are imagineers spending too much?

[michael92]

i was checking out the wikipedia page of raging spirits, a coaster in disneysea that altough its nicely themed, people complain about it because its bumpy and uncomfortabe (read themeparkinsider)... according to the page, raging spirits costed 80 million dollars! now, i know that disney needs to do the biggest investments in order to bring the quality they always do, but for example, the spiderman ride, reported as the best on the world costed only 20 million dollars more. And you can´t compare it to raging spirits! or, for example, the nicely themed griffon in busch gardens europe, costed only 17 million dollars! (wikipedia).. so.. are the imagineers spending the money wisely?

 

[Monty]

It's hardly realistic to base comparisons of coasters purely on their final cost. Different areas of the country or the world have different labour, construction and transportation costs. Any number of theming, complexity and ride-type factors can also impact cost.

The only way to effectively compare two coasters' cost v. quality is to build them side-by-side in the same venue using the same designers and builders. But massive companies like Disney don't evaluate costs that way anyway. They use Projected Return On Investment as their judge of whether a coaster is worth building at all.

 

[michael92]

yes, i understand, but i meant that they could invest the money differently.. for example, mission space (wich is a great ride) reportedly costed 100 million dollars, but ive read in a few sites that the prices were up to 150-170 million dollars. Ive also read somewehere in this forum that the technology involved costed 30 millions. Now the facade and the building of the ride, the effects, and the postshow area costed lets say 70 million dollars? ¨(in case it costed the reported 100 million).. or, in the case that it costed 150-170.. something about 130 million dollars? i think its too much, since the post show area isnt "great" at all, and they could invest that money other rides. Maybe the problem is that they dont use the budget wisely/spend too much money in unnecesary things

 

[WISH4EE@WDW]

Well I think the real problem here is that it's wikipedia. I mean right now it's telling me that the total cost of the ride was $80,000 dollars (9.26 million yen). So, perhaps that was our first mistake. :brick:

 

[Eyorefan]

yes, i understand, but i meant that they could invest the money differently.. for example, mission space (wich is a great ride) reportedly costed 100 million dollars, but ive read in a few sites that the prices were up to 150-170 million dollars. Ive also read somewehere in this forum that the technology involved costed 30 millions. Now the facade and the building of the ride, the effects, and the postshow area costed lets say 70 million dollars? ¨(in case it costed the reported 100 million).. or, in the case that it costed 150-170.. something about 130 million dollars? i think its too much, since the post show area isnt "great" at all, and they could invest that money other rides. Maybe the problem is that they dont use the budget wisely/spend too much money in unnecesary things

First, I don't usually rag people for their spelling or gramer since I know close to nothing about both, but could you stop using the word "Costed?" it isn't a word and it detracts from your thread.

About the cost of certain rides though, I think that it is impossible for us to sit here and judge how much something should cost to build. We aren't prevy to a lot of imformation that would go into not only a ride system and a post-show, but also a building. There are a lot of different things that go into making rides, all of which affect the final cost.

And like Monty said, "They use Projected Return On Investment as their judge of whether a coaster is worth building at all."

 

[michael92]

well, sorry, i dont speak english well, im from a spanishspeaking country . and i didnt want to judge anything, i was just posing a question to discuss, but since people seem so annoyed with the question, i wont post anything more about that thing

 

[michael92]

ugh, sorry, my mistake. a week ago it said it had costed 8 BILLION yen. and i wanted to discuss this because i read this article, check it out if u want:
http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2006/07/24/4475.aspx

 

[mickster]

First, I don't usually rag people for their spelling or gramer since I know close to nothing about both, but could you stop using the word "Costed?" it isn't a word and it detracts from your thread.

About the cost of certain rides though, I think that it is impossible for us to sit here and judge how much something should cost to build. We aren't prevy to a lot of imformation that would go into not only a ride system and a post-show, but also a building. There are a lot of different things that go into making rides, all of which affect the final cost.

And like Monty said, "They use Projected Return On Investment as their judge of whether a coaster is worth building at all."

Since correcting others' grammar on a public forum is apparently acceptable to you, I'm sure you won't mind if I do you a favor and educate you on YOUR grammar errors:

1. The correct spelling is "grammar", not "gramer".
2. There is no such word as "prevy". But taken in context, I assume you meant to say "privy".
3. The correct spelling is "information", not "imformation".
4. "There are a lot of" is not grammatically correct. "There IS a lot of" or "There are many" would be the grammatically correct alternatives.

