Splash Mountain re-theme announced

[BigDlover]

I am shocked, bewildered, and just plain sad and deflated. Disney is capitulating to a practically nonexistent vocal minority. No one was demanding changes to Splash Mountain. I chalk this up to the same phony outrage that was calling for Paw Patrol to be cancelled over a friendly police dog. Splash is my favorite ride in all of Disney World, and the first ride I ever got on at WDW when I was 5 years old. Splash Mountain is a timeless classic. Changing it to a cheap IP is the epitome of everything that is wrong with Disney Parks today, and the political reasons for it are infuriating. I know it's probably a lost cause at this point, but people need to make their voices heard on this. This is terrible.

Did you not hear about the petitions? That's where all of this came from.

 

[milordsloth]

I’d be down with it cause it’s an IP I’m personally invested in. Many would not. But that being said, I don’t really care for Mansion to begin with.

If Disney has announced Banjo-Kazooie, an IP I absolutely adore, as the retheme for Splash, I’d still be devastated.

I'm with you there. Splash has always been my favorite ride.

 

[MisterPenguin]

If we start a petition saying Expedition Everest is racist, will somebody finally fix the yeti?

Down with Disney's cryptozoologism!

 

[Tony Perkis]

People on my Facebook feed are saying precisely that.

Facebook. Got it.

 

[RoysCabin]

Uh oh. You’re using privilege! Sorry. You’re gonna need a better argument than a liberal buzzword.

It's an academic term, dude. If you just don't want to engage in a conversation like an adult, please do everyone a favor and just say so.

 

[Bairstow]

There are no mountains in space either.

You read it wrong.
The space... is in the mountain.

 

[RCID]

as someone else mentioned....at this point the Disney company needs to do something about Mickey too....because some of his cartoons from that time period certainly are questionable....

 

[Panchito Pistoles]

If we start a petition saying Winnie the Pooh is offensive to diabetics, can we get Mr. Toad back?

 

[orlandogal22]

to be fair I havent seen anybody accusing others of being racist for liking Splash Mountain, i dont think thats ever been the case.

Go on WDW IG page under the post for today's announcement.

ANYONE who is even remotely sticking up for Splash Mountain is being ganged up on and called racist, Karen, and any host of other absolute foul-mouthed terms. It's disgusting.

 

[Tony Perkis]

You read it wrong.
The space... is in the mountain.

 

[BigDlover]

There are no mountains in space either.

Exactly lol. Disney is a fantasy-based company. Let's not overly dissect it like that. I mean this is all man-made stuff and the ride at hand is in California and Florida lol. We're talking about a movie where frogs talk and cook lol.

 

[SosoDude]

There are no mountains in space either.

Earth is in space, thus, so are mountains. Lol

 

[sedati]

Haven't been to Tokyo yet sadly, so I can't offer an opinion on the overall ride there. Given the choice of riding either WDW or Disneyland's splash it would be WDW easily. But if I was going to take a photo of one...
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Sorry, but in my opinion, Florida ranks a distant third when it comes to beauty and I'm really not sure why it ended up this way. The tree at the peak is too small, and looks more like it's been charred than simply dried out. There is far less green overall, and the clay is too red. Most odd is the rock- what looks to be stone in the other two looks more like lava rock in WDW (also odd is that they used the same coloring for the tree and tresle. While there last week I saw some areas at the peak had the paint removed, so I'm hopeful some kind of change is in store to this otherwise excellent attraction.

(all photos taken from their official websites)

Quoting myself to show this isn't a new sentiment, but I'm thrilled that this means the absolute eye-sore that is the top third of WDW's Splash Mountain will finally be re-dressed makes me very happy (honestly, the rest isn't great either in comparison to its cousins.) Hopefully they can also do something that will enable this ride to go without a major refurb every year. I don't see this as a real loss, and can see many ways the IP change could be an improvement. We will have to wait and see of course, but I'm positive.

 

[Brer Oswald]

I didn't know about that some of the Mickey cartoons were racist. How so?

Let’s see. There’s the horrendous portrayal of African Americans as primitive cannibals in “Trader Mickey” and “Mickey’s Man Friday”. There’s the blackface in Mellerdramer and “The Whoopee Party”. The “mamie” gag returns in several cartoons. There’s also the racist portrayal of a Chinese duck in “The Dognapper”. Not to mention the “alleged” origins of Mickey’s gloves from the Minsrel shows (alleged cause I don’t have an exact source on it).

These are all awful. Way worse than anything in SotS. Yet, in the early 2000s, Disney decided to face these head on, denounce them for their problems, explain why they were bad, and use them as a teaching point. Watching these as a young child, I learned my first lessons in racism and what was not okay.

Yet, if we are to go by this current way of dealing with the issue, Mickey as a whole should be retired. I don’t agree with it, but if we go by one, we go by all.

 

[Da Bird is Da Word]

Did you not hear about the petitions? That's where all of this came from.

This petition has more signatures and hasn't even been up 24 hours. There is also an extremist vocal minority calling for the cancellation of Paw Patrol too. There was not overwhelming pressure from anyone to change Splash Mountain. Disney was never going to lose customers for leaving Splash Mountain alone.

Sign the Petition

To Save Splash Mountain and keep it as it is in Magic Kingdom and Disneyland

www.change.org

 

[orlandogal22]

Nobody is saying that people who like Splash Mountain are racist.

Go on WDW's IG under today's announcement. It's a cesspool of racist attacks against innocent people sticking up for a beloved ride.

 

[RoysCabin]

It could very well just be me, but I have a feeling that the MK version would be “on the cheap” in the grand tradition of TDO. What about the land that it’s on, Louisiana is next to Arizona now, I guess?

I'll be fair on this count: Splash Mountain's placement in WDW's Frontierland never really worked in the first place from a thematic perspective.

If we take Liberty Square to Frontierland to be a chronological and geographically moving line, then we're supposed to start at northeast Dutch-inspired colonial with Haunted Mansion, then sweeping our way to far west boom towns and gold mines in the mid to late 19th century by the time we hit Thunder Mountain and Pecos Bill's. By putting Splash where it was, we plopped "the South" right there, breaking both the timeline and the geographic line. Princess and the Frog actually moves us further west, at least, but it does not fit that way, either. Point's more that the damage on that area was already done.

 

[MrMcDuck]

People on my Facebook feed are saying precisely that.

Easy way to fix that problem.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Lol there’s nothing offensive about three Caballeros. The whole point of the movie‘s existence was to increase relations with Mexico and it had it’s premier in Mexico City and was quite popular.

South American countries that were being courted by the Nazis but whatever.

It’s no longer a ride about Mexico. It’s a ride about the Three Caballeros that happens to take place in Mexico. WS rides should actually be about the countries, not IP/Franchise touchpoints.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Facebook. Got it.

AKA "people I know in person" are saying and thinking this.