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

Mansion Butler

Mansion Butler

Active Member
Eddie Sotto said:
The ironic thing is that back in Walt's day, the Matterhorn was full of wood scaffolding and steel beams inside. (http://davelandweb.com/matterhorn/ see June 1963 skyway in mountain) Only years later were caverns and minimal dressing applied. As a kid I remember thinking "how fake!". Little was done to hide them. I'm not defending Everest because we should be learning from the past, but I'm just sayin'.
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I often wonder how people who gripe about things -- Everest in particular -- would have handled the original Matterhorn.

As I understand it, it was always supposed to be filled in, they just realized they didn't have to because people rode in it spades, anyway, and there was no other huge attraction to take some weight off of it. Sounds familiar. . .
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Mansion Butler said:
I often wonder how people who gripe about things -- Everest in particular -- would have handled the original Matterhorn.

As I understand it, it was always supposed to be filled in, they just realized they didn't have to because people rode in it spades, anyway, and there was no other huge attraction to take some weight off of it. Sounds familiar. . .
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The Matterhorn was without precedent. Four decades of experience and pushing the boundaries change expectations.
 
Eddie Sotto

Eddie Sotto

Premium Member
Theming point.

lazyboy97o said:
The Matterhorn was without precedent. Four decades of experience and pushing the boundaries change expectations.
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I guess this is my point and you said it better. Walt Disney's standard has evolved with higher and higher expectations from guests who embraced the principles of immersion and theme. Disneyland skated along as a "big idea" in the 50's as it was alone in what it was able to do. Today, the real world has themed itself to death with twinkle lights, Restaurants, Malls, Casinos and even AA toys that talk to your kids. So to separate itself from the norm, (and remain being worth the admission,) the parks have to "immerse" us better and deeper. The difference becomes the "seamlessness" of the experience. We see the "holes" (steel in Everest) more clearly when they appear as the bar is set higher. As the world embraced and exceeded the base standard, places like "Carsland" must go further with entire canyons of theming. And the immersion and seamlessness does not stop with the ride. It's bigger than that and extends into the lands.

The "lands" IMO have slowly slipped backwards from being unique shopping "adventures" that supported the themes they set out to instill, into the being more like the malls that imitated them in the real world. It's funny how the real world became more "themed" and the themed world more "real".
 
T

trs518

Active Member
Eddie Sotto said:
I guess this is my point and you said it better. Walt Disney's standard has evolved with higher and higher expectations from guests who embraced the principles of immersion and theme. Disneyland skated along as a "big idea" in the 50's as it was alone in what it was able to do. Today, the real world has themed itself to death with twinkle lights, Restaurants, Malls, Casinos and even AA toys that talk to your kids. So to separate itself from the norm, (and remain being worth the admission,) the parks have to "immerse" us better and deeper. The difference becomes the "seamlessness" of the experience. We see the "holes" (steel in Everest) more clearly when they appear as the bar is set higher. As the world embraced and exceeded the base standard, places like "Carsland" must go further with entire canyons of theming. And the immersion and seamlessness does not stop with the ride. It's bigger than that and extends into the lands.

The "lands" IMO have slowly slipped backwards from being unique shopping "adventures" that supported the themes they set out to instill, into the being more like the malls that imitated them in the real world. It's funny how the real world became more "themed" and the themed world more "real".
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I think that some areas will need to stay real, such as EPCOT's World Showcase and much of Animal Kingdom. These areas deal much more in reality and need to imitate actual places and locations.

At the same time other areas I think will work much better as themed...such as Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom. Mostly because these areas deal with lands that are imaginitive and romantised locations.

Each need to be full of design and detail, it's simply a question of where the inspiration came from.
 
R

RandySavage

Well-Known Member
Eddie Sotto said:
I guess this is my point and you said it better. Walt Disney's standard has evolved with higher and higher expectations from guests who embraced the principles of immersion and theme. Disneyland skated along as a "big idea" in the 50's as it was alone in what it was able to do. Today, the real world has themed itself to death with twinkle lights, Restaurants, Malls, Casinos and even AA toys that talk to your kids. So to separate itself from the norm, (and remain being worth the admission,) the parks have to "immerse" us better and deeper. The difference becomes the "seamlessness" of the experience. We see the "holes" (steel in Everest) more clearly when they appear as the bar is set higher. As the world embraced and exceeded the base standard, places like "Carsland" must go further with entire canyons of theming. And the immersion and seamlessness does not stop with the ride. It's bigger than that and extends into the lands.

The "lands" IMO have slowly slipped backwards from being unique shopping "adventures" that supported the themes they set out to instill, into the being more like the malls that imitated them in the real world. It's funny how the real world became more "themed" and the themed world more "real".
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Wonderfully and succinctly stated. Many areas of themed design have progressed beautifully since Walt's day, but your second paragraph hits the mark on one of the major regressions I see. Pink princess t-shirts sitting on racks in Adventureland Bazaar or High School Musical stuff for sale in Fantasyland crushes the immersion and makes me feel like I'm in a mall. I'd be much more inclined to spend money on the rare, unique, non-Disney merch... but I guess that's not the mainstream consumption pattern (Pressler model).
 
T

trs518

Active Member
Eddie Sotto said:
Check this out and tell us what you think.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/28/steve-jobs-his-10-commandments.html
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Thanks for the article. It made me think of two things.

1. I wonder how much of what Jobs did and thought will stay around at Apple. Will they be able to come up with the next iPod, iPhone, etc?

