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News Disney Sets Sights on Possible Hollywood Land Reimagining at Disney California Adventure
- Thread starter Model3 McQueen
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TP2000
Well-Known Member
I know! You couldn't make this up if your tried.
But then, when the "immersive themed environment" you've got has looked exactly like this for the past 20 years....
You might as well double down on all that ugly cement and stucco and wow the
DrAlice
Well-Known Member
So... I'm not sure what your point is here. I mean, in another thread we all complained that Disney is cutting ties with the local elementary school. But here, where Disney is giving kids an opportunity to perform in a cool space, you're mocking it? Why? As someone who sang with her choir at Carnation Plaza at 10 years old, I can tell you that there is a real value to being able to perform in a very public space. I have very fond memories of the entire experience, and I have no illusions that we were Disney-quality performers - we were kids. I'm happy that Disney has kept these opportunities for kids. If you aren't interested in seeing kids/teens perform, no one is forcing you to watch. But this post just seems mean-spirited and beneath you. Also, should moms not cheer on their kids??? Or are you just upset with Wooo as a cheer? Perhaps Yay would be better?
TP2000
Well-Known Member
So... I'm not sure what your point is here. I mean, in another thread we all complained that Disney is cutting ties with the local elementary school. But here, where Disney is giving kids an opportunity to perform in a cool space, you're mocking it? Why? As someone who sang with her choir at Carnation Plaza at 10 years old, I can tell you that there is a real value to being able to perform in a very public space. I have very fond memories of the entire experience, and I have no illusions that we were Disney-quality performers - we were kids. I'm happy that Disney has kept these opportunities for kids. If you aren't interested in seeing kids/teens perform, no one is forcing you to watch. But this post just seems mean-spirited and beneath you. Also, should moms not cheer on their kids??? Or are you just upset with Wooo as a cheer? Perhaps Yay would be better?
This isn't the first time I made fun of the Wooooo! Moms, and it probably won't be the last. To a man who is not a mom, that sound they make at these events is just hysterically funny. I can't imagine making a Woooo sound in public like that, I usually just applaud.
I'm in a minority here on how appropriate it is for young girls to dress like that and do that type of dancing in public, I fully admit. I find it tacky and dangerous, but that's just me. I'm sure your youth choir was infinitely more tasteful. And fully dressed.
As for the value of children's talent shows, I also know that the parents absolutely adore watching them so long as their child is on the stage at the time. Some suburban stage is fine for that type of amateur entertainment, and the parents can Wooooo and videotape to their hearts content.
But when Disney charges the very high ticket prices that it does to get in, to operate this big chunk of a theme park with mostly amateur children's entertainment for 20 years seems like a cheap and easy decision to me. If I'm going to pay 150 bucks to get into the place, there better darn be professional entertainment and high quality performances offered to me as the customer.
My main criticism here is not the parents or the suggestive costumes and dance moves of the young girls. My main criticism here is that Disney offers this type of entertainment up to paying customers at very high ticket prices. The Woooo'ing is just a funny outgrowth of that sad situation.
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TP2000
Well-Known Member
Now, I will say, I have a few rare times been really impressed with the children's talent that Disney offers on this DCA stage.
I've been surprised to stumble across some cultural acts (hula dancing mainly) that were really fun to watch for a few minutes.
I once also stumbled across an incredible children's choir from Africa on the Carnation Plaza Gardens stage. They were all orphaned children who were blind, and their orphanage in Africa (I vaguely remember it as Uganda) had taught them to sing these beautiful songs, mainly church hymns and a few folk songs. It was stop-in-your-tracks moving and dare I say it, magical. The audience was teary eyed, and not a single one of us were their parents. They were orphans 10,000 miles from home, so no one in the audience was Wooooing with a video camera.
But that African choir I saw was about a decade ago. And sadly it is the rarity not the rule for these children's troupes.
Almost always, it's just this type of thing.... Don't forget to Woo.
I've been surprised to stumble across some cultural acts (hula dancing mainly) that were really fun to watch for a few minutes.
I once also stumbled across an incredible children's choir from Africa on the Carnation Plaza Gardens stage. They were all orphaned children who were blind, and their orphanage in Africa (I vaguely remember it as Uganda) had taught them to sing these beautiful songs, mainly church hymns and a few folk songs. It was stop-in-your-tracks moving and dare I say it, magical. The audience was teary eyed, and not a single one of us were their parents. They were orphans 10,000 miles from home, so no one in the audience was Wooooing with a video camera.
But that African choir I saw was about a decade ago. And sadly it is the rarity not the rule for these children's troupes.
Almost always, it's just this type of thing.... Don't forget to Woo.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
On one hand, I get your response. Sure, the ticket prices are high and that commands certain expectations. The children and (particularly) the parents CAN be obnoxious to be around. Sometimes the caliber of the performances leave something to be desired.
BUT, I think that school/community groups performing in the park is a tradition that reaps multiple benefits. It builds positive relationships between the park and families, the park and (at times) the local area, and it's something else for Grandma to do when she's tired of riding things or being dragged around the park. As a kid in one of those groups, nothing beats performing in a place you love and/or are excited about. And best of all, these performances are almost always easily avoidable for those who have no interest. It's truly one of those scenarios where everyone wins.
