Has Disney ever presented vague blue sky concepts as "announcements" like this before? This really smells of desperation.
They pulled a similar stunt with Disneyland last year, Disneyland Forward I think it was called. That was the first time i've seen them do this type of vague "kinda-but-not-really" type of announcements for barely formed concepts. With this D23 presentation, it seems like it might be new trend going forward for them. The one for Disneyland was actually even less formed though. It involved land that they may not even be able to use. The art was basically just a formless blob of buildings and nature scenery with no attached IP labels to indicate what they might build there...
There have been plenty of cases of attractions, lands and even entire parks that have been announced and later canned of course. Western River Expedition, Beastly Kingdom, the various countries that were intended for EPCOT over the years, Westcot and Disney's America being some of the more famous examples. But pretty much all of these were pretty far along in their development, if not finalized as concepts. To the point where they pretty much had the ability to actually break ground and begin construction on most of these.
Of these "blue sky" announcements they made, my guess is that Zootopia is the only one they could actually feasibly start building in the near future. Just because there's already a Zootopia area and ride under construction now in Shanghai, and it seems to use some form of the EMV ride system (though if there's some sort of timed exclusivity clause, that probably won't be coming for many years either).
Was there any news out of D23 that wasn't crappy?
I guess the Hatbox Ghost coming to WDW? We'll see about MK's new fireworks show. Epcot's current night show is also getting scrapped and replaced already, though no telling if the replacement will even be an improvement (the stargate and barges are apparently staying).
The only new D23 "thing" i'm at all interested in is the Wish movie that claims to mix traditional hand drawn animation with CGI. But even that i'm leery of.
It was a fairly heinous event overall. Even certain standalone concepts that I might have once been open to (placed in more suitable locations and without sacrificing the classics) are just painful to see unfold. For instance, if this was the Disney company/imagineering from decades ago, I would have been excited for Princess and the Frog and Moana boat rides (again provided they put the proper effort into placement and didn't replace existing classics). But it has become clear that Disney has been purged of all reason and talent and now commands a poison touch.
