Avengers Campus - Reactions / Reviews

[el_super]

Obviously lots to say, so I'll try to respond to everything.

Sorry if it seems I am trimming down parts... I will try to get to the main points but time is limited for me today...

An attraction like ToT uses much simpler concepts and vocabulary to tell its "story". ToT is, as its name suggests, about fear - which is not something that needs to be explained.

The fear doesn't need to be explained, but the core concept of a story should be, and I think that's something that TOT failed at. Unlike Indy, or Mission Breakout or Smugglers Run, where the concept of audience participation is explained and understood, Tower of Terror just left it open as to why you wandered into the hotel, why you needed to explore it, and what possible motivation or reward was awaiting for you. It didn't tell a conventional story the same way other Disney attractions do. Now that concept of "something weird and random just happens" is completely in line for a Twilight Zone episode, and maybe that's the vibe they were going for, but it meant the attraction had to be carried mostly on it's look and feel rather than the story it told. Past the queue, the attraction wasn't really all that ... interesting.

Which isn't to say it's bad. I hope I am not coming off as someone who hates Tower of Terror because I do still love the attraction, but I still feel pointing out the flaws here may help explain some of the issues with Mission Breakout. Attractions can be flawed and still be wonderful.

Part of the reason this is problematic is that comics, in general, have a large cultural vocabulary that could be used effectively here. It's a shame that those ideas and vocabulary aren't. It's the core failing of Avengers Campus.

I know this is a thread about Avengers Campus, and I will have to plead that I haven't kept entirely up to date on it. The introduction of Marvel has seemed pretty haphazard in the parks. But there is still value in telling those stories and feeling connected to those characters. Value that can make the investment in Marveland worth it.

What is unique about themed design is not a willingness to overlook flaws (which feeds the idea that themed design is not a kind of art) but how we experience these spaces - tangibly as opposed to viewed "on a wall".

It is a bit of an oversimplification, but its important to always remember that the parks exists, primarily, to entertain people and unlike a piece of art that can sit in a museum, they have to be able to entertain thousands at a time to justify their existence. Discussions over theme design have to be grounded in the idea that, attractions will sometimes violate all the rules and still be popular and fun and everything an attraction needs to be. If you go back and try to apply the same rules to rides like the Matterhorn or the Teacups or the Monorail, things start to get really murky and weird.

I really appreciate this take and your willingness to share it, but I don't think the connection to this attraction is grounded here. In MB, we don't experience adversity, we don't struggle to overcome it, and it's unclear what our role in this place is supposed to be. Indiana Jones is a good counterpoint about how execution and not (only) concept is what is at stake here. In MB, the story is told to us. In Indiana Jones we are the subject of the story.

I think they're pretty close. There is a lot of exposition in the pre-films for the Indy queue that way over explain the whole story. They even use the same concept of forced interaction, having a member of the audience initiate the experience by performing an "action." Either raising your hands to allow Rocket entry, or looking into the eyes of Mara.

I'm not uncomfortable saying that Oscars should not go to whatever the year's MCU blockbuster was, and I'm similarly not uncomfortable saying that GotG is a failure of design that detracts from its park. It didn't have to be that way, just as it doesn't have to be the case that a MCU film will never win best picture. These are choices that corporations make to reduce their risk exposure.

I've seen some films win that really didn't deserve it, and I've seen some films that deserve it get knocked down. We all know that the academy is mostly picking winners based on some pretty arbitrary concepts (like when it's just someone's "time" to win).

But there is still value in a super mega-blockbuster somehow capturing the entire world's attention all at once. Not just monetary value, but actual artistic, emotional value. And sometimes, like Titanic, the two somehow coincide.

And maybe Marvel land will be great... who really knows.

 

[D.Silentu]

Considering it's a tall building in what was intended to be a Marvel land, I'd think Spider-Man would have been the better choice.

They considered Spiderman, Rohde said so in an interview. Guardians was mandated to synergize with the sequel coming out that year.

 

[Kyle’s Dad Sent Me]

Guardians ostensibly operates on the same principles as the Tea Cups do: converting the madcap and irreverent styling of Guardians into a physical sensation (in this instance being tossed up and down vs spinning). Like the tea cups it even has the added musical aspect.

