Disney plus Imagineering

[Animaniac93-98]

Don't wanna spoil Ep 4 but they (imagineers) are very honest about DCA 1.0, WDS and HKDL. Not the corporate marketing I would expect.

Eisner is gone so they are safe to say what they thought about those years.

Don't expect the same kind of honesty with the Bobs who are still in charge.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I don't think Joe Rohde understands Walt Disney Imagineering.

Imagineering is about "making the fantastical real, and making the real fantastic". Disney's Animal Kingdom is just making the real, real, and that's basically the gist of what Joe Rohde was saying.

He understands how to copy another place and go on "research trips" (read: paid vacations), sure, but does he know how to make that place Disney?

Listening him talk about a "story of poverty" with zero irony or self reflection was downright cringey to listen to.

Yes, people who pay to visit a Disney park want to see make believe poverty as a form of cultural enrichment. Wasn't that the kind of thing Disney's America was criticized for?

 

[VJ]

I rolled my eyes to the back of my head When Eisner said that he thinks putting someone in a financial box will make them more creative. And I’m an Eisner fan for all of the great stuff he helped bring to DL in the 80s and 90s.

same here

On another note, they keep talking about the company being in a period of fiscal discipline when DCA was being built. Why was that though? The slow start with Euro Disneyland?

i believe so, yeah; eisner was a lot more gutsy and creative when frank wells was alive, but when he died he pretty much reigned everything in and turned into a financially-driven executive

 

[flynnibus]

I rolled my eyes to the back of my head When Eisner said that he thinks putting someone in a financial box will make them more creative.

But it's true... necessity drives innovation. With no constraints, people often bloat and take the path of least resistance.. often leading to convoluted messes. Where as the system designed to be lean and efficient.. because the whole thing wouldn't exist otherwise... often outruns the bloated one.

The same mentality applies to people setting what appears to be artificial deadlines... the pressure pushes people to excel.

You have to be able to look at constraints as a form of management tool.. and not just 'being cheap'.

 

[mickEblu]

But it's true... necessity drives innovation. With no constraints, people often bloat and take the path of least resistance.. often leading to convoluted messes. Where as the system designed to be lean and efficient.. because the whole thing wouldn't exist otherwise... often outruns the bloated one.

The same mentality applies to people setting what appears to be artificial deadlines... the pressure pushes people to excel.

You have to be able to look at constraints as a form of management tool.. and not just 'being cheap'.

So why didn’t it work when they tried it with DCA 1.0 and the Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris? The results speak for themselves. Give me one example of how this practice has helped when it comes to Disney Parks. The documentary literally just showed you what happens when you restrict the budget too much. That line by Eisner was them giving him a little shot at a rebuttal.

And let’s say you re right - they do get more creative. What good does it do when the end product is inferior than if they had a budget ? Why should I care if an imagineer had to get crafty? I only care about the final product.

 

[lazyboy97o]

So why didn’t it work when they tried it with DCA 1.0 and the Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris? The results speak for themselves. Give me one example of how this practice has helped when it comes to Disney Parks. The documentary literally just showed you what happens when you restrict the budget too much. That line by Eisner was them giving him a little shot at a rebuttal.

It doesn’t mean there isn’t a point where you don’t have enough. Disney’s Animal Kingdom was built in the same environment as Disney’s California Adventure and Walt Disney Studios Park. Tomorrowland 94, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Indiana Jones Adventure were all done at the start of the belt tightening, their success encouraging tighter budgets. Despite people saying that budgets are tight today, they absolutely are not and in many ways Disney is not delivering. Is the more expensive Pixar Pier really better than Expedition Everest?

 

[brb1006]

The death of Frank Wells was very difficult for Eisner, in ep 3 Tony Baxter reverse to Eisner as a guy with 3 types of ideas (good, meh, worse). Wells was good in filtering out the good ones, Euro Disney was losing a lot of money so Eisner was afraid to spend to mush money. But really nice that they are so open about what happend in that dark period.

Yeah Eisner didn't take Wells death very well.

 

[mickEblu]

It doesn’t mean there isn’t a point where you don’t have enough. Disney’s Animal Kingdom was built in the same environment as Disney’s California Adventure and Walt Disney Studios Park. Tomorrowland 94, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and the Indiana Jones Adventure were all done at the start of the belt tightening, their success encouraging tighter budgets. Despite people saying that budgets are tight today, they absolutely are not and in many ways Disney is not delivering. Is the more expensive Pixar Pier really better than Expedition Everest?

No it is not but thats a different argument. Aside from comparing a new build of a single attraction to a “cheap” overlay of an entire land (They should have spent all the money they spent unnecessarily overlaying an entire land on one good dark ride), your examples are 20 years apart. Apples n Oranges. Animal Kingdom and DCA were built during the same time period. Let’s compare the budgets and then see which one turned out better.

