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Early reviews for TLM ride?
- Thread starter td1129
- Start date
hpyhnt 1000
Well-Known Member
Wow! I had heard the ending was abrupt but I didn't think it was THAT abrupt! The ride basically makes Ursula out to be the heroine, giving Ariel legs and allowing her to fall in love. Visually, the attraction is stunning but it completely ignores the last 1/3 of the movie. :hammer:
Skip
Well-Known Member
I'm usually very critical of these new additions, but this ride (judging from the video) looks pretty spectacular... that is, except for that horrid ending. What were they thinking? No Ursala fight/resolution? I would've been cool with some animation, even. But from just the ride, you get the impression that Ursala literally just helps Ariel and then she and Eric get hitched. There needed to be some conflict at the end to fully tell the story.
That said, what's there looks amazing. Under the Sea looked great (a lot of ceiling exposed though), except for that awful "ice cream cone Ariel". Just do another free floating hair thingamajig - looked excellent in the Part of Your World scene! Ursala & Flotsam/Jetsam were great, Kiss the Girl looked wonderful, and the finale scene (disregarding the lack of a true climax) looked very nice as well...
Very impressed with Scuttles & the three Sebastians, these were a nice treat!
That said, what's there looks amazing. Under the Sea looked great (a lot of ceiling exposed though), except for that awful "ice cream cone Ariel". Just do another free floating hair thingamajig - looked excellent in the Part of Your World scene! Ursala & Flotsam/Jetsam were great, Kiss the Girl looked wonderful, and the finale scene (disregarding the lack of a true climax) looked very nice as well...
Very impressed with Scuttles & the three Sebastians, these were a nice treat!
NoChesterHester
Well-Known Member
Loved the video. Only watched the first two minutes or so because I want to save some of it for a surprise. The transition to "underwater" in the beginning looks very effective. Looks like a very fun ride with tons of detail. Lots to look at, which will be important because my little girl will make me ride it 4-500 times when it opens.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
What? No "Les Poissons" scene or Grimsby? Total fail! 
Just kidding.
I loved what I saw, that video made me very happy! I can't wait for it to come to MK!
Just kidding.
I loved what I saw, that video made me very happy! I can't wait for it to come to MK!
AEfx
Well-Known Member
1) Totally don't get the "ice cream cone" issue - looks pretty good to me. The hair in general is extremely well done. As are the AA's - seeing animated characters with that type of new AA technology is amazing - Ursula looks like there is a live person in there it's so fluid.
2) I agree, very abrupt ending...I did expect some sort of conflict, and hoped for more of a menacing Ursula.
In any case, it's about on par for what we've been told/were expecting. I'm very happy we'll be getting our own version soon enough.
2) I agree, very abrupt ending...I did expect some sort of conflict, and hoped for more of a menacing Ursula.
In any case, it's about on par for what we've been told/were expecting. I'm very happy we'll be getting our own version soon enough.
cheezbat
Well-Known Member
Not a bad dark ride...
But I have to agree that the ice cream hair on Ariel looks ridiculous...the cgi could have done without...storyline is chopped up with a pretty abrupt ending...
All in all though, it looks like another decent dark ride. I too think the smaller animatronics are what are really cool about the ride...But i think $100 million is WAY too much for a ride of this caliber. To me it doesn't look worth anything more than $30-$40 million. I would've gone elsewhere with my money if I was Disney.
But I have to agree that the ice cream hair on Ariel looks ridiculous...the cgi could have done without...storyline is chopped up with a pretty abrupt ending...
All in all though, it looks like another decent dark ride. I too think the smaller animatronics are what are really cool about the ride...But i think $100 million is WAY too much for a ride of this caliber. To me it doesn't look worth anything more than $30-$40 million. I would've gone elsewhere with my money if I was Disney.
The Duck
Well-Known Member
BRAVO!!!:sohappy: I am totally impressed with the results. Sure, the Ursula/death/resolution scene is a little off but how many of the other dark rides in FL tell the complete story exactly as presented in the film? Does anyone remember the original version of Snow White's Scary Adventures? It had virtually nothing in common with the Snow White plotline. Mr. Toad was even further off (hint: he doesn't really die and go to hell in the cartoon :fork. What caught my eye with TLM was the incredible animatronics. The eye movements alone helped show emotion that I've never seen in a FL dark ride. Bravo again for Disney Imagineering for a job well done! Now, about that hair....
. What caught my eye with TLM was the incredible animatronics. The eye movements alone helped show emotion that I've never seen in a FL dark ride. Bravo again for Disney Imagineering for a job well done! Now, about that hair....
Scuttle
Well-Known Member
I honestly think it looks bad, but videos don't do rides justice. The scuttle scene did start very early into the ride. This shouldn't be an issue at WDW the building is much bigger from what I have heard
sponono88
Well-Known Member
As I understand it, the MK version of the ride will be a carbon copy of the one at DCA. Meaning it will have the same exact ride layout, but a different facade and queue.