 

[Professortango1]

Love that this debate is being rehashed yet again but GOTG as a ride is far more fun than the cheap version of TOT it replaced. Guests love it and it has become one of the resort’s most popular rides for a reason. Each resort now has a unique version of Tower too which is great. The outside is ugly though and they should have given it another six months of work. They really should remedy that at some point.

For you. For me and my friends, DCA's Tower was an improvement on the ride experience from Florida. It was like Tower 2.0. The outside was ugly, but you can't claim Guardians improved on that.

Guardians to me is obnoxious. Poor design, poor storytelling, and you can't hear the show elements on the actual ride. Its the Dane Cook of theme park rides. Sure, people like it, but that doesn't mean its great.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

I like the DCA TOT too. Seems like a lot of people stick their noses up at it. It looked really cool too. Made DCA feel more like DCA than Disney's Random IP Adventure Park.

 

[fctiger]

They considered Spiderman, Rohde said so in an interview. Guardians was mandated to synergize with the sequel coming out that year.

Really?? Man now THAT would've been a much better idea. And they had a freakin Spider Man movie out the same year GOTG 2 came out. Homecoming came out that same year in 2017, it came out in July where as GOTG was May. But end of the day, that is still a Sony film and probably why it was rejected. Oh well.

 

[NateD1226]

Really?? Man now THAT would've been a much better idea. And they had a freakin Spider Man movie out the same year GOTG 2 came out. Homecoming came out that same year in 2017, it came out in July where as GOTG was May. But end of the day, that is still a Sony film and probably why it was rejected. Oh well.

I'm guessing the only reason they didn't do Spider-Man was because it was the first movie with Holland and nobody really know how it was going to be received. So instead of risking it, they just went with a franchise that was already loved and had a movie coming out around the same time.

 

[October82]

Sorry if it seems I am trimming down parts... I will try to get to the main points but time is limited for me today...

No worries, same here.

The fear doesn't need to be explained, but the core concept of a story should be, and I think that's something that TOT failed at. Unlike Indy, or Mission Breakout or Smugglers Run, where the concept of audience participation is explained and understood, Tower of Terror just left it open as to why you wandered into the hotel, why you needed to explore it, and what possible motivation or reward was awaiting for you. It didn't tell a conventional story the same way other Disney attractions do. Now that concept of "something weird and random just happens" is completely in line for a Twilight Zone episode, and maybe that's the vibe they were going for, but it meant the attraction had to be carried mostly on it's look and feel rather than the story it told. Past the queue, the attraction wasn't really all that ... interesting.

So I think this conflates the experience of a themed space, which is what the Disney parks pioneered and excel at, with "narrative handholding". I don't mean that to have a negative connotation, but themed experiences work on a deeper level when they don't provide simple answers to these sorts of questions. These are also areas where the DCA tower's cost cutting was more problematic. The use of space, sound, and visual cues in the more complete versions of this attraction address many of these concerns in a way that isn't Rocket Raccoon telling you what's going on. Themed spaces that people inhabit should be self consistent and self justifying. Tower of Terror attempted this (for better or worse), while Guardians pokes fun at the concept - going so far as to tell you that the reason you're doing all of this is because you're at Disneyland.

Which isn't to say it's bad. I hope I am not coming off as someone who hates Tower of Terror because I do still love the attraction, but I still feel pointing out the flaws here may help explain some of the issues with Mission Breakout. Attractions can be flawed and still be wonderful.

Certainly. If I had to sum up California Adventure's history, especially around 2012, this phrase would be it.

I know this is a thread about Avengers Campus, and I will have to plead that I haven't kept entirely up to date on it. The introduction of Marvel has seemed pretty haphazard in the parks. But there is still value in telling those stories and feeling connected to those characters. Value that can make the investment in Marveland worth it.

I agree - it's part of the reason I'm disappointed in Avengers Campus and the Guardians tower. It's not that Disney couldn't do these things well, it's that they choose not to.

It is a bit of an oversimplification, but its important to always remember that the parks exists, primarily, to entertain people and unlike a piece of art that can sit in a museum, they have to be able to entertain thousands at a time to justify their existence. Discussions over theme design have to be grounded in the idea that, attractions will sometimes violate all the rules and still be popular and fun and everything an attraction needs to be. If you go back and try to apply the same rules to rides like the Matterhorn or the Teacups or the Monorail, things start to get really murky and weird.

I mentioned this earlier, but the mistake is thinking there's a difference between good design and entertainment. Good design enables emotionally resonant experiences that go beyond their source material or add to it.

And yes, many of those lessons of design were learned over the last 60+ years. I hold California Adventure and Tokyo DisneySea to a different standard because these are parks developed by people who have the benefit of time, experience, and budget.

I think they're pretty close. There is a lot of exposition in the pre-films for the Indy queue that way over explain the whole story. They even use the same concept of forced interaction, having a member of the audience initiate the experience by performing an "action." Either raising your hands to allow Rocket entry, or looking into the eyes of Mara.

The core difference is that in Indiana Jones, the events happen to you and are about you, the video is window dressing on an experience that doesn't need explanation (at least to western audiences), and the inclusion of the Indiana Jones IP doesn't change the attraction in a fundamental way because it isn't about the characters from Indiana Jones. Mission Breakout is not about you, you're merely a passive observer (bizarre and quickly abandoned conceits excluded) on events that involve the Guardians. This isn't a failure in the concept of the attraction, it is a consistent failure in how Disney now thinks about IP.

I've seen some films win that really didn't deserve it, and I've seen some films that deserve it get knocked down. We all know that the academy is mostly picking winners based on some pretty arbitrary concepts (like when it's just someone's "time" to win).

But there is still value in a super mega-blockbuster somehow capturing the entire world's attention all at once. Not just monetary value, but actual artistic, emotional value. And sometimes, like Titanic, the two somehow coincide.

And maybe Marvel land will be great... who really knows.

So I think I need to repeat this point, but subjective =/= arbitrary. I haven't agreed with every decision the academy has made, but the criteria that we all use to tell "cinema" from "movies" are not mysterious ones. We can all tell a masterpiece of film-making from a summer blockbuster superhero of the week film. That doesn't mean that a superhero film can't be a masterpiece (and there are a few that have been).

 

[October82]

I'm guessing the only reason they didn't do Spider-Man was because it was the first movie with Holland and nobody really know how it was going to be received. So instead of risking it, they just went with a franchise that was already loved and had a movie coming out around the same time.

Rather, there were (are) licensing issues between Sony and Disney. Had Disney used Spider-man, they would have run the risk of promoting a franchise that they had (have) only limited control over.

 

[NateD1226]

Rather, there were (are) licensing issues between Sony and Disney. Had Disney used Spider-man, they would have run the risk of promoting a franchise that they had (have) only limited control over.

That too, but look where we are now.

 

[fctiger]

Rather, there were (are) licensing issues between Sony and Disney. Had Disney used Spider-man, they would have run the risk of promoting a franchise that they had (have) only limited control over.

And of course the bigger irony is around the time they announced AC and the WEB ride was literally the same time Disney announced SM was no longer going to be part of the MCU since they had a (what else) financial disagreement with Sony on how much percentage they get with the movies. The ride would've already felt outdated before it even opened if they didn't bring him back into the MCU for the next film.

It's also odd that SM was the first to get an attraction in the land considering all those things, but IIRC Sony doesn't get any of the merchandising rights outside of the movies themselves and SM is clearly a big seller for the company.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Tower of Terror just left it open as to why you wandered into the hotel, why you needed to explore it, and what possible motivation or reward was awaiting for you.

You’ve never wanted to or actually explored an abandoned place? Or at least look at pictures of an abandoned place?

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

a Cutting edge innovative ride with humor

As long as it includes two animatronics performing the Pamchenko, I'm in!

 

[lazyboy97o]

View attachment 519078

As long as it includes two animatronics performing the Pamchenko, I'm in!

I’ve said it before, Zamboni should have been a corporate experience alongside tortillas and sourdough. Who wouldn’t want to visit Zamboniland at Disney’s California Adventure?

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

The reason nothing else matters is because what entertains people are well designed, well thought out, historically relevant and emotionally evocative experiences.

Nope.

My favorite additions to the parks in the past decade were ElecTRONica, The Mad T Party and the Marvel characters in DCA. Oh, and I still miss Celebrate! A Street Party Parade which I would stop and watch far more often than Soundsational, Paint the Night or Magic Happens. And I miss the Frozen Sing-along at DCA too.

All of which I will fully recognize were low-budget slapdash thrown together offerings and overlays. And all of which gave me hours (and months and years) of pure joy.

Are POTC or HM or Fantasmic! clearly substantially qualitatively better? Absolutely. Which would I rather spend hours and hours and hours doing? ElecTRONica, The Mad T Party and the Marvel character additions. Repeatedly. And I did.

