relationship issue, which proved only too valid) was the fact that several of the show scenes are lit with LED lighting that doesn't agree with the polarity of the 3D Glasses. I found myself taking the glasses off every time the ride encountered a non-3D element, like the fridge scene, because the lighting looked so freaky with one eye seeing everything with a strong red tint and the other with a strong green. The full screens don't have this issue, of course, but any physical set runs into it and it's super weird.

I noticed it first with the mini Gusteau you see on the rooftop before entering the first projection dome. He's a 3D effect pepper's-ghosted over a physical set, and the glasses don't let you appreciate both at the same time. You either get the effect of Gusteau in 3D with crazy looking lighting, or you take the glasses off to enjoy the nicely realized set but have to accept that Gusteau will look like you're seeing double.

I have to wonder if more traditional, non-LED lighting instruments would solve this problem - if so, I'd hope someone is paying attention and fixes it for Epcot. The 3D element was a big part of the attraction, so I don't feel like going full 2D is the answer, but the lighting really gets trashed by the glasses. That's got to be reconciled if your attraction is going to feature 3D effects and dimensional sets. I was amazed to experience that at DLP, since I've never heard anyone call that out but it was SO apparent and really jarring.

Star Tours seems to suffer a similar effect when you first get in the cockpit, but I've always been able to solve this just by waiting until the show really starts to put on the glasses. That doesn't really work for Ratatouille, where you weave back and forth from sets to screens.
 

Rich Brownn

Well-Known Member
Mildly related - I rode Ratatouille in Paris for the first time last month, and one of the things that leapt out at me (aside from the well-discussed floor/screen relationship issue, which proved only too valid) was the fact that several of the show scenes are lit with LED lighting that doesn't agree with the polarity of the 3D Glasses. I found myself taking the glasses off every time the ride encountered a non-3D element, like the fridge scene, because the lighting looked so freaky with one eye seeing everything with a strong red tint and the other with a strong green. The full screens don't have this issue, of course, but any physical set runs into it and it's super weird.

I noticed it first with the mini Gusteau you see on the rooftop before entering the first projection dome. He's a 3D effect pepper's-ghosted over a physical set, and the glasses don't let you appreciate both at the same time. You either get the effect of Gusteau in 3D with crazy looking lighting, or you take the glasses off to enjoy the nicely realized set but have to accept that Gusteau will look like you're seeing double.

I have to wonder if more traditional, non-LED lighting instruments would solve this problem - if so, I'd hope someone is paying attention and fixes it for Epcot. The 3D element was a big part of the attraction, so I don't feel like going full 2D is the answer, but the lighting really gets trashed by the glasses. That's got to be reconciled if your attraction is going to feature 3D effects and dimensional sets. I was amazed to experience that at DLP, since I've never heard anyone call that out but it was SO apparent and really jarring.

Star Tours seems to suffer a similar effect when you first get in the cockpit, but I've always been able to solve this just by waiting until the show really starts to put on the glasses. That doesn't really work for Ratatouille, where you weave back and forth from sets to screens.
The glasses aren't polarized. The reason it seems tinted it it uses a system like Dolby 3D where the wavelengths of each projector are slightly different, and then the glasses adjust the wavelength back. The same system is used in Star Tours, as well as the 3D attractions at Universal except for Shrek. It provides a sharper, brighter 3D image, but the glasses are way more expensive than polarized 3D. So it has nothing to do with the LED lighting. (For example, the 'spider singnal' is much brighter red in one eye and a greenish-red in the other on the Spiderman ride). Whats simply happening is the glasses are 'correcting' the light's wavelength but since its not a projection, it ends up altered.
 

yensidtlaw1969

Well-Known Member
The glasses aren't polarized. The reason it seems tinted it it uses a system like Dolby 3D where the wavelengths of each projector are slightly different, and then the glasses adjust the wavelength back. The same system is used in Star Tours, as well as the 3D attractions at Universal except for Shrek. It provides a sharper, brighter 3D image, but the glasses are way more expensive than polarized 3D. So it has nothing to do with the LED lighting. (For example, the 'spider singnal' is much brighter red in one eye and a greenish-red in the other on the Spiderman ride). Whats simply happening is the glasses are 'correcting' the light's wavelength but since its not a projection, it ends up altered.
Thank you for that explanation! It inspired me to look into it a little deeper and now I feel like I understand how it works and why it would have this effect in a ride like Ratatouille. You're right that it doesn't seem to have anything to do with LED lighting.

Being that this is a direct result of this precise 3D process, I'm surprised they would have elected to use it for a ride that so heavily mixes the 3D and practical settings. They really do not agree with each other - on my second ride I felt like I had a decent sense of when I could switch between having my glasses on and off to maximize the effect of the either the 3D or the practical scenery, but it really felt lame that I had to do that. I get that other types of 3D don't allow for such clarity in the images, but I almost wish they would switch it over to the more traditional polarized 3D effect. I'd prefer less-good 3D that also allows you to enjoy the practical stuff vs. the very high quality 3D that makes the rest of the ride so difficult to look at.
 

Bartattack

Well-Known Member
I was at WDS a few days ago and got to ride Ratatouille in 2D... and I actually was surprised how much I liked it. I think I might even prefer the 2D version. It let's you appreciate some of the surroundings more without the glasses and the images were a little bit brighter and clearer.
 

No Name

Well-Known Member
Forbidden Journey in California had the 3D removed. I could see it happening here. But of course that doesn’t solve the floor problem and I wonder if it would make that more or less distracting.
 

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