Beauty and the Beast Tokyo ride through

Brer Oswald

Well-Known Member
Is it supposed to snow? (a bubble snow effect?) Seems like that would add a lot to the outdoor scene with Beast on the balcony. Such a long pause of nothing. A swell of music and some well-timed snowfall would do wonders. Heck give me a projected moon to look at! That room looks so empty in the YT video.

Biggest takeaway from the YT video is how sterile it all looks. As if it were rendered from a computer and then 3D printed. There's no detail, no artistic nuances or aesthetic beyond the basic form of what it's trying to represent. Those trees look atrocious. Everything just feels so "copy and paste" lacking any human touches. The lack of detail is kind of baffling. Was it rushed to completion?

And, what is it with the pacing of these LPS attractions?
I agree. Which is a shame because the animatronics are really great. Tokyo continues to do great Fantasyland animatronics with this and Pooh. But unlike Pooh, this just seems so empty.
 

dennis-in-ct

Well-Known Member
When your attention is on Lumiere, and then on the plates, little doors open up in the table and the new portions rise up.

I assume that would be the case, but there are no visible parting lines which made me scratch my head. Or course, the set piece could be so perfectly engineered that no seams are visible.

The whole effect is so well-done.

Another quick question: Are the plates in the cabinets against the walls a video screen or 3D?
 

the.dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
@marni1971 can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe OLC ever considered purchasing the American parks. I think Iger simply shopped them to OLC, who weren’t interested. Another company began talks, but they didn’t get far after Uni opened Potter
Some Asian and Middle Eastern REITs looked at the parks when Iger was looking to sell.
 

Magicart87

No Refunds!
Premium Member
In the minority I guess, but I just don't find it all that impressive.

The effects are good but few and far between; the money AAs anyway. The Beast transformation is a kind of clunky but the main "Waltz AAs" are impressive. The rest is void of "eye-candy filler" the thing that makes the attraction worthy of repeat visits. The transition areas in particular are filled with nothing. "Detail" could be stronger throughout. Attraction needs greater embellishments, artistic nuances and decor that give it the Disney difference. Nitpicky perhaps but I think visually once you strip away the featured effect; the scenes are left barren and sterile. In contrast, one can ride Haunted Mansion countless times and see something new. BATB has good bones but it's not their best.
 
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Piebald

Well-Known Member
It doesnt need to be emphasized here because most people are aware, but man TDR really is impressive. Japan is arguably the best country in the world for a tourist (safe, impressive, easy to maneuver, etc) and naturally TDR is just incredible. It may be selfish, but I'd almost rather NOT get this ride here. Let it be unique over there. I'm still genuinely surprised they wanted Soarin as well since IMO the ride is just OK. The queue over there is unbelievable but the ride is still the same so meh.

This ride seems par for the course. I cant wait to see what the DisneySea expansion is like.
 

splah

Active Member
The ride would have been served better if there weren’t so many vehicles traveling together in a limited number of scenes.

the most effective part of the ride for me was the dark hallway from something there to transformation because it is a more compact intimidate experience. The other show scenes are too cavernous. I don’t really want to interact with other guests in “my” story. Needs more and shorter show scenes.

the styling seems like a lot of styling we’ve seen lately. Very flat with the lines being almost too perfect. Almost hotel ballroom like. Needs more character and love (if that’s quantifiable)

the animatronics are amazing though.
 

Brer Oswald

Well-Known Member
Agreed.

And how crazy is it that TDL's Fantasyland now has 2 exclusive trackless dark rides? That's more than all 6 American parks combined.

The trackless dark rides in WDW are all clones of other parks, or soon to be in Mickey's case.
Kinda crazy that we’re almost at 3 trackless rides in WDW. Last time I was there, there was 0. And that was just last year.
 

BayouShack

Well-Known Member
They should have done "Human Again" instead of the outdoor "Something There" portion for a scene that long.

Lots of things you could animate and change as the objects clean up the castle. You could even split it over multiple rooms.

I’ve thought that too. It really could be a wonderful scene, and a nice continuation of the expectations set up with “Be Out Guest.” It’s a shame it’s not as recognizable.