I love steak. I wish I could have steak more often. But I'm actually good with hamburger a lot of the time. As are a lot of the Mad T and Marvel park fans I know. Except the vegans.

I understand the concern that all the steak is being chopped up into hamburgers and soon there will be nothing but hamburgers everywhere. That would be sad. But it doesn't mean there is not room for *and genuine appreciation for* both.

#onemanstrashisanotherstreasure #iexpecttoloveavengerscampus #evenifitcouldbebetter

 

[mickEblu]

Nope.

My favorite additions to the parks in the past decade were ElecTRONica, The Mad T Party and the Marvel characters in DCA. Oh, and I still miss Celebrate! A Street Party Parade which I would stop and watch far more often than Soundsational, Paint the Night or Magic Happens. And I miss the Frozen Sing-along at DCA too.

All of which I will fully recognize were low-budget slapdash thrown together offerings and overlays. And all of which gave me hours (and months and years) of pure joy.

Are POTC or HM or Fantasmic! clearly substantially qualitatively better? Absolutely. Which would I rather spend hours and hours and hours doing? ElecTRONica, The Mad T Party and the Marvel character additions. Repeatedly. And I did.

I love steak. I wish I could have steak more often. But I'm actually good with hamburger a lot of the time. As are a lot of the Mad T and Marvel park fans I know. Except the vegans.

I understand the concern that all the steak is being chopped up into hamburgers and soon there will be nothing but hamburgers everywhere. That would be sad. But it doesn't mean there is not room for *and genuine appreciation for* both.

#onemanstrashisanotherstreasure #iexpecttoloveavengerscampus #evenifitcouldbebetter

Not hamburgers. More like sloppy Joe’s. And it’s too many of them in a row in a relatively short period of time

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

Dang man, you're going off . Did Disney personally violate you as a child?


To me, the attraction looks alright. We knew what we were getting and honestly, it's kinda a breath of fresh air that it's not a e-ticket, which is all the disney parks have really been getting. As much as I love the huge rides, the smaller attractions are what brings alot of charm to the parks. It looks to be a fun ride with some cool technology and I hope the queue is cool. If you go into it already so aggressive towards it, then you're gonna hate it. Theres a difference between being aggressive and having low expectations. I have low expectations and I hope they'll be broken by a little bit, but my guy, you just have a complete anger for it haha.

Lol nah man. Just a big Spidey fan and don't wana see him in a ride unworthy of his name is all. That was my original point. When Disney said they were gonna build a Spider-Man ride I was expecting a west coast version of what they have in Florida not Voyage of the Iron Reef 2.0

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

Considering it's a tall building in what was intended to be a Marvel land, I'd think Spider-Man would have been the better choice. Maybe you go into a skyscraper ("This is Jonah Jameson, we need the inside scoop what's happening up there--don't screw this up! Pose as tourists and take the elevator to the top floor!") and villains attack and Spider-Man "webs" the elevator to prevent you from falling. They could have done the swinging Spider-Man dummy outside of the building. Could have been cool! Instead, Spider-Man fights robots in a car factory...

Genius!! Having it be converted into the Daily Bugle building would be soooo much better than what they did with it. Love your idea

 

[el_super]

Tower of Terror attempted this (for better or worse), while Guardians pokes fun at the concept - going so far as to tell you that the reason you're doing all of this is because you're at Disneyland.

I can definitely see the differences between the two types of attraction, I am just not all that convinced that one is fundamentally flawed over the other. Criticism of the art, can be considered art itself, and if it helps, maybe we look at Mission Breakout as a form of parody or satire in the world of themed entertainment.

Maybe the "something goes terribly wrong" trope became so prevalent in theme park attractions that it became cliche. Mission Breakout simultaneously uses that same format, while also poking fun at it. It makes the experience more lighthearted and fun, in a different way than most adventure attractions, that rely so much on death and destruction to inspire fear and terror. You still achieve a victory after riding, that doesn't just mean you lived.

Which also points to the core concept of what an actual "family" ride might be. Over the decades, thrill rides with height requirements have dominated attraction development, so it was for a long time just equated with a ride that the whole family would be physically barred from riding. But there can also be instances where, even if the family can all ride, they may choose not to, because of the subject matter. The debate of whether a themed attraction should be an all out assault against your life, goes back to the original planning for the Haunted Mansion. We can see how the Mansion is tortured between the two concepts. I can see that as a fault with Tower of Terror that Mission Breakout corrects.

