George Lucas on a Bench
Well-Known Member
Sinbad is definitely not the best ride they've ever done.
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Did the Madame Leota knockoff in Superstar Limo have an official name?
- Thread starter Sharon&Susan
- Start date
TROR
Well-Known Member
1967’s Pirates of the Caribbean has never been topped and likely never will.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
1967 Pirates, maybe.
2019 Pirates? I'd give the edge to:
Tokyo Pirates
Tokyo Mansion
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Mystic Manor
Shanghai Pirates (and I say that as an avowed hater of the POC movies)
And depending on the day you ask me, I might also throw in Sindbad, Tokyo Indy, and Paris' Pirates.
To name a few.
RobWDW1971
Well-Known Member
I will never understand the love for Journey - great exterior volcano and queue, but the ride itself? Slow roll past some uninteresting show scenes, monster!, fast part, get off.
One of the most disappointing attractions considering its scale I’ve ever been on.
TROR
Well-Known Member
I’ll continue to hang on Shanghai’s. A technological marvel with no soul or imagination.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I haven’t been but it probably has something to do with having a huge E ticket be a non IP ride and the icon of the park.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I haven’t seen a ride through in a while but I remember being pretty impressed with its use of screens when it opened in 2016.
.... until the Jack v Davy Jones on screen duel that is.
I don’t even view Shanghai Pirates as in the same category as the other Pirates rides so I judge it with a different pair of lenses. Maybe there mistake was adding any of the original POTC elements like the jail scene. Regardless, it looks pretty impressive to me. They just need to do something with that on screen duel.
Little Green Men
Well-Known Member
Spaceship Earth did it first
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
Maybe it helped going in, knowing that it was going to be short? It's definitely one that grew on me the more I did it. I can see being underwhelming based on the sheer amount of hype the ride gets.
It's truly better in person. Just stunning. And I don't feel like soul is something that can always be measured in a POV.
TROR
Well-Known Member
I’ll disagree. If the ride had soul, it wouldn’t end with projections of Johnny Depp and CGI octopus man fighting. Instead it would have wit and a finale that isn’t mindless action.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
In fairness, mindless action would describe most of my memories of the Pirates movies.
There's also technically a minor scene after the fight/flood; not the ride's most effective, I'll grant you, but it does a decent job of ending the ride in a more relaxing way, something of a decompression before returning to load, much in the way that Disneyland's ride does. At least there is a decompression moment, unlike Florida's or Tokyo's, where you go immediately from the same Jack AA at the bottom of Disneyland's up ramp to unload.
Florida's and Tokyo's rides have very similar endings, similar to how you described Shanghai's: mindless action, followed promptly by unload. That change in the Florida and Tokyo versions came direct from Marc Davis, who didn't like ending with the up ramp and sought its removal from the subsequent versions he was involved with. So I can only conclude that ending with action wouldn't bother Davis, and that Disneyland's ending, while charming, was less of a deliberate choice and more a result of circumstance. If not for that up ramp and turnaround, Disneyland's version ending would be essentially identical to the other two, with the mindless action ending.
Soul is ultimately subjective, and I did not feel a lack of it while riding. You may feel differently. If you are using soul to mean charm, than I can understand and will grant you that there is nothing charming about Shanghai Pirates, but ultimately that's not what the ride is aiming for; it's aiming first and foremost to be a spectacular, epic experience. I read it not as a deficiency of modern Imagineering or of the attraction, but instead as WDI successfully tailoring the ride to its Shanghai audience.
TROR
Well-Known Member
Pirates of the Caribbean is not mindless action. There's wit and clever humor to it all and does not result in a headache to observe.
Subjective is "I like this" or "I don't like this." Objective is "this has soul" or "this doesn't have soul."
I do agree that WDI tailors too much to the Shanghai audience which is why it fails as an attraction. Chinese pandering needs to end.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
It is strongly implied in the last scene of classic Pirates that the Pirates mindlessly shooting at each other while the town is burning around them is responsible for bringing about their doom, and the death of all of the Pirates. It's evident that the scene is put together by intelligent artists who bring wit and humor into the scene (which could be said for any scene in any version of a Pirates attraction), but those Pirates in that moment absolutely are not using their brains. To me, that qualifies as mindless action.
I'm not convinced that soul is objective, and if it is objective from a single cultural lens, it certainly is not cross-culturally. Different cultures perceive soul or meaning into certain things that another culture will not and vice versa.
TROR
Well-Known Member
Mindless action is something that requires no thinking to enjoy. "Just turn off your brain," kind of action. Nothing about Shanghai's Pirates is intellectually stimulating like 1967's version is.
What people perceive to have soul is different than what does have soul. Perception can be wrong. A painting done because the artist loves what he paints has soul, but a painting done because the artist is commissioned and simply wants a paycheck does not have soul.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
Most people aren't giving any thought to any attraction they experience beyond whether they liked it or not. People go on attractions to enjoy themselves and not necessarily to be intellectually stimulated ("Disneyland is not a museum" and whatnot). Furthermore, what stimulates can and must be different across attractions. I can and do marvel at the complexity of both attractions in different ways. And, again, watching POVs of attractions or places on YouTube are not the same as experiencing them in person. Even if I have read every word written about and watched multiple videos of ROTR, it will mean nothing until I have actually gone to the park and experienced it. Real life always has intangibles that video cannot capture.
The thing about perception is that it's different for everyone, and it is simply how one sees a given situation, which may or may not line up with what is actually real or true. Your perception is not the same as other peoples (nor is mine), and it may not even match the majority in any given situation. All you can do is discuss what has soul from your perspective, which may or may not have anything in common with that of others.
I take your last sentence to mean you're assuming that modern Imagineers don't give their best effort and aren't passionate about their work, and I see no evidence of that. I do see a group whose hands are tied, who are led by and have to answer to people who don't know what they're doing, but that's not the same as saying that modern Imagineers aren't passionate about their work. I think it's safe to say that modern Imagineers are largely just as passionate, but their passion isn't the same as those in 67; not because they care any less, but because they have different priorities and answer to different people, in both the company and their audience. Even if you don't care for Shanghai Pirates based on what you've seen, I don't think it can be denied that a lot of thought went into that attraction, thought that wouldn't be given if they just didn't care.
RobWDW1971
Well-Known Member
Oh, so everything WDI does that’s terrible is because of budget cuts and management. Got it.
Who in management wrote the current script for the Imagination Pavilion attraction?
Who in management came up with the Jack Jack on a Stick execution?
Who in management decided Hondo would shout at you constantly while you run an errand to pick up cans in the dark?
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
My point is that people in Imagineering aren't intentionally, deliberately setting out to create crap, and there are still people there who care about themed design and the legacy of the parks. It's not like every single one of those people was shown the door in 94, or that no one who cares or is passionate is being hired.
There's a lot to improve in the parks now, I'll grant you, and a lot that I wish were better. But I simply don't agree that WDI simply can't do anything right anymore, and that they haven't been able to do anything right since 67/69/89/94/whatever the arbitrary cutoff is when there's evidence to the contrary. Flawless, certainly not, but not dead.
Just 90 more days and Disneyland will be closed for around the same amount of time Superstar Limo was open.