Again, I assumed you wouldn't mind me correcting you, since you seem to think it is okay to do it to others.

Lastly, was it really his incorrect grammar that "detracts from" his thread, or was it simply the fact that you disagree with his point?

 

[mickster]

i was checking out the wikipedia page of raging spirits, a coaster in disneysea that altough its nicely themed, people complain about it because its bumpy and uncomfortabe (read themeparkinsider)... according to the page, raging spirits costed 80 million dollars! now, i know that disney needs to do the biggest investments in order to bring the quality they always do, but for example, the spiderman ride, reported as the best on the world costed only 20 million dollars more. And you can´t compare it to raging spirits! or, for example, the nicely themed griffon in busch gardens europe, costed only 17 million dollars! (wikipedia).. so.. are the imagineers spending the money wisely?

I agree with you completely and have often observed that Disney attractions seem to be overpriced. I still can't see how Disney got the bang for their buck on Everest. It is a decent ride, but nothing on the caliber of many of their other well-themed attractions. And many Universal attractions (most notably the Mummy and Spider-Man) blow it away.

 

[Monty]

ugh, sorry, my mistake. a week ago it said it had costed 8 BILLION yen. and i wanted to discuss this because i read this article, check it out if u want:
http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2006/07/24/4475.aspx

I've never found JH to be particularly reliable, but...

Disney is a very large corporation with many different divisions and areas of expertise. Trying to single out who makes what decisions and whether they're the right ones for the company at the time is next to impossible unless you're an insider with complete access to all the details. JH tends to latch on to snippets of information and run with them as though they were entirely independent of the whole corporation's operation and as a result, he sensationalizes a lot of things. Sometimes he's right and sometimes he isn't, but most times IMO he's lucky when he's right and buries the story quickly when he's wrong. :shrug:

As they say, if you put enough monkeys on typewriters banging away, the odds are one of them will write Shakespeare. :lol:

 

[elabron]

Since correcting others' grammar on a public forum is apparently acceptable to you, I'm sure you won't mind if I do you a favor and educate you on YOUR grammar errors:

1. The correct spelling is "grammar", not "gramer".
2. There is no such word as "prevy". But taken in context, I assume you meant to say "privy".
3. The correct spelling is "information", not "imformation".
4. "There are a lot of" is not grammatically correct. "There IS a lot of" or "There are many" would be the grammatically correct alternatives.

Again, I assumed you wouldn't mind me correcting you, since you seem to think it is okay to do it to others.

Lastly, was it really his incorrect grammar that "detracts from" his thread, or was it simply the fact that you disagree with his point?

:ROFLOL::ROFLOL::ROFLOL::ROFLOL::ROFLOL: Go get 'em, Mickster!

 

[comics101]

I don't know much about Imagineering or the spending of WDC, but I think any time something goes over budget it's unacceptable, and should be considered overspending. From what I understand, WDI has a tendency to spend over budget, and they should work with what they're given. I am only in High School, so I guess I've never worked on a project with a given amount of money, but IMO it would be like asking for extra time on a paper, and things just don't work that way. So, to answer the question, when Imagineering spends more than they're given, they spend too much.

 

[marni1971]

If anything, WDI are prevented from spending what they truely need to. Imagineering have the great ideas, then the bean counters come in and say you have x ammount to do it in. Back to the drawing board to make the proposal fit the budget - and make cost cuttings galore.

The Mission:Space figure could possibly have included the gutting, demoltion and removing of Horizons, and making the site ready for construction. That`d soon add up.

WDI has outsourced as much as possible, as opposed to doing everything in house as they used to, to the point the parks can suffer. The cheapest bidder often wins. Not the best, or best suited, but the cheapest. There are dozens of examples in the parks today. From robot arms not up to the moves asked of them and the loads carried, to cheap off the shelf attractions made by outside companies and `customised` in house. Done properly, it can work, but if you`re already doing this to save money, often budgets are cut all round.

A lot of people have commented about the Omni style ride in The Seas with Nemo. Quite a few remarks have been made regarding certain areas appearing cheap, or that things could have been done better. As if not enough money was put into it. In reality, the original budget was far lower than what was finally used. If WDI only had what was allocated to them by the money men there is a good chance you`d only see half - or less - than what is there today. It was only after some shrewd desicions and shifting of budgets did The Seas with Nemo have enough money to end up how it did. This was at the expense of another planned rehab elsewhere, which lost its allocated budget - though it could indeed have been for the best in the long run.