A theme park project with a healthy budget will usually turn out better than a project where they re penny pinching. Of course this doesn’t mean that it can never happen where the imagineers make something great in the face of many constraints. Or it doesn’t mean that more of a budget means better results. I just don’t think that that environment leads to better work (as in the final product) then if you give them a bigger budget and less constraints. It may let you see how crafty an imagineer can get but as a theme park fan, I care about the final product.

 

[mickEblu]

I have to say this series has been great and my only complaint is that each park doesn’t get its own episode. I’d also love to have more of Michael’s and Paul’s interviews on each subject.

I think everyone at some point in their life has been under financial stress. I’ve had to buy furniture when I first moved out that I knew was awful quality and would break easily and had a worse return on investment than more expensive furniture.

It’s clear Michael Eisner liked going all out with each project. Since it is evident that Paris hurt the company, why would he duplicate building more DLPs?

I’m not defending California Adventure but I think it’s important to put things into perspective. Even imagineering now can throw money at things and it becomes a lackluster product (SW).

I agree and I like Eisner. However if he said that line about the financial box making imagineers more creative to me Id point to all his successes and failures and ask which of these had a good budget and which didn’t? All that matters are the results at the Disney park projects he worked on. Not how something may or may not work in theory.

 

[BrianLo]

Now it would be really refreshing if they were honest about present day and compared Chapek to Pressler. Obviously won’t happen and doesn’t make any business sense though.

Pressler treated the parks as a franchise-able product on a micro, but corporate conscious budget. Disney parks branding would overcome any concerns with corner cutting or lack of quality.

The recent Chapek years have treated the parks as a vessel to promote the companies overarching franchise dominance. Nothing describes any budget they are operating on as micro. The strength of the franchise overcoming ancillary needs to the experience cut in the process or missed marks on quality.

You don’t have to like either, but they are actually different. Different of course doesn’t mean one is better, naturally.

With a limited number of exceptions Chapek based output largely needs tweaks (and is an assault of themed entertainment being independent art from servicing franchises). Pressler based product needed replacement and degraded the brand (and was an assault to themed entertainment being a stupid pastime for stupid people).

 

[flynnibus]

So why didn’t it work when they tried it with DCA 1.0 and the Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris? The results speak for themselves. Give me one example of how this practice has helped when it comes to Disney Parks. The documentary literally just showed you what happens when you restrict the budget too much. That line by Eisner was them giving him a little shot at a rebuttal.

Because you are looking at extremes and throwing out all cases when your extremes fail. That's like saying 'watching what you eat leads to starvation and death'.

When a process is abused or used incorrectly it does not invalidate the purpose and effect of the process.

And examples like DCA failed for other reasons.. not driven by budget alone.

You want examples of where it did work? Look at most of classic Disneyland.. especially the world's fair exhibits. The practicality they turned to for many systems is a consequence of their time and budget. Constraints drive people to rethink and consider 'how can this be done better?' or even 'what must we do to even make this possible given our limits?'.

Putting limits is a rather standard way to defend against creep and force people to advance if the same outcomes are desired.

You are taking the case where they accepted compromising their OUTPUT and then blaming constraints as why. You need to go back and look at why those products resulted in what they did... and its not just $$.

And let’s say you re right - they do get more creative. What good does it do when the end product is inferior than if they had a budget ? Why should I care if an imagineer had to get crafty? I only care about the final product.

Lead a group of people or a project at a large scale and you'll start to see. Constraints are reality in getting projects complete. Real companies and groups don't live in the fantasy of armchair engineering.

Being 'crafty' is what allowed a small group of people to accomplish so much early on in such a short amount of time. And contributed in part to why so many of those things were able to be so reliable and have the concept used so successfully time and time again.

Look at the omnimover... and how effective and scalable that design is.. vs a design where someone would have said "it would be better if we just had motors and controls in every ride vehicle" and were able to pursue that because they had no constraints. We'd have a ride system that would have been antiquated multiple times as the motors and power systems evolved. Instead, we got a purely mechanical design that has lasted decades and been able to be the basis of numerous attractions.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

I don't think Joe Rohde understands Walt Disney Imagineering.

Imagineering is about "making the fantastical real, and making the real fantastic". Disney's Animal Kingdom is just making the real, real, and that's basically the gist of what Joe Rohde was saying.

He understands how to copy another place and go on "research trips" (read: paid vacations), sure, but does he know how to make that place Disney?

I like Joe a lot, but I get what you are saying. His vision is different. But can you imagine Animal Kingdom being built by anyone else? I mean it’s fun to think about what Tony Baxter or Bob Weiss would have thought up, but I think it would have felt wrong. The reason DAK works is because it makes you feel like the animals belong somehow.

The digs at his research trips always bug me, executives taking vacations, office parties, lots of expenses in the corporate world are what they are. Some imagineers visiting a place for research isn’t a paid vacation anymore than paying them to research it is “paying them to google pictures” one way or another they are going to get paid to do the research.