Maybe there is broader evidence of a WDI shift aware from the "something goes terrible wrong" concept of storytelling. Rise of the Resistance is the only recent example I can think of, with most of the more recent attractions being more... fun.

Certainly. If I had to sum up California Adventure's history, especially around 2012, this phrase would be it.

I don't think being flawed is exclusive to DCA. We tend to more easily excuse the flaws at Disneyland, due to familiarity and nostalgia. I do think there's more pressure to correct the flaws, since they've had more time to do it.

I mentioned this earlier, but the mistake is thinking there's a difference between good design and entertainment. Good design enables emotionally resonant experiences that go beyond their source material or add to it.

And yes, many of those lessons of design were learned over the last 60+ years. I hold California Adventure and Tokyo DisneySea to a different standard because these are parks developed by people who have the benefit of time, experience, and budget.

Tokyo Disney Sea can be a good example of a park that, may be well designed, but can still feel empty and unentertaining in parts. Their Tower of Terror was fabulously detailed thru the queue, but much like here, the ride was pretty meh.

The core difference is that in Indiana Jones, the events happen to you and are about you, the video is window dressing on an experience that doesn't need explanation (at least to western audiences), and the inclusion of the Indiana Jones IP doesn't change the attraction in a fundamental way because it isn't about the characters from Indiana Jones. Mission Breakout is not about you, you're merely a passive observer (bizarre and quickly abandoned conceits excluded) on events that involve the Guardians. This isn't a failure in the concept of the attraction, it is a consistent failure in how Disney now thinks about IP.

I don't see it as a failure, and to the contrary, I think it might be working at a deeper level than Indiana Jones did. Those early IP rides were tied to licensing deals and fees in a way that made them feel temporary and the inclusion of the characters unimportant. Indiana Jones could easily be removed from the Indiana Jones ride without too much change to the actual experience. Maybe that's a good thing, and maybe that's a bad thing. If you are coming to ride a jeep thru a cave, it doesn't matter to you. But if you came to see Indiana Jones, that breaks the core concept of the attraction.

Indy does seem to be a missing link between the non-IP and full-IP attraction. I do think there is still room for both in this world.

So I think I need to repeat this point, but subjective =/= arbitrary. I haven't agreed with every decision the academy has made, but the criteria that we all use to tell "cinema" from "movies" are not mysterious ones. We can all tell a masterpiece of film-making from a summer blockbuster superhero of the week film. That doesn't mean that a superhero film can't be a masterpiece (and there are a few that have been).

I understand your broader point here, that typically, while subjective, good writing, good cinematography, good directing are all things that can be well thought out and justified. Subjective yes, but not arbitrary. We also know though, that the academy (as a whole) can be rather arbitrary at times and change the criteria for which films (or more specifically people) are judged. They may be able to justify how it was Leo's time to win for the Revenant, or how Spielberg and Zemeckis were just making popcorn films instead of "true" cinema.

So as a system, the academy can run the whole gamut from well thought out and reasoned (not arbitrary) all the way to "Citizen Kane was JUST ok."

Which also means that I could very definitively come up with a well reason and perfectly justified explanation for why I think that Tron is a terrible attraction, but it could just be that I thought the movie was garbage.

 

[el_super]

You’ve never wanted to or actually explored an abandoned place? Or at least look at pictures of an abandoned place?

Pictures yes... but I would be too terrified of mouse bites to ever try exploring on my own.

The part that really gets me about Tower of Terror though is, if you wandered into this abandoned library and a haunted TV basically DARED you to go ride the broken down elevator, why would you say YES to that?

My favorite additions to the parks in the past decade were ElecTRONica, The Mad T Party and the Marvel characters in DCA. Oh, and I still miss Celebrate! A Street Party Parade which I would stop and watch far more often than Soundsational, Paint the Night or Magic Happens. And I miss the Frozen Sing-along at DCA too.

No Viva Navidad?

I understand the concern that all the steak is being chopped up into hamburgers and soon there will be nothing but hamburgers everywhere. That would be sad. But it doesn't mean there is not room for *and genuine appreciation for* both.

Yeah I guess that's kind of the point. Steaks are great, but if you're sitting in your car at the beach, you really want an In-N-Out burger rather than a steak. The knives get a little unwieldy in a car.