One last though. DCA and WDSP have been laughed at for being `done on the cheap` - $6-700 million is considered cheap here! If only there was say 50% more in the pot these parks could have been awesome from day one.

Oh, and comics101 - over budget is sometimes the only way to get something done half decent. EPCOT Center was budgeted at $400m. The final cost at opening day was three times that ammount. Consequences of this aside (serious as they are) imagine what the park could have been like had the orignal budget been adhered to?

 

[mousermerf]

M:S was a prime example of big mistakes made at the creative level though. Whoever was in charge of paint screwed up royally.

Did you see the star field they tried to paint on the roof? It looked so atrocious, and got covered up, only to bleed through, and then repainted again.

That's just one creative mistake costing a small fortune. The worse mistake made was the building color itself. Someone had a swatch of this bazillion dollar multi-color reflective paint and liked how it looked.

They painted the whole building, it was ugly. They repainted the whole building - still ugly. The ride opened with a version they thought was "ok" and since then it has been repainted atleast twice. Each time with this excessively expensive paint.

Whoever chose that look is the one who made the mistake. Similarly - some folks never learn. Pull up Darkbeer's photos of the work on Toy Story Mania at DCA. They have shingle samples hung to seee which version they like the best. They're like 4x8 flats of shingles - one in light browns, one is darker browns, and one in reds. None of them look good for the area though. If they choose any of them, it's gonna look like crap. I'm sure when someone busted out their color-keyed markers and shaded in shingles on the vellum it looks fabulous in those colors - but they're not translating to sunlight and the real world for an exterior. They look garish.

Hopefully they can see this and will make the proper choice of scrapping all 3 samples and going with something else.

 

[sknydave]

It should also be noted that the prices of everything in Japan are sky-high

 

[comics101]

Oh, and comics101 - over budget is sometimes the only way to get something done half decent. EPCOT Center was budgeted at $400m. The final cost at opening day was three times that ammount. Consequences of this aside (serious as they are) imagine what the park could have been like had the orignal budget been adhered to?

You're right. I had forgotten about that. I feel kind of foolish now. Oh well. You learn something new everyday, Right?:shrug:

 

[jt04]

My 2 cents

I am of the opinion that the Imagineers can never be given too much money. The more they spend the more it pays off for Disney in the long run. Just compare where Epcot is today (unlimited budget) with DHS and DCA (limited budgets) and you will see the difference. It as true as ever, "You Get What You Pay For". Invest big and returns will be big!

 

[michael92]

ok, thats what i mean by discussing something...im glad people are giving their opinions withouth fighting!
jt04, i do think that in order to win big, you have to bet big, but what i mean is that maybe they spend in unnecessary things?

 

[marni1971]

...you have to bet big, but what i mean is that maybe they spend in unnecessary things?

Depends what you call unnecessary. There`s the famous one about Walt and the Swiss Family Treehouse. He had it dismantled and moved further from the walkway. Over the top? Yes. Worth it? Your call. Eisner famously had a DLP stairway moved at the cost of over a million dollars since it ruined the main vista of Discoveryland. Unnecessary for the park to function - it didn`t work any better with the stairs around the corner - but worth every penny to keep a cohesive story and give the guest the perfect view of the land.

There again, did Rohde really need all those trips to Asia? :animwink:

 

[SpectroMan]

I would like to point out what Ray Bradburry said about this exact problem. He and Walt were friends and they were walking through Disneyland togeather. Ray could not get over the gold tower on the side of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Of course Walt and him had a discussion on this, and Ray ends up saying, "The secret of doing Disney is doing the things that really aren't needed, and once their there, you realized you needed them all along."

I think this is the key to what the Imagineers do. Much of the things the Imagineers create could be done much cheaper. Lets take the reference to Spider-Man again. The ride itself is aboslutely amazing, but everything else about is horrible. The show building is inconspicous, and the queue is cheaply made. This works for Universal. It doesn't work for Disney.

If Disney would design a major attraction like that, the same people complaining about artistic choices on this board would be complaining that the Imagineers are not up to their once great standards. Disney does not only want to create great attractions; it wants to create place.