Is everything just IP mandate quota now?

[AidenRodriguez731]

And it has to be an IP that's popular right now, even if it's already got an attraction in the parks. There's no way they'd greenlight, say, a Brother Bear ride nowadays.

IP doesn't always make an attraction successful, though. A lot of Disney's biggest failures in the parks were IP-based. Stitch's Great Escape, the Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow thing at Hollywood Studios, the Under New Management Tiki Room... and who could forget the Galactic Starcruiser?

Don't forget his describing Expedition Everest as "some nondescript coaster that maybe is themed to India or whatever".

Let's see...

Movie IP, good attraction = Peter Pan's Flight
Original IP, good attraction = Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Movie IP, bad attraction = Remy's Ratatouille Adventure (I know I'm in the minority on this)
Original IP, bad attraction = Do I have to choose one that I've actually been on? If not, Superstar Limo

Yes. This.

Honestly, putting Nemo in the Living Seas sounds like a good idea ON PAPER, and I think the stuff in the actual Sea Base Alpha section of the pavilion is done well. It's the ride and its execution that's the problem.

Sure it does! It's about world peace - if that ain't a fantasy, I don't know WHAT is!

Does Tangled even take place in Germany?

Its a German fairytale that does canonically take place in Germany iirc with German styled houses etc.

 

[WorldExplorer]

Does Tangled even take place in Germany?

No, it takes place in a made up nation where they took inspiration from old Disney movies.

Taken directly from The Art of Tangled,



"... although fundamentally European, does not take place in any one country in particular."

The book goes on to talk about the inspiration they took from Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella (France) and Pinocchio (Italy), with a touch of concept art from Lady and the Tramp. They took inspiration for the town from Disneyland, some of which is German, so at absolute best you can say Germany is one of the cultures they threw into the mixing bowl and it occasionally pokes its head through, but they were not making a movie set in or inspired by specifically Germany.

The sole argument for it is that the story is from there, to which I present this other page from that book:



Disney itself attributes only the most famous version to Germany (which they're sure to highlight also includes Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, again normally called French), attributing the story itself to France, then goes on to talk about how many countries have different versions of it. Yes, Germany gets a nice shout out here, but once again it really highlights their mindset when making the movie.

The often repeated Tangled in Germany suggestion is a really good example of not actually caring if something fits and just wanting an excuse, any excuse no matter how thin, to throw at the people who care in the hopes they shut up. It gets by entirely on "the story of Rapunzel is from Germany" and the actual contents of the film do not matter. By this logic, Ratatouille should've been in America; it's from here.

Tangled is actually a worse fit than Frozen in Norway, which is saying something. But the thing is, when you don't actually want or care about getting something that fits, you look at all of that and go "well, there was a touch of Germany somewhere in there among all the other stuff: sounds good enough to me!".

 

[Poseidon Quest]

Call it what you want, but I can’t really blame them for it. Even a mediocre attraction with IP seems to be popular. It’s as close to a “can’t miss” as you can get, and in today’s business world, that’s what they tend to aim for.

That doesn't seem to be true. I think of attractions at Universal that should be slam dunks based on IP like Fast and Furious and Villain-Con and yet... where are those wait times?

Disney has a capacity problem, giving the illusion that a lot of attractions are more popular then they might be in better balanced parks. If for example, you look at Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway in Hollywood Studios, I typically see that wait time float between 60-70 minutes. In Disneyland, it's usually posted around 30 and you end up waiting around 15. Remy's and Frozen seem to have high waits in Epcot, but their capacity is abysmal and are far from other high-demand attractions.

I would assert that if Disney opened a Swiss Pavilion in Epcot with an impressive looking Epcot version of the Matterhorn, it would be just as popular.

 

[Stripes]

I would assert that if Disney opened a Swiss Pavilion in Epcot with an impressive looking Epcot version of the Matterhorn, it would be just as popular.

It would likely be very popular once guests are in the park.

But would kids endlessly nag their parents to go see it? Would the parents turn to the kids and say, “how about the real Matterhorn?”

It’s not just about popularity inside the park. It’s about what’s going to drive attendance and merchandise sales.

 

[flynnibus]

Rehash? You mean Disney’s use of IP in the parks has been discussed before?

Nothing says trash like someone creating a new account just to just jump in the fire and start a thread like this.

They aren't even trying to hide their lack of 'new user' - just too chicken#$@ to post it under their own identity.

 

[BrianLo]

Thank God we got World of Avatar with all of those iconic characters rather than something lame like Beastly Kingdom. Who wants to see a generic dragon or discover a magicial unicorn when you can see those things from that one movie we saw awhile ago.

