disney animatronics

POLY LOVER

POLY LOVER

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
there are some great examples of animatronics on these attractions, why has that not expanded more on the new rides or in the upgrades like the grest movie ride etc.
this was a something Disney made his name on. Do you think the next expansion will do more? I was somewhat disappointed on the little mermaid ride in MK. Ursula is great but the rest are so so. The mine ride is pretty good, is it about the money or just taking short cuts? Do they think people don,t notice or disrespecting the Disney fan who understands Disney quality?
 
POLY LOVER

POLY LOVER

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The movements and look are so much better than some of the attractions, couldn't, they do better with the alien set at DHS?

image.jpg
 
Glasgow

Glasgow

Well-Known Member
It mainly comes down to cost and maintenance (well, cost of maintenance). It's much cheaper to put in screens and they are much more dynamic and upgradeable. The AA is a dying breed unfortunately - there are just no economies of scale for putting in such technology any more, so it gets really expensive to research and development one-off solutions. Shame really .. here's to hoping that proper AAs still get approved for future attractions.
 
DisneyJunkie

DisneyJunkie

Well-Known Member
That's a good question.....wish I knew the answer, too. For example, why can they have such good dinosaur animatronics in Dinosaur and yet still have the same extremely dated, poor quality ones in Universe of Energy?
 
Sonconato

Sonconato

Well-Known Member
There is no doubt cost has a lot to do with why there are fewer and fewer animatronics used. As POLY LOVER said, this is something that Walt Disney made his name on. He was trying to take that next step from animation to real life. I think he would have continued to push for improvements and use them more and more. This is partly why I miss Horizons and World of Motion so much. They were both loaded with animatronics. They may have not been the highest quality, but it was taking that next step. My question is, what happened to all of those animatronics? Couldn't they have used the "guts" (mechanisms) for other rides? Personally, I think the screens that are introduced on rides, such as in the Little Mermaid or the Gran Fiesta Tour in the Mexican Pavilion substantially cheapens the ride and takes away the effectiveness of the animatronics.
 
POLY LOVER

POLY LOVER

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So I guess Aviatar land will not have any, probably will be screens similar to Harry Potter ride. I thought I read where Disney hired some top notch animatronics guy for Aviatar?
Did I misread that?
 
Bairstow

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
I think a lot of it can be attributed to the history of big attractions in the '00s.
Disney sunk a lot of money into the Yeti, the Space Shuttle of animatronics, and the thing worked for less than a year and broke.
Meanwhile, Soarin' and Midway Mania, rides that don't even have animatronics, turned out to be runaway successes.
History like that doesn't normally inspire a great interest in new animatronics.

That said, there have been some really good ones recently.
Doc, in particular is one of the most impressive figures I've ever seen.

http://www./wp-content/uploads/2014/04/doc.jpg

POLY LOVER said:
So I guess Aviatar land will not have any, probably will be screens similar to Harry Potter ride. I thought I read where Disney hired some top notch animatronics guy for Aviatar?
Did I misread that?
Click to expand...

Who are you talking about? Garner Holt?
 
Sonconato

Sonconato

Well-Known Member
copcarguyp71 said:
Lumiere at Enchanted Tales with Belle is possibly one of the most brilliant AA's I have ever seen and it is ashame so many people will not go into a "kids attraction" to experience it.
Click to expand...
You're 100% correct on that. It's worth seeing at least once. We didn't even have a young kid but we had to see it because we heard so much about it!
 
Sonconato

Sonconato

Well-Known Member
Bairstow said:
I think a lot of it can be attributed to the history of big attractions in the '00s.
Disney sunk a lot of money into the Yeti, the Space Shuttle of animatronics, and the thing worked for less than a year and broke.
Meanwhile, Soarin' and Midway Mania, rides that don't even have animatronics, turned out to be runaway successes.
History like that doesn't normally inspire a great interest in new animatronics.

That said, there have been some really good ones recently.
Doc, in particular is one of the most impressive figures I've ever seen.

http://www./wp-content/uploads/2014/04/doc.jpg



Who are you talking about? Garner Holt?
Click to expand...
I agree with you but I guess I just don't get it. We were lucky enough to be at AK when they had a soft opening for EE. The Yeti was amazing, however, it seemed that perhaps more was spent then what should have been since you only had seconds to see it. Maybe it shouldn't have been so sophisticated which means it might still be working.
As for Soarin' and Toy Story Mania, this is where I'm confused. It must be a generational thing or this technology age, but watching a screen simply is not that impressive. Not that HD is not impressive, it's just you can do this almost anywhere now. It's really not any different than looking at my screen at the Doc animatronic that you posted. Seeing the Doc in person is a whole different experience IMO. Meanwhile, everybody goes crazy over the Meet-n-Greets so they can have a picture with their favorite characters. I fear that if screens are becoming the norm, does that mean you will soon be able to be surrounded by all of your favorite characters while standing in front of a Blue Screen so you can have that picture? Seems to me that should be just as satisfactory as the real deal, right?
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom