News Cars-Themed Attractions at Magic Kingdom

[DarkMetroid567]

Having now been on it, it is a better ride than YouTube POV videos would suggest.

Not perfect, not the best ever, but a far better version of this kind of ride than TSMM, Webslingers or Buzz Lightyear

I’ve now done it enough times at USH (and finally, USJ) to say that the ride blows. The AR has aged especially poorly at USJ where the visuals are really shaky and blurry. I think the fact that the ride is compared to TSMM is already kinda a bad sign, but while Mario Kart is technically a better ride, I’d choose Midway Mania over it anyday.

 

[TomboyJanet]

This is a good point. It is just silly to post quotes like he is a monolith when counter ones can easily be pulled. The guy was ocmplex like al of us,

I had my dislikes of Eisner, but particularly they are similar to the reasons many did not like him near the end of his time there post Frank.

Reading Eisner's book it is quite clear the guy did have a creative side of its own and liked the gong show, even when it was not always perfect, its beneficial. Iger as you point out, does not have this.

Nobody is just one thing...... -Life Is Strange quote lol

 

[celluloid]

History and nostalgia are different things. Nostalgia is probably the primary reason to visit WDW for many guests.

They are, but the blurred line and rose-colored version of the past and American Mythos HAS been the theme of Magic Kingdom.

Main Street USA is the land you enter for a reason. The guy was incredibly nostalgia and understood there is value to seeing an idealized version of the world through imagination. Optimism. History is allowed to be a part of it without being a museum.

MK/DL were always optimistic and romanticized version of reality.

 

[celluloid]

I’ve now done it enough times at USH (and finally, USJ) to say that the ride blows. The AR has aged especially poorly at USJ where the visuals are really shaky and blurry. I think the fact that the ride is compared to TSMM is already kinda a bad sign, but while Mario Kart is technically a better ride, I’d choose Midway Mania over it anyday.

I hated the AR. But I find the ride itself in person without the goggles amazingly fun and zany as if a modern fantasyland dark ride was actually built with more realized sets. I would ride it over Mermaid any day. Like a MIB in Toon atmosphere. And I am not a Mario fan. The AR can always be(should be) improved.(we know that does not always happen in theme parks, but Uni's update is slightly better than Disney's software media updates)
It did not deliver and became too much of a focus rather than making the ride good. They would have been better off with practical effects and screen action occurring in 3D than augmented reality as it ruined the practical for me. I felt like I was wearing a Virtual Boy or a Tiger Electronic visor.

 

[JD80]

They are, but the blurred line and rose-colored version of the past and American Mythos HAS been the theme of Magic Kingdom.

Main Street USA is the land you enter for a reason. The guy was incredibly nostalgia and understood there is value to seeing an idealized version of the world through imagination. Optimism. History is allowed to be a part of it without being a museum.

MK/DL were always optimistic and romanticized version of reality.

I Interpret history as factual lessons like a museum. Nostalgia is all vibes and memory.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

I hated the AR. But I find the ride itself in person without the goggles amazingly fun and zany as if a modern fantasyland dark ride was actually built with more realized sets. I would ride it over Mermaid any day. Like a MIB in Toon atmosphere. And I am not a Mario fan. The AR can always be(should be) improved.(we know that does not always happen in theme parks, but Uni's update is slightly better than Disney's software media updates)
It did not deliver and became too much of a focus rather than making the ride good. They would have been better off with practical effects and screen action occurring in 3D than augmented reality as it ruined the practical for me. I felt like I was wearing a Virtual Boy or a Tiger Electronic visor.

I’ve ridden it without the AR and the set design is truly gorgeous — Twisted Mansion and Cloudtop Cruise are magical. But riding it without AR also gives you an idea of how half-baked the ride is, because you see screens galore, very little kinetic movement, and set pieces that rely on the AR like the ugly fire Bowser. The entire thing is def a missed opportunity.

EDIT: I like your Mermaid comparison too. Bc I really don’t care for it at all, but I would at least say the Under the Sea scene is better than anything MK has going on.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

MMRR’s biggest problem was where it was placed. It should have been in Animation Courtyard, for obvious reasons.

Sadly, The Bob Iger Company decided Star Wars was too much of a sacred cow and kept Launch Bay around.

Honestly I can’t agree here. If we want to talk about shortsightedness, wasting that space on a singular attraction rather than a proper land with multiple locations (attraction, shops, restaurant, etc) would’ve been a poor choice. Yes there is development space behind Launch Bay but it would mean a much smaller land because it’s cut off by MMRR, a ride that fits just fine in the building it’s currently in.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

In my opinion, When Walt died, TWDC stopped being Walt’s company.

Which was the right decision.

There are certain core things he believed in that are worthy of being core tenants of the company, and I’d never say otherwise. But running the company in the year solely according to “What would Walt do?” would be a horrible idea. They recognized that when he died, and they went their own way.

Walt Disney is gone. His thoughts should not continue to dictate every move and decision 58 years later. That’s even more true for all the parks that aren’t his.

By all means, keep his core guiding lights (which yes they don’t always do today), but the way some ask “what would Walt think?” whenever something new happens is getting a little insane. It doesn’t really matter what Walt would think. He’s gone. He never lived to see these parks in this form, and his thoughts and beliefs about his park are forever frozen in 1966. No one know how he would’ve changed and evolved with the times, and it’s crazy that some people genuinely want 2024 Disney to think like 1966 Walt.

To be clear, this is not aimed at you, just in general to all those who are so stuck on Walt Disney because the company itself won’t back off from using his iconography all the time.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Eisner found the parks new, interesting and worth perusing. It's polar opposite.

I feel like Eisner doesn’t get the credit he deserves for having the vision of a true “resort” - of course that overbuilt resort is what cost him so much after Paris, but the vision is what created the resorts we have today.

History and nostalgia are different things. Nostalgia is probably the primary reason to visit WDW for many guests.

nostalgia is a sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal association.

History is the study of past events.

So yes, people visit for nostalgia and not history. But the nostalgia is for something in the past.

MK/DL were always optimistic and romanticized version of reality.

Yes and originally optimistic and romanticized versions of America specifically except for Adventureland.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

Which was the right decision.

There are certain core things he believed in that are worthy of being core tenants of the company, and I’d never say otherwise. But running the company in the year solely according to “What would Walt do?” would be a horrible idea. They recognized that when he died, and they went their own way.

Walt Disney is gone. His thoughts should not continue to dictate every move and decision 58 years later. That’s even more true for all the parks that aren’t his.

By all means, keep his core guiding lights (which yes they don’t always do today), but the way some ask “what would Walt think?” whenever something new happens is getting a little insane. It doesn’t really matter what Walt would think. He’s gone. He never lived to see these parks in this form, and his thoughts and beliefs about his park are forever frozen in 1966. No one know how he would’ve changed and evolved with the times, and it’s crazy that some people genuinely want 2024 Disney to think like 1966 Walt.

To be clear, this is not aimed at you, just in general to all those who are so stuck on Walt Disney because the company itself won’t back off from using his iconography all the time.

I do find it funny when people characterize Walt as a benevolent historian rather than the visionary businessman that he actively was. He was no stranger to weird ideas — A Walt that was somehow still around today would have no doubt made many moves that p’d off this community, including those that would have made TWDC a lot of money.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

I do find it funny when people characterize Walt as a benevolent historian rather than the visionary businessman that he actively was. He was no stranger to weird ideas — A Walt that was somehow still around today would have no doubt made many moves that p’d off this community, including those that would have made TWDC a lot of money.

Exactly. Walt was no stranger to closing things, changing things, or thinking up things that were, to be kind, rather ridiculous.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Exactly. Walt was no stranger to closing things, changing things, or thinking up things that were, to be kind, rather ridiculous.

At Disneyland? He wanted to update and plus the park all the time.

What things are you thinking of that he closed?

 

[UNCgolf]

Having now been on it, it is a better ride than YouTube POV videos would suggest.

Not perfect, not the best ever, but a far better version of this kind of ride than TSMM, Webslingers or Buzz Lightyear

Not as a Mario Kart attraction, though.

It's probably better than all three of the ones you mentioned, but none of them are good either. It would be a better attraction if the shooting gallery was excised and it was just a Mario ride through the quality sets etc. (although I think those would need some changes too if the AR was completely gone).

 

[BrianLo]

Is that what guests want? Is that why Disney parks failed so miserably before Universal’s Potter land definitively shifted the industry to single-IP lands and Iger killed all original ideas? Is that why Pirates, HM, BTM, Space, etc. were famously so unpopular?

