A Spirited Perfect Ten

[truecoat]

Marvel fans already hate and dismiss the film as just an ashcan product. Fantastic Four's rights includes a lot of Marvel's classic villain concepts, Dr. Doom being the biggest thing, but also Galactus, the Skrulls, Kang the Conqueror and pretty much every iconic "cosmic antagonist" that MCU isn't using right now. And Marvel's childish "If Fox isn't gonna play ball, let's just ignore the characters they own the movie rights to" attitude towards the situation is making fans just as bitter.

Also, Thanos doesn't need a necklace of stones, that's what the Glove is for.

If this FF movie is as bad as it looks and it looks bad, Marvel Studios might get this title back.

 

[71jason]

Should it be Disney Security's policy to perform a nightly check of every bush on property? Are you saying that because there was a person behind a bush that there is no excuse for their not having found them, regardless of how far from a sidewalk or how obscured the woman's position was?
I'm not absolving them, but without a concrete allegation what exactly security did wrong, I'm not sure what your criticism of them is.

I happen to be very familiar with that corner of DTD, including the bushes where the girl was found (if my friend at HoB is to be believed). If a guard bothered to walk from DTD to the parking lot, the victim would definitely have been seen. Probably even if they biked.

Also, if I'm being honest, HoB CMs leaving for the night probably should have seen her as well. Even if the narrative is off, and she was placed there later, no way HoB should have allowed a girl who pre-gamed with 8 shots and 2 beers into the club, let alone let her have more alcohol. Reserving judgment on whether security (or her friends) should have let her leave with the guy, just don't know enough about that yet.

Nevertheless, this is shaping up to be a Kitty Genovese* story at Disney. Lazy CMs who don't do their job, callous CMs who care more about power-drinking than their fellow Mouse Serfs. That is potentially a huge black eye for Mickey.


* [I know the Kitty Genovese story didn't really go down as the urban legend says. But it sounds like this bears a striking resemblance.]

 

[stevehousse]

Unless someone is belligerently drunk, it is hard to to tell if they may have "pre-gamed" or not...

 

[BrerJon]

So... rapids and concrete? I've been afraid since this buzz started that they're basically doing to FL what they did to the hub.

It wouldn't need to be all concrete, but Magic Kingdom needs more space, and guests are apparently always demanding more shopping and dining options, so I could see it making a lot of sense to expand Frontierland by replacing Tom Sawyer Island and putting a new dining and shopping district in it's place, with a couple of small rides or a coaster too.

If they drain the Rivers of America to make a concrete walkway to the island and eliminate the need for boats, that would give a huge boost to capacity. As it is, TSI is a huge plot of land that's barely inhabited even when the rest of the park is jam packed.

Woody's New Frontierland might be something like this, perhaps?

 

[doctornick]

It is interesting that Brits tend to like having a big house with a pool and many bedrooms to themselves for $800 a week, whereas Americans tend to prefer to splurge on a Deluxe Resort for $300-400 a night.

Deluxe Resorts just don't seem to appeal to many Brits and come across as poor value for money, likewise villas just don't seem to appeal to Americans. So there's definitely a big cultural difference, not just in terms of vacation length.

Wouldn't the vacation length play a huge role in that though? If you are going for 2-3 weeks, you probably expect to have a lot of downtime where you'll be relaxing in your lodging so having it be larger and have more amenities makes that more enjoyable. If you are going for 1 week, you might be more inclined to be spending the bulk of the time in the parks, so having a room close to the parks/with set transportation is more important than the accommodations themselves when little time (mostly asleep) will be spent there.

When I'm on a trip to Europe visiting cultural sites, I tend to have much less luxurious accommodations (location being my primary concern) because I am out of the room a lot seeing sites. As opposed to a beach resort vacation where I'm spending most of my time at the resort and using its amenities, then I splurge on the room. It's the type of vacation that determines the room for me more than the a personal "have to have certain qualities all the time" concept.

 

[doctornick]

Marvel fans already hate and dismiss the film as just an ashcan product. Fantastic Four's rights includes a lot of Marvel's classic villain concepts, Dr. Doom being the biggest thing, but also Galactus, the Skrulls, Kang the Conqueror and pretty much every iconic "cosmic antagonist" that MCU isn't using right now. And Marvel's childish "If Fox isn't gonna play ball, let's just ignore the characters they own the movie rights to" attitude towards the situation is making fans just as bitter.

I think that's an overselling it a bit. Most Marvel fans are perfectly fine with the X-Men films because Fox (at least of late) has done a good job with them. The FF films have been pretty bad and this new one looks particularly awful and not loyal to the source material, so the sense I see among fans is that they hope the movie fails so the rights will eventually get back to Marvel where they will treat the characters "properly". I think Fox's Daredevil/Electra versus what Marvel Studios has done with Netflix helps to bolster this view.

Most people just want to have good movies and accurate depictions of the characters. And Marvel Studios has shown, to date, to be good at that so people trust them. Fox has been much more hit or miss.

