mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Oh ya I remember. Even if I only visited the park once during that period. Got my ride on Superstar limo in though!
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Avengers Campus - Reactions / Reviews
- Thread starter BrianLo
- Start date
Oh ya I remember. Even if I only visited the park once during that period. Got my ride on Superstar limo in though!
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
We should have known what kind of experience we’d be receiving when they tried to claim Mission Tortilla Factory is an “attraction.”
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Lol well hey, so is Chip n Dales Treehouse.
Sharon&Susan
Well-Known Member
Technically the name has always been there, but as a subland at the the time of opening.
EPCOTCenterLover
Well-Known Member
I'd say DCA has one of the poorest designed general layouts and bad transitions. Right up there with Hollywood Studios and Walt Disney Studios Paris. But I guess that's an entirely different topic.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
I think from the front of Main Street Station all the way down Main Street to the Castle is the most important land at Disneyland. Main Street to the Hub and Spoke design is what set Disneyland apart, and has been copied since. It's brilliant.
Main Street / the Castle are the most iconic aspects of Disneyland, for me.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I agree. Main Street would probably be my pick if you put a gun to my head but I think you could make a case for each of those 4 lands.
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
Yeah- if we're looking at creative quality it probably goes to either the Grizzly Peak 'half' of the park (now that that includes Soarin'), or Cars Land.
But it's also kind of poetic that the giant Ferris wheel- the type of ride found at traveling carnivals, not a Disney quality park- became the symbol of that park.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Lol. It is ironic
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
Oh boy. These are the important questions we should be discussing on here. What are we using to define 'importance'? If you took out Fantasyland the park would literally cease to be Disneyland, since that'd necessitate removing the castle. Disneyland's lands function best when they're working to represent important American ideals in a physical form in a way that's pleasing to the guest. But the same could be said about Main Street. And New Orleans square's influence on the future developments of the park and themed entertainment in general can't be understated. Pirates and Mansion were both significant steps forward in themed design. Pirates especially- which was able to integrate both thrill and immersion using the loose narrative storytelling previously reserved for 2 minute dark rides to create an experience more emotionally satisfying then anything that had come before. Before, we had Matterhorn which was pure thrill and Jungle Cruise, which was purely environmental without thrill. If Walt Disney's original WED creatives weren't able to design Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion as well as they did intuitively, the second generation of Imagineering wouldn't have been able to learn from the creative principles demonstrated in those attractions when designing Splash Mountain, Big Thunder, Indy.
Main Street USA represents nostalgia, tradition, and also functions to help give Disneyland it's own identity as a living embodiment of America, since every real town has a Main Street. I'd make the argument that Disneyland's Main Street- especially when it had far more third party shops and an actual bank- were essential to differentiate Disneyland from your standard amusement park.
Tomorrowland- The idea that tomorrow will be better then today, also an incredibly important American characteristic. Even the land's attractions- the house of the future, the Autopia/Peoplemover, etc worked to demonstrate this ideal. It's a darn shame that this has been lost, starting with Star Tours in the late '80s. This land's identity has been perpetually troubled- I think it was at it's strongest in the late 70's after Space Mountain opened but still had most of the '67 Tomorrowland overhaul intact. Honestly, this land has changed so much over the years you could demolish it and not ruin Disneyland as a whole.
Frontierland- Manifest Destiny. New Orleans Square and Critter Country function as expansions of Frontierland (even though they're their own lands). Country Bear Jamboree was a stronger attraction then Pooh so Critter Country is far weaker now then it was, but Splash Mountain has traditional African folk characters represented in the park. I'd argue that the first pass at Fantasmic also worked to deepen Disneyland's mythology. Fantasmic was the first time Disney had utilized characters from different properties directly alongside eachother to create a new story- as opposed to characters from each property being isolated and separated by each parade float. Fantasmic suggests that Disney's characters live, and aren't restricted to their original story narrative. Maleficent isn't just a villain in Sleeping Beauty, she's a real threat even in Mickey Mouse's imagination and Disneyland itself. This step forward in Disney's park storytelling is the norm now, but at the time was revolutionary. The show also stresses the transformative power of imagination, a theme that's critical to Disneyland.
Fantasyland- The imagination of creatives, and also works to integrate Europe's influence on America. Also, many of the stories represented in Fantasyland are archetypal and timeless in a way many stories aren't. I'd argue that Storybookland is the most important attraction here, with it's a small world, Matterhorn, and Peter Pan as numbers 2, 3 and 4. Snow White, Pinocchio, Toad, and Alice- while important attractions that should never be outright removed- aren't as essential to the land.
