Avengers Campus - Reactions / Reviews

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

I hope this whole meet and greet thing goes away completely. I want to come back to the days when characters could run around the park and play with kids.

I remember when my oldest was four, he was coloring in Big Thunder Ranch. Tigger was board because no other kids were around so Tigger decided to color with him. It was like a twenty minute thing and my son barely noticed. Tigger doesn't stay within the lines.

the wicked queen does stuff like this and walks around. At least she used to. probably won't ever again.

 

[Travel Junkie]

I mostly agree. In my perfect DLR world, Star Wars Land would have went to DCA In the Simona lot/ DCA expansion as well as MMRR in the Holllywood backlot. Marvel Land goes to TL but not as a full on “Marvel Land.” Maybe one new attraction taking over Launch bay / Part of Autopia and a Buzz retheme (or new dark ride) and Star Tours retheme. In the process TOT is saved (as well as Big Thunder Ranch/ BBQ, Hungry Bear on the water, the old ROA / TSI) and you have a much stronger Hollywoodland. Star Tours would be a loss but I’d rather have TOT back.

My one caveat is Tomorrowland. If all of this means they bring it back to its former glory then maybe it’s worth it. Something tells me they won’t and I would have been happier with a Marvelized Tomorrowland and all dominoes that fell with it.

I have always preferred Star Wars in DCA even though I like the final product better than most here. DCA also desperately needs a couple good dark rides and another draw in Hollywood land. MMRR fits the bill on both counts.

TL I fear will always be a mess. It is unlike modern Disney to not just copy and paste HKDL's TL into DL. HKDL's TL is basically Space Mountain plus Marvel. Not great thematically but when done it will have a decent lineup of attractions.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

I hope this whole meet and greet thing goes away completely. I want to come back to the days when characters could run around the park and play with kids.

I remember when my oldest was four, he was coloring in Big Thunder Ranch. Tigger was board because no other kids were around so Tigger decided to color with him. It was like a twenty minute thing and my son barely noticed. Tigger doesn't stay within the lines.

Loki was allowed to be a roaming character in Hollywood Land - it was very fun as he would wander around and harass the heroes at their meets.

The Dora Milaje also roam... ahem... patrol the area to make sure it was safe for their King. Had a hilarious moment with one who came over to a friend and I who were in Spider-Man's line. She asked us why we were waiting to see the boy wearing his pajamas? We fell over laughing. The Dora Milaje are AWESOME to interact with.

And when they were out at one point, Black Widow and Hawkeye roamed as well.

Oh, Doctor Strange roamed, too.

Problem with that is that they were often mobbed and you got no time as a guest to yourself with the character because the roaming characters would be signing, taking photos, and answering questions for multiple people simultaneously, and some people wouldn't wait or would be rude when they couldn't cut through the mob - or did do so - to get the characters' attention.

Meet & Greet lines allow everyone to have individual uninterrupted time with the characters. So I still prefer it.

 

[Professortango1]

Or if they just completely gave up on the Tomorrowland theme and made it more of a Sci-fi land. Not that I'm advocating that. As we all pretty much know, Tland has been a mess for a very long time. Will likely always probably be problematic

I wouldn't call Avengers Sci-Fi though. They have Sci-Fi elements, but I wouldn't put them in that area of the video store.

 

[Professortango1]

There's actually a ton of land available in Tomorrowland, there just needs to be a willingness to level most of it. It also depends on what form the Avengers ride takes. I'm not a fan of the simulator-thingie they've announced, but a coaster might have worked ok if they wove it in and around the land.

I meant fit as in theme not physical space. Tomorrowland is dedicated to the future and exploration.

 

[TP2000]

I have always preferred Star Wars in DCA even though I like the final product better than most here. DCA also desperately needs a couple good dark rides and another draw in Hollywood land. MMRR fits the bill on both counts.

TL I fear will always be a mess. It is unlike modern Disney to not just copy and paste HKDL's TL into DL. HKDL's TL is basically Space Mountain plus Marvel. Not great thematically but when done it will have a decent lineup of attractions.

I mostly agree with you there. I think Star Wars Land did wonders for the Rivers of America and northern Frontierland, and likely saved that river complex from going the way of the Motorboat Cruise for at least the next 30 years.

That said, now that we see how Star Wars Land turned out and how underwhelming it all was, I wouldn't have minded if it went into DCA by expanding that park into the Simba parking lot. Bob Chapek strikes again.

Josh D'Amaro, AKA The Dreamiest Executive Ever, won't be able to have a real impact on the park until 2023 at the earliest. Without Covid he might have been able to turn some stuff around by 2022, but with the current economic disaster that Disney is dealing with company-wide, whatever quantifiable impact Josh may have on the parks is still years away.

HollywoodLand at DCA is still a total disaster, literally a stucco wasteland. And Marvel Land post-Covid doesn't sound like it's going to be much better than the embarassment that was Pixar Pier circa 2018.

