In this case, I find the IP the only thing that makes this at all interesting.
I get your point with maximizing ROI, but space utilization directly affects the guest experience. Yes, there's a lot of usable land. Still, you want foot traffic to be able to flow well through it, you want to encourage a certain attraction density, and you want to limit the number of arduously long routes that don't allow for multiple points of egress from a land. There's definitely a way to better preserve important things; however, the endless sprawl some propose isn't it, and it's not being a shill to bring up how impractical some of the 5-second Paint diagrams that purport to "solve" the Rivers of America problem are.
I think the park that most fulfils this vision of how they should be organised at WDW is DHS. Even with the dead space of abandoned facilities that plagues a lot (all?) of the parks, that is the most tightly-packed when it comes to attractions, dining, and retail versus theming and open spaces.
Fans, who love, and who pay money to go to the parks have their opinions and the folks who run the Disneyparks have their business goals.
And that’s fine, but no side looks like a box show building. It’s purposely de-emphasized in the “back” so you don’t have a seven dwarves mine in front of a seaside castle. Cars can do the same
This is the kind of vibe it's giving me, too. I guess the question is whether this is a more compelling theme than setting the land back in the 19th/early-20th century. Personally, I kind of feel like people would just go to these places if they were particularly interested in experiencing them and that they are essentially designed to reference the period Frontierland is attempting to recreate. That leaves Frontierland going from being a recreation of a specific time and place to feeling like a recreation of a recreation of a time and place.
It amazes me how attached people are to a river that is not all that impressive to begin with.
Good business meets in the middle.
But that's what they said last time, and the time before that, and...
People, humans like water.
He is the last guy I listen to.
They can both be true. Some of us can be excited for the change and the new land and understand why it makes sense from a corporate/business perspective at the same time.
Ill admit that Universals Epic will absolutely garner alot of interest next year. With that said, I don't think Epic is going to be the Magic Kingdom killer you think it is. They have been filling their parks with coasters, and Harry Potter. I don't see them diversifying near enough. I also see their 2 current parks are not in the best shape and need some real TLC. That joke of Dreamworks land proves my point.
Thematically, if they were to pull from an existing Disney IP, there are more appropriate ones but they wouldn't move as much merch and since this is only about money and corporate centergy and likely extending the merchandising life of a franchise that's had way more success with it's merch than fan or critical favor concerning the actual movies that merch is based on, we get Cars here.
I like Brother Bear, but there's a 0% chance it'll be in the parks nowadays. They didn't even use any of its songs for the new Country Bears.
Imagine if it was Goofy and Max Frontier Wilderness Adventure and the merch of Goofy and Max plushes. It was one idea for Splash Mountain as well!I don't think having an IP in and of itself is the problem.
The issue with modern Disney is that rather than Imagineering picking appropriate IP that ties into something (or going with something original of their own creation - either way) for a new attraction, management tells them what IP they want used and where the attraction needs to go and then it's up to them to figure out how to come up with some way to make sense of that.
In this case, I don't think I'd feel much differently about these changes if it were for a ride using generic jeep-style antonymous self driving vehicles doing the same thing but I'm confident they wouldn't fill in Rivers of America to plop this kind of ride in if it didn't have a cars tie-in.
I'm guessing if ROA had to go and Imagineering were tasked simply with a replacement that fit the theme of Frontierland, we'd be getting something entirely different that wouldn't involve modern-styled looking vehicles at all.
Thematically, if they were to pull from an existing Disney IP, there are more appropriate ones but they wouldn't move as much merch and since this is only about money and corporate centergy and likely extending the merchandising life of a franchise that's had way more success with it's merch than fan or critical favor concerning the actual movies that merch is based on, we get Cars here.
What do you think?
Do you believe we'd be getting this kind of ride in this spot without this particular IP?
Like most, I also don't have anything specifically against Cars. Looking at the park as a guest who's paying to be there rather than an executive looking to "maximize value", I just don't agree that location is the appropriate place.
Had Universal Epic Universe not brought a Dark Universe than I be for certain a Villain's Land would only be sitting in the archives. In fact many of the new announcements especially the Door Coaster ideas from the past why it's being brought back is to respond to Epic Universe.
Frontierland isn’t evolving, it’s being deconstructed to the point where it won’t be Frontierland.