 

[Cody5294]

One comment on the plethora of SW The Force Awakens related posts today, one that I have said before but will repeat before retreating for my evening constitutional and that is Bob Iger has set things up where this film literally has to be the biggest of all time (or in Avatar/Titanic territory) or Disney's stock will take a hit. The SW bump has already been built into today's DIS value. So, if it only does $400-500 million domestically? Like I said ... Bob has stupidly overplayed his hand instead of simply talking up the film, and now this literally has to be a Top 3-4 of all time deal.

And I honestly have major doubts as to whether that will happen.

I think 450-500 mill domestically is the most realistic expectations

 

[Cody5294]

It wouldn't need to be all concrete, but Magic Kingdom needs more space, and guests are apparently always demanding more shopping and dining options, so I could see it making a lot of sense to expand Frontierland by replacing Tom Sawyer Island and putting a new dining and shopping district in it's place, with a couple of small rides or a coaster too.

If they drain the Rivers of America to make a concrete walkway to the island and eliminate the need for boats, that would give a huge boost to capacity. As it is, TSI is a huge plot of land that's barely inhabited even when the rest of the park is jam packed.

Woody's New Frontierland might be something like this, perhaps?

Wait is the new Frontierland attraction going to be themed to Woody?

 

[SirLink]

At no time in our history have so many comic films been made and planned. Take a look at what Marvel and DC have planned just starting with this year and moving out for the next five years (and that's ignoring how many films have been around the last decade).

Some have been great, some good, some OK, some lousy, some awful (not gonna debate the merits of one film or another) ... the market is pretty much at the saturation point (hell, DC decided to back off the date it wanted for Batman vs. Superman next spring because Captain America Infinity War was opening and they didn't want two blockbuster comic films going head to head). The question really is how much is too much. Even among fans, there can be a sugar high. Do I really need a third actor playing Spidey in a decade or is that a sign there's been too much product?

I remember seeing Superman in 1978. One movie. A great one. Didn't need to be part of a 123 film saga and I wasn't overloaded on comic films because they weren't coming out roughly one every eight weeks!

Well ya see there is a multi-verse and each spiderman comes from a different universe ... and why is it a problem if some movie company wants to produce the most expensive non televised sequential TV series aka MCU. There isn't really an issue though is it.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Wait is the new Frontierland attraction going to be themed to Woody?

I don't think anyone really knows quite yet what the Frontierland attraction will be themed to (well some people might know, but they're not telling). What we do know is that whatever Spirit has seen of the project (that we haven't) has left him very disappointed and unimpressed. Given his track record and immediate criticism of the project, I take that to mean it's probably going to be another popular (and likely cartoon) IP, but also that whatever they're building isn't even going to be quality either. Even Avatar Land has received praise from 74, saying it would be a "quality" experience (and he apparently dislikes the movie). There has to be a lot of poor decisions going on (besides an IP tie in) with the Frontierland project for 74 to deem it as a failure before anyone even knows anything about it.

As he said earlier in the discussion, Disney no longer has much interest in building anything unless they've got a popular IP to attach to it. There are very few still-popular franchises however that would fit thematically with Frontierland, unless they intend to break the theme entirely and implement a film franchise that is wholly inappropriate for the area. Toy Story is the only franchise Disney really has at the moment that has retained its popularity, and (while I don't like this idea whatsoever) Woody's Roundup is the closest thing Toy Story has that would fit with the Frontierland theme.

Lone Ranger would have worked, but it was a complete flop critically and financially (I myself am not a fan of the movie but would be open minded regarding a potential E ticket ride), so they won't be using that. There are older Disney IP's that could work as well. Off the top of my head there's Davy Crockett and even the old Disney cartoon folk tales such as Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. But they haven't remained in public consciousness up to par with Disney's popularity standards. So as it stands unfortunately, Woody's Roundup makes the most sense given circumstances.

 

[Smiddimizer]

It wouldn't need to be all concrete, but Magic Kingdom needs more space, and guests are apparently always demanding more shopping and dining options, so I could see it making a lot of sense to expand Frontierland by replacing Tom Sawyer Island and putting a new dining and shopping district in it's place, with a couple of small rides or a coaster too.

If they drain the Rivers of America to make a concrete walkway to the island and eliminate the need for boats, that would give a huge boost to capacity. As it is, TSI is a huge plot of land that's barely inhabited even when the rest of the park is jam packed.

Woody's New Frontierland might be something like this, perhaps?

The guests are always demanding that, are they? "My boy needs more rubber snakes!!"

In 20 years they'll be able to blow up a bouncy castle in the Magic Kingdom Parking Lot and say "welcome".

 

[RadiatorSpringsRacer]

Woody's New Frontierland might be something like this, perhaps?

I really hope this isn't what Spirit was talking about when he said the plans appear to further exacerbate the direction the resort's going in...

 

[WDW1974]

An interesting read from this morning's LA Times on Anaheim's new non-Disney tourist offerings:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-anaheim-tourism-20150725-story.html

Also saw there was a 4.2 quake out in the Inland Empire, hope it didn't wake any of my friends up this morning.

