If our experience with Universal Orlando serves as any kind of predictor of what a big budget installation backed by a big franchise can do for a theme park, then the Avatar area will be amazing.
I understand that a lot of Disney fans (on these boards) are Disney purists, and seem allergic to the idea of anything coming from outside of in-house imagineering, but in the end we will all benefit from the collaboration of these amazing artists. :sohappy:
I wish I had your optimism.
I'm not pessimistic about it either, I just am rather "meh" as I think Avatar is the most overblown piece of garbage known to man, yet it is nice for Disney to be making such a large investment in AK. It's kind of a wash for me until I see what it is.
Here's the difference, though : UO *needed* Harry Potter to be spectacular. And they achieved it - it's ranked as the #1 theme park attraction in the world by most. Disney...not so much. They knew Harry was coming and did nothing to prepare - because they don't care about being the "best" anymore, they just want to be the most profitable.
So as long as people keep spending $200 for little Suzy to get made over with a princess dress and a "Toddlers and Tiara's" face full of goop, or getting people to dump $200 for a family of four to have a character meal, and people still line up in astounding numbers for rather mediocre attractions (Soarin', Toy Story Mania, broken Everest), they don't care.
I know some of those in this Avatar-love bubble thing it's the "next big thing" but the general public has already largely forgotten about it. The mostly adolescent teenage boys that made it a hit by going back over and over - just like their female counterparts made Titanic what it was financial - are not the ones generally interested in Disney World, or planning family vacations.
Sure, if it's super-amazing it might be a slight uptick of that crowd, but to think it's going to have anywhere near the impact of Potter is kind of preposterous. I can walk in to quite a few retail stores and find tons of Harry Potter stuff - you'd be hard pressed to find Avatar anywhere these days. It's pretty much forgotten, except for a scant few. And although yes it did crazy huge numbers (first film to be "really" in 3-D gimmick + teenage boy fantasies + up to double ticket prices [3-D tax] = crazy revenue), you know, my Grandma knows who Harry Potter is but she's never seen a movie or book. Avatar? Wouldn't know it from Gaga.
Avatar was an anomaly. Right place, right time, right concept. But it's already lost most of it's zeitgeist, in spite of two sequels supposedly coming in the 2nd half of the decade. By then, 3-D will be fadded out again (it already is headed that way, though it is here to stay once they get it properly working with video games), and those teenage boys will now be young adults - and it's hard to think lightning will strike twice.
I hope upon hope that we get some amazing attractions, but I think Disney is just happy with the note on the stock report and the blurbs in the trades that they landed Cameron/Avatar. We'll probably get a Soarin' clone, an indoor stage-show, and some kiddie/family ride.
I'd love to think we will get more, but I just haven't seen Disney put that much effort into anything in decades, it seems like. The last true major triumph at WDW for me was Splash Mountain. A few high-notes since then (TOT - though the first time I was like - um, that's it? I expected a longer dark ride portion as well), but after all my years of fandom, and paying attention, I have a hard time thinking these will be rock'em-sock'em attractions. I really would love to be wrong about that, though.
