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News “Zootopia” is being created for the Tree of Life theater
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
ChrisFL
Premium Member
The attraction is good...the exterior....isn't
Castle Cake Apologist
Well-Known Member
The Tree of Life is a repertory theatre, not a movie theater. The characters on the "screen" are meant to be physically present in front of you on a stage, which is why it's in 3D. At no point has it ever been implied that you are watching a film, so the characters being "movie theater sized" is at odds with the human sized figure shown in the new concept art. Unless they're reaching new levels of laziness, and the new attraction is just presented as us watching a movie.
That's the million dollar question. I think I know the answer.
Epcot81Fan
Well-Known Member
So we can look forward to more “Rohde Magic” like this:
Look closely kids, that’s real authentic asphalt cracks!
SamusAranX
Well-Known Member
I could remember wrong, but wasn’t the budget for AK cut significantly and this hamstrung the dinosaur area of the park and how much the imagineers could realistically do?
Epcot81Fan
Well-Known Member
Ah yes, the inevitable “Rohde Magical List of Excuses”:
“Uh, uh, the budget was cut forcing me to make this embarrassing mess!”
“The timeframe was too short for doing actual quality work!”
“Management told me to build one of the most hideous structures in theme park history and permanently destroy the views of not one, but two parks!”
“The accountants told me to write an idiotic script about raccoon hands and repeatedly shouting at people to RAISE THEIR HANDS!!!!”
“The dog ate my homework and the sun got in my eyes!”
You’re judged by the end result - you built it, you own it.
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"I will fix the yeti someday"
Epcot81Fan
Well-Known Member
Exactly.
Apparently, they did not include a visit to a structural engineering firm during their endless boondoggles - er, I mean "thematic scouting trips" - around the globe to collect more junk for the queue.
The key animatronic and finale of the entire attraction hasn't worked for years, but it's fine....
But hey, did we mention all of the junk in the queue?!
DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
I thought that was the case. Also, given the popularity of the original Jurassic Park movies at that time, my guess is that execs wanted to add dinosaurs, even if they weren’t a good fit thematically or in terms of age range (While tons of kids love dinosaurs, there’s probably a reason they’re not a popular theme park theme. Realistic dinosaurs scare young kids but cutesy dinosaurs just don’t quite work. They’ve got some interesting dinosaur exhibits for kids now like Dinos Alive, but they feature ferocious, sharp toothed predators. You would have to know your child and know if they could handle that.)
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
This is a bizarre argument -- using this logic, Tony Baxter is a terrible Imagineer because Splash was in terrible condition with broken AAs and was eventually replaced.
Rohde certainly isn't perfect, but he's one of the best Imagineers ever. If you actually care about Disney parks and want them to be quality, you'd want Disney to have 30 Joe Rohdes. Being anti-Rohde essentially means you're in favor of all of the things Disney has done over the past 15-20 years, like new EPCOT.
Club Cooloholic
Well-Known Member
Heimlich's Choo Choo is irreplaceable.
Ice Gator
Well-Known Member
Am I the only one who was kind of looking forward to this since the Tree of Life theater hasn’t had a new show yet? I love Bugs Life, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s about time for a (less traumatizing) replacement.
I guess my rationale is we’d get this instead of a (subpar) clone of Zootopia land in Shanghai. One of my worst nightmares is finding out at D23 that they’re adding Zootopia land in MK as a part of Beyond Big Thunder- something that wouldn’t fit MK at all but also something I could see them not caring about and doing anyways instead of Villains land or a proper Frontier expansion.
I guess I’d be fine with a Zootopia land in AK too as long as it didn’t replace anything, but I just can’t see that happening unless they tear out Rafiki’s Planet Watch.
I guess my rationale is we’d get this instead of a (subpar) clone of Zootopia land in Shanghai. One of my worst nightmares is finding out at D23 that they’re adding Zootopia land in MK as a part of Beyond Big Thunder- something that wouldn’t fit MK at all but also something I could see them not caring about and doing anyways instead of Villains land or a proper Frontier expansion.
I guess I’d be fine with a Zootopia land in AK too as long as it didn’t replace anything, but I just can’t see that happening unless they tear out Rafiki’s Planet Watch.
DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
Yeah I get that there is a lot of fan anger at the moment but Rohdes seems like an unlikely target. The odds of agreeing with another person’s stylistic choices 100% of the time are slim, but I think there’s little doubt he cared about guest experience. There was no “Bah, good enough,” mindset there that I can see.
Epcot81Fan
Well-Known Member
“Hey, I’m a raccoon so my hands won’t scan the thingamajig to release the whatchamacallit so I need your hands to scan - or something!!! Raise your hands!!!!”
- One of the most idiotic attraction scripts ever
Oh, and your analogy is nonsensical because Splash’s lack of maintenance decades later had nothing to do with Baxter’s brilliant original Imagineering.
Faulty original engineering by Rohde’s team lead to the humiliating Yeti failure.
The “neer” in Imagineer is for engineering, which that was a complete failure of him and his team.
Imagine Bob Gurr saying “Well, we designed it to look cool, but it’s fine that it doesn’t work!”
But hey, keep making excuses for failure and terrible creative design!
Epcot81Fan
Well-Known Member
DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
You doing ok Epcot81Fan? Just seems like you’ve had a rapid shift in tone recently.
mattpeto
Well-Known Member
This attraction makeover turned out to be a hoot.
And it was mandated from above and nearly an impossible timeline.
I swear some of you never worked in corporate America.
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TBA has that effect on people.
DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
Lol! I’ve actually been excited to ride it on my next trip but at this point I’m kinda bracing for the worst. The frozen animatronics are spooky for sure.