Disneyland Fantasmic Dragon Engulfed in Flames

[Andrew25]

7 months should absolutely be enough time to create another dragon for a company with Disneys resources. They built the park in a year. It’s just not high on their priority list. Or perhaps not even on the list at all at this time.

I laugh whenever people bring up that Disneyland was only built in a year... have you seen images from back then? No landscaping, mostly just sand/dirt throughout the park, Tomorrowland had nothing, etc.

I won't defend Disney's slow construction progress, but I think you're being a bit unrealistic.

Certainly, Fantasmic can be brought back now without it and they're using it as a cost savings excuse. But, they need to spend a few months to figure out what went wrong and get a budget approved for a replacement. Right now, Disneyland is probably requesting additional cash from corporate to fund a new dragon, and running the show now would probably lead Corporate to argue that the show is fine without the dragon.

 

[Disney Analyst]

I laugh whenever people bring up that Disneyland was only built in a year... have you seen images from back then? No landscaping, mostly just sand/dirt throughout the park, Tomorrowland had nothing, etc.

I won't defend Disney's slow construction progress, but I think you're being a bit unrealistic.

Certainly, Fantasmic can be brought back now without it and they're using it as a cost savings excuse. But, they need to spend a few months to figure out what went wrong and get a budget approved for a replacement. Right now, Disneyland is probably requesting additional cash from corporate to fund a new dragon, and running the show now would probably lead Corporate to argue that the show is fine without the dragon.

I also do believe they stated the show would be coming back with new magic, so I always took that as meaning they were looking at the entire show again, for reworks.

 

[Cliff]

Imagine if that HULU Money went to the Parks......same with ABC/ESPN and Fox..........

If Parks profits were re-invested back in the parks...then where would Marvel, Lucasfilm Pixar, ESPN and Disney + get the money they need to opperate?

Disney Plus "alone" has been bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars....per quarter....every quarter...since the day it was born. If you take the Parks funding away?....where does that leave every other division??

 

[CaptinEO]

Also, seeing as Disney doesn’t really do AAs in house these days, they’d likely need lots of time to design and engineer something, potentially in consultation with Garner Holt or a similar company, and then of course contract it out to them to build, which who knows their timeline, especially if they are currently working on dozens of new AA’s for Tiana’s.

Garner Holt made the 2010 dragon from what I recall.

Then again it's a one of a kind custom thing, not like they have extras ready to go but at least the groundwork has been done. However I'd imagine changes will need to be made to the dragon due to the incident.

 

[Californian Elitist]

I don’t think we’ll know if 7 months is enough time until we see the finished product.

The dragon wasn’t that old so there should still be blueprints and everything needed to quickly remake it, for a simple rebuild 7 months should be more than enough time.

If they are redesigning the dragon and making something different it’s nowhere near enough time. I’m leaning towards this scenario, as long as they have to spend the money it makes sense to make changes and update it also, time will tell.

That’s correct. We don’t know what’s happening.

Based on that small announcement a few months ago, it sounds like the dragon component won’t be the only thing that will be new. I could be wrong, but it seems like other parts of the show may get some work, too. Who knows (besides Disney)? It’s also possible that they’re considering building a completely new animatronic that’s not based on Murphy. It’s also possible that their idea for a new dragon won’t involve an animatronic at all.

Who knows?

 

[Disney Analyst]

Garner Holt made the 2010 dragon from what I recall.

Then again it's a one of a kind custom thing, not like they have extras ready to go but at least the groundwork has been done. However I'd imagine changes will need to be made to the dragon due to the incident.

There were a lot of issues with the figure (remember it snapping and falling forward?), I am sure they would not want to use the original design by any means.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I laugh whenever people bring up that Disneyland was only built in a year... have you seen images from back then? No landscaping, mostly just sand/dirt throughout the park, Tomorrowland had nothing, etc.

I won't defend Disney's slow construction progress, but I think you're being a bit unrealistic.

Certainly, Fantasmic can be brought back now without it and they're using it as a cost savings excuse. But, they need to spend a few months to figure out what went wrong and get a budget approved for a replacement. Right now, Disneyland is probably requesting additional cash from corporate to fund a new dragon, and running the show now would probably lead Corporate to argue that the show is fine without the dragon.

They are probably paying for the new dragon with the saving from not running the show.

Skip 200 shows that cost $25k to perform and suddenly you’ve got the money for your new $5 million dragon. (Made up numbers)

 

[Phroobar]

There's a secret field in which there are dozens and dozens full-sized dragons that spit fire undergoing strenuous testing.

But they all keep going up in flames.

It will be a while.

I hear they are testing the new dragon in Monsters Inc.

 

[Disney Irish]

Disneyland was built in a year, but there was plenty of prep and planning time before that. That all needs to be considered. And let’s be honest, the opening of Disneyland was rushed.

Exactly.... Everyone likes to mention the 1 year construction time for Disneyland to complain how "slow" Disney is today with projects. Except what most don't realize is that it was actually almost a 3 year project from the start of real designs to when they picked the site to opening. And if you want to go really since the beginning of when the idea started, it was almost 23 years from start to finish.

Also that 1 year of actual construction time, was actually them working 24 hours almost daily, something that isn't done today. So comparatively them taking ~3-5 years on most new projects today is probably what it would have taken if working normal shifts back in 1954.

 

[mickEblu]

I laugh whenever people bring up that Disneyland was only built in a year... have you seen images from back then? No landscaping, mostly just sand/dirt throughout the park, Tomorrowland had nothing, etc.

I won't defend Disney's slow construction progress, but I think you're being a bit unrealistic.

Certainly, Fantasmic can be brought back now without it and they're using it as a cost savings excuse. But, they need to spend a few months to figure out what went wrong and get a budget approved for a replacement. Right now, Disneyland is probably requesting additional cash from corporate to fund a new dragon, and running the show now would probably lead Corporate to argue that the show is fine without the dragon.

I laugh at responses like this as it was completely predictable. Granted 1955 was a different time and world but I think paints a pretty clear picture. The entire park vs a dragon. They can definitely can do it in 7 months. They don’t want to for various reasons.

How much money do they need to come up with a solution to get rid of those construction walls at the Tommorwland entrance hiding the pumps for 4 years? How about some potted trees? Anything. Are you insinuating that Disneys hands are completely tied? That there are absolutely no signs of incompetence coming from the Disney company these days? Do you remember all the misspelled 100th signs from a few months ago?

 

[Andrew25]

I laugh at responses like this as it was completely predictable. Granted 1955 was a different time and world but I think paints a pretty clear picture. The entire park vs a dragon. They can definitely can do it in 7 months. They don’t want to for various reasons.

How much money do they need to come up with a solution to get rid of those construction walls at the Tommorwland entrance hiding the pumps for 4 years? How about some potted trees? Anything. Are you insinuating that Disneys hands are completely tied? That there is absolutely no signs of incompetence coming from the Disney company these days? Do you remember all the misspelled 100th signs from a few months ago?

I've been pretty vocal about Disney's incompetence over the past years, but you can't expect them to rebuild a dragon, which they had no intention in replacing, in a few months. My defense of Disney's slow response to this specific situation is justifiable, it does not extend to everything else they've messed up.

Disney does not have their hands tied, but you can't realistically expect them to rebuild the dragon within 7 months.

 

[mickEblu]

I've been pretty vocal about Disney's incompetence over the past years, but you can't expect them to rebuild a dragon, which they had no intention in replacing, in a few months. My defense of Disney's slow response to this specific situation is justifiable, it does not extend to everything else they've messed up.

Disney does not have their hands tied, but you can't realistically expect them to rebuild the dragon within 7 months.

Perhaps but my main thing I was objecting to was the word “impossible.” Not Feasible would be more accurate. Anyway, when you take all other signs of incompetence into account it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt in any scenario.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Perhaps but my main thing I was objecting to was the word “impossible.” Not Feasible would be more accurate. Anyway, when you take all other signs of incompetence into account it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt in any scenario.

Agreed, if Disney wanted to simply replace Murphy and get the show running as quickly as possible I think they could have thrown a ton of money at it and had it running again in a couple months, it’s not a priority though so there’s no need to throw a ton of money at it.

The Adventureland bathrooms are a great example of this, they’ve been working on them for months, if a water line broke under Main Street that caused them to close the park they’d have it fixed in a matter of days, this is a priority issue more than a possibility issue.

It “could” be done, it just doesn’t make sense financially to do it.

 

[Andrew25]

Agreed, if Disney wanted to simply replace Murphy and get the show running as quickly as possible I think they could have thrown a ton of money at it and had it running again in a couple months, it’s not a priority though so there’s no need to throw a ton of money at it.

The Adventureland bathrooms are a great example of this, they’ve been working on them for months, if a water line broke under Main Street that caused them to close the park they’d have it fixed in a matter of days, this is a priority issue more than a possibility issue.

It “could” be done, it just doesn’t make sense financially to do it.

A water line breaking is vastly different compared to a complex one-of-a-kind animatronic figure. There are plenty of resources available at their disposal to fix the situation if a water line breaks, a dragon requires specific expertise that only a few people in the world, possibly tied up with other things, can work on.

