News Tiana’s Palace Coming to Disneyland Later this Year

[Californian Elitist]

After ending up on some very dark and weird websites where I learned the exact same thing, you're going to have to excuse a large portion of American society who have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

I already do this almost on a daily basis.

 

[Consumer]

Being disappointed the protagonist of Wish is Afro-Latina rather than African doesn’t seem that problematic, in my opinion. I imagine being able to relate to the culture of the character is more important than being able to relate to the skin color of the character, no?

As a descendant of Western Europeans, I’m admittedly less interested in watching movie about a princess from Russia or Ukraine than I am about one from Germany or France because I feel a stronger culture tie to those countries. I would think the complaints about the race of the protagonist in Wish are more in line with that way of thinking.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Being disappointed the protagonist of Wish is Afro-Latina rather than African doesn’t seem that problematic, in my opinion. I imagine being able to relate to the culture of the character is more important than being able to relate to the skin color of the character, no?

As a descendant of Western Europeans, I’m admittedly less interested in watching movie about a princess from Russia or Ukraine than I am about one from Germany or France because I feel a stronger culture tie to those countries. I would think the complaints about the race of the protagonist in Wish are more in line with that way of thinking.

I agree with this. Disney doesn’t have an African princess; it’s okay for Africans, from whichever country, to want that. I felt the same way when I found out Naveen from PatF wasn’t black American, or black at all.

I haven’t seen these complaints, but if they’re like that, I don’t see a problem.

 

[PiratesMansion]

I think it's funny that you can spend literally hours on these boards interacting with dorks like us but you can't bring yourself to watch all 95 minutes of Princess and the Frog (which could be remedied by just letting it play in the background while you interact on these boards with dorks like us).

It's always been a bit weird to me that so many on here just don't watch the animated films, or ignore all but a handful of ones they loves. Some are even flatly dismissive of them as a whole, even knowing that we wouldn't even be here without Snow White and Cinderella because there wouldn't have even been a Walt Disney Company that would have been able to make Disneyland in the form we know it.

But then I guess I can't be too surprised either. I'm primarily here because of the parks, and everything else Disney does comes in at a distant second for me. I've seen all the animated films, but there are only about fifteen or so that I couldn't live without, and I'm largely neutral on the rest.

Not finishing movies is an unforeseen consequence of watching at home. I can think of precious few that I've walked out of in theaters, even real stinkers.

I'm in the odd situation where I've walked out of some real beloved classics that everyone else loves but were just too long for myself and/or my parents. I guess I'll never know what happens during the rest of the first Pirates movie or the first LOTR movie. There are always some fun reactions that come from dropping that info! Maybe someday I'll give Fellowship another shot at some point, but first Pirates, no chance. Mostly we left because we were just ready for them to end and they simply would not.

The only one on that list that I actually want to watch is Onward. Not saying I won’t watch the others (some of the others), but I’m not necessarily interested. I’ll try and watch Onward this weekend or next weekend.

I'd say Onward is skippable. It's yet another one that is too contemporary for its own good IMO. Of the others listed in the post you quoted, I would recommend Bolt most. I haven't seen it since its original release, but I remember it being a charming movie. Cars 3 is better than I expected but not something you need to see either.

My dark spots are Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time, Make Mine Music (I think at least for these three but I guarantee I've seen clips or some of the shorts), Brother Bear, Home on the Range, Meet the Robinsons, Fantasia 2000, Winnie the Pooh 2011 and Strange World.

I really should just go and watch some of them at some point, but it's almost a point of pride I just inadvertently skipped a lot of stinkers.

F&FF: The Bongo segment is at the very least too long, but Mickey and the Beanstalk and off-model Jiminy Cricket are nice enough.
MMM: The Peter and the Wolf segment is the real star here, Blue Bayou is gorgeous, and the rest certainly exists.
Melody Time: Like MMM 2.0, but everything is better.
BB: Some pretty animation, but you can see the "twist" coming from a mile away.
HOTR: Honestly better than most people will lead you to believe, though it's certainly not a classic. Surprisingly decent soundtrack and the yodeling song is a gloriously strange moment of the likes that we haven't really seen in a Disney movie since.
Fantasia 2000: This was my last Disney movie I needed to see. It probably tells you a lot about my frame of reference that my first takeaway was "OH! THAT'S where that CGI whale in Tokyo's Fantasmic comes from!" Honestly much better than I expected it to be and probably the best film on this list by a fair amount.