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

I mostly agree with you there. I think Star Wars Land did wonders for the Rivers of America and northern Frontierland, and likely saved that river complex from going the way of the Motorboat Cruise for at least the next 30 years.

That said, now that we see how Star Wars Land turned out and how underwhelming it all was, I wouldn't have minded if it went into DCA by expanding that park into the Simba parking lot.

HollywoodLand at DCA is still a total disaster, literally a stucco wasteland. And Marvel Land post-Covid doesn't sound like it's going to be much better than the embarassment that was Pixar Pier circa 2018.

DCA is just such a horrible park to begin with, They should have either turned the whole thing into a STAR WARS park or a MARVEL PARK or half and half of both. What we have now makes me miss the parking lot it used to be.

 

[TP2000]

DCA is just such a horrible park to begin with, They should have either turned the whole thing into a STAR WARS park or a MARVEL PARK or half and half of both. What we have now makes me miss the parking lot it used to be.

And yet... right now they've got at least an extra 10,000 parking spaces they can't use. The Toy Story Lot will remain closed until well into 2021 under the current situation. Maybe 2022.

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

And yet... right now they've got at least an extra 10,000 parking spaces they can't use. The Toy Story Lot will remain closed until well into 2021 under the current situation. Maybe 2022.

The irony is unbearable. I hope it'll last.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

To be honest the parking lot was needed well before Star Wars Land was a thing (funny that crowds DECREASED with Star Wars Land).

That's true. For years, the parking lots would constantly be full and you'd have to drive around trying to get in.

As soon as SW opened, they didn't even need the additional parking.

 

[alias8703]

DCA is just such a horrible park to begin with, They should have either turned the whole thing into a STAR WARS park or a MARVEL PARK or half and half of both. What we have now makes me miss the parking lot it used to be.

Imagine being so full of disdain that you would prefer a flat parking lot to an entire theme park

 

[No Name]

They should’ve built a parking garage under DCA.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

They should've built DCA above a parking garage at a higher elevation like The Magic Kingdom so you could see it from all around.

 

[MKeeler]

Yeah, but an Avengers ride wouldn't fit in Tomorrowland unless it involved us using Primm Particles to travel backwards in time to help them in the past.

I'd argue Marvel in Tomorrowland is a better fit than many would imagine and could actually help unify the current disjointed land. I think it comes down to the roots of each. Tomorrowland, at it's roots, is 1950s/1960s near future sci-fi. Marvel Comics, in their heyday and in the form of the heroes most known, is 1960s sci-fi and science heroes at that. Marvel science heroes in a 1950s/1960s near future sci-fi kinda works. And with just a light retheming in many places. Ant-Man and Dr. Pym for Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Galaxy Tours instead of Star Tours. Stark Expo in Innoventions, perhaps taking the bottom floor and something else on the top, like the Space 220 restaurant at WDW. Captain Marvel and innovative space travel in Space Mountain. SHEILD training instead of Jedi training. And so on. I think it would have captured the land and given it a specific feel in the same way Indiana Jones helped solidify Adventureland.

Instead of trading and putting Galaxy's Edge in DCA, I always wonder what would have happened with Marvel and Star Wars both in Disneyland drawing crowds to separate ends of the park, and the space in DCA becoming nearly fully PIXAR (instead of PIXAR Pier). Bug's Land stays. The expansion pad becomes a Toy Story Land. Hollywoodland becomes PIXAR Studios.

It's that combination that I think would have made both parks stronger.

 

[mickEblu]

I'd argue Marvel in Tomorrowland is a better fit than many would imagine and could actually help unify the current disjointed land. I think it comes down to the roots of each. Tomorrowland, at it's roots, is 1950s/1960s near future sci-fi. Marvel Comics, in their heyday and in the form of the heroes most known, is 1960s sci-fi and science heroes at that. Marvel science heroes in a 1950s/1960s near future sci-fi kinda works. And with just a light retheming in many places. Ant-Man and Dr. Pym for Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Galaxy Tours instead of Star Tours. Stark Expo in Innoventions, perhaps taking the bottom floor and something else on the top, like the Space 220 restaurant at WDW. Captain Marvel and innovative space travel in Space Mountain. SHEILD training instead of Jedi training. And so on. I think it would have captured the land and given it a specific feel in the same way Indiana Jones helped solidify Adventureland.

Instead of trading and putting Galaxy's Edge in DCA, I always wonder what would have happened with Marvel and Star Wars both in Disneyland drawing crowds to separate ends of the park, and the space in DCA becoming nearly fully PIXAR (instead of PIXAR Pier). Bug's Land stays. The expansion pad becomes a Toy Story Land. Hollywoodland becomes PIXAR Studios.

It's that combination that I think would have made both parks stronger.

So instead of Pixar Pier, Pixar Park? I hate it.

 

[choco choco]

I'd argue Marvel in Tomorrowland is a better fit than many would imagine and could actually help unify the current disjointed land. I think it comes down to the roots of each. Tomorrowland, at it's roots, is 1950s/1960s near future sci-fi. Marvel Comics, in their heyday and in the form of the heroes most known, is 1960s sci-fi and science heroes at that. Marvel science heroes in a 1950s/1960s near future sci-fi kinda works. And with just a light retheming in many places. Ant-Man and Dr. Pym for Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Galaxy Tours instead of Star Tours. Stark Expo in Innoventions, perhaps taking the bottom floor and something else on the top, like the Space 220 restaurant at WDW. Captain Marvel and innovative space travel in Space Mountain. SHEILD training instead of Jedi training. And so on. I think it would have captured the land and given it a specific feel in the same way Indiana Jones helped solidify Adventureland.

Instead of trading and putting Galaxy's Edge in DCA, I always wonder what would have happened with Marvel and Star Wars both in Disneyland drawing crowds to separate ends of the park, and the space in DCA becoming nearly fully PIXAR (instead of PIXAR Pier). Bug's Land stays. The expansion pad becomes a Toy Story Land. Hollywoodland becomes PIXAR Studios.

It's that combination that I think would have made both parks stronger.

Marvel fits Tomorrowland very, very well. It's why I think management should have put some thought into franchise placement instead of recklessly throwing them into places without care. The Imagineers should be given chances to try things out.

Hollywoodland becoming Pixar Studios is a good idea, although I think we throw out the "Studio" idea altogether and just make it a land featuring the domesticity of many of the Pixar movies. The idea is sort of an American counterpart to Fantasyland, where Fantasyland adopts the domestic spaces of European fairy tales; "Pixarville" does the same in American vernacular, since most of Pixar's movies are set up in the home and hearth of American places anyway (Toy Story is in a suburban house, so is Monster's Inc's human world, the Nemo movies, the Incredibles...all feature archetypal American spaces). Toontown was somewhat a similar idea but the architecture was wackadoodled a bit more, so with some experimentation Imagineering could find the right balance.

A Fantasyland scale area - full of classic dark rides and a small complement of flat rides - would strengthen DCA by loads.

 

[Rich Brownn]

Imagine being so full of disdain that you would prefer a flat parking lot to an entire theme park

John Hench, Imagineer:
“I liked it better as a parking lot.”

 

[Rich Brownn]

I think Pixar isn't a brand name. Most people see Disney as the company that made Toy Story and Bug's Life, even before the buyout. Especially now that Disney's animated films are also 3D, I don't see why they have to separate Pixar into its own thing.

What makes Moana different from Brave in terms of animation? Does the average person really care which division made which 3D film?

I understand calling Marvel and Star Wars something other than Disney. Pixar is a natural fit though.

Heck, most people think any CGI film is Disney, regardless of the studio. (Disney should have stayed hand-drawn to separate itself from Pixar IMHO)

 

[mickEblu]

I think Pixar isn't a brand name. Most people see Disney as the company that made Toy Story and Bug's Life, even before the buyout. Especially now that Disney's animated films are also 3D, I don't see why they have to separate Pixar into its own thing.

What makes Moana different from Brave in terms of animation? Does the average person really care which division made which 3D film?

I understand calling Marvel and Star Wars something other than Disney. Pixar is a natural fit though.

Personally, I have no problem with Pixar and to me the studio is kind of inherently Disney unlike Marvel and to a lesser extent Lucasfilm. I just don’t like how it’s properties have been represented at DCA (or other parks) except for Cars Land. I definitely wouldn’t want all of DCA to become a Pixar Park. That’s ridiculous. Imagine Disneyland with every land, nook n cranny, eatery and shop based on their animated films.

 

[Professortango1]

I'd argue Marvel in Tomorrowland is a better fit than many would imagine and could actually help unify the current disjointed land. I think it comes down to the roots of each. Tomorrowland, at it's roots, is 1950s/1960s near future sci-fi. Marvel Comics, in their heyday and in the form of the heroes most known, is 1960s sci-fi and science heroes at that. Marvel science heroes in a 1950s/1960s near future sci-fi kinda works. And with just a light retheming in many places. Ant-Man and Dr. Pym for Honey I Shrunk the Audience. Galaxy Tours instead of Star Tours. Stark Expo in Innoventions, perhaps taking the bottom floor and something else on the top, like the Space 220 restaurant at WDW. Captain Marvel and innovative space travel in Space Mountain. SHEILD training instead of Jedi training. And so on. I think it would have captured the land and given it a specific feel in the same way Indiana Jones helped solidify Adventureland.

Instead of trading and putting Galaxy's Edge in DCA, I always wonder what would have happened with Marvel and Star Wars both in Disneyland drawing crowds to separate ends of the park, and the space in DCA becoming nearly fully PIXAR (instead of PIXAR Pier). Bug's Land stays. The expansion pad becomes a Toy Story Land. Hollywoodland becomes PIXAR Studios.

It's that combination that I think would have made both parks stronger.

I just don't see it. The MCU movies have all been incredibly modern. They might be inspired by 50's/60's era comics, but the films and franchise are set very much in there here and now. The futuristic elements of the tech are incredibly downplayed and presented as just cutting edge tech.