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

[Splash4eva]

I’m old enough to remember one of the main justifications for this “reskin” was how poor a shape that Splash Mountain was in, the decrepit state of the AAs, and the need for constant maintenance.

Glad those issues have completely gone away.

Exactly. We saw the same playbook with GMR. Sadly no matter what shape Splash was in and towards the end and even other times its was rough with many things not working but end of day the ride was still the best and a classic. One where you can sing from start to finish and have an absolute joyous time on.

 

[WorldExplorer]

It’s almost as if some of us predicted this years ago, but were called haters and trolls for pointing out the impending train wreck.

Go figure.

And now we're supposed to do all of this all over again.

I don't normally quote myself, but I feel like I really got the Piston Peak situation down pat a year ago;

I can't wait until the next time they announce something stupid sounding and people still insist we have no reason to be skeptical and should be giving Disney the benefit of the doubt.

Pattern recognition is bad.

 

[HMF]

I remember thinking in the early 2010s Things at WDW probably could not get any worse, I was wrong about that.

 

[HMF]

For my own sanity I mostly avoided the Splash threads from 2020 until it opened and then rendered my opinion.

 

[EagleScout610]

Even as someone with a Splash poster 10 feet from my desk, and Br'er Bear and Rabbit funkos among the many on my desk, I get the annoyance, but it's pointless to rehash the Splash argument again. Splash is gone, and now we can just make fun of how bad Bayou is

 

[LindseyDisney]

I posted this on reddit and I thought I would share my thoughts on here. I'm curious what everyone thinks?

This is just my own wild theory, but I’ve always thought the characters we’re seeing in Tiana's Bayou Adventure were originally meant to be introduced in the canceled Tiana series. Since that show was scrapped, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for Tiana's Bayou Adventure.

My guess is that in the next 10 to 15 years, Disney might end up tweaking the ride's storyline. While they’ll definitely keep the Princess and the Frog IP, I could see them changing the narrative. Or potential inclusion of Dr. Facilier. With the upcoming Villains Land in the parks, how can they not include him? I’m almost imagining a scenario like Journey into Imagination. where we end up with two different Princess and the Frog storylines / rides in the parks.

 

[Jedi14]

This is just my own wild theory, but I’ve always thought the characters we’re seeing in Tiana's Bayou Adventure were originally meant to be introduced in the canceled Tiana series. Since that show was scrapped, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for Tiana's Bayou Adventure.

From what they had said about the show, it was to be set after TBA and partially about Tiana’s new role as a community leader and future queen.

 

[Comped]

I posted this on reddit and I thought I would share my thoughts on here. I'm curious what everyone thinks?

This is just my own wild theory, but I’ve always thought the characters we’re seeing in Tiana's Bayou Adventure were originally meant to be introduced in the canceled Tiana series. Since that show was scrapped, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for Tiana's Bayou Adventure.

My guess is that in the next 10 to 15 years, Disney might end up tweaking the ride's storyline. While they’ll definitely keep the Princess and the Frog IP, I could see them changing the narrative. Or potential inclusion of Dr. Facilier. With the upcoming Villains Land in the parks, how can they not include him? I’m almost imagining a scenario like Journey into Imagination. where we end up with two different Princess and the Frog storylines / rides in the parks.

Was never an option to include him when, I cannot lie, certain elements within Disney were afraid of offending voodoo practitioners with his inclusion.

 

[EagleScout610]

This is the thing. It was not only needlessly destructive to Splash, but it was also only partially destructive.

They half-assed it.

If they were dedicated, they could have demolished what was there and started from scratch and built a REAL Tiana ride. I would have hated losing Splash, but at least they wouldn’t have used the corpse of Splash Mountain to gloat about the companies “values”.

Furthermore, something tells me all those extra “research” trips to New Orleans could have covered the cost of the demo.

Once you turn the lights on, the half baked nature of the retheme really show through. Take Tiana in the first scene -

Keep in mind, that set replaced Br'er Rabbit with Mr. Bluebird and the briars behind him with two trees and fake grass.

Another example is the critter band 3 feet away where Br'er Fox and Bear were:

God, I could write a book about how badly they messed this overhaul up.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Was never an option to include him when, I cannot lie, certain elements within Disney were afraid of offending voodoo practitioners with his inclusion.

You mean because his story ended when the movie ended, and this takes place after that?

 

[Tony the Tigger]

Once you turn the lights on, the half baked nature of the retheme really show through. Take Tiana in the first scene -
View attachment 871793
View attachment 871792

Keep in mind, that set replaced Br'er Rabbit with Mr. Bluebird and the briars behind him with two trees and fake grass.
View attachment 871794

Another example is the critter band 3 feet away where Br'er Fox and Bear were:
View attachment 871795View attachment 871796

God, I could write a book about how badly they messed this overhaul up.

So you’re saying it’s bad because it’s too similar to the previous version, which was somehow good despite those similarities?

 

[WorldExplorer]

Once you turn the lights on, the half baked nature of the retheme really show through. Take Tiana in the first scene -
View attachment 871793
View attachment 871792

Keep in mind, that set replaced Br'er Rabbit with Mr. Bluebird and the briars behind him with two trees and fake grass.
View attachment 871794

Another example is the critter band 3 feet away where Br'er Fox and Bear were:
View attachment 871795View attachment 871796

God, I could write a book about how badly they messed this overhaul up.