 

[Consumer]

It's always been a bit weird to me that so many on here just don't watch the animated films, or ignore all but a handful of ones they loves. Some are even flatly dismissive of them as a whole, even knowing that we wouldn't even be here without Snow White and Cinderella because there wouldn't have even been a Walt Disney Company that would have been able to make Disneyland in the form we know it.

But then I guess I can't be too surprised either. I'm primarily here because of the parks, and everything else Disney does comes in at a distant second for me. I've seen all the animated films, but there are only about fifteen or so that I couldn't live without, and I'm largely neutral on the rest.

I really just like themed environments, city planning, and midcentury America. Disneyland hits all three. I love World's Fairs, New York City, Washington D.C., National Parks, and baseball stadiums all for similar reasons. I admit I used to be intrigued by what Disney as a company was doing, but they've lost my trust over the past decade that I have no reason to check out their most recent filmography.

 

[Californian Elitist]

It's always been a bit weird to me that so many on here just don't watch the animated films, or ignore all but a handful of ones they loves. Some are even flatly dismissive of them as a whole, even knowing that we wouldn't even be here without Snow White and Cinderella because there wouldn't have even been a Walt Disney Company that would have been able to make Disneyland in the form we know it.

But then I guess I can't be too surprised either. I'm primarily here because of the parks, and everything else Disney does comes in at a distant second for me. I've seen all the animated films, but there are only about fifteen or so that I couldn't live without, and I'm largely neutral on the rest.

I grew up watching Disney movies, if not on a daily basis, then on a weekly basis. When I was a kid, I was so obsessed with Disney that I watched any and everything with the Disney label on it that my mom introduced to me.

As I’ve aged and matured, I’ve realized that I’m a Walt Disney history and Disneyland/Disneyland history fan, not a Walt Disney company fan (hence why I’m here), and my interests have expanded greatly beyond Disney. I’m not the type to eat up everything Disney puts out, simply because their name is on it. This goes for their films, too. If it doesn’t look interesting, I’m not going to watch it (especially not in theaters). Disney hasn’t made an excellent live-action film since Curse of the Black Pearl, which will be 20-years-old this year. They’re doing much better in the animation department, but even then, most of them just don’t appeal enough to me. I’m interested in Elemental and Wish, so far. We’ll see how it goes from here.

 

[Ghost93]

Be careful, because apparently that's not the case. She's "Afro-Latina", which is a classification I'd never heard of before.

In one of the movie threads we were discussing Wish, and then I ended up down a creepy side of the Internet where people on other Black-focused websites were all complaining that the girl in Wish isn't "Black enough" and not really Black because she's Latina.

It gets really creepy and really weird and quite disturbingly racist very quickly on those other websites. But the summary was that the princess in Wish is not really Black and is going to face a hard time being accepted by many in America's Black community because she's more Latina than African-American.

Again, for most white folks (and probably others too), that kind of talk is disturbing and super uncomfortable and downright racist. But it's out there and it's happening in 2023. There's also some concept called "Colorism" talked about in that community, which is another thing I hadn't heard of and that seems inherently bigoted to adhere to.

But the princess in Wish is already being criticized by those types of bigots for not being Black enough. Bizarro world!

Afro-Latina just means she's both Black (from African descent) and Latina. The people mad about it are a very small minority.

And frankly, I'm sure there's a lot of Afro-Latina girls who would be happy by the representation in Wish.

Colorism refers to how Hollywood had historically favored lighter-skinned Black actresses over darker-skinned. It's a real issue.

 

[BrianLo]

I agree with all of that and think it's a really valid point.

This is also why DCA got Cars Land, because it was a franchise that sold Billions of merchandise to boys.

But this seems to bolster my main complaint with this restaurant; why wasn't it built in 2010 instead of 2023? It should have been a park addition many years ago. But without the fake smokestacks, and without using a crappy buffeteria place to do it.

I don't disagree per say, but it is in keeping with whatever weird lag time seems to occur with the princesses.

I mean that period of time (2010) they were just looking at mini lands for Ariel and Belle at WDW. Beauty and the Beast didn't get its actual attraction (outside of stage shows) until Tokyo built it in 2020. Mermaid last decade at DCA/WDW. Rapunzel is also finally just getting an attraction in Tokyo and I think a flat ride in Paris. Meanwhile a newer princess like Moana only started to have its attraction bandied about for AK, but that seems to be many years out.

Pocahontas is probably the least popular princess, I wouldn't be surprised for her to be skipped over. I would eventually expect Mulan to appear, I'm kind of surprised she wasn't more prominent for SDL.