You are misdirecting your ire. Pandora is very well executed, sides on some originality and does not focus whatsoever on characters. In fact it’s a beacon of doing IP right.

Considering Pandora remains the highest rated thing across the complex, the imagined beastly kingdom, as cool as it could be in your brain, was unlikely to be better. Nor free of IP influence.

Pixar pier, now there’s your example of pointless integration in a sad attempt to make a buck.

It’s sad that the company shuts down original attractions instead of letting the best idea bubble to the top. But it’s also possible the best idea could sometimes still be IP.

It’s inconceivable that Universal Creative could come up with something stronger than Potter independently. Being beholden to more talented set designers a curated successful story made this push over the top idea that never would have organically come to be. Like a park-to-park connecting attraction. Likewise the sheer over the top nature of the floating mountains in Pandora just wouldn’t have survived a cursory glance from an executive if there wasn’t a real reason they needed to pursue them.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Kids would like anything that's fun. IP or otherwise. If a kid gets to also experience that attraction while also living in the world of one of their favorite stories? That's even better.

Counterpoint - a new experience that inspires a kid (or anyone!) into being interested in a new topic is just as valuable, if not more valuable, than placating them with things they already know about.

I've talked about this before but I'll say it again - an attraction that inspires people doesn't necessarily have to be an educational attraction either. Attractions like Tower of Terror and Expedition Everest are great because they have layers to the experience for those interested in diving a little deeper.

Tower of Terror:
The golden age of Hollywood
The alure of abandoned places
The idea of something once grand becoming forgotten
The juxtaposition of old analog technology / advanced thrill ride
Exposing young people to a vintage TV show they would likely never watch otherwise
etc etc

Expedition Everest:
Tibetan culture, architecture, standard of living
Mountain climbing treks in general
The way expeditions are handled and how it's become a destructive form of tourism for the Tibetan region
The way a business can insert itself into a region and disrupt the way of life for the locals against their wishes
Habitat encroachment
The fact that the yeti is a real world cryptid legend
etc etc

Just spitballing, but there's a lot to pull from from those attractions, yet someone could also just enjoy them and only take away "ahh spooky hotel" and "ahh a monster / fun roller coaster" and still enjoy them as well.

Like even Rock 'n' Roller Coaster inspired me to get a guitar and try to learn it as a teen (I failed, but I tried!)

What does something like Frozen Ever After inspire? There's basically nothing there other than seeing the characters and scenes you already know from the film. Which, I understand that will still bring joy to a lot of people, but while that may draw people in, it's not the type of experience that resonates and keeps people coming back.

Every year Disney has more and more IP to chose from because they keep making more content.

Since WDW's inception, they've always had a big enough library to where every attraction could be IP based, if they wanted. They didn't do it before because the company saw the theme parks as their own unique form of entertainment and not just an extension of their marketing. They understood that the point of a theme park is to have an overarching and cohesive theme and not just be a random assortment of stuff. Bob Iger never cared about making good theme parks, he cared about creating good marketing.

I'm a big Star Wars nerd, and my favorite experience in all of WDW is pulling the lever in the Falcon to go to hyperspace. You can't match it anywhere.

If it was a original space adventure story that was fun? Much less of an impact.

I mean I love that moment too, but the ride as a whole is not great, and I absolutely think a better executed original idea would be more interesting than a lackluster experience that has a few cool elements we love from media.

That's why Disney has an IP mandate. It's those moments.

It truly isn't this though, it's that it's easier to propose tie-ins to popular IP to executives and shareh...

From a business point of view, using a popular IP is so much less of a risk of an original. It's up to WDI to make it fit.

Yeah that.

Maybe it wouldn't be a problem if half the stuff wasn't just shoehorned into places it shouldn't have been, and the other half of the stuff wasn't just hot garbage brought to you by WDI.

Yes. To be clear, I and everyone who complains about the IP mandate is in no way saying that any and all IP attractions are bad. My current top WDW attraction is Rise of the Resistance, for example. The complaints stem entirely from them shoehorning into places, lands, parks where they don't fit, and that lately many have also been lackluster experiences.

 

[Biff215]

That doesn't seem to be true. I think of attractions at Universal that should be slam dunks based on IP like Fast and Furious and Villain-Con and yet... where are those wait times?

Apples and oranges. We’re not talking about Universal. Those attractions are the issue, not the IP. I’m not sure we can name a similar recent Disney miss.

A lack of capacity is certainly a factor, but Disney still knows there’s far less risk investing in existing IP.

 

[Professortango1]

You are misdirecting your ire. Pandora is very well executed, sides on some originality and does not focus whatsoever on characters. In fact it’s a beacon of doing IP right.