Can Lee or anyone else confirm this?
Confirmed.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
I think it seems really nice and will fit into Fantasyland nicely. One issue I think we are having is that despite comments from those in-the-know here that it would be a nice D-ticket, Disney has really been hyping (and over-hyping) this ride with all of the fanboy-targeted videos about how incredible the audio-animatronics and music would be. I'm not sure how the very-judgmental AP crowd out in California will feel toward the final product with all of the hype. I also have always felt and continue to feel upon seeing the final product that this ride doesn't belong in Paradise Pier. It was shoe-horned in without any thematic justification (much in the way that Midway Mania was shoe-horned into DHS, but at least for us, there is enough of a queue to explain what is going on so we can accept the placement of the ride).
I think TLM will fit into Fantasyland much better and our less-judgmental tourist crowd will eat it up, grab all the Fastpasses, and drive the waits up (however, since it is a true omnimover unlike the other Fantasyland dark rides, it will also be a people-eater).
The ending is rushed, but the demise of a villain is VERY difficult to show on an omnimover--how do you keep repeated her death with video without there being clear cuts in the film? And if you try to do it with animatronics, it ends up looking like a continuous cycle of death and rebirth. You can show the Evil Queen's demise on Snow White b/c there are gaps between each ride vehicle passing through to reset the scene; not so here. Instead we get the angry, behemoth Ursula silhouette, but let's be honest: we all know the story and can fill in the gaps, much live we have had to do on all of the other traditional Fantasyland dark rides.
I think TLM will fit into Fantasyland much better and our less-judgmental tourist crowd will eat it up, grab all the Fastpasses, and drive the waits up (however, since it is a true omnimover unlike the other Fantasyland dark rides, it will also be a people-eater).
The ending is rushed, but the demise of a villain is VERY difficult to show on an omnimover--how do you keep repeated her death with video without there being clear cuts in the film? And if you try to do it with animatronics, it ends up looking like a continuous cycle of death and rebirth. You can show the Evil Queen's demise on Snow White b/c there are gaps between each ride vehicle passing through to reset the scene; not so here. Instead we get the angry, behemoth Ursula silhouette, but let's be honest: we all know the story and can fill in the gaps, much live we have had to do on all of the other traditional Fantasyland dark rides.
MAF
Well-Known Member
The Ariel AA is not...good. They should have given her more lifelike hair and the face still seems creepy to me. Also I heard they cut the Ursula battle scene due to budget issues. What a cop out. Not impressed, and I'm glad we're at least getting the mine train dark ride along with this. If this was all the expansion was getting I would be really disappointed.
devoy1701
Well-Known Member
Oh how I love our whitty and whimsical humor on these boards! :lol:
Do you really know what a $30-$40M attraction looks like to compare like that? Forgive me if you really do have knowledge on the subject, I just feel like comments like that have absolutely no basis.
No disrespect meant. :wave:
My ride video comments:
-Ice Cream Cone Ariel does look pretty weird, but I'm not sure how else they would have done her hair. I thought the hair looked pretty hideous in the Imagineering videos too though. I also think it's awkward having her so close to the Clams when all she's doing is kind of shaking her head to the music.
-Ursula's mouth doesn't have quite as much movement as I thought I saw in the behind-the-scenes videos. I thought I remember her pursing her lips and such. It looks kind of awkward as she is singing and her whole mouth opens showing her teeth...just kind of unnatural.
-The ending is abrubt. Triton looks great though!
-Scuttle is a fantastic AA!
aladdin2007
Well-Known Member
Scuttle is becoming a new favorite character for me because of this, I never paid him much attention before. Cant wait to actually see it in person here. Yeah Triton looks like he popped right out of the movie screen so real looking. Love the fireworks.
Aside from all that, so Ursula doesnt get her gutts gored to death, do kids really need to see that in a family ride? Now granted they could have done a big storm scene or something at least and showed her going down into the water or something. The last two scenes do seemed rush, but they look so good at the end of the day its probably not going to matter at least to the tourists, which is probably what Imagineering was thinking since they had to cut things out apparently.
Scuttle
Well-Known Member
I'm sure they can tweak a small thing like that first show scene with scuttle approaching so quickly. I mean even with the same layout they could do something to change it a bit.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
Or if they get a lot of negative comments from riders about Ariel's ice cream hair, they could easily update that for our version. Larger changes like the rushed ending would be more difficult to modify b/c there just isn't much track left by that point in the ride.
whylightbulb
Well-Known Member
My overall impression after riding is that this attraction only barely succeeds at "making the grade" and that once again, stateside Disney has taken one too many shortcuts in development and made some poor judgements in art direction and execution.
It doesn't help that the ride is housed in a grand structure that says, "hey look at me I'm going to be one of the highlights in the park," or that the Disney marketing machine hyped it up as they did. The bottom line is that it's just okay like so many of the more recent stateside offerings where the "wow" factor is the exception rather than the rule.
