News Disney plans to accelerate Parks investment to $60 billion over 10 years

[Tha Realest]

But how many DVC towers will it buy?
Bob wants to know

Exactly.

Recent history has shown this is what they like to build. Those are seemingly immune to the oft-repeated obstacles for attraction construction.

 

[erasure fan1]

There is no iconic OG Starwarsland to build, though.

I'd say sort of. It's hard to compare star wars and potter from a location standpoint. Potter is basically in a few locations for all the movies. And star wars takes place in different locations in every movie. That said, Tatooine with mos eisley and Jabbas palace. And the forest moon with the shield generator and and the ewok village scream star wars.

In a land based on tatooine you could have done an escape from jabbas palace ride, similar to rise of the resistance. You could have kept the falcon ride. And you could have had a Boonta eve pod race attraction, giving the land some much needed kinetic energy. There's plenty of ideas for the forest moon as well.

That said, the black spire location isn't the problem. They had multiple opportunities to get everyone familiar with the settings in the films. They didn't. They could have celebrated all of star wars. They didn't. There was was no real attachment to the land for most people outside of the falcon. There's a lot they could have done to give that star wars feel. But they figured they didn't have to because, it's star wars, they'll just eat anything up.

 

[Andrew25]

Including the rides, how we don't see a lightsaber battle is beyond me...

Batuu as a location is fine... but there's no "Star Wars" happening at all. It's all behind closed doors in retail/dining locations or after a 2 hour wait.

 

[UNCgolf]

Has to be Fantastic Beasts, and I’d agree it would be a horrible choice… for their first Harry Potter land, but as the third HP land I think it’ll work out ok.

Had Disney given us a land based on Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, etc first, and THEN gave us a land based on the sequel characters I don’t think they’d have gotten nearly as much criticism, instead they ignored the obvious fan favorite and gave us an unknown land no one was really begging for.

Universal giving us Magical Beasts before Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley would have made no sense… just like Galaxies edge before the obvious fan favorite made no sense.

I still think they made a huge mistake by not doing Hogwarts (a couple of queue areas and a facade in the distance doesn't really count), which is the HP setting, but it sounds like they're kind of pivoting the Fantastic Beasts area back into standard HP anyways with the sole attraction focusing on HP instead of Fantastic Beasts.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Yeah, definitely not trying to be being pessimistic, just realistic. Don't want to set up yourself for disappointment if you expect 17 new lands on the scale of Star Wars land lol

I'm more confident in the Disney Parks than I was 2-3 years ago, but I also don't expect mega expansions at every park.

It’s very convenient for the powers that be to put this out right now…

If the dust settles…let’s see what they actually do something about.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Quoted for posterity.

…I bet you’ve missed on this one quite a few times during the reign of Emperor Bob

 

[Model3 McQueen]

Imagine spending nearly $1 billion for just 1 ride and a land based on a pentology turned trilogy that clearly had no real direction.

What are you referring to?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The issue isn’t skepticism, it’s the blatant contradictions.

We’re posting on the news and rumors part of one of many places on the internet dedicated to discussing what might be happening at theme parks. As lame as the Blue Sky announcements were they’re also the sort of things fans constantly say they want to see. It’s also exactly what a lot of people in this thread have been complaining about not getting. Disney being more specific about a ten year plan would involve announcing a lot of underdeveloped concepts.

A lot of people complaining also think the company would benefit from board members who would advocate for more things like DVC over attractions.

Future events are also kind of ridiculous. New leadership changing course is right in line with what is supposedly desired because many say any change away from Iger is good. An economic downturn would reasonably change things and they’d change things at Universal too despite people pretending otherwise.

No park fans want blue sky…this isn’t an abstract discussion in an art history class at USC…

Park fans want the ground moving to make
Way for things to do for the high costs we continue to pay…not stalking genie for a midway mania slot at cost.

We’re a tough crowd but have no reason to apologize for it. Someone has to pay for the crappy movies and steam with little content on it

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

What are you referring to?

My guess is avatar

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

I'd say sort of. It's hard to compare star wars and potter from a location standpoint. Potter is basically in a few locations for all the movies. And star wars takes place in different locations in every movie. That said, Tatooine with mos eisley and Jabbas palace. And the forest moon with the shield generator and and the ewok village scream star wars.

In a land based on tatooine you could have done an escape from jabbas palace ride, similar to rise of the resistance. You could have kept the falcon ride. And you could have had a Boonta eve pod race attraction, giving the land some much needed kinetic energy. There's plenty of ideas for the forest moon as well.

That said, the black spire location isn't the problem. They had multiple opportunities to get everyone familiar with the settings in the films. They didn't. They could have celebrated all of star wars. They didn't. There was was no real attachment to the land for most people outside of the falcon. There's a lot they could have done to give that star wars feel. But they figured they didn't have to because, it's star wars, they'll just eat anything up.

I think this situation gets distorted - they certainly didn't spend a Billion dollars on each coast because they thought "they'll just eat anything up". If that were the case they'd have built the X-Wing Spinner in Echo Lake and called it a day.

They genuinely wanted to deliver a massive, ambitious, expensive, expansive, fan-favorite Star Wars experience. And, well . . . they did achieve some of those things. The reality of what happened is more nuanced. In many cases it was a matter of choices that seemed to make sense when viewed on their own adding up to something formidable but flawed. There were very few alarm bells - Disney had little-to-no reason to think it would be anything less than one of their most successful additions ever. It kind of just so happened that it didn't hit the way it seemed like it would.

