I appreciate the ‘expert’ opinion. There was a time when Disney’s offerings would impress not only the general guest, but also the actual experts in whatever field applied.
I'd hardly call myself an expert but if business cards were still a thing, having some made up with the title of "expert kite flyer" would be grand.
That said, I was quietly exited for this (quietly because I don't like to tip the dork tell too quickly... even on a theme park fan forum*) because Disney has a history of work with kites as more minor elements of other shows so I was looking forward to what they did, here.
Seeing the preview where they showed them testing the Zazu it appeared to be a quad line parafoil (which means motion control in 4 directions) I thought this could be really interesting because they'd be able to directly control how high or low they were at any moment, move them sideways, stop them, etc.**
With a team of
real experts and a few of these in the sky at once, there was the potential for something interesting since they could on a low, limited level, use them like puppets.
But it looks like Zazu is the only
real giant one that's an actual kite and now it makes sense that he's the only one they really showed in the preview.
When the show director, Mark Renflow in that same video breathlessly said "If you've ever been to a kite festival and had the joy of seeing kites fly... colorful, the vibrancy. Now imagine that focused all on Disney characters. It's an opportunity to bring the magic of Disney storytelling and allow it to soar like never before." while waving his hands around I thought - this is going to be cool. (and by cool I meant to me - possibly not a general audince that isn't too impressed by kites)
Seeing what they ended up with makes me think Mark has never actually been to a kite festival... or seen much of Disney's previous experience with kites which, while not mind-blowing, was more entertaining than this ended up being.
Anyway, I don't think this one's too much of a loss. If people like watching things crash for a while, so be it. It'll be short lived, it'll be gone and the area won't look like it was ever there and as far as Disney producitons go, this definitely has to be a cheaper one so it's not like what we have to live with in a certain other park for the foreseeable future.
*I recognize that I like them more than most and nobody ever seems overly impressed by them when Disney does this sort of thing so I was expecting to like this but for it to not be that big of an overall hit.
**and gracefully land them. That wasn't even a thought because I never guessed they'd just crash them down in guest view.
