Avengers Campus: E-Watch! (Waiting on the new ride)

Professortango1

Professortango1

Well-Known Member
Gusey said:
Just out of curiosity, are you on about Rex, the original pilot from the 1987 version? If so, he was a real animatronic
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I'm talking about the CGI pilot for the new Star Tours. Who gets locked out and C-3PO gets stuck piloting the craft. That moment in the pre-show falls flat for me since its clear that this isn't a real physical character that we will ever see and encounter, its just an animation like the other cartoon droid giving us the safety spiel.
 
Professortango1

Professortango1

Well-Known Member
Disney Irish said:
So you really don't think Disney would do a quality Avatar area in DCA without James Cameron? That is really cynical. I mean so be it, but that is even too cynical for what I've known you to be all these years.
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I mean, Disney DID give us Navi River Journey with projected small waterfalls and one AA figure. Its not the worst thing ever, but its far from good or memorable. Inoffensive is how I would classify it. And Disney has been hitting that mark consistently since Frozen Ever After. Pretty looking yet empty feeling attractions without much charm or investment. Its like watching an attractive person shrug.
 
Disney Irish

Disney Irish

Premium Member
Professortango1 said:
I mean, Disney DID give us Navi River Journey with projected small waterfalls and one AA figure. Its not the worst thing ever, but its far from good or memorable. Inoffensive is how I would classify it. And Disney has been hitting that mark consistently since Frozen Ever After. Pretty looking yet empty feeling attractions without much charm or investment. Its like watching an attractive person shrug.
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Which actually makes Mick invoking Cameron's name even more bizarre. As Cameron was involved in Pandora at AK and we still got NRJ.
 
D.Silentu

D.Silentu

Well-Known Member
mickEblu said:
My gut says the Avatar ride will be the show stopper. Hopefully they play up the re-rideability of Avengers. Not just from everything we know about the ride systems and concepts but you just don’t see two show stoppers being built at the same time for the same park.
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You have good reason to think so, but I didn't see merit in comparing the two because Avengers is years ahead of Avatar in development. The consensus is Shanghai's Pirates of the Caribbean ride system has nothing to prove, so I'm more curious about what they can do with Peter Pan.
 
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mickEblu

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
D.Silentu said:
You have good reason to think so, but I didn't see merit in comparing the two because Avengers is years ahead of Avatar in development. The consensus is Shanghai's Pirates of the Caribbean ride system has nothing to prove, so I'm more curious about what they can do with Peter Pan.
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It may be years ahead in development but it appears the bulk of the $$$ will be spent around the same time.
 
D.Silentu

D.Silentu

Well-Known Member
Professortango1 said:
I would say that's one of weaknesses I find with Star Tours' update. The original had a great video utilizing practical effects and was incredible strong and seamless. The new version feels like I'm being dropped into 3 different video game cut scenes. Add to that the fact I never believed we would be flying with the original pilot droid be cause he was obviously computer generated and Disney didn't even go through the trouble of building a puppet or practical figure. When it's computer generated, it's like the ride is announcing that it's fake and has no substance.

My worry is that AID will have the same feeling with our ride vehicle moving between screens with randomized CGI cut scenes.
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You really could be talking about movies as well as attractions here and I stand by you on which method I prefer. However, knowing the route that they will take, I wanted to point out that there are advantages and opportunities yet unrealized. Subconsciously it might feel different to me because while Star Wars has a history of excellent model work and practical effects, the Marvel movies have always been a CGI soup.
 
Professortango1

Professortango1

Well-Known Member
D.Silentu said:
You really could be talking about movies as well as attractions here and I stand by you on which method I prefer. However, knowing the route that they will take, I wanted to point out that there are advantages and opportunities yet unrealized. Subconsciously it might feel different to me because while Star Wars has a history of excellent model work and practical effects, the Marvel movies have always been a CGI soup.
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I don't mind it as much in film since I'm watching a screen already, but in a theme park environment, animation meant to look real on screens just falls flat with me. It is why I will always love TOT over Mission BO, because there actual things for me to look at while on the ride rather than randomized scenes of actors on a green screen. Its one of the reasons why Midway Mania works and WEBslingers does not, as with Toy Story, we are used to an animated world and the simplicity makes it land vs an army of faux realistic robots crawling over faux realistic set and I'm left wondering....if they wanted it to look real, why didn't they shoot it on real sets or use practical sets/figures in the ride?

With Iron Man, Spider-Man, and many of the Marvel characters being fully suited up, it should make it easier to make a decent AA version who interacts with us in the ride. No need to figure out facial expressions and such, just the body movements. Its why I like Kylo in Rise but the Stormtroopers in the ride portion leave me cold. I look at them and automatically think "they are not really there. Can't we take some of the real ones from the docking bay and put them in the actual ride??"