Considering Pandora remains the highest rated thing across the complex, the imagined beastly kingdom, as cool as it could be in your brain, was unlikely to be better. Nor free of IP influence.

I wouldn't say that Pandora is very well executed. I'd say the land is very impressive on a scale/spectacle level, but it feels like visiting a ghost town. No animals existing. No Navi except for old photos. Are they all dead and we are visiting where they used to live? Beastly Kingdom would hopefully have more variety and life.

Then there's NRJ, a big dud of an attraction. FoP is the big hit and a great simulator attraction, but the land reminds me of the New Fantasyland expansion: pretty but too simplistic with some good little attractions that would be great compliments to a Disney-quality E-ticket.

If they had walk around Navi experiences and some creature interactions, I might be more on board, but Disney didn't need to go through that trouble. Making the iconic mountains from the movie.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Apples and oranges. We’re not talking about Universal. Those attractions are the issue, not the IP. I’m not sure we can name a similar recent Disney miss.

It's not "apples and oranges" though. You just said:

Even a mediocre attraction with IP seems to be popular. It’s as close to a “can’t miss” as you can get, and in today’s business world, that’s what they tend to aim for.

Those attractions being bad and unpopular despite being based on popular IP demonstrates the point precisely - that a quality attraction matters much more than IP attachment. If people ONLY cared about being surrounded by the franchises they're already familiar with, they would be lining up in droves to point at a projection of Dom Toretto. But they don't.

 

[FigmentJedi]

The thing with a lot of Disney park originals is they all correspond to genres that were historically blind spots in Disney's film output. The Disney of old's strength was fairy tales and talking animals, so Fantasyland was the primary IP containment zone. The decisions to make Davy Crockett and shill the space program came from a place of not having any options to represent Frontierland or Tomorrowland on the Sunday night show. In the absence of westerns, sci-fi and pulp adventure in the Disney catalog, there's room for designers to just do whatever with the genre geography. And with the way Walt and even some of his initial successors were losing interest in animation in favor of just re-releasing the old stuff every few years, it seemed likely that Fantasyland would have stayed the animation hub.
Disney animators were aware of this lack of variety for a long time and didn't really act until the late 90s. Atlantis the Lost Empire came from the directors feeling stuck in Fantasyland (they previously did Beauty and the Beast and Hunchback) and wanting to turn left and go into Adventureland. Home on the Range was a bad Frontierland movie with a very Big Thunder inspired climax. You had a bunch of science fiction films attempting to be something that could stick around in Tomorrowland before they decided to just buy Marvel and Star Wars and let them handle it. And then there's the problem of Pixar being too culturally impactful for Imagineering to ignore, but unable to neatly fit into any kind of pre-existing genre geography since its almost all "Life in the big city or suburbia" whether its a version of our world or a non-human society.

 

[Professortango1]

It's not "apples and oranges" though. You just said:



Those attractions being bad and unpopular despite being based on popular IP demonstrates the point precisely - that a quality attraction matters much more than IP attachment. If people ONLY cared about being surrounded by the franchises they're already familiar with, they would be lining up in droves to point at a projection of Dom Toretto. But they don't.

Don't confuse quality with thrill. Mission BO is the same quality as F&FSC, but it has a more thrilling ride experience due to the ride system. In the end, both are us being jostled in front of a projection screen and a physical show scene used to project onto before we quickly move past it to get to the main screen.

Which leads to another big problem of IP rides.

Theme parks have learned that making an animated figure which looks like a movie character or actor is difficult and often mocked if it falls short, so instead they just get the actors to record more footage while filming a sequel and have them on screens the majority of the time.

 

[_caleb]

Nothing says trash like someone creating a new account just to just jump in the fire and start a thread like this.

They aren't even trying to hide their lack of 'new user' - just too chicken#$@ to post it under their own identity.

I spotted it right away.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

I wouldn't say that Pandora is very well executed. I'd say the land is very impressive on a scale/spectacle level, but it feels like visiting a ghost town. No animals existing. No Navi except for old photos. Are they all dead and we are visiting where they used to live? Beastly Kingdom would hopefully have more variety and life.

Then there's NRJ, a big dud of an attraction. FoP is the big hit and a great simulator attraction, but the land reminds me of the New Fantasyland expansion: pretty but too simplistic with some good little attractions that would be great compliments to a Disney-quality E-ticket.

If they had walk around Navi experiences and some creature interactions, I might be more on board, but Disney didn't need to go through that trouble. Making the iconic mountains from the movie.