It's less that Galaxy's Edge was a bunt and more that it was a legitimate swing and a miss that should be studied for years to come.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

What are you referring to?

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The film series was meant to be 5 movies but was paused after 2 and 3 saw greatly diminishing returns. Now Epic Universe is building a land based on a location from one of the movies despite their poor reception.

Lucky for them the big ride in that land was always meant to surprise guests with a time and space jump to the Potter franchise, so to combat the fact that people were likely to be less excited about a Fantastic Beasts land they've simply uncorked the Potter surprise and announced it plainly from Day 1.

That said, if development had started any later than it had there'd be almost no chance of them building something so Fantastic Beasts-oriented. Knowing what they know now they would have just once again gone full Potter.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think this situation gets distorted - they certainly didn't spend a Billion dollars on each coast because they thought "they'll just eat anything up". If that were the case they'd have built the X-Wing Spinner in Echo Lake and called it a day.

They genuinely wanted to deliver a massive, ambitious, expensive, expansive, fan-favorite Star Wars experience. And, well . . . they did achieve some of those things. The reality of what happened is more nuanced. In many cases it was a matter of choices that seemed to make sense when viewed on their own adding up to something formidable but flawed. There were very few alarm bells - Disney had little-to-no reason to think it would be anything less than one of their most successful additions ever. It kind of just so happened that it didn't hit the way it seemed like it would.

It's less that Galaxy's Edge was a bunt and more that it was a legitimate swing and a miss that should be studied for years to come.

They absolutely did that…because they designed the lands around two unproven movie series - one of which collapsed and never was made…the other ended up a disaster they can’t seem to dig out of.

Bob has always said what is important: the label. So they made whatever trying to pump product to every demo except the ones that bought over $100,000,000,000 in licensed product for 40 years.

And they met their match. Star Wars has always been a different animal of fandom. Mess with it and you’ll get the horns.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Including the rides, how we don't see a lightsaber battle is beyond me...

Batuu as a location is fine... but there's no "Star Wars" happening at all. It's all behind closed doors in retail/dining locations or after a 2 hour wait.

It’s kinda like dune land

They just don’t commit to a Star Wars environment…probably to save labor costs…nothing more

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

They absolutely did that…because they designed the lands around two unproven movie series - one of which collapsed and never was made…the other ended up a disaster they can’t seem to dig out of.

Bob has always said what is important: the label. So they made whatever trying to pump product do every demo except the ones that bought over $100,000,000,000 in licensed product for 40 years.

And they met their match. Star Wars has always been a different animal of fandom. Mess with it and you’ll get the horns.

Force Awakens is the 5th highest grossing movie of all time and The Last Jedi is the 19th - While I fully agree that their popularity doesn't match their box office success, "unproven" doesn't exactly paint the full picture. Which is part of what I mean by saying the situation is nuanced.

They threw 2 Billion dollars into the Galaxy's Edges because they genuinely thought people would want it, and had reason to think so, not because they figured guests would take whatever they gave them. GE was considered a prestige project and was intended to deliver, not to just throw guests a bone. There's a big difference between genuine miscalculation and an intentional whiff, and this was the former.

 

[Jrb1979]

Force Awakens is the 5th highest grossing movie of all time and The Last Jedi is the 19th - While I fully agree that their popularity doesn't match their box office success, "unproven" doesn't exactly paint the full picture. Which is part of what I mean by saying the situation is nuanced.

They threw 2 Billion dollars into the Galaxy's Edges because they genuinely thought people would want it, and had reason to think so, not because they figured guests would take whatever they gave them. GE was considered a prestige project and was intended to deliver, not to just throw guests a bone. There's a big difference between genuine miscalculation and an intentional whiff, and this was the former.

That seems to happen a lot more than it used to. IMO cause they over promise and under deliver. They need to stop with the concept art phase for announcements and follow what Universal and regional parks. Don't announce what the project is til construction is well underway.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

That seems to happen a lot more than it used to. IMO cause they over promise and under deliver. They need to stop with the concept art phase for announcements and follow what Universal and regional parks. Don't announce what the project is til construction is well underway.

I personally would love that.

 

[Jrb1979]

To add a lot of the scepticism of new attractions is how much they promise and cut back cause they go over budget. As well as taking so long to build new attractions cause of the need to spread costs across different quarters.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

To add a lot of the scepticism of new attractions is how much they promise and cut back cause they go over budget. As well as taking so long to build new attractions cause of the need to spread costs across different quarters.

Lucky for us, both of those things are less likely in the upcoming slate. They are looking to build quickly and are willing to pay handsomely to do it.

 

[wannabeBelle]

And they met their match. Star Wars has always been a different animal of fandom. Mess with it and you’ll get the horns.

And yet they did the Star Wars Weekend years ago incredibly well. The park was always mobbed and from what I had heard, most people were very happy with the experience. Marie

 

[Cmdr_Crimson]

And yet they did the Star Wars Weekend years ago incredibly well. The park was always mobbed and from what I had heard, most people were very happy with the experience. Marie

That plus when they have the benefit of Star Wars Celebration being in Anahiem or Orlando around the same time...