In terms of why specifically this restaurant now, because of the clear synergy with her upcoming attraction in Disneyland.

 

[celluloid]

Pocahontas is probably the least popular princess, I wouldn't be surprised for her to be skipped over. I would eventually expect Mulan to appear, I'm kind of surprised she wasn't more prominent for SDL.

Things got real controversial over there with Chinese Government and Mulan around the early days of Shanghai Disneyland and even the live action remake.

 

[Ghost93]

Things got real controversial over there with Chinese Government and Mulan around the early days of Shanghai Disneyland and even the live action remake.

Not as controversial as anything involving Pocahontas. I think Disney will include Pocahontas in stuff they can quickly pull if there is too much outcry from Native Americans...such as World of Color/Fantasmic or parades. I don't think Disney will ever commit to an expensive attraction around Pocahontas anymore. Anytime Disney's Pocahontas trends on social media, the conversation is usually negative.

 

[BrianLo]

F&FF: The Bongo segment is at the very least too long, but Mickey and the Beanstalk and off-model Jiminy Cricket are nice enough.
MMM: The Peter and the Wolf segment is the real star here, Blue Bayou is gorgeous, and the rest certainly exists.
Melody Time: Like MMM 2.0, but everything is better.

I should qualify that I've really seen the majority of these movies after all, I just didn't really know what shorts belonged to what. They were all broken out and placed onto various 90's era VHS tapes we clearly had.

 

[BrianLo]

I’m interested in Elemental and Wish, so far. We’ll see how it goes from here.

I just want to say that the death of animation was being called a bit too early. Both of these looked really, really good at D23.

I don't think this had anything to do with being in the room and being unnecessarily swayed, as I'm sure we can find my posts stating I didn't think Strange World was going to hit, but these two would.

Whether they can convince their audience to get back into theatres is a different matter, but I am certain Wish will compare favourably to Moana, Frozen and Encanto in the public conscious. Alan Tudyks character (the goat) I think people are going to really love. The importance character wise for a sidekick like Olaf (let's be frank many of the side kicks are throwaways), but without being annoying. That probably kind of puts him in the echelon of Mushu/Sebastian.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Fantasia 2000: This was my last Disney movie I needed to see. It probably tells you a lot about my frame of reference that my first takeaway was "OH! THAT'S where that CGI whale in Tokyo's Fantasmic comes from!" Honestly much better than I expected it to be and probably the best film on this list by a fair amount.

My family saw Fantasia 2000 on January 1 2000. We had never seen a feature film in IMAX before. Made a big impression on us and we saw it again later that winter.

If more people had seen it that way for the first time it would probably have a better reputation than it does now.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I should qualify that I've really seen the majority of these movies after all, I just didn't really know what shorts belonged to what. They were all broken out and placed onto various 90's era VHS tapes we clearly had.

And before that they were shown on TV as part of compilations or with newer intros/outros.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow got the most replay out of all the 40s package stuff for this reason.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I grew up watching Disney movies, if not on a daily basis, then on a weekly basis. When I was a kid, I was so obsessed with Disney that I watched any and everything with the Disney label on it that my mom introduced to me.

As I’ve aged and matured, I’ve realized that I’m a Walt Disney history and Disneyland/Disneyland history fan, not a Walt Disney company fan (hence why I’m here), and my interests have expanded greatly beyond Disney. I’m not the type to eat up everything Disney puts out, simply because their name is on it. This goes for their films, too. If it doesn’t look interesting, I’m not going to watch it (especially not in theaters). Disney hasn’t made an excellent live-action film since Curse of the Black Pearl, which will be 20-years-old this year. They’re doing much better in the animation department, but even then, most of them just don’t appeal enough to me. I’m interested in Elemental and Wish, so far. We’ll see how it goes from here.

We too grew up watching Uncle Walt every weekend, back in the dark ages of 4 TV channels the World or Disney was one of the highlights of the week, that and Saturday morning cartoons. That’s where my obsession with all things Disney started, Disney afternoons in my teen years (DuckTales, Darkwing, etc) just solidified it.

As I’ve aged I’ve become far more interested with the history of the company, Walt Disney himself, and the parks (I’ve got an entire bookcase full of Disney books) but I still watch nearly all the theatrical releases, most on D+ though.

As for black or white I’ve always thought of that more as a physical trait, like tall or short, make the character a good one and most people won’t care what they look like.

 

[TP2000]

Afro-Latina just means she's both Black (from African descent) and Latina. The people mad about it are a very small minority.