I see little to no evidence that having a local performing group in for a day or two is realistically stopping some otherwise high-quality entertainment from being performed most of the time. Does it happen sometimes as filler if there's an otherwise empty venue available? Sure. But under normal circumstances would Disney, say, cut Mickey and the Magical Map on a day where it was otherwise scheduled to be performing simply because there's a school group available to perform that day? No. Often things like this are just extra entertainment, at no extra cost to the paying customer, seldom at the expense of anything else. Is that suddenly bad now, when we're regularly complaining about value being stripped away from the park experience?
I guess I just don't understand how we can have threads talking about how all the things that make DLR feel like a place with soul and atmosphere are being systematically stripped away and then unironically talk about how awful it is that local or high school groups still perform there sometimes in the same breath. Sometimes there's more humanity in a visiting performing group, even one that's not particularly good, than something like World of Color.
And I don't think ANY person with a brain is under the impression that a school group is going to be in the same league as Fantasmic or whatever's happening at the Hyperion. Nearly everyone has been dragged to at least one awful school performance of some kind and consequently sets their expectations appropriately. After all, you don't watch a student film and then get mad when the special effects don't match up with those from the latest James Cameron movie, do you? Same principle.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Sometimes (actually many, many times) the caliber of the performances is just downright trashy. In my humble opinion. Which I fully recognize is now a minority opinion, and seeing 14 year old girls in hotpants do a bump-n-grind routine in public is now apparently acceptable to many people. Even their parents.
The world has passed me and people like me by, I fully get that. 14 year olds doing bump-n-grind routines is now acceptable to most.
But for what very little it's worth in 2021, I must protest.
I do not feel young girls should dress/act/dance that way in public. And I refuse to Wooo! for that.
Taken separately, I could not agree with that paragraph more. I think it's sweet that Disney gives up a theme park stage for children's groups like the hula dancers, or that African orphanage that still hits me right in the gut a decade later.
But the vast majority of these groups are not such entertainment. As a longtime AP'er who often strolled past Carnation Plaza Gardens or the DCA Hollywood Backlot Stage, I feel very confident that the majority of these acts were not tastefully clothed choirs or jazz bands. They were mostly scantily clothed young girls doing a bump-n-grind to suggestive lyrics while their moms went Woooooo! as a form of parental encouragement for such public behavior.
True. But that's my point. This giant corner of DCA has been nothing but a sea of cement surrounded by abandoned stucco warehouses and a minor dark ride and... this stage. Where they do stuff like this. Daily. For decades.
Please don't forget to Woo.
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Sharon&Susan
Well-Known Member
Marvel themed construction walls up in the Hollywood Backlot area around the Studio Store.
TheDisneyParksfanC8
Well-Known Member
Pretty sure what will replace Hollywood Land has been folded into Disneyland Forward. It may be one of the first lands to bear fruit from this proposal if it gets the green light.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Good point.
And it reminds me I still haven't taken a long look at that Anaheim planning document that @Darkbeer1 showed us in that other thread...
TheDisneyParksfanC8
Well-Known Member
In my mind what they should do is expand Avengers Campus into the animation building (I mean the PYM logo is on the animation building so that could be a sign an Ant Man attraction is on the way) and Hyperion with new attractions and turn the Hollywood backlot where the Sunset theater and monsters inc are into an area themed to Disney animation proper with no Pixar. for attractions demo the sunset theater and build a black box theater attraction like the Dreamworks theater at Universal Hollywood where it can host an attraction tied into the latest Disney Animation flick and be changed out over time. As for the lands E ticket, which would go into the area that is now the transportation hub, you can do a ride of some kind that could involve Mickey an other Disney heroes teaming up to stop the Disney villains.
TheDisneyParksfanC8
Well-Known Member
Update. Instead of a DWT attraction replacing Sunset Showcase theater for this revamped HollywoodLand, Disney can do their own take and maybe improve on the Minions Villain Con moving walkthrough attraction rumored for USF. It can be Fantasia themed and you would have a magic wand that would allow you to interact with musical themed games leading up to a huge final fight. I still think they should do a villains trackless dark ride for the E ticket of the land.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
I feel dirty after watching that.
It’s a downright shame how almost perfect this section of the park could have been and how close we were to it. An idealised Hollywood Boulevard leading off of Buena Vista Street. We were almost there and only needed a bit of facade work to change things from weird looking movie set to realistic street. Hollywood Tower Hotel at the end of it drawing parallels with DHS. A bit more facade work around the backlot area and boom it’s great. Wouldn’t have cost a fortune but would have improved the area tenfold. I really think 30 years ago we’d have got all that. Unfortunately I just don’t see it happening now without some mega IP attached and I really don’t see any Hollywood IPs making any changes any headlines anytime soon. A true shame and lost opportunity.
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TP2000
Well-Known Member
Ismael Flores
Well-Known Member
you are not the only one, Wow
Bet you that some of those people involved with those outfits and choreagraphy for these young girls would be on the list of those that would be offended if Disney added some programing on Disney+ that was above G or PG rated.
- In the Parks
- No
Well said. What makes it even sadder is the realization that every day our glorious modern leadership at Disney is in total control, the harder it will be to reverse their damage when someone who cares actually gets put into a position of power there.
I think when they expand this area they should change sunset blvd to Broadway blvd and give it a 40s/50s LA broadway feel. New facade on Hyperion to make it look like a theater, make it a land full of dark rides all themed to look like Old Historic LA theaters. Kind of like CA version of fantasy land with 3, 4 or 5 dark rides. 1 major ride, a couple smaller ones, have one of them buiilt in a way to rotate out new set pieces and refit it every coupe years with major Disney film releases, so every 3-5 years it will be a different ride experience.