I’m of the mind that the snow scene isn’t a lost cause. A big issue I see is the programming of the car’s “dancing.” For some strange reason, you’re never facing quite towards whom your attention should be on. And that’s fixable considering it’s the biggest room in the ride. You clump the cups together near the Beast, then the spin and focus on Belle. With some “ice skating” free form movement in between. From every video I’ve seen (which all happen to be from the same ride path) there’s nothing directing your attention towards one vignette or the other.
 

fradz

Well-Known Member
I must disclose that I only watched some sections of POVs, because I'm planning to go back sometime soon (hopefully). That being said:
* I disliked the dance scenes in most of the LPS I have ridden (especially the late scene in Symbolica, but also in Pooh)
* From what I've seen, there is indeed the feeling of "emptiness" in many rooms.

My opinion: If it's anything like Symbolica's last scene (my least favorite), I will feel disconnected to the story & theme due to the size of scenes. HOWEVER, I'm thinking here there will be a greater feeling that the ride vehicles themselves will help fill in this void by really taking part of the dance. This is clearly something that videos cannot render properly. I think the videos are not doing the ride justice, and that it will be quite better than most people are currently making it to be. But I don't think it will be the best ride of TDR, let alone TDL.
 

dennis-in-ct

Well-Known Member
The beast transformation was amazing.
Does anyone know how it’s done?
A pepper’s ghost effect maybe?
Pure magic - gorgeous
 
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flynnibus

Premium Member
A few things that i think can hold this back...

1) pooh and mystic manor in HK. - this attraction just seems to borrow so much from them that it feels like it can hold it back
2) the scenes all seem to use the ride system the same... sure there maybe other effects etc... but it feels like the majority of the ride and ride system is used to repeat the same thing over and over through the ride
3) lack of tension build up - with their big set strategy they really didnt leave much to build the tension and conflict that leads to the beast’s big transformation. Maybe its lost in part due to the translation.... but that side really seems disjointed.

And its hard to say with the translation... so us English speakers dont get the same story resonating effect... but i wish the ride has less “scenes in the round” and more journey through or along ones. Like maybe the castle set with belle and the horse swapped for a few other ride past scenes. That would break up the duplication and maybe add more story telling.

The be our guest scene is amazing. Just wish rides like mystic manor hadn’t stolen some of the thunder.

The animation and figures look “perfect” at first glance... basically being what you always wanted them to be... real world representations with seemingly no limits.

Would love to experience this in English...
 

stitchcastle

Well-Known Member
I've been scratching my brain why this ended up looking so disjointed and I've realized it's the ride vehicles., Probably due to a desire to significantly increase capacity, they're so big that everything else within the square footage of the attraction has to be sized up to accommodate them so the spaces feel bigger and emptier, the animatronics end up feeling smaller within context and there has to be less show scenes over-all because they only have so much space. It's ironic considering Covid has then forced them to keep capacity at the minimum.

A few other things,
1) The entire pre-show should have been part of the ride itself and the ride really needed to "tour" the castle more.
2) The second show scene with "Something There" was unnecessary. That should have been a more a traditional dark ride set-up where you travel through Belle and the Beast's relationship evolving, rather than dancing around a room which we're already gonna do that later in the ballroom anyway.
3) It needed more action, either bring in the wolves chase scene or...
4) The villagers attacking the castle should have been one of the big "in the round" scenes where each bowl could then go to different parts of the room and see a villager get accosted by an object in fun ways. Like the chaos of this sequence could easily recall the Heffalump room in Hunny Hunt in its madness.

If they do bring this to Disneyland, I hope they rethink it at least with smaller ride vehicles. The coziness and intimacy of smaller scale dark rides would really benefit it.
 

yensidtlaw1969

Well-Known Member
The beast transformation was amazing.
Does anyone know how it’s done?
A pepper’s ghost effect maybe?
Pure magic - gorgeous
It's Pepper's Ghost - and a pretty sophisticated example of it. That it puts Belle and the Beast (pre-transformation) in the same scene without looking like Beast is being Pepper'd in is no small feat. And they did a very good job hiding the seams.
 

waltography

Well-Known Member
It's Pepper's Ghost - and a pretty sophisticated example of it. That it puts Belle and the Beast (pre-transformation) in the same scene without looking like Beast is being Pepper'd in is no small feat. And they did a very good job hiding the seams.
To add to this, it looks like a very similar set up to Shanghai's Pirates in the Jack Sparrow intro scene. Really cool stuff.
 

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