 

[Bolna]

Wouldn't the vacation length play a huge role in that though? If you are going for 2-3 weeks, you probably expect to have a lot of downtime where you'll be relaxing in your lodging so having it be larger and have more amenities makes that more enjoyable. If you are going for 1 week, you might be more inclined to be spending the bulk of the time in the parks, so having a room close to the parks/with set transportation is more important than the accommodations themselves when little time (mostly asleep) will be spent there.

When I'm on a trip to Europe visiting cultural sites, I tend to have much less luxurious accommodations (location being my primary concern) because I am out of the room a lot seeing sites. As opposed to a beach resort vacation where I'm spending most of my time at the resort and using its amenities, then I splurge on the room. It's the type of vacation that determines the room for me more than the a personal "have to have certain qualities all the time" concept.

Yes, I think that vacation length has to do a lot with the different travel styles between Americans and Europeans as I have observed them. Let's say a middle class family in the UK and in the US has about the same vacation budget per year. The UK family needs to use that budget to cover between 4 to 6 weeks of vacation, the US family only has one or two weeks. I think this leads to a different style of vacationing.

 

[Bairstow]

I don't think anyone really knows quite yet what the Frontierland attraction will be themed to (well some people might know, but they're not telling). What we do know is that whatever Spirit has seen of the project (that we haven't) has left him very disappointed and unimpressed. Given his track record and immediate criticism of the project, I take that to mean it's probably going to be another popular (and likely cartoon) IP, but also that whatever they're building isn't even going to be quality either. Even Avatar Land has received praise from 74, saying it would be a "quality" experience (and he apparently dislikes the movie). There has to be a lot of poor decisions going on (besides an IP tie in) with the Frontierland project for 74 to deem it as a failure before anyone even knows anything about it.

As he said earlier in the discussion, Disney no longer has much interest in building anything unless they've got a popular IP to attach to it. There are very few still-popular franchises however that would fit thematically with Frontierland, unless they intend to break the theme entirely and implement a film franchise that is wholly inappropriate for the area. Toy Story is the only franchise Disney really has at the moment that has retained its popularity, and (while I don't like this idea whatsoever) Woody's Roundup is the closest thing Toy Story has that would fit with the Frontierland theme.

Lone Ranger would have worked, but it was a complete flop critically and financially (I myself am not a fan of the movie but would be open minded regarding a potential E ticket ride), so they won't be using that. There are older Disney IP's that could work as well. Off the top of my head there's Davy Crockett and even the old Disney cartoon folk tales such as Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. But they haven't remained in public consciousness up to par with Disney's popularity standards. So as it stands unfortunately, Woody's Roundup makes the most sense given circumstances.

The raft ride rumors are the ones that I find the most encouraging, especially seeing some of the Raging Rapids concept art coming out of the Shanghai project right now.
Replacing the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island with a one-two punch of a raft ride combined with a rail-based captive ropes course set to elaborate rock work would be more than an even trade, and it looks like Disney already has already done a lot of the groundwork in designing such a complex.

 

[asianway]

I'm so shocked.

Remember all those CMs that got caught up in Polk County's sting operations? You would think that they would weed people out better....

Polk county scares the hell out of me to think how much of this is going on that they make arrests every other day

 

[Quinnmac000]

The raft ride rumors are the ones that I find the most encouraging, especially seeing some of the Raging Rapids concept art coming out of the Shanghai project right now.
Replacing the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island with a one-two punch of a raft ride combined with a rail-based captive ropes course set to elaborate rock work would be more than an even trade, and it looks like Disney already has already done a lot of the groundwork in designing such a complex.

As much as I would love a rope course its not ada accessible so would never happen in the states

 

[RivieraJenn]

Spirited Weekend Musings (the VERY last until fall):

I've been putting bits and pieces together regarding the proposed Frontierland project for MK and ... color me incredibly NOT impressed. If I've learned anything while watching this park change so radically over the last 15-plus years is that it is morphing into something that I don't like very much, something that's pretty antithetical to what the whole idea of the park was to begin with. I really couldn't care less how busy the place is. Whenever I drive by Walmart the parking lot is plenty full there as well.

Sigh...not another half-baked MK addition?

No offense to you, Spirit, but I'm glad you're taking off after this. I'm leaving for St. Augustine tomorrow, and it means I won't have as many pages to catch up on when I get back. We're off for several days of theme-park-free family fun. Looking forward to a take-it-easy vacation without wall-to-wall crowds.

 

[Bairstow]

As much as I would love a rope course its not ada accessible so would never happen in the states

Oh?

 

[TalkingHead]

Lazy CMs who don't do their job, callous CMs who care more about power-drinking than their fellow Mouse Serfs. That is potentially a huge black eye for Mickey.

It could be ugly press for Mickey if people didn't have so much pixie dust in their eyes. But let's be honest. They'll blame the victim before they ever point the finger at Disney for creating an unsafe environment.