A Spirited Dirty Dozen ...

BrianLo

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
yeti said:
About a third of the Rivers of America is being removed, one of Disneyland's most distinctive features. It's a notch below draining it and paving the whole thing over...not as bad, but still bad. Walt would never have touched it. It's the most significant upheaval of his "show" in the history of the park....except for maybe New Fantasyland, but who's gonna complain about that?
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Keep in mind the river diversion works out to approximately 13.5% of its former length. Somewhere between 1/7th - 1/8th. It's not really SWL that is diverting the river, it's the Fantasmic show building that is taking up the added space. Moving from the island to backstage. The Railroad is being quite diverted though, primarily for SWL. As an aside, don't forget Big Thunder Mountain in terms of significant upheaval to Walt's Park in a stones throw of the areas we are currently discussing.


Something I've come to realize is for a lot of people it is the motivation behind the change rather than the change itself. Park promotion of formerly non-Disney acquisitions, mandates to create whole lands on single franchises, a shift to expensive immersion in franchised environments. The use of the parks to hawk merchandise, bump exec pays. The drive to appease share holders, franchise fans, the common denominator general public or the board. The shift to lavish environments with guest highways rather than narrow, intimate and quiet environments meant to entertain a small handful of guests.

A lot of us struggle with separating out the motivation from the change. In isolation the changes to the RoA, Fantasmic and Railroad are a potential benefit. If the change was simply driven by a desire to tighten, plus and improve the experience while updating Fantasmic and finally introducing proper backstage storage for the show - I think a lot less people would have the same concerns. But the reason these perhaps good things is happening is ultimately the companies desire to get a Harry Potter-ish over the top immersive environment into Walt's park/resort. Into a park that was built with a completely different framework then what theme parks are currently doing worldwide. Therefore the changes, while potentially good, are motivated by the wrong things and it is overall an affront to a lot of people.

On the opposite side, I'm easily guilty. Just because I'm not offended by the motivation I need to separate out what I'm looking forward to versus the consequences. Loss of formerly quiet spaces, further commercialization and expansion of a park pushed to its limits. Operational disaster looms. For some people change such as the loss of the goats really is a major blow.

Whether you are for or against the motivation, the change is not so black and white. The change is both a very good thing and a very bad thing. As all change has the potential to be. Neither will this be a cancerous change to Walt's park or the greatest thing to ever happen with absolutely zero flaws. It's a spectrum that will depend primarily on how they execute the final product. How carefully the people (WDI) institute the changes - even if the motivation behind it is all wrong.
 
Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
BrianLo said:
Keep in mind the river diversion works out to approximately 13.5% of its former length. Somewhere between 1/7th - 1/8th. It's not really SWL that is diverting the river, it's the Fantasmic show building that is taking up the added space. Moving from the island to backstage. The Railroad is being quite diverted though, primarily for SWL. As an aside, don't forget Big Thunder Mountain in terms of significant upheaval to Walt's Park in a stones throw of the areas we are currently discussing.


Something I've come to realize is for a lot of people it is the motivation behind the change rather than the change itself. Park promotion of formerly non-Disney acquisitions, mandates to create whole lands on single franchises, a shift to expensive immersion in franchised environments. The use of the parks to hawk merchandise, bump exec pays. The drive to appease share holders, franchise fans, the common denominator general public or the board. The shift to lavish environments with guest highways rather than narrow, intimate and quiet environments meant to entertain a small handful of guests.

A lot of us struggle with separating out the motivation from the change. In isolation the changes to the RoA, Fantasmic and Railroad are a potential benefit. If the change was simply driven by a desire to tighten, plus and improve the experience while updating Fantasmic and finally introducing proper backstage storage for the show - I think a lot less people would have the same concerns. But the reason these perhaps good things is happening is ultimately the companies desire to get a Harry Potter-ish over the top immersive environment into Walt's park/resort. Into a park that was built with a completely different framework then what theme parks are currently doing worldwide. Therefore the changes, while potentially good, are motivated by the wrong things and it is overall an affront to a lot of people.

On the opposite side, I'm easily guilty. Just because I'm not offended by the motivation I need to separate out what I'm looking forward to versus the consequences. Loss of formerly quiet spaces, further commercialization and expansion of a park pushed to its limits. Operational disaster looms. For some people change such as the loss of the goats really is a major blow.

Whether you are for or against the motivation, the change is not so black and white. The change is both a very good thing and a very bad thing. As all change has the potential to be. Neither will this be a cancerous change to Walt's park or the greatest thing to ever happen with absolutely zero flaws. It's a spectrum that will depend primarily on how they execute the final product. How carefully the people (WDI) institute the changes - even if the motivation behind it is all wrong.
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Pretty good explanation, but, why is it pretty much perfectly accepted in DHS?
 
