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EPCOT Beauty and the Beast sing-along coming to Epcot's France Pavilion

Magenta Panther

Magenta Panther

Well-Known Member
Cmdr_Crimson said:
Also, after seeing the new animation it bugs me why they state Lefou was in the castle already when Gaston's men raided it when he clearly was with them after he was told to stay guard at Belle's cottage...
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Yeah, and remember when he tried to melt Lumiere?

lefou.jpg


Isn't he just the cutest little sadist/pyromaniac? ;) So misunderstood! :eek::rolleyes:
 
gustaftp

gustaftp

Well-Known Member
Who is this Rob Plays guy, anyway? He seems to be under the, ahem, impression that watching IdF on your home TV is the same experience as watching it in the Palais du Cinema and that Beauty and the Beast is "good" because it is "popular". He claims that France pavilion doesn't need to inspire young people to interact with French culture because "cell phones" and "YouTube" -- never mind the fact that BatB is in a common video format and IdF is not. And never mind the fact that watching something on a home TV or iPad or cell phone lacks the gravitas such a presentation requires. And that sometimes (/usually/often) you need to have authentic experiences (or as close to it as possible) to inspire you.

"I was inspired to study French thanks to a 10 second TikTok clip!" or "I was inspired to study French because I sang along with a cartoon character mantle clock in British English" said no one ever.

Might as well say that you don't need to see the Mona Lisa (or any other piece of art) in person because you can just see it on a 4K TV. So let's all sing along to BatB because it is "good"!
 
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SeaCastle

SeaCastle

Well-Known Member
ChrisFL said:
So...this doesn't bode well for IDF I don't think

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I so badly want you to be wrong about this but that would entail me having to come to terms with the fact that maybe guests don't want to see a beloved travelogue that has played for 40 years anymore and would rather sing a long with their beloved Disney characters.

That isn't an indictment against Impressions, but rather against the cynical calculation that Disney is making-- that people need IP to relate to the parks, not the other way around.
 
trainplane3

trainplane3

Well-Known Member
Is anyone surprised it has a line? It opened a few days ago. Let's give it a few months and see what happens.

Personal expectation:
It's going to pull more then IdF, easily. Will it be as crazy as it is in that picture? I doubt it. But it's going to keep a decent crowd coming to it. And I say that as someone that loves IdF.
 
DonaldDoleWhip

DonaldDoleWhip

Well-Known Member
Honestly, I can accept that interest in Impressions has declined; the film is great but has been running for almost 40 years. It could probably use an update merely to reduce the number of 80s outfits shown, but it’s had a good run and still holds up. Félicitations.

That said, as someone who grew up loving the early Renaissance films, I can’t understand why there’s any interest in this project. We’ve got New Fantasyland; we’ve got the ‘vintage’ DHS stage show; we’ve got Disney+ and free access to the film’s highlights on YouTube. Who wanted this?
 
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gustaftp

gustaftp

Well-Known Member
trainplane3 said:
Is anyone surprised it has a line? It opened a few days ago. Let's give it a few months and see what happens.

Personal expectation:
It's going to pull more then IdF, easily. Will it be as crazy as it is in that picture? I doubt it. But it's going to keep a decent crowd coming to it. And I say that as someone that loves IdF.
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While I don't have historical numbers for this particular pavilion, let's not forget that EPCOT had higher attendance when they didn't have movie characters being shoved into every corner they could be conceivably shoehorned in.

EPCOT (and all theme parks) need to have experiences that can be enjoyed by a variety of people, not just the people who want movie characters or thrills. I find the fact that the France pavilion now does very little to impart any French culture to be highly problematic. The whole pavilion could be dropped into the MK at this point.
 
Sir_Cliff

Sir_Cliff

Well-Known Member
gustaftp said:
EPCOT (and all theme parks) need to have experiences that can be enjoyed by a variety of people, not just the people who want movie characters or thrills. I find the fact that the France pavilion now does very little to impart any French culture to be highly problematic. The whole pavilion could be dropped into the MK at this point.
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Yes, this is looking very worrying for the future of World Showcase. A France Pavilion that serves as the setting for a Beauty & the Beast film and a Ratatouille ride as well as some shops and restaurants is really just a little slice of Fantasyland. This is why I am so disappointed they've made the setting for the Ratatouille ride so cartoony even though I didn't have such a problem with the ride itself. The whole conceit of World Showcase seems to be dissolving from visiting representations of different countries and cultures to visiting the international settings of your favourite Disney films.

I'm sure they'll have success with this, but I have to wonder at what point turning the parks into a place for fans of Disney films starts to limit their appeal.
 
trainplane3

trainplane3

Well-Known Member
gustaftp said:
While I don't have historical numbers for this particular pavilion, let's not forget that EPCOT had higher attendance when they didn't have movie characters being shoved into every corner they could be conceivably shoehorned in.

EPCOT (and all theme parks) need to have experiences that can be enjoyed by a variety of people, not just the people who want movie characters or thrills. I find the fact that the France pavilion now does very little to impart any French culture to be highly problematic. The whole pavilion could be dropped into the MK at this point.
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Extremely good points! And hopefully people will catch on to that.
 
gustaftp

gustaftp

Well-Known Member
FigmentJedi said:
YouTuber that runs a channel focused on Disney park history and minutia, often going into deep cut subjects that's also so accepting of change, he doesn't really care what gets ripped out.
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He comes across as so smug, it drives me up the wall. Part of why I really enjoyed EPCOT as a child is because it appealed to the very curious side of me that wanted to know how things work, and who wanted to interact with the world around me. I always enjoyed field trips to historic sites, science museum, the local water works, etc. While I enjoyed the Magic Kingdom, to me EPCOT was where it was at! The attendance numbers of the 1980s and 1990s confirm that they were doing something right.

Yet Rob Plays himself said that EPCOT doesn't need to inspire. It just needs to be popular. Completely forgetting the fact that EPCOT 1.0 and EPCOT '94 were popular.

The idea that because we have YouTube now we don't need Impressions of France is upsetting, to be honest. My introverted self also wants to scream because nearly everything seems to be catered towards extraversion as it is. Rob reminds me of the kids that used to mock those of us who as children preferred to read a book rather than play football.

This whole situation with the France pavilion just rubs me the wrong way, far more than many of the other EPCOT changes. It seems so lazy. It feels like it is talking down to people, poopooing the idea that anyone should be inspired at a theme park.
 
hpyhnt 1000

hpyhnt 1000

Well-Known Member
gustaftp said:
This whole situation with the France pavilion just rubs me the wrong way, far more than many of the other EPCOT changes. It seems so lazy. It feels like it is talking down to people, poopooing the idea that anyone should be inspired at a theme park.
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Agree with you on this, especially the laziness of this new show. It's a sing-a-long, so guests are basically entertaining themselves; it uses 1/5 of the theater's screens, which is pretty dumb; and there are no actors or live characters in the show which just reeks of cost cutting. Plus, BatB already has a large presence in the parks. Did we really need this mediocre (and that's being kind) sing-a-long added to the mix?

I think @wdwmagic's review said it best:
Unfortunately the new show does not feature any live actors or characters, and falls far short of Walt Disney World's other sing-along based on Frozen at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

The show uses only a fraction of the Palais du Cinémais screen, and comes off as something you might expect to see on a DVD bonus feature, not at a Disney theme park attraction.
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There's little reason to support this new show. It's objectively not a good attraction.
 

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