HMF
Well-Known Member
1999 interview according to the magazine. You talk about how each shop has it's own theme or feeling (Feminine for Disney Clothiers, Masculine for Main Street Motors etc.)
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Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks (Part II)
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
1999 interview according to the magazine. You talk about how each shop has it's own theme or feeling (Feminine for Disney Clothiers, Masculine for Main Street Motors etc.)
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
MarkTwain
Well-Known Member
That's interesting. I would have pegged you as a sci-fi aficionado myself, with Encounter, Mission Space, and Sci-Fi City under your belt. I guess that shows you're versatile.
Speaking of Art Nouveau, Disneyland's Gibson Girl opened from refurb today with a new art nouveau scheme.
http://www.miceshots.com/is.php?i=13272&img=IMG_0849.jpg
http://www.miceshots.com/is.php?i=13292&img=9169IMG_0800.jpg
http://www.miceshots.com/is.php?i=13295&img=7602IMG_0795.jpg
Pretty interesting stylistic choice for Main Street, especially since I can hardly think of any other instances of art nouveau in Disney parks... can anyone else?
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
That's interesting. I would have pegged you as a sci-fi aficionado myself, with Encounter, Mission Space, and Sci-Fi City under your belt. I guess that shows you're versatile.
Speaking of Art Nouveau, Disneyland's Gibson Girl opened from refurb today with a new art nouveau scheme.
http://www.miceshots.com/is.php?i=13272&img=IMG_0849.jpg
http://www.miceshots.com/is.php?i=13292&img=9169IMG_0800.jpg
http://www.miceshots.com/is.php?i=13295&img=7602IMG_0795.jpg
Pretty interesting stylistic choice for Main Street, especially since I can hardly think of any other instances of art nouveau in Disney parks... can anyone else?
Well, you're right. It's Art Nouveau in some areas, yet the panels above and the base building are Victorian. It seems that the intent is that it was an older space remodeled partially in the Nouveau style. Layering.
Not Sure Dept.
Other than the Discoveryland dining room at Walt's in DLP, which is all Nouveau (with a dash of SciFi), There was a Restaurant dining room in WDW (next to Plaza Ice Cream?) with a Nouveau theme and it was copied in TDL's World Bazaar but is no longer around. The DL Tomorrowland Terrace has some Art Nouveau inspiration as well. It has a copy of the mural from the Discoveryland dining room on the ceiling! The France Pavilion at EPCOT has a lot of Nouveau as well.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Transformers Ride a "Home Run".
Check out this well written review of the new 3D Ride at Universal. Will it replace Spiderman when Disney gets the rights back? There is also a great history of the Omnimover and the Indy Vehicle in there and how the two relate to this new motion based vehicle. All worth discussing, bring your thoughts back here!
http://micechat.com/blogs/samland/3...studios-hollywoods-transformers-home-run.html
Check out this well written review of the new 3D Ride at Universal. Will it replace Spiderman when Disney gets the rights back? There is also a great history of the Omnimover and the Indy Vehicle in there and how the two relate to this new motion based vehicle. All worth discussing, bring your thoughts back here!
http://micechat.com/blogs/samland/3...studios-hollywoods-transformers-home-run.html
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
DLP story, 20 years on.
Many of the smaller props and dressings for Main Street were contained in a large cargo shipping container. I recall that management got so freaked out about installation time (props are the last things to go in and end up getting the least amount of time as others have run late), that the their solution was to take the props away from me so the effort would end immediately. They figured somewhat correctly that we would rearrange things endlessly. Soon, unbeknownst to me, the container disappeared and we were "done". Then I freaked and had to find them and get them back without them knowing. We were by no means done as some stores had nothing. The lead had left town so we could sneak them back if they could be located. After a harried search, we eventually found the giant bin sealed up in a small village nearby and ferried it back.
Desperate times!
Many of the smaller props and dressings for Main Street were contained in a large cargo shipping container. I recall that management got so freaked out about installation time (props are the last things to go in and end up getting the least amount of time as others have run late), that the their solution was to take the props away from me so the effort would end immediately. They figured somewhat correctly that we would rearrange things endlessly. Soon, unbeknownst to me, the container disappeared and we were "done". Then I freaked and had to find them and get them back without them knowing. We were by no means done as some stores had nothing. The lead had left town so we could sneak them back if they could be located. After a harried search, we eventually found the giant bin sealed up in a small village nearby and ferried it back.
Desperate times!
flynnibus
Premium Member
Which management? WDI? Or the park itself?
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
WDI project management.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
There was lots of backlash prior to opening, as it was perceived to be a cheap carnival. Most of that evaporated when it became Europe's most attended tourist attraction it's first year and people saw the quality. French PM Francois Mitterand reportedly said when he finally saw the beauty of the park "Why are we fighting this?". My personal take is that some European Adults didn't like the idea that their kids love this imported American product. Imports to France don't usually go down well (they banned the word Jumbo Jet). Over the years they have made the park their own and there is now a tremendous pride over it's richness. One of my goals was to make Main Street culturally rich like a "living museum" with displays in the arcades and lots of history to experience. Europeans appreciate museums and places with authentic depth, so MSUSA had a 2 hour length of stay it's first year.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Apple and Disney. iPad and Fastpass.
Check this out.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...isney_worlds_new_fastpass_ride_ticketing.html
Check this out.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...isney_worlds_new_fastpass_ride_ticketing.html
ChrisFL
Premium Member
Bravo! So you were a big part of why it succeeded (relatively).
Was there questions rasied about the name EuroDisney at the time also?
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Not really. The controversy came later and they canned it to Disneyland Paris.
The Empress Lilly
Well-Known Member
'Euro' was thought to have positive connotations back in 1992. Nowadays, you wouldn't want to put it in the name of a waste disposal plant.
If EuroDisney twenty years ago was even referenced to as 'a cultural Chernobyl', in 2007 when Sarkozy wanted to introduce his new love interest to the world, Carla Bruni, he opted to do so by visiting Disneyland Paris together. Much had changed apparantly in fifteen years. Then again, it was all considered to be in poor taste of him, fit only for 'president blingbling'.
There is broad acceptance of DLP, even a certain pride in it. But in Europe, and in France in particular, even more so than in America 'Disneyland' remains culturally incorrect for people with good taste (and especially for those wishing to pass for somebody with taste).
If EuroDisney twenty years ago was even referenced to as 'a cultural Chernobyl', in 2007 when Sarkozy wanted to introduce his new love interest to the world, Carla Bruni, he opted to do so by visiting Disneyland Paris together. Much had changed apparantly in fifteen years. Then again, it was all considered to be in poor taste of him, fit only for 'president blingbling'.
There is broad acceptance of DLP, even a certain pride in it. But in Europe, and in France in particular, even more so than in America 'Disneyland' remains culturally incorrect for people with good taste (and especially for those wishing to pass for somebody with taste).
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
I wonder if Ariane Mnouchkine has ever actually been to any of the Disneylands or other Disney parks. While I do not agree with all of his assessments, I have a lot more respect for somebody like Stephen M. Fjellman (Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America) because he claims to write from actual experience and I believe that he really did visit the parks, and before he decided to critique them, based on his writing.
I visited Europe a few years ago and it was interesting that in Germany and Italy framing days spent in Paris as being centered around a day at Disneyland Paris was viewed more positively than going to Paris for the sake of going to Paris.
I visited Europe a few years ago and it was interesting that in Germany and Italy framing days spent in Paris as being centered around a day at Disneyland Paris was viewed more positively than going to Paris for the sake of going to Paris.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Disneyland Paris also gives Europeans "permission" to be a child again, free from the pretensions of haughty critique and so called "taste" which is imposed by those who decide it. I've seen many tasteless things in the heart of Paris. Like any other art, you experience Disneyland and react. The symbolism in the park either enchants your inner child or offends the analyst in you. You have to want to lose yourself in your simpler emotions and devolve into being someone who could wear a pair of dumb ears for a day or laugh at something corny. Disneyland seeks to level Europe's class system by declaring "every guest is a VIP". Almost subversive in it's cultural seduction as Disneyland's immersion is it's weapon. Once you are in "another world", you are free to think and behave differently.