A

Absimilliard

Well-Known Member
The_Jobu

The_Jobu

Well-Known Member
brettf22 said:
I thought the exact same thing. For those who didn't see it, a young, upstarter "story master" character (Mr. Sizemore) has just given his pitch for a new guest storyline (i.e. a new "ride") in Westworld. After finishing his pitch, the park's creator (Anthony Hopkins) simply replies "No." When pressed why he didn't like it, Hopkins replies:

"A couple of cheap thrills. Some surprises. It's not enough. It's not about giving the guests what you think they want. It's not that simple. Titillation, horror, elation: They're parlor tricks. The guests don't return for the obvious things we do, the garish things. They come back because of the subtleties, the details. They come back because they discover something they imagine no one had ever noticed before. Something they've fallen in love with. They're not looking for a story that tells them who they are. They already know who they are. They're here because they want a glimpse of who they could be. The only thing your story tells me, Mr. Sizemore, is who you are."
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He did like the boots at least.:cautious:
 
BrianLo

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
Mike S said:
Pretty good explanation, but, why is it pretty much perfectly accepted in DHS?
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DHS was built with those motivations. A dumping ground showcase of Disney's productions and acquisitions. A giant advertisement. The same standards apply and in this case the park is just so anemic that any change is welcomed, especially one that should be exceptionally produced from all indications.

Of course thematic integrity matters an awful lot too (which DHS has very little of). There is nothing that the new way of designing lands will really harm in the process. It's a more modern park and is receiving a whole rethink anyways.

The issue of placement is another beast. Some of that is partially the different standards people hold those two very different parks to. From the other angle there is a lack or misunderstanding of how the project will actually wind up.

Ironically I think SWL will blend a whole lot more seamlessly into Frontierland/Critter Country. It is being designed precisely for those site lines and transitions. The transitions from Toy Story and Muppets will be far more abrupt and awkward since TDO can't be bothered to commission their own tailor designed area. No one will care about that though because there are no standards for DHS and there are overbearing ones for DL. So even if the transitions are better at DL all that you will hear about is how perfectly it fits DHS and how hamfistedly it was shoved into DL.
 
The Empress Lilly

The Empress Lilly

Well-Known Member
BrianLo said:
Ironically I think SWL will blend a whole lot more seamlessly into Frontierland/Critter Country. It is being designed precisely for those site lines and transitions. The transitions from Toy Story and Muppets will be far more abrupt and awkward since TDO can't be bothered to commission their own tailor designed area. No one will care about that though because there are no standards for DHS and there are overbearing ones for DL. So even if the transitions are better at DL all that you will hear about is how perfectly it fits DHS and how hamfistedly it was shoved into DL.
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It's so true. :'(
 
solidyne

solidyne

Well-Known Member
ford91exploder said:
Madonna's version of 'Don't cry for me Argentina' is amazingly powerful and shows what an amazing singer she is as compared to today's crop of so called singers like Taylor Swift who needs everything run through voice tracking to clean up the technical issues.
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Madonna uses pitch correction. Not nearly as much as Swift, but stilll...
 
the.dreamfinder

the.dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
Mike S said:
Are there old Imagineers involved in this show's writing? Honest question.
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The writing team has said they've been influenced by their experiences playing open world games like Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption. Entirely possible they may have consulted with people who run/design theme parks in a similar manner as Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connelly did on "Jurrasiac World".

Also, Garner Holt has a credit for creating animatronics for the show.
EDIT: Garner discusses his involvement on Westworld, including a cameo in the host repair lab, in his MiceChat column.
http://micechat.com/139062-garner-holt-big-little-screens/
 
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zakattack99

zakattack99

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
What should be Rouge One's last trailer will drop tommorrow on GMA.

Also this has to be up there on the cool Star Wars Movie posters list:
 

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AEfx

AEfx

Well-Known Member
solidyne said:
Madonna uses pitch correction. Not nearly as much as Swift, but stilll...
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Don't kid yourself. I've been a Madonna fan for 30 years and even I will freely admit she travels with a state of the art computer and technicians that filter every once that comes out of her mouth on stage. Evita was also entirely transposed musically into her vocal range (although that was an artistic benefit for making the entire project more accessible, as anyone who listens to a Broadway recording can tell you that the part was written so high as to be shrieking and unpleasant to listen to; this is one reason the recent revival failed, in its original form, it's simply not enjoyable to listen to in many cases).
 

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