I think both are true.

IP doesn’t ensure success. Good execution overtakes IP… but both operators are chasing that high of good IP and good execution.

Potter has shifted the industry and that’s really the culprit of the matter.

Is Disney management the exclusive problem - when these very boards are absolutely obsessed with Potter Swatters and Epic responses?

 

[DisneyHead123]

I do find it funny when people characterize Walt as a benevolent historian rather than the visionary businessman that he actively was. He was no stranger to weird ideas — A Walt that was somehow still around today would have no doubt made many moves that p’d off this community, including those that would have made TWDC a lot of money.

Sure, but I think what people in general are pointing to is the fact that Walt was vision oriented, not profit oriented.

I’m not even saying there’s anything wrong with being profit oriented to an extent. Arguably, a Walt without his counterbalance in Roy is a Walt we never would have heard of. Somebody has to pay the bills and keep the lights on. But Walt’s primary mode of being really seems to have been a visionary one, not a profit oriented one. And I think it’s natural for people to invoke that general spirit and set of values when they feel like profit is being over-prioritized in an unbalanced way. People don’t want the artistry of the parks to get lost in an endless series of bets on how to increase guest spending in the short term while decreasing guest experience in the longer term.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

At Disneyland? He wanted to update and plus the park all the time.

What things are you thinking of that he closed?

I phrased it in a way that was rather poor, that’s on me.

What I meant is what you said. He closed original versions of attractions to change them/significantly alter them. He didn’t replace in the same way the company did after him (though I personally consider some of his changes to attractions to be significant enough that you can essentially consider them two different things).

What I was trying to say is that Walt was never shy about things changing. He liked nostalgia a lot, but I don’t know that his love of nostalgia spread necessarily to the things he was building as much as the concepts with which he based the park on. Hence why I don’t think Walt’s own comments about not wanting to lose some things are a little disingenuous in a discussion about attraction closures or changes.

Like was said earlier in the post I was responding to, there’s a lot to suggest that Walt would’ve made decisions that hardcore fans would hate. We didn’t see it then because that fanbase didn’t really exist, but if were to transplant him into today, I’m sure there’s things he’d do that people here would be aghast at.

I get the sense the reason so many try and insert him into Modern Disney conversations is because a lot of Disney park diehards’ view of who Walt Disney was is very, very skewed by the fictional persona he himself grew to want to get away from rather than a real acknowledgement of who he really was and how he really approached Disneyland and the Disney company as a whole.

 

[celluloid]

I Interpret history as factual lessons like a museum. Nostalgia is all vibes and memory.

Disneyland has blurred the lines since day one with that one. It bounced back and forth for both and romanticized.

 

[celluloid]

I feel like Eisner doesn’t get the credit he deserves for having the vision of a true “resort” - of course that overbuilt resort is what cost him so much after Paris, but the vision is what created the resorts we have today.

nostalgia is a sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal association.

History is the study of past events.

So yes, people visit for nostalgia and not history. But the nostalgia is for something in the past.

Yes and originally optimistic and romanticized versions of America specifically except for Adventureland.

And Fantasyland, but those are Americana too. The romanticized ways America interacted with as exploration(hints of past coloniasm) and exotic to US cultures.
It was not America in geography, but in its mythos.

Fantasyland was the Disney doing the fsiryales most parents and grandparents were telling their children of the "old country."

The entire park was American mythos. The original plaque sums up the mission statment greatly

 

[celluloid]

I think both are true.

IP doesn’t ensure success. Good execution overtakes IP… but both operators are chasing that high of good IP and good execution.

Potter has shifted the industry and that’s really the culprit of the matter.

Is Disney management the exclusive problem - when these very boards are absolutely obsessed with Potter Swatters and Epic responses?

Iger had this pre potter really bad. It's not just IP lands. It is just excellerwted in industry right now. He was shoehornjng IP in everything and it still can only be based on something kf recent synergy for the pecific public conscience which is limiting.

Notice after Everest the things that were built.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

And Fantasyland, but those are Americana too.

Yeah… the original Fantasyland was even more American. Dumbo and Casey Jr. Was definitely American circus. Carousel and dark rides were very carnival like. Then there was the skull rock and pirate ship.

The castle was more of an “American fairy tale castle” like you’d find in a park as well.