I work in theatre and we see a lot of the same issues coming to our industry with practical sets being replaced with screen versions. When I go see a show with a great practical set, it makes me want to go onstage and touch it, play with it, experience that world. With a screen, I don't get any of that.
 
D.Silentu

D.Silentu

Well-Known Member
Your comment about screens coming to live theater really resonates. I remember seeing Mary Poppins years ago and being pulled out of the experience in a scene where Bert makes projected letters appear in the sky. I rarely think of this because I have a low opinion of the show, but in Catch Me If You Can there were entire backgrounds that were lazily projected. As you can tell, I agree that projection has extremely limited value in theatre.
 
D.Silentu

D.Silentu

Well-Known Member
Professortango1 said:
I don't mind it as much in film since I'm watching a screen already, but in a theme park environment, animation meant to look real on screens just falls flat with me. It is why I will always love TOT over Mission BO, because there actual things for me to look at while on the ride rather than randomized scenes of actors on a green screen. Its one of the reasons why Midway Mania works and WEBslingers does not, as with Toy Story, we are used to an animated world and the simplicity makes it land vs an army of faux realistic robots crawling over faux realistic set and I'm left wondering....if they wanted it to look real, why didn't they shoot it on real sets or use practical sets/figures in the ride?

With Iron Man, Spider-Man, and many of the Marvel characters being fully suited up, it should make it easier to make a decent AA version who interacts with us in the ride. No need to figure out facial expressions and such, just the body movements. Its why I like Kylo in Rise but the Stormtroopers in the ride portion leave me cold. I look at them and automatically think "they are not really there. Can't we take some of the real ones from the docking bay and put them in the actual ride??"
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I may sound dissenting, but I see a lot of value in your philosophy. In this specific case though, I think that animation may be a boon to this ride. Screen based rides will always face an uphill battle due to, as you put it, "actual things to look at." Taking Rise of the Resistance as an example, I appreciate that that animated scenery establishes a hyper realistic look, albeit with the grace that most of the time we are supposed to be seeing outer space. However, I cringe a bit when I think of how we'll talk about the onscreen actors years down the road: "Man, Daisy Ridley is so young!" As you said, the suited characters, and I'll add characters possessing non human skin colors, pose a great opportunity to avoid this both on screen and practically. I feel like animating everything, since we're stuck with a screen based ride system, keeps the ride fresh longer because it's hyper realistic from start to finish. One thing I wish they would do is lower the resolution of videos in the queues. If the screens we see on the ride are supposed to represent real life, they ought to look sharper than any videos that are supposed to be actual video.

We agree that animation will never be truly convincing, but I believe I'm okay with that so long as the ride doesn't solely rely on it. Guardians essentially does, and we've talked before about how practical elements in the foreground would do wonders for the attraction. On the other hand, the 3D depth of field, synchronized motion and C-3P0 sell the Star Tours experience enough for me. I think stacking elements that way make a screen based attraction succeed and I hope the Avengers team understands that because any film element, animated or live action, will test my suspension of disbelief.
 
T

TheDisneyParksfanC8

Well-Known Member
D.Silentu said:
I have unwarranted levels of optimism because I believe there are a wealth of potential advancements that dovetail the ride system chosen. I don't really expect animatronics, or at least not as many as Jurassic World. However, Runaway Railway brought to life a concept that I'd pondered for years in the "tropical island turned to seascape" sequence. It's a wonderful use of projection mapping and I can imagine multiple scenes on the ride designed this way to expand the number of locations visited. Naturally, Star Tours has been taking us to different places for over a decade, why couldn't the Avengers do the same?

Another upside of the use of screens is that they can bring us the variety of heroes, differing each ride, that were teased at the previous D23. An effect I have been aching for someone to implement is taking the same approach used in Star Tours and applying it to the 3D effects. Imagine re-riding the attraction and not being able to anticipate which objects will appear dimensionally in front of you. These effects no longer have to be predictable. Smuggler's Run is built like a video game with objects reacting to your ship crashing and lasers firing at a moment's notice. I can only hope that Imagineers are thinking with likewise ambition, because all of these things are attainable. They've just been served to us ala cart, never stewed. DCA has long needed an attraction that shows us something signature. As said, I'm aware of how intensely optimistic I am, but there is real potential here for the Imagineers to assemble a groundbreaking E-Ticket.
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mickEblu said:
My gut says the Avatar ride will be the show stopper. Hopefully they play up the re-rideability of Avengers. Not just from everything we know about the ride systems and concepts but you just don’t see two show stoppers being built at the same time for the same park. Avengers will be a lot more modest. Doesn’t mean it can’t be good though.
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At the end of a phase when there is an Infinity War/Endgame level event then can film new media for the live action portions of AID. So keeping it up to date is a must for me.

I wonder if aside from Asgard, Wakanda, and NY, there are going to be other Multiverse locations exclusive to the ride.
 

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