I want Angela Bassett to narrate a ride. SSE?

While not a ride, she does narrate an attraction... Hall of Presidents.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Amazing to see Tom Morris drop the 7.3 attractions per guest per day metric that continues to guide the parks experience today, except you're now waiting an hour instead of 15 minutes.

Tom just deserves more love all around. Hong Kong Disneyland could have easily been a lot worse.

 

[mickEblu]

Because you are looking at extremes and throwing out all cases when your extremes fail. That's like saying 'watching what you eat leads to starvation and death'.

When a process is abused or used incorrectly it does not invalidate the purpose and effect of the process.

And examples like DCA failed for other reasons.. not driven by budget alone.

You want examples of where it did work? Look at most of classic Disneyland.. especially the world's fair exhibits. The practicality they turned to for many systems is a consequence of their time and budget. Constraints drive people to rethink and consider 'how can this be done better?' or even 'what must we do to even make this possible given our limits?'.

Putting limits is a rather standard way to defend against creep and force people to advance if the same outcomes are desired.

You are taking the case where they accepted compromising their OUTPUT and then blaming constraints as why. You need to go back and look at why those products resulted in what they did... and its not just $$.



Lead a group of people or a project at a large scale and you'll start to see. Constraints are reality in getting projects complete. Real companies and groups don't live in the fantasy of armchair engineering.

Being 'crafty' is what allowed a small group of people to accomplish so much early on in such a short amount of time. And contributed in part to why so many of those things were able to be so reliable and have the concept used so successfully time and time again.

Look at the omnimover... and how effective and scalable that design is.. vs a design where someone would have said "it would be better if we just had motors and controls in every ride vehicle" and were able to pursue that because they had no constraints. We'd have a ride system that would have been antiquated multiple times as the motors and power systems evolved. Instead, we got a purely mechanical design that has lasted decades and been able to be the basis of numerous attractions.

Again, I’m not arguing that what you said may not be correct in theory. I’m saying let’s look at the man who said the statement. Eisner. Not Disney and his WED team from the 50s and 60s. Now look at all the projects he was responsible for while he was CEO and connect which ones were successful and which ones were failures to the budget they had. Most of the ones that had a healthy budget were successful and the ones that did not were not. Im talking about big picture things. New parks. New attractions. So if most of his failures at the parks while at Disney are because of a low budget then there really isn’t a point for him to say the comment he said. It’s meaningless.

 

[BrianLo]

Amazing to see Tom Morris drop the 7.3 attractions per guest per day metric that continues to guide the parks experience today, except you're now waiting an hour instead of 15 minutes.

Tom just deserves more love all around. Hong Kong Disneyland could have easily been a lot worse.

Agreed, outside of the castle Extendzzzz, most of the original product is still there as is. Hong Kong has/had good bones.

 

[mickEblu]

Pressler treated the parks as a franchise-able product on a micro, but corporate conscious budget. Disney parks branding would overcome any concerns with corner cutting or lack of quality.

The recent Chapek years have treated the parks as a vessel to promote the companies overarching franchise dominance. Nothing describes any budget they are operating on as micro. The strength of the franchise overcoming ancillary needs to the experience cut in the process or missed marks on quality.

You don’t have to like either, but they are actually different. Different of course doesn’t mean one is better, naturally.

With a limited number of exceptions Chapek based output largely needs tweaks (and is an assault of themed entertainment being independent art from servicing franchises). Pressler based product needed replacement and degraded the brand (and was an assault to themed entertainment being a stupid pastime for stupid people).

I just meant that they re both merchandising guys and both know nothing about parks. And that they both suck. I said nothing of budgets.

 

[BalooChicago]

While not a ride, she does narrate an attraction... Hall of Presidents.

I didn’t realize that - I have not seen the Trump version yet (it was closed during my last visit to switch over)

 

[waltography]

I've been hedging on whether to get Disney+ or not, but this and some of the original shows might be the tipping point for me.

The digs at his research trips always bug me, executives taking vacations, office parties, lots of expenses in the corporate world are what they are. Some imagineers visiting a place for research isn’t a paid vacation anymore than paying them to research it is “paying them to google pictures” one way or another they are going to get paid to do the research.

I agree completely. As a designer and researcher myself, it's really a world of difference if you have the means to travel to these points of inspiration. You can knock Joe for some things, but I really think he and Imagineering get such a different experience when they can visit these places.

 

[Franklin47disneyguy]

Ep 1 Walt dies
Ep 2 Roy dies
Ep 3 Frank Wells dies
Ep 4 Creativity dies

 

[Phroobar]

Ep 1 Walt dies
Ep 2 Roy dies
Ep 3 Frank Wells dies
Ep 4 Creativity dies

Ep 5 GOTG: MB is born
Ep 6 Pixar Pier is born
Ep 7 Galaxy's Edge is born
Ep 8 Revenge of Walt