The Disney apologists use the excuse that it is only supposed to be a FL type dark ride so we shouldn't expect as much as Mansion or Pirates. Why not? Tokyo Pooh was also supposed to be a FL dark ride and there is no need to apologize for its quality.
In my opinion a good example of the quailty we should expect for a ride like Mermaid is Sinbad from Tokyo. There are a multitude of "supporting cast" animatronic figures and there is not one that looked like a window store display character such as those seen in the Under The Sea sequence and the finale from Mermaid.
The descent and of course some of the AA figures were done well. My problem is that we should expect that from every new Disney offering. The animatronic technology has been available since the Wicked Witch from GMR and Muppetvision.
The Under The Sea scene was very poorly lit, meaning extremely bright, and in some cases highlighted the mechanisms controlling the window store display figures. As an alternative why didn't they perhaps use the black light puppetry method that is done so well in the DHS Mermaid show? To orchestrate an automated version of that sequence would have been magical. We would't see the frames, steel and mobiles that are so obvious now but instead would see floating fish in a simulated bio-luminescent environment where the Coral and fantasy sea life would stand out. Tritan's castle background could have been beautiful in Wildfire paint and the scene could have been one of the major highlights of the ride. At a minimum dim the intensity of the current lighting setup about 30%.
Others have commented on the hair and the anti-climatic ending so I don't need to go into that.
All in all the ride left me wanting more but not in a good way. On a scale of one to ten I'd give it a six. There are some talented Imagineers but it appears as though too many of the average talent designers are being given too much decision making power. There was some of that before I left WDI but it seems as though the problem runs rampant now. Budget is always going to be limited - it's what you do with the money that you have that indicates how good of a designer you are.
It doesn't help that the ride is housed in a grand structure that says, "hey look at me I'm going to be one of the highlights in the park," or that the Disney marketing machine hyped it up as they did. The bottom line is that it's just okay like so many of the more recent stateside offerings where the "wow" factor is the exception rather than the rule.
The Disney apologists use the excuse that it is only supposed to be a FL type dark ride so we shouldn't expect as much as Mansion or Pirates. Why not? Tokyo Pooh was also supposed to be a FL dark ride and there is no need to apologize for its quality.
In my opinion a good example of the quailty we should expect for a ride like Mermaid is Sinbad from Tokyo. There are a multitude of "supporting cast" animatronic figures and there is not one that looked like a window store display character such as those seen in the Under The Sea sequence and the finale from Mermaid.
The descent and of course some of the AA figures were done well. My problem is that we should expect that from every new Disney offering. The animatronic technology has been available since the Wicked Witch from GMR and Muppetvision.
The Under The Sea scene was very poorly lit, meaning extremely bright, and in some cases highlighted the mechanisms controlling the window store display figures. As an alternative why didn't they perhaps use the black light puppetry method that is done so well in the DHS Mermaid show? To orchestrate an automated version of that sequence would have been magical. We would't see the frames, steel and mobiles that are so obvious now but instead would see floating fish in a simulated bio-luminescent environment where the Coral and fantasy sea life would stand out. Tritan's castle background could have been beautiful in Wildfire paint and the scene could have been one of the major highlights of the ride. At a minimum dim the intensity of the current lighting setup about 30%.
Others have commented on the hair and the anti-climatic ending so I don't need to go into that.
All in all the ride left me wanting more but not in a good way. On a scale of one to ten I'd give it a six. There are some talented Imagineers but it appears as though too many of the average talent designers are being given too much decision making power. There was some of that before I left WDI but it seems as though the problem runs rampant now. Budget is always going to be limited - it's what you do with the money that you have that indicates how good of a designer you are.
Slowjack
Well-Known Member
I was going to make this same point, but in the other direction. I think this ride looks cool and overall meets my expectations. But I think my real problem with it stems from what you are praising it for. A six-minute ride shouldn't try to tell the whole story of a feature-length film. The original Snow White was great--a few scenes from the film from Snow White's perspective. Mr. Toad was awesome. I mean, you had two different rides that showed the scenes in different order, so there was no semblance of a plot. In both cases the films were used merely as jumping-off points for attractions. If the LM ride was just a collection of scenes related to the film, we wouldn't have the let-down from not seeing a resolution to the Ursula plotline.Sure, the Ursula/death/resolution scene is a little off but how many of the other dark rides in FL tell the complete story exactly as presented in the film? Does anyone remember the original version of Snow White's Scary Adventures? It had virtually nothing in common with the Snow White plotline. Mr. Toad was even further off (hint: he doesn't really die and go to hell in the cartoon :fork
YunaB17
Member
As far as the Ursala death scene goes I think all they would really need to do is add some thunder and lighting and Ursala screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! along with Ariel singing and it would be 10 times better. I think with just her singing it makes it seem more anticlimatic than it would be if they added those sounds and maybe a strobe light. Those are such small changes that hopefully they'll add them to the Disney World version and fix it.