Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks (Part II)

[Ralphlaw]

It is indeed sad that a dream has disappeared with the Concorde. As I understand it, the Concorde was never profitable, burned tons of fuel, had maintenance issues, and was awful on the einvironment. It was developed without anyone seriously considering the effect of sonic booms on those of us stuck on the ground, so it never sold as well as expected because it was stuck with ocean routes. Lot's of science and engineering went into it, but then few were built because virtually no routes over land could be used because of the booms. With 20/20 hindsight, that seems to be a pretty big thing to ignore.

Yes, a brilliant piece of engineering that was scrapped after certain rules of the world (sonic booms, escalating fuel prices, environmental concerns, a few accidents) rang its death knell. I wish I could have ridden it at least once. Let's assume Dickie Branson or someone like him will spearhead some new effort to bring back supersonic travel. By the way, I never knew it flew at 65,000 feet. Wow.

 

[orky8]

Cool story. Reminds me of another sad technical step backward humanity just took this week.

When I was young, I remember thinking someday we would have something better than the concorde or the space shuttle.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Richard Branson actually tried to acquire the British Concords for the Virgin Atlantic fleet.

 

[Ralphlaw]

[When I was young, I remember thinking someday we would have something better than the concorde or the space shuttle.[/QUOTE]

We will.

 

[marni1971]

Eddie, what's the space port looking model at about 7:15 in the video?

Wow... Plectus Galactic Review in the COP! Only seen art of that, never a full model!

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Wow... Plectus Galactic Review in the COP! Only seen art of that, never a full model!

Yeah. That's the Carousel at DL turned into the Spaceship. You are right, but pre Plectu. It was the "Droid Dome" gladiator show during meetings with George Lucas. Designing a ship that landed was my first WDI project. My marker rendering of it is over the drawing board at the beginning of the video.

 

[KevinYee]

"Droid Dome"? This is the first I've EVER heard of this! A gladiator show? Please say more!

 

[steve2wdw]

"Droid Dome"? This is the first I've EVER heard of this! A gladiator show? Please say more!

I second this!

 

[steve2wdw]

Yeah. That's the Carousel at DL turned into the Spaceship. You are right, but pre Plectu. It was the "Droid Dome" gladiator show during meetings with George Lucas. Designing a ship that landed was my first WDI project. My marker rendering of it is over the drawing board at the beginning of the video.

I like the skyway station design on the left of the Spaceship (I'm assuming that is the skyway station....) Is the station itself supposed to resemble a vehicle of some kind?

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I like the skyway station design on the left of the Spaceship (I'm assuming that is the skyway station....) Is the station itself supposed to resemble a vehicle of some kind?

Yes, exactly. I wanted the station to look like it was driven in or part of the traveling show.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

"Droid Dome"? This is the first I've EVER heard of this! A gladiator show? Please say more!

Kind of. Lots of ideas were discussed and one was a battling Droid Show where the audience can cheer for the their favorites. Like WWF they would have funny personalities and different capabilities and secret weapons or "tools". That was to be on the upper floor like a mini stadium. The AA's would be puppeteered from backstage and react to the cheers and momentum of the guests. This is long before the "Robot Wars" TV shows, but along that line. All for fun in that in the end the littlest droid could potentially pull out the best "tool" to defeat the giant Goliath. I really loved the idea and thought it could have been a smash hit. (Could still be!)

 

[KevinYee]

I like it.

The name kind of echoes with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and has a similar theme.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I like it.

The name kind of echoes with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and has a similar theme.

There were some fun ways to go with it that could still be optimistic. They later landed on the traveling show thing and led to the Plectu project which had a different team. I moved on after spending some time on it.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Today's "DLP 20 Years later" Story

One of the "outsourced" project managers Disney hired to watch over us decided he would leave his "mark" on DLP. He decided that he would write his name on a backstage walkway for posterity. So he must have gone out after hours and scribed his initials or something. What he didn't bother to double check was if his tribute was in the guest area or not. He was wrong.... Imagine how dumb he felt when his own crew came to inform him that they had come to tear out the newly poured walkway IN the guest area HE had freshly defaced. You'd think the project manager would know his own area. True story.:ROFLOL:

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Details. Another 20th Story.

Here's the interior of one of our DLP Steam train coaches. Imagineer Ed Johnson was the in-field art director, and had to get the vendor in Wales, England to make all the fiberglass interior panels look like real "tongue and groove" wood paneling, and then to get them to fit together as would look natural to wood. What a huge job this was. In addition, we had never done stained glass on the Railroad and making double glazed window frames that would protect the art glass was a late challenge as well. The upper windows were done in a special process of "flashing" the color to the glass. Each train had it's own unique Coach design as some of them had stenciled designs on the ceilings and even more stained glass! . The brass lamps were custom made from historic sources.

 

[ChrisFL]

I'm loving these DLP stories.

Eddie, do you think its good for Disney to keep expanding to new countries, and if so, where else do you think they would expand to next?

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

I am SO glad I photographed Plectu's concept art displayed at DL when I did! It disappeared so fast. Perhaps a lesson for all us die hard fans!

Eddie, I loved the video- and the blonde Flock of Seagulls haircut, very vogue.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I'm loving these DLP stories.

Eddie, do you think its good for Disney to keep expanding to new countries, and if so, where else do you think they would expand to next?

As long as the quality is there and they make them unique enough to be worth traveling to. DLP is a good example, HKDL less so. I'm not for "cookie cutter" or "Disneyland Lite" projects. Brazil may have a good enough economy to support one, but Im not sure. I doubt Australia could. I read someplace there is a Moscow Disneyland in conversation stages.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

What we worried about. 20 years ago.

One of the things we discussed was if there was going to be Numbers or Roman Numerals on the DLP Mickey Clock. What period of Mickey, Should it look more like the watch? and so forth. What about a short hour hand? Would it look really dumb? How can we do the hands so they look natural all the time? So we dealt with the length of the hands and how they are posed, finger positions, etc. Then it was the dial background color at night and if it was too white and cheap looking. We took the background down to a more cream color to keep it rich looking. I think we had many versions to choose from, but I'm very happy with the more Clocktower version with the Roman Numerals.

So many details to consider.

 

[lazyboy97o]

All of this talk really just makes me want to go back to Disneyland Paris. I completely agree that being different is important. I dragged my family there a few years ago when we were in Europe. On the train ride over from Paris my dad leaned over to me and said, "You realize your mother and I are going to kill you if this just like the ones back home." Needless to say, I'm still alive and kicking.