With any hope, you eventually stop critiquing the logic of how Elephant's cannot fly, believe they can and relax by flying one yourself.
All of these outside intellectual takes on DLP are interesting, but to me are as relevant as a 12 year old who has grown cynical with his buddies at the movies, they're watching the birds assemble Cinderella's dress going "I'm sure man...those Birds would never do that". I remember that stage of life. Either you get it and want to get it or you don't.
With any hope, you eventually stop critiquing the logic of how Elephant's cannot fly, believe they can and relax by flying one yourself.
All of these outside intellectual takes on DLP are interesting, but to me are as relevant as a 12 year old who has grown cynical with his buddies at the movies, they're watching the birds assemble Cinderella's dress going "I'm sure man...those Birds would never do that". I remember that stage of life. Either you get it and want to get it or you don't.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
'Euro' was thought to have positive connotations back in 1992. Nowadays, you wouldn't want to put it in the name of a waste disposal plant.
If EuroDisney twenty years ago was even referenced to as 'a cultural Chernobyl', in 2007 when Sarkozy wanted to introduce his new love interest to the world, Carla Bruni, he opted to do so by visiting Disneyland Paris together. Much had changed apparantly in fifteen years. Then again, it was all considered to be in poor taste of him, fit only for 'president blingbling'.
There is broad acceptance of DLP, even a certain pride in it. But in Europe, and in France in particular, even more so than in America 'Disneyland' remains culturally incorrect for people with good taste (and especially for those wishing to pass for somebody with taste).
Jack Lang the minister of culture made the chernobyl remark (should fact check this). I heard that over and over at dinners with French colleagues. I'd always reply "Wait till your kids beg you to go again".
I got into a discussion in a bar once with someone who was telling me how culturally bankrupt LA was. I'm from LA and am keen to defend it's merits. While LA is not NYC or Paris, it is a center of media, what's innovative and new, and if you count Hollywood, has made an impact in the 20th Century. I argued that Paris should not lean on it's 19th Century past accomplishments, but be more open to imports as they can inspire you. He balked. I asked him if he had ever looked at the monument in the middle of the Place De la Concorde. He said "Of course, it is an Obelisk". I remarked that it is at that, but the inscription on it is a tribute to the engineering feat of removing it from Egypt and bringing it to Paris and erecting it. It was a gift from Egypt. That's what Disneyland is. Like books in a library, it's a point of view from another culture, a gift, that will hopefully inspire others to create something better. It's not a threat unless you see it as subversion.
The Empress Lilly
Well-Known Member
Well argued! And in a sense a good variation of the classic retort to Lang's infamous Chernobyl comment: 'what worth a culture that is threatened by a mouse?'
Cultural autism is not a way forward. Still, the very same defensive reflexes have been conducive to preserving and developing French, and by extention European culture. France still has an own cinema culture worthy of the name. Has her own thought, literature, culture. By contrast, for example Australia is so Americanised it isn't even funny anymore. Jack Lang's verdict may have been misplaced, the underlying sentiment is to me not entirely without merit.
LA exerts tremendous cultural influence throughout the world. One need not look further than the very subject of this website to discover LA's global cultural influence. Disneyland was the product of LA. From there it conquered the American Eastcoast, Japan, Europe and China. I obsess about Disney, I consider Disneyland the greatest work of art and of urban planning of the 20th century, so how could I possibly mistake LA for not being culturally influential?
Not a single 19 year old European girl dreams of living in Ohio. But they would all move instantly to Los Angeles. It is California, LA, that has come to represent the American dream.
Of course, to the more higher educated classes, LA is seen as a symbol of American cultural emptiness. A verdict which I think is unfair on LA, and mistaken about America. It has still not dawned on a great many Europeans that America has not only enjoyed a virtual monopoly on 20th century popular culture, but that the greatest centres of Western art and science and technological innovation have been American for over a century now.
The Hammer
Banned
As an American with French friends, I think these comments are pretty much bordering on racism. I don't really think the French are the ones being pretentious here. These attitudes are about as correct as the US being full of nothing but cowboys and hot dog carts. :brick:
Da Man
Member
Don't forget hamburgers. The Brit seem to have the impression that as Americans we eat nothing but Hamburgers.
:lol: