I decided to look at past D23’s… for science.
Not only was this parks panel underwhelming on content, I couldn’t stop thinking how unprofessional 2022’s was.
Let’s look at 2015:
It was heavy on content: two Galaxy’s Edges, Toy Story Land, Pandora details, Animal Kingdom’s extended park hours changes, Frozen: Ever After details, and international park details for the Beauty and the Beast and Frozen lands in Tokyo, Iron Man Experience in Hong Kong, and sending it off with Shanghai's incoming opening. It did all of that in less time while feeling deliberate in its structure.
Each resort had something announced or an elaboration on previously announced projects. It also had history bits of the respective resorts (like the Electrical Parade) and details on the parks currently. It felt buttery smooth with great transitions and segways and that’s even with Chapek being a pretty pathetic speaker. Actually, what probably helped with that is you had people that seemed genuinely interested in the topics presented coupled with a better ‘video PowerPoint’ presentation. This D23 seemed to not understand what it was.
I get the panel is now Parks, experiences, and Products, but the presentation was still almost only about the parks (plus a cruise ship), so I don’t think it had any impact.
Having a bunch of people singing is not why people are there and the length of time they spent on it just came across as cringey for anyone over 5. Patf didn’t actually have much on the way of substance for the massive amount of time dedicated to it. The same goes for the cringe-factor of the character appearances which otherwise are really cool (Mando and massive Hulk?? Hell yeah!). They would’ve been totally fine if they were supporting aspects to a topic instead of a painfully staged main attraction. Also, while Chapek briefly tried to justify Frozen: Ever After back in 2015’s, every other addition actually did fit (Pandora extremely so) without any fake justification needed, and the way IP was handled in the presentation didn’t seem forced like 2022’s.
Contrast that with, a jumbled announcement for the Avengers ride that should have felt like big news, Fantasmic! returning to WDW & an EPCOT overhaul update being completely ignored. I mean, I’m surprised they didn’t even include info on Cosmic Rewind’s tech or something even as part of a longer EPCOT segment. There also wasn’t any care for the craftsmanship of the new additions or theme park history whatsoever. It was literally ‘look there’s an IP we know you like’ instead of ‘here’s an IP-inspired project you’re going to love’.
What says it all is introducing blue-sky concepts warning people not to freak out. Actually, that entire bit seemed like a mess which was a perfect send-off for it.
Also, seeing Joe Rhode describe Animal Kingdom is unreal. I’m convinced he’s a genius. His passion and the way he describes the purpose for design decisions at Animal Kingdom isn’t just marketing fluff; it’s sincere language that is an accurate descriptor for brilliant design harmony. Losing him and others has been a devastating blow for Imagineering to the chagrin of the artform while helping Universal.
So what I’m saying is, Disney now treats their fans like little kids as if their product is only for that category, and they clearly have a grave misunderstanding of why people like the parks or even the various aspects of the company. The lack of new massive lands wasn’t even the main issue with this presentation. It was dead on arrival before it started.