Perhaps but my main thing I was objecting to was the word “impossible.” Not Feasible would be more accurate. Anyway, when you take all other signs of incompetence into account it’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt in any scenario.

Who said impossible? It's doable, but it's unrealistic to expect it with just how much it costs today to do anything along with scheduling, supply chain constraints, etc.

 

[mickEblu]

A water line breaking is vastly different compared to a complex one-of-a-kind animatronic figure. There are plenty of resources available at their disposal to fix the situation if a water line breaks, a dragon requires specific expertise that only a few people in the world, possibly tied up with other things, can work on.


Who said impossible? It's doable, but it's unrealistic to expect it with just how much it costs today to do anything along with scheduling, supply chain constraints, etc.

Someone I responded to I believe said impossible or it felt like that was what they were insinuating

 

[lazyboy97o]

Agreed, if Disney wanted to simply replace Murphy and get the show running as quickly as possible I think they could have thrown a ton of money at it and had it running again in a couple months, it’s not a priority though so there’s no need to throw a ton of money at it.

If you bought a car that gave you trouble and then it went kaput, would you really run out and get another one of the same year and model? Just rebuilding a figure that had months of delays and issues and then finally set itself on fire would be dumb. Even if someone tried, the lawyers and insurance adjusters would have something to say.

Just returning the show without the dragon isn’t necessarily easily. Yes, the public side of the show area has been opened back up but that doesn’t mean everything was repaired. Smoke damage can be extensive depending on how things were designed. There even things like electrical lines but if you don’t know what’s going on then it doesn’t make much sense to just put something in.

 

[SuddenStorm]

The newest season of Behind the Attraction on Disney+ discussed Fantasmic.

I think it was filmed before the fire, since there was no mention of it.

What I thought was most interesting is that there was zero mention of the original show, or that the show had received a new dragon around 2009 and overhaul in 2017. All of the footage and discussion of the show was based around the 2017 version. Which is disappointing because of how groundbreaking the original show was.

 

[flynnibus]

Exactly.... Everyone likes to mention the 1 year construction time for Disneyland to complain how "slow" Disney is today with projects. Except what most don't realize is that it was actually almost a 3 year project from the start of real designs to when they picked the site to opening.

The park was only in Walt's imagination as of Sept 1953 - They Opened July 1955. They hadn't even picked Anaheim as their location or knew what size park to build until late 1953. It wasn't a real design before then at all. Yes WED had started in 1952 and Walt was stealing resources to work on his initiative... but they weren't working on a concrete project at that early point. It was development of the ideas.

And if you want to go really since the beginning of when the idea started, it was almost 23 years from start to finish.

Also that 1 year of actual construction time, was actually them working 24 hours almost daily, something that isn't done today. So comparatively them taking ~3-5 years on most new projects today is probably what it would have taken if working normal shifts back in 1954.

We can look at other projects that were much more well understood.. like the World's Fair attractions. Attractions (not a full park) that went from concept, development, to building them out. IASW famously was done in a year start to finish even after WED had committed to their other two major attractions.

 

[Disney Irish]

The park was only in Walt's imagination as of Sept 1953 - They Opened July 1955. They hadn't even picked Anaheim as their location or knew what size park to build until late 1953. It wasn't a real design before then at all. Yes WED had started in 1952 and Walt was stealing resources to work on his initiative... but they weren't working on a concrete project at that early point. It was development of the ideas.

The Park planning started way before 1953, as they had other sites and ideas in mind long before Anaheim was chosen. But I agree in late 1953 is when things were solidly being planned for Anaheim, still making it longer then the 1 year PR story that we all know, ie almost 2 full years as the site was chosen in August 1953.

We can look at other projects that were much more well understood.. like the World's Fair attractions. Attractions (not a full park) that went from concept, development, to building them out. IASW famously was done in a year start to finish even after WED had committed to their other two major attractions.

Back then they again worked 24 hours a day on those projects, which doesn't happen today. If they did work 24 hours a day I'm sure projects would be getting done a lot faster.

 

[flynnibus]

The Park planning started way before 1953, as they had other sites and ideas in mind long before Anaheim was chosen.

Sure, but none of those really were Disneyland or what it became. Pointing out that Walt was throwing these ideas around for 20+ years from everything from the park at the studio to the other ideas isn't really saying much about the work done to complete Disneyland. He had years of ideas - but not years of work stored up

Back then they again worked 24 hours a day on those projects, which doesn't happen today. If they did work 24 hours a day I'm sure projects would be getting done a lot faster.

The only thing preventing that is choice to spend the money. Disney Construction already does a large amount of work in off-hours for instance. We already can watch their peers design and build out attractions in fractions of the amount of time Disney spends... including just onsite. We just have to accept this is their speed by choice... not that they are bound to it.