AVATAR land - the specifics

[danlb_2000]

Are you serious with that? You clearly have absolutely no understanding of what this ride is or what the ride system is capable of. Nor do you apparently understand the conceit of the ride, which is directly based on the conceit of the film that it is inspired by. The source material literally rules out the possibility of humans riding on the back of a banshee.
.

And yet, we know that an actual Banshee ride vehicle was at least tested.

 

[wdizneew]

Despite FoP seeming like a Soarin' 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 or whatever, I am actually really excited and expecting the ride experience to be quite thrilling. I've ridden the Tron coaster in Shanghai twice and being in a motorbike/head first position definitely adds a lot of thrill to a coaster that has layout of just twisting/turning. It almost feels like things are way out of your control since you're going head first into the action.

 

[BubbaQuest]

I guess. If you think national parks are "tourist traps."

I stand corrected....I'm a tourist at a "National Park" but on another planet? But the only animals I can see are in a 3D simulator and maybe one singing at the end of a 4 minute boat ride?

It's like Country Bear Jamboree, but with boats, in space?

 

[Jones14]

I believe it was mentioned somewhere that it was Rodhe, not Cameron, who shot down the idea of "actually" flying on a banshee once and for all.

I think I prefer what they came up with; it feels clever and more accurate to the world they've built.

That said, I'm sure my opinion will change at least slightly once I've ridden it.

 

[danlb_2000]

I believe it was mentioned somewhere that it was Rodhe, not Cameron, who shot down the idea of "actually" flying on a banshee once and for all.

I think I prefer what they came up with; it feels clever and more accurate to the world they've built.

That said, I'm sure my opinion will change at least slightly once I've ridden it.

I think one of pluses to this approach is that it allows them to mix in the technology of the story which adds some variety to the land.

 

[BubbaQuest]

LOL of course, if you're reading these posts, you would think everyone had ridden it and the ride system is a broom stick with James Cameron moving it up and down in front of a 55 inch television screen.

Thank goodness we get James Cameron moving recycled SEGA Gameworks technology up and down in front of a 100 foot television screen instead. Moore's Law in action!

And if I have to put a sarcasm disclaimer, I'm obviously doing it wrong.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

And yet, we know that an actual Banshee ride vehicle was at least tested.

Yes, and it looks terrible and completely unrealistic. So that brings us back to the point that having guests actually ride the banshee makes no logistical sense, even with the obvious story issues aside. I believe we've also been told that the picture is from a very early prototype concept that barely made it beyond the development phase.

 

[Phroobar]

Thank goodness we get James Cameron moving recycled SEGA Gameworks technology up and down in front of a 100 foot television screen instead. Moore's Law in action!

And if I have to put a sarcasm disclaimer, I'm obviously doing it wrong.

I think that is totally what we are going to see. Why couldn't they make it interactive and let us control the Banshee?

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

I don't think you understand it either. It sure doesn't look like this:

And thank god that it doesn't. That concept looked completely unrealistic and probably came with pretty limited motion due to the wings and tail and head. So you probably would have had a somewhat tame motion base moving back and forth in front of a screen. Do you think that would have been better? That's (again) ignoring the fact that the film makes it clear that actually riding a banshee is impossible for a human and the fact that banshees are enormous.

Not to mention (again) that it's not like the ride vehicle could have been a realistic animatronic of any sort. It would have had to have been durable, so likely would have been painted fiberglass.
Based on your complaints about the incredible work that we got with Pandora, I find it incredibly hard to believe that you wouldn't have had several opinions about the attraction if they had gone that route.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

I stand corrected....I'm a tourist at a "National Park" but on another planet? But the only animals I can see are in a 3D simulator and maybe one singing at the end of a 4 minute boat ride?

It's like Country Bear Jamboree, but with boats, in space?

Then by all means, don't visit it.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

I think that is totally what we are going to see. Why couldn't they make it interactive and let us control the Banshee?

Yep. Let's just ignore every single piece of information about the attraction that we have and make up our mind that it's just a seat on a stick moving mildly around in front of a movie. You're absolutely impossible.

Also, PLEASE explain to me how we would be able to control the motion base in a multi-rider simulator attraction.

 

[RSoxNo1]

We discussed Na'vi River Journey capacity in the other thread but it's probably more appropriate here. Just some break downs of #s.