And frankly, I'm sure there's a lot of Afro-Latina girls who would be happy by the representation in Wish.

I don't disagree. But the websites I landed upon and their current conversations were shockingly bigoted and rather hateful.

I found it funny that they were applying all these contemporary American terms to a fictional princess living in a fictional land with a fictional culture that has nothing to do with Africa or Latin America or the United States or anything close to any of that. Plus a goat that wears pajamas.

But they're upset because the cartoon images they've seen don't look Black enough, or look too Latina??? Bizarro Bigot World!

Colorism refers to how Hollywood had historically favored lighter-skinned Black actresses over darker-skinned. It's a real issue.

There were so few Black actresses until the 1960's, and those that actually existed in films for Hollywood's first 50 years were almost exclusively maids or domestics or silent extras in the background, I wonder how they even got a big enough representative group to prove that point?

Seems awfully silly to still be talking about in the 2020's as if it's a current issue, which is what the fans discussing Wish were focused on.

 

[TP2000]

Being disappointed the protagonist of Wish is Afro-Latina rather than African doesn’t seem that problematic, in my opinion. I imagine being able to relate to the culture of the character is more important than being able to relate to the skin color of the character, no?

True, but the princess in Wish is not set in any culture that ever existed on Earth or currently exists on Earth. She lives in a fictional land referred to as "the magical kingdom of Rosas". It has its own unique culture, it's own architectural style, it's own art and history that is all entirely fictional and mythical. It's also a land where goats wear pajamas.

Conveniently, however, the magical kingdom of Rosas uses American English as its official language, so no subtitles are needed for the film.

If it was a movie set in Puerto Rico or Tanzania, I could understand the desire to "see oneself" in the character or story. But the kingdom of Rosas where magic exists and goats wear pajamas is entirely fictional and made up out of whole cloth.

Whatever one sees in the movie Wish will be from the experiences of shared humanity, not a specific culture or ethnicity.

 

[TP2000]

I don't disagree per say, but it is in keeping with whatever weird lag time seems to occur with the princesses.

I mean that period of time (2010) they were just looking at mini lands for Ariel and Belle at WDW. Beauty and the Beast didn't get its actual attraction (outside of stage shows) until Tokyo built it in 2020. Mermaid last decade at DCA/WDW. Rapunzel is also finally just getting an attraction in Tokyo and I think a flat ride in Paris. Meanwhile a newer princess like Moana only started to have its attraction bandied about for AK, but that seems to be many years out.

Pocahontas is probably the least popular princess, I wouldn't be surprised for her to be skipped over. I would eventually expect Mulan to appear, I'm kind of surprised she wasn't more prominent for SDL.

In terms of why specifically this restaurant now, because of the clear synergy with her upcoming attraction in Disneyland.

Good point on the timing. 2009 was when that awful Jay Rasulo was in charge of the parks, and his New Fantasyland makeover for WDW just had little meet n' greets for most Princesses instead of actual rides that Magic Kingdom Park so desperately needed (and still needs even more desperately now!). Rasulo was an idiot who led WDW's parks especially further down the path of low capacity and big crowding.

The giant new E Tickets based on Princess franchises that Tokyo has opened in the last few years and are currently building for additional capacity are wise investments. A shame the American parks are always so afraid to make the same investments, with WDW's parks being the most glaring offender of that concept.

The Princesses are almost always a slam dunk. Instead of "celebrating" each one with just a little meet n' greet plywood backdrop and hiring a few girls from the Fullerton Junior College drama department every summer for a six hour shift standing in front of the plywood backdrop, they need to dive in to this lucrative Princess concept and plus up the park with them using real restaurants, real rides, real stuff. Reactivating dead and unused spaces for this like the Motorboat Cruise, the Skyway chalet, Innoventions, Starcade, etc., etc. is a no brainer.

Better late than never is about as positive a comment I can make about Princess Tiana finally getting her permanent spot in the park!

Welcome to Disneyland, you lovely young lady! Where've you been since 2010?!?

 

[Parteecia]

Instead of wondering, why don’t you ask the black people in your circles?

It absolutely IS representation.

Cassian is a killer from Kenari and yet I felt great pride in watching a smart protagonist who appears to share my ancestry.

 

[Californian Elitist]

Cassian is a killer from Andor and yet I felt great pride in watching a smart protagonist who appears to share my ancestry.

I love it. There’s nothing wrong with identifying or feeling represented by something fictional. And it’s not up to those outside of the represented group to determine what is representation for them and what isn’t.