Adventureland, which was heavily influenced by Disney's True Life Adventure Films (the tie to Disney) represents exploration and Adventure. It's also a land where I think bringing in outside mythology actually strengthened the land- unlike Star Tours or SWGE. Tiki Culture has had varying levels of popularity in America as a whole over the last 100 years, but with Hawaii becoming a state in '59 it became a form of Americana and it's important it's represented in the park. This was stronger when the Tahitian Terrace was present.
The only two lands I'd label as expendable are Toontown and Galaxy's Edge.
I think it speaks to Disneyland's creative strength that 1) No opening land could be outright removed, each are important to the park's mythos and 2) That Imagineering has been able to adapt and interpret the framework provided by Walt over 65 years to keep each of these lands relevant. And this is why Disneyland is far stronger creatively then any other park in existence- each land (I'm choosing to ignore SWGE here) works to strengthen Disneyland's identity. None clash, visual intrusions (like seeing Space Mountain from Splash's drop) are exciting and don't break the immersion of the experience as a whole. And, each major attraction represents a huge step forward in themed storytelling- from simple carnival dark rides (the Fantasyland suite) to Jungle (the idea an attraction can be completely immersive), Matterhorn (the idea a thrill ride can be themed), Lincoln/Tiki (animatronics), to Pirates (incorporating design principles from everything that's come before), to Star Tours, Splash, Indy.
Contrast this to DCA- which has very little of it's opening day framework left and will be completely unrecognizable in 20 years.
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mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Fantastic Post! I pretty much have nothing to add. So what’s your final answer?
Totally agree on Storybookland being the most important attraction in Fantasyland.
I think the best way to choose is to imagine the park without the lands one at a time.....
.... ok I just tried that and it doesn’t really help because they re all so strong. It’s really hard to imagine DL without Main Street, Town Square and the Hub and by extension the Castle. However it’s also impossible to imagine the park without Fantasyland. NOS has the some of the finest theming around and contains the parks Signature attractions and Frontierland with the ROA... it’s tough, all of these things combine like ingredients in a recipe to make Disneyland.
I think I change my vote to Fantasyland being the most important for two reasons. One - the comment you made about Disneyland not existing without the Fantasyland stories/ films. And 2 - the location in the park says it all. It’s the heart of park, behind the Castle that Main Street leads up to. Main Street is a very important opening act but the answer has to be Fantasyland. Now that doesn’t mean that would be the land I personally would miss the most. That would be NOS or Main Street.
I agree that GE and Toontown are expendable. I think Tomorrowland and to a lesser extent Adventureland are just a tier under Main Street, Fantasyland, NOS and Frontierland in terms or importance.
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
For me, Splash Mountain's removal and it's impact on that half of the park is enough for me to be like 'the park will never be the same' (and not in a good way). And that's not even an outright land removal, just a reskin of a ride and existing land. But that ride is visible from half the park, and it's music plays throughout an entire land.
I actually think the 'most important land' has changed over the years. I'd say Frontierland was far and away the most important when the park opened in '55. NOS was the most important until the Fantasyland redo in '83 where it actually lived up creatively to the land's promise.
But for me personally, the strength of Disneyland is how cohesive the lands are. And since New Orleans Square and Critter Country both occupy land once part of Frontierland, and the natural thematic progression of that half of the park- I'd say Frontierland is the most important, at least for me. But also, my love of the original Fantasmic can't be overstated so I'm biased. Remove any one of Frontierland, New Orleans Square, and Critter Country and that whole half of the park gets weakened creatively.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I wanted to like this post but the sadness created from the first paragraph is stronger than the “like.”
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
The music not playing throughout the land almost hits me as hard as the ride not being there itself.
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
I'm still in denial my man, it's mind boggling to me that in a time where the park has been closed for a year, tens of thousands of CM's have been laid off/furloughed, even when the park reopens operations will be significantly altered indefinitely, a brand new land at the resort has had a delayed opening by a year- Disney has the budget to significantly alter one of the most beloved attractions of all time.
I was thinking about it today too, and I think the Main Street Cinema store had more online backlash then Splash's retheme?
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I don’t think so. There have been tons of negative comments across social media regarding the Splash retheme. I think it may seem like there was more Main Street Cinema backlash as there is no one on the opposite side saying “yay more Merch!” Like they re saying “yay, Princess & the Frog” with Splash. Then you have the whole trendy political angle too
Homemade Imagineering
Well-Known Member
For me, the most important thing, in Disneyland itself is IASW (I stand by Marty Sklar's statement), with the most important thing in DCA imho being Soarin', just because of its timeless nature, which is something post 1.0 DCA lacks. More importantly, it's also generally an amazing attraction with a memorable score, so I don't think Disney would ever attempt to outright remove it entirely from the park. It has good bones.
MarvelCharacterNerd
Well-Known Member
Are you saying free food is NOT an attraction?! Tell that to the sourdough bread tour or Ghirardelli's when they used to hand out free chocolate.