Navi River Journey
Assumes: 6 guests per vehicle
Dispatch intervals of a single boat:
15 seconds: 1440
20 seconds: 1080

Flight of Passage
4 theaters, each theater has 3 levels, each level has two groups (I think), each group has 16 link chairs. That's a total of 96 link chairs per theater and 384 link chairs total. With this being a cycle ride (like Soarin') we're looking at cycle time, not dispatch interval (technical it's the same thing). Do not confuse cycle time with ride time as cycle time includes load/unload as well.
Cycle times
8 minutes: 2880
9 minutes: 2560
10 minutes: 2304
11 minutes: 2095
12 minutes: 1920

 

[Thanks phoenicians]

I thought Norway was supposed to be troll country it seems as though some wandered into our forum. On another note I'd rather not judge the rides until I've been on them, as for the land I personally think it looks beautiful and hopefully the nighttime stuff will look as good when complete

 

[CosmicPrincess]

LOL of course, if you're reading these posts, you would think everyone had ridden it and the ride system is a broom stick with James Cameron moving it up and down in front of a 55 inch television screen.

Spoiler alert: Every once in a while Johnny Depp switches out with James Cameron.

No but seriously, all we have is speculation as to what the ride could be like. Let's give the imagineers a little faith and withhold our judgements until we have some concrete evidence as to what the ride really entails!

 

[Incomudro]

I believe it was mentioned somewhere that it was Rodhe, not Cameron, who shot down the idea of "actually" flying on a banshee once and for all.

I think I prefer what they came up with; it feels clever and more accurate to the world they've built.

That said, I'm sure my opinion will change at least slightly once I've ridden it.

This would make sense.
You'd imagine the initial inclination would be to put the rider on the physical back of the animal.
But, what does (did) Cameron know about ride systems, the amount of people they must handle, variety of physiques and so on?

 

[Phroobar]

Yep. Let's just ignore every single piece of information about the attraction that we have and make up our mind that it's just a seat on a stick moving mildly around in front of a movie. You're absolutely impossible. Like maddeningly so.

Also, PLEASE explain to me how we would be able to control the motion base in a multi-rider simulator attraction.

Sure, they may be all on one base but each chair is motion controlled. We control the character on screen by moving our body in different leaning directions. This makes the character on screen move in that direction. The seat can have tactical feedback to make it easier or harder to move or shake if we get hit by something. Arcade games have been doing that since that early 80s. I guess you've never been to an arcade before. This way we have 8 dragons on screen individually controlled but still on one motion platform.

 

[Andrew C]

And yet, we know that an actual Banshee ride vehicle was at least tested.

And if they liked what they saw and how it worked, they would have went that route. That they didn't should tell us something.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

Sure, they may be all on one base but each chair is motion controlled. We control the character on screen by moving our body in different leaning directions. This makes the character on screen move in that direction. The seat can have tactical feedback to make it easier or harder to move or shake if we get hit by something. Arcade games have been doing that since that early 80s. I guess you've never been to an arcade before. This way we have 8 dragons on screen individually controlled but still on one motion platform.

What? Like we would literally be watching a screen in the third person and controlling a dragon on the screen? Like some kind of giant video game? That sounds incredibly stupid.

Wait. Hold on. Do you not realize that this attraction is in the first person? Once you link with the avatar, you become the avatar. We're not watching him ride around in the screen and moving with it. Like you're actually riding the banshee once the lights go down and the gate drops.

Do you know what a simulator is? Film based simulator attractions have this pesky tendency of being, ya know, pre-filmed and very carefully matched to the movement of the film. There is really no way that you could have a film based simulator ride and be able to control the motion. That doesn't make any sense at all.

I'm not sure if you think the Sega bike game at my local arcade is more fun than Star Tours, but I much prefer the latter.

 

[Andrew C]

Sure, they may be all on one base but each chair is motion controlled. We control the character on screen by moving our body in different leaning directions. This makes the character on screen move in that direction. The seat can have tactical feedback to make it easier or harder to move or shake if we get hit by something. Arcade games have been doing that since that early 80s. I guess you've never been to an arcade before. This way we have 8 dragons on screen individually controlled but still on one motion platform.

They went with a different ride system....with a different ride experience than you're suggesting...I am sure we will see if they made an appropriate choice soon.

 

[Phroobar]

What? Like we would literally be watching a screen in the third person and controlling a dragon on the screen? Like some kind of giant video game? That sounds incredibly stupid.

Wait. Hold on. Do you not realize that this attraction is in the first person? Once you link with the avatar, you become the avatar. We're not watching him ride around in the screen and moving with it. Like you're actually riding the banshee once the lights go down and the gate drops.

There is no such thing as an avatar and you are not riding a dragon. You are riding a bike on a motion base in front of a screen with no control over it. You don't even get to see the dragon you riding. WDI could have taken it up a notch and done as I suggested above.