the most modern hub / entrance land built is Epcot - no IP in site.
Before Shanghai was DCA Buena Vista Street which is not IP either.
I also don’t consider Mickey Avenue IP based - it’s very small and a mix of architectural styles.
Buena Vista Street and Mickey Avenue are not comparable. Beuna Vista street is a romanticized take on a time period and location.
Are you counting the EPCOT Hub redo? EPCOT is unique in that it is not really a spoke design and had Communicore into Future World. Not sure what specifically you mean. The entirety of Futureworld outside Pavilions was all original. Did Moana not just go into the neighborhood? Nemo completely took over The Seas before that.
We have Encanto Dance shows in this hub now.
Outside of Disney. Port of Entry is certainly the richest stateside hub/promenade entrance land. And completely original.
Literally every building on Mickey Avenue has characters in and on the moulding. If it did not have those, and had a fictional town with more depth and reference digetic, it would be more like Main Street USA, but it is not. It is an IP filled promenade. See above posted pic. Its an amalgamation to get any Disney property on the walls and carved into the structures. Proudly using IP of film and Disney's animation media.
I think it's quite out of context (and the actual hub of the park is Gardens of Imagination). We have to remember that it's a different market and culture that we only see from the outside. We don't really know what that audience is looking for. There’s also the fact that Disney doesn't fully own the park; we don’t know what agreements were made, but I’m sure the IP was an important factor. If Mickey Avenue had been built in the USA, I would totally agree with the criticism.
I would agree with this except France had the team permitted to work on its own version of Main Street USA, to keep the idea of an in house hub leading to spokes of the lands, but work to fit the culture. Disney was not the sole owner of that park either.
Are they enhancing Dinoland USA, or changing it to an IP land?
Did Paradise Pier become Pixar Pier?
Did Country Bears get new songs? Or novelty fitting songs? Or Disney songs from their country-western themed properties? Or frontier based properties?
Or did they get a medley of sing-alongs to greatest hits with a twang?
We can go back further. What happened to Tomorrowland from 2002-2018?
Frozen?
What was supposed to happen to Big Thunder Mountain?
What occured to Pirates in 2006?
What was supposed to happen to Haunted Mansion before its movie flopped?
It has been steadily increasing for a long while.
I will believe it likely that Disney could build an IP-less land or hub land, when they can build an E-ticket stateside that is not an outside IP or any featured in it.
The leadership of Disney, is very different to what it was 20-30 years ago to make such originality in a land not likely. That was the point.