He's much more idolized right now.The first time he left, it was on bad terms. That gave them an easy way of throwing out what he tried to teach them. I heard that Disney stagnated for awhile after Walt's death, once they ran out of the projects that he had started because they were afraid the company was doing things that Walt wouldn't have wanted.

2. In corporate America it's hard to be revolutionary. There is an old IT saying "Someone never got fired for picking IBM".
 
ChrisFL

ChrisFL

Premium Member
Eddie, I have a questions for you today.

While we all know there are dozens of attractions at the Disney parks and elsewhere based on movies, literature, TV shows, etc., there is practically NO theme park attractions/lands based on video games.

Traditionally I can understand why that is the case, since the target market has been the 15-25 year old male segment, but I think over the years, that is changing. I think there is some room for a themed attraction or land based on the most popular franchises (Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Zelda, etc.).

Clearly we have attractions that ARE video games (Toy Story Mania, most of DisneyQuest) , but they're based on movie/comics franchises.

Do you think that we will ever see a major theme park company create something big based on a video game character? (Ignoring, for example the old SEGA area of Innoventions which was mostly a big "arcade")

Is the target market just too narrow to appeal to everyone, or is it something else entirely that doesn't lend itself to theme parks?
 
jt04

jt04

Well-Known Member
Eddie Sotto said:
Back then, for the cost of theming the tunnels you could easily add another "B" ticket ride!
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In such a case I would rather they theme the tunnels and then build the b-ticket at another time. It makes no sense to me that would consider any other possibility. Just a pet peeve of mine.
 
Eddie Sotto

Eddie Sotto

Premium Member
ChrisFL said:
Eddie, I have a questions for you today.

While we all know there are dozens of attractions at the Disney parks and elsewhere based on movies, literature, TV shows, etc., there is practically NO theme park attractions/lands based on video games.

Traditionally I can understand why that is the case, since the target market has been the 15-25 year old male segment, but I think over the years, that is changing. I think there is some room for a themed attraction or land based on the most popular franchises (Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Zelda, etc.).

Clearly we have attractions that ARE video games (Toy Story Mania, most of DisneyQuest) , but they're based on movie/comics franchises.

Do you think that we will ever see a major theme park company create something big based on a video game character? (Ignoring, for example the old SEGA area of Innoventions which was mostly a big "arcade")

Is the target market just too narrow to appeal to everyone, or is it something else entirely that doesn't lend itself to theme parks?
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It has been yes, but that is changing. In the 90's, our concept studio at WDI came very close to retheming "Discovery Island" at WDW into "Myst" Island, based on the popular PC game. It was killed after Eisner approved it! So I think it will happen eventually as the audience gets wider and wider. iPad and other devices broaden that audience for games all of the time as "Angry Birds" show. Mario has huge recognition as he spans generations. Ironically. the parks are being sucked into games as the new XBox Kinect Disneyland game replicates the park.
 
jt04

jt04

Well-Known Member
Eddie Sotto said:
Agreed, finish the job.
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Care to comment on this?...

http://images2.wdwmagic.com/app_ima...nu-iXgKqLts_&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIXD73LCXQPO2WCKQ

This seems to be quite an improvement over the original concept art which was good. But this really resonates with me and captures that era so perfectly. I think the scale does not translate well in the drawing but this looks to be an amazing add with lots of great touches including what appears to red neon accents and other details that evoke the late 50's early 60's. Hopefully they don't cut any details. Very beautiful design.
 
Eddie Sotto

Eddie Sotto

Premium Member
jt04 said:
Care to comment on this?...

http://images2.wdwmagic.com/app_ima...nu-iXgKqLts_&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIXD73LCXQPO2WCKQ

This seems to be quite an improvement over the original concept art which was good. But this really resonates with me and captures that era so perfectly. I think the scale does not translate well in the drawing but this looks to be an amazing add with lots of great touches including what appears to red neon accents and other details that evoke the late 50's early 60's. Hopefully they don't cut any details. Very beautiful design.
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Looks like a scaled up knock off of a successful LA concept called "Lucky Strike", a lanes and lounge type experience. http://www.bowlluckystrike.com/ Looks very nice and probably a good add.
 
jt04

jt04

Well-Known Member
Eddie Sotto said:
Looks like a scaled up knock off of a successful LA concept called "Lucky Strike", a lanes and lounge type experience. http://www.bowlluckystrike.com/ Looks very nice and probably a good add.
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Lucky Strike was rumored to be a new feature at DTD about a year ago but that did not happen for some reason. Agreed that the concepts are similar. I was mainly refering to the exterior of the new building which is quite an improvement over the original exterior concept art. This new building concept will add a lot to a building that already has an impressive facade. I guess I just have an appreciation for this style of architecture. I'm not sure how much it will reflect what they do on the interior though. I think that may be hidden suprise and a contrast to the exterior. Difficult to tell but one of their catch phrases is something like 'this isn't your parents bowling alley'. So the interior may contrast with the era depicted on the exterior. Or not. I still think this is going to be a major reason DTD will become an amazing success few now seem to think it can be.
 
ChrisFL

ChrisFL

Premium Member
Splitsville has already been in Tampa for a few years, although the location is much smaller and a bit claustrophobic IMO.

Other than that its nice, but expensive. (I've been inside a few times but never bowled there)
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
there are several chains around the country trying to do upscale bowling by adding high end food and lounges. they basically are just bars with entertainment because the bowling is so expensive it destroys what the appeal of the bowling alley was. a cheap simple avenue for group entertainment + food. The upscale experiences are not cheap food nor entertainment.
 

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