God, can we all just take a moment to appreciate the sheer impressiveness of Splash Mountain making an indoor scene set on a bright, sunny day in an outdoor area?

I'm pretty sure it was the only ride that did that in all of Disney World (the screens on Three Caballeros is the only other example I can think of, and it feels pretty clashy with the real scenes). Maybe all Disney parks, I haven't seen another one in all the videos I've watched. It's easier to hide things and direct the eye when more things are dark, so you can see why normally they go with that.

Then Tiana's comes along and really sets the tone for the whole retheme by going right back to night scenes.

 

[Incomudro]

Once you turn the lights on, the half baked nature of the retheme really show through. Take Tiana in the first scene -
View attachment 871793
View attachment 871792

Keep in mind, that set replaced Br'er Rabbit with Mr. Bluebird and the briars behind him with two trees and fake grass.
View attachment 871794

Another example is the critter band 3 feet away where Br'er Fox and Bear were:
View attachment 871795View attachment 871796

God, I could write a book about how badly they messed this overhaul up.

The current crop of Imaginears - or at least the crew assigned to this project - truly don't know what they are doing.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: With Splash, each scene was a storyboard.
The scenes worked even when static.
There was a sense of implied movement, and every scene worked even by itself.
Narration wasn't even needed.
With Tiana, it's all gesturing and dialog.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

So you’re saying it’s bad because it’s too similar to the previous version, which was somehow good despite those similarities?

How did you get any of this out of that post? They said the exact opposite.

The only real similarity with the previous ride is that they reused the same building and track layout. The reason why that's an issue is because TBA does not work with this layout. A more talented team probably could have come up with a better fit. But as it stands, almost none of the scenes feel like much thought was put into them. The concerns Tony Baxter noted in a podcast about how you need a tense and scary story to justify the lifts and drops also ended up being accurate.

Secondly, the scenery is very off in a number of ways. I've mentioned this myself. The previous ride's environments were all thoroughly stylized to appear like a cartoon come to life. Most of the set design was custom, sculpted and painted in an exaggerated and non-realistic art style. One of the best comparison examples are the grassy surfaces in those shots above. In the previous ride, the grass was a sculpted element, it was a largely smooth minimally textured surface. Only the edges had a bit of physical texture to simulate thick cartoonish blades of grass draping over the sides of the riverbank. The paint and brush strokes did the work for all of the finer detail and texture. And they used very bright colors that popped even in a bright "sunny" looking environment.

TBA is also based on an animated film, and it has figures that are somewhat similarly cartoony and stylized to that of the predecessor. Some of the walls are also hand painted (with animated projections) in this style. Those elements look somewhat appropriate to the cartoon stylization at least. However, no such consideration was given to the physical set design at all, resulting in different art styles clashing together. They filled in the mostly gutted sets with generic realistic fake grass bought from a store. They attempted to simulate a colorful painted style with lighting, but it doesn't work well because the shapes and textures that fill out the setpieces still have that generic realistic appearance. Lights also can't control fine details like paint and brush strokes can. In a ride that was going for a more realistic setting such as Pirates or Living with the Land, this realistic foliage would work well (provided everything else matched). But not for a ride based off an animated film with cartoony characters and backgrounds.

 

[Jayspency]

I'm pretty sure it was the only ride that did that in all of Disney World

I think living with the land did this as well for the farm scene. Though it’s much darker in there compared to splash.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

There are some other Disney attractions in the world that have somewhat brightly lit environments in that same vein. And there used to be a larger amount at WDW years back. Several of the old EPCOT Future World classics did, and Great Movie Ride with some scenes.

One attraction that has some very similar looking sunny scenery to Splash that still exists today (and isn't Splash) is Pooh's Hunny Hunt from Tokyo.

 

[WorldExplorer]

There are some other Disney attractions in the world that have somewhat brightly lit environments in that same vein. And there used to be a larger amount at WDW years back. Several of the old EPCOT Future World classics did, and Great Movie Ride with some scenes.

One attraction that has some very similar looking sunny scenery to Splash that still exists today (and isn't Splash) is Pooh's Hunny Hunt from Tokyo.

"Old Epcot and Tokyo did/do it" is exactly the response I expected.

 

[osian]

Test Track 3.0 in the forest drive section!

 

[Tha Realest]

From what they had said about the show, it was to be set after TBA and partially about Tiana’s new role as a community leader and future queen.

just a complete failure from concept (above) to execution (what park goers and those watching the DL POV see every day). Imagine pushing all your chips in on a stupid idea for a streaming TV show which was so bad it was cancelled and is being cobbled together as a “special.”

 

[Jedi14]

just a complete failure from concept (above) to execution (what park goers and those watching the DL POV see every day). Imagine pushing all your chips in on a stupid idea for a streaming TV show which was so bad it was cancelled and is being cobbled together as a “special.”

Well it’s good that’s not why it got shelved, but it seems like you and some others have made up your mind.