Uh you're in a smaller valley area? I'm sure if you hopped into a random forest on earth, you would be unlikely to find people there currently. We're meant to be in a touristy location anyway technically so its likely the Navi just... don't hang out there because there's no real need for them too. It's the site of an old battlefield and the touristy humans.

 

[Biff215]

It's not "apples and oranges" though. You just said:



Those attractions being bad and unpopular despite being based on popular IP demonstrates the point precisely - that a quality attraction matters much more than IP attachment. If people ONLY cared about being surrounded by the franchises they're already familiar with, they would be lining up in droves to point at a projection of Dom Toretto. But they don't.

Sorry, I thought it was fairly clear that most of us are referencing Disney here, which is the focus of the site and this specific message board.

FWIW, I’ve never seen a single F&F movie. Disney has been capitalizing on its most popular IP and hasn’t truly really missed. So far at least and in my opinion of course.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

No, it takes place in a made up nation where they took inspiration from old Disney movies.

Taken directly from The Art of Tangled,

View attachment 914069

"... although fundamentally European, does not take place in any one country in particular."

The book goes on to talk about the inspiration they took from Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella (France) and Pinocchio (Italy), with a touch of concept art from Lady and the Tramp. They took inspiration for the town from Disneyland, some of which is German, so at absolute best you can say Germany is one of the cultures they threw into the mixing bowl and it occasionally pokes its head through, but they were not making a movie set in or inspired by specifically Germany.

The sole argument for it is that the story is from there, to which I present this other page from that book:

View attachment 914073

Disney itself attributes only the most famous version to Germany (which they're sure to highlight also includes Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, again normally called French), attributing the story itself to France, then goes on to talk about how many countries have different versions of it. Yes, Germany gets a nice shout out here, but once again it really highlights their mindset when making the movie.

The often repeated Tangled in Germany suggestion is a really good example of not actually caring if something fits and just wanting an excuse, any excuse no matter how thin, to throw at the people who care in the hopes they shut up. It gets by entirely on "the story of Rapunzel is from Germany" and the actual contents of the film do not matter. By this logic, Ratatouille should've been in America; it's from here.

Tangled is actually a worse fit than Frozen in Norway, which is saying something. But the thing is, when you don't actually want or care about getting something that fits, you look at all of that and go "well, there was a touch of Germany somewhere in there among all the other stuff: sounds good enough to me!".

You can tell its not German from the distinct German design of the buildings or heavily reminscent German wardrobe, or that the animated series has characters talk in German accents is not German.

In all seriousness, art-style wise it's a different Kingdom but clearly meant to be atleast partially inspired by German culture.

Now, for an Epcot ride, I think you could make the argument that you can have the greater Rapunzel story as a symbol of the culture which the movie adapts.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Don't confuse quality with thrill. Mission BO is the same quality as F&FSC, but it has a more thrilling ride experience due to the ride system. In the end, both are us being jostled in front of a projection screen and a physical show scene used to project onto before we quickly move past it to get to the main screen.

Which leads to another big problem of IP rides.

Theme parks have learned that making an animated figure which looks like a movie character or actor is difficult and often mocked if it falls short, so instead they just get the actors to record more footage while filming a sequel and have them on screens the majority of the time.

True, thrill is another factor. People would flock to a big roller coaster themed to The Room by Tommy Wiseau because thrill will always be a draw.

But this further illustrates the point - the ride experience matters more than the IP attached, probably most of the time. IP is just easier to get approved.

Sorry, I thought it was fairly clear that most of us are referencing Disney here, which is the focus of the site and this specific message board.

FWIW, I’ve never seen a single F&F movie. Disney has been capitalizing on its most popular IP and hasn’t truly really missed. So far at least and in my opinion of course.

We’re talking about if people care more about the IP attached to an attraction than the quality of the attraction experience.

Many of us are here because we like theme parks, not just Disney’s.

 

[TalkToEthan]

Or is there something inherently "lesser" about a "used" IP?

Yes, inherently “lesser”……….

new ideas trump regurgitation; I’ll take creativity over rehash(and in some cases Disney goes the laziest route with straight up Cliff Note retelling)

 

[mergatroid]

True, thrill is another factor. People would flock to a big roller coaster themed to The Room by Tommy Wiseau because thrill will always be a draw.

But this further illustrates the point - the ride experience matters more than the IP attached, probably most of the time. IP is just easier to get approved.



We’re talking about if people care more about the IP attached to an attraction than the quality of the attraction experience.

Many of us are here because we like theme parks, not just Disney’s.

That would be brilliant

 

[Tom Morrow]

That would be brilliant

I did not hit her! I did not. Oh hi Mark! *launch*