News Tiana's Bayou Adventure - latest details and construction progress

HauntedPirate

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
SuddenStorm said:
I'm enjoying these Imagineering puff pieces. Really helps to put a face to the disaster. Now we know by name some of the Imagineers responsible for this.

Let's not forget the ride through of Anaheim's that as posted, where an Imagineer talked about how they partnered with a third party to design a figure... that's literally just a tail wiggling a bit.



Every piece of marketing, or interview with Imagineering for this attraction has been beyond tone deaf. It's absurd. Here's Carter talking about how the attraction is great because Tiana is a modern 20th century princess that people can relate to. Her story has layers.




Meanwhile, Here's Mr. Gordon talking about the concept and ride experience of Splash Mountain. Just listen to the passion he has for Disneyland, and how genuine he sounds. He doesn't take it too serious and sure as heck doesn't talk about how important it is that people relate to the characters on the ride because they're a 20th century princess and her story has layers.

Click to expand...

The “reasoning” presented for Tiana is astoundingly bad. She’s “20th century”, “has layers”, and “has goals and dreams”?? THAT is the best she can come up with?! The words I’d like to use would be censored.
 
Disgruntled Walt

Disgruntled Walt

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
The more I think about this attraction, the more I realize just what a failure it is on almost every front. It's a catastrophic failure for WDI, and it should have every Disney fan extremely concerned about the quality of the future attractions.

I realize not everyone will agree with me on every part of this, but bear with me. I am not just being a TBA hater.

The Concept/Storyline - Most people thought TBA was going to tell the story of PatF overlaid on Splash Mountain's bones. By and large, the general sentiment on these boards (but not my sentiment) was excitement and curiosity to see what modern Imagineering could do with this storyline. I, being my Disgruntled Self, was bemoaning the loss of Splash Mountain still, but even I can admit that the idea of seeing a full-size Dr. Facilier animatronic would be terrifying in the good kind of Carnotaurus-terrifying way. Most everyone thought this is what we were going to get. Instead, we began to have details shared about the plot of the attraction. It takes place after the movie. Ok, so it's the exciting adventure that happens next? Dr. Facilier somehow returns? A different voodoo villain takes his place, perhaps? No. Tiana has expanded her business and is preparing a party. Something goes awry in the party prep. Huzzah. There's your storyline for one of the tentpole attractions of the Magic Kingdom/Disneyland. Sure, there are lots of extra details like Tiana's father's WWI service and the still, silent kleptomaniacal armadillo, but what do these actually contribute to the overall storyline of the attraction? Very little. And the armadillo actively annoys me (sorry, I'll try to keep this impersonal from now on).

Exterior - This was divisive, to be sure. The initial concept art indicated we'd be getting a boat on top of the mountain, but the mountain ended up with a buzzcut instead. Some like the faux foliage that has been added, but to me, it reminds me of the pipes and wacky colors (including the inexplicable black stripe) added to a luxurious Hollywood Hotel over in DCA. In other words, it's pasted on top of something else. Don Carson, an Imagineer on the MK version of Splash Mountain, told me that the attraction has good bones and could physically support the retheme; so they painted the rocks a different color, pasted fake grass and flowers on top of what was already there, lit everything up purple, and called it a day.

Animatronics - When the first video of the animatronics dropped, so did my jaw. I LOVE animatronics, so to see so many high-quality animatronics being added into a retheme that required scrapping so many animatronics, my hopes were high (yes, even my own disgruntled nature was set aside for a time). But then I saw them in context. Waving around, talking to us, surrounded by limited-motion figures that artificially inflate the AA number...and then failing to actually function consistently. Also, why is Louis the Alligator's skin made of such obvious fabric? He looks furry, and sometimes the way it folds up when he bends makes him look more like a teddy bear than an alligator.

Reliability - What did they do to this ride? I know Splash Mountain was not the pinnacle of attraction reliability, but my gosh, TBA makes it seem like it was. When was the last time a new attraction had this much downtime during its first year of operation? Test Track 1.0? What went wrong? I want to read the tell-all book about this in 40 years, because it's mind-boggling to me.

Anyway, this was a bit long, but I just want to restate what I said at the start: WDI has serious issues if this is the best they can do, and I'm very concerned about the quality of the quantity we are getting in the coming years. Could be a very dark time...dare I say, a disgruntling time...
 
mickEblu

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Disgruntled Walt said:
The more I think about this attraction, the more I realize just what a failure it is on almost every front. It's a catastrophic failure for WDI, and it should have every Disney fan extremely concerned about the quality of the future attractions.

I realize not everyone will agree with me on every part of this, but bear with me. I am not just being a TBA hater.

The Concept/Storyline - Most people thought TBA was going to tell the story of PatF overlaid on Splash Mountain's bones. By and large, the general sentiment on these boards (but not my sentiment) was excitement and curiosity to see what modern Imagineering could do with this storyline. I, being my Disgruntled Self, was bemoaning the loss of Splash Mountain still, but even I can admit that the idea of seeing a full-size Dr. Facilier animatronic would be terrifying in the good kind of Carnotaurus-terrifying way. Most everyone thought this is what we were going to get. Instead, we began to have details shared about the plot of the attraction. It takes place after the movie. Ok, so it's the exciting adventure that happens next? Dr. Facilier somehow returns? A different voodoo villain takes his place, perhaps? No. Tiana has expanded her business and is preparing a party. Something goes awry in the party prep. Huzzah. There's your storyline for one of the tentpole attractions of the Magic Kingdom/Disneyland. Sure, there are lots of extra details like Tiana's father's WWI service and the still, silent kleptomaniacal armadillo, but what do these actually contribute to the overall storyline of the attraction? Very little. And the armadillo actively annoys me (sorry, I'll try to keep this impersonal from now on).

Exterior - This was divisive, to be sure. The initial concept art indicated we'd be getting a boat on top of the mountain, but the mountain ended up with a buzzcut instead. Some like the faux foliage that has been added, but to me, it reminds me of the pipes and wacky colors (including the inexplicable black stripe) added to a luxurious Hollywood Hotel over in DCA. In other words, it's pasted on top of something else. Don Carson, an Imagineer on the MK version of Splash Mountain, told me that the attraction has good bones and could physically support the retheme; so they painted the rocks a different color, pasted fake grass and flowers on top of what was already there, lit everything up purple, and called it a day.

Animatronics - When the first video of the animatronics dropped, so did my jaw. I LOVE animatronics, so to see so many high-quality animatronics being added into a retheme that required scrapping so many animatronics, my hopes were high (yes, even my own disgruntled nature was set aside for a time). But then I saw them in context. Waving around, talking to us, surrounded by limited-motion figures that artificially inflate the AA number...and then failing to actually function consistently. Also, why is Louis the Alligator's skin made of such obvious fabric? He looks furry, and sometimes the way it folds up when he bends makes him look more like a teddy bear than an alligator.

Reliability - What did they do to this ride? I know Splash Mountain was not the pinnacle of attraction reliability, but my gosh, TBA makes it seem like it was. When was the last time a new attraction had this much downtime during its first year of operation? Test Track 1.0? What went wrong? I want to read the tell-all book about this in 40 years, because it's mind-boggling to me.

Anyway, this was a bit long, but I just want to restate what I said at the start: WDI has serious issues if this is the best they can do, and I'm very concerned about the quality of the quantity we are getting in the coming years. Could be a very dark time...dare I say, a disgruntling time...
Click to expand...

Very nice summation. Sums up my journey pretty well but you forgot to include the outrage I felt the first few months after the announcement.
 

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