Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Yup. Branson, Musk, or Bezos, to be credible about the future, Disney needs a "real" space option and to align themselves with those inventing the future.
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Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks (Part II)
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Omnispace
Well-Known Member
Thanks for sharing -- glad you had a good time! The models would have been incredible to see as well as the animatronics exhibit. Glad to hear that Tony is getting his due -- he deserves it.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Snaps from two things we chat about, Western River Ride and Progress City. Here are some pix of the Space Pavilion model spearheaded by John DeCuir Sr. 'The Space rendering is awesome, but they would never be able to afford even 20 percent of the scope and scale of what DeCuir was thinking of. Look at the size of the people. He was an Epic thinker for sure! That would have been a "wow". The Western River Model really confirmed my fears that the sets were going to be really cartoony and abstract, which flies in the face of realistic environments that make Pirates so great. Like IASWor America Sings, you are always aware that you are in a building.
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Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Absolutely! Disney should pay them to come.
Omnispace
Well-Known Member
The Space pavilion looks like it would have been bigger than Spaceship Earth!! The building in front of it looks like a forerunner of Horizons. I guess no idea is beyond being repurposed.
I had the same questions about WRE being so stylized. I do think it would still make a worthwhile attraction if produced more realistically. What I read of the closing scenes with the big storm and forest fire sounds very exciting.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
The man thinks big. Make that monumental. Here's more on what goes on inside..
http://futureprobe.blogspot.com/2011/12/disney-in-space-part-4-from-ray.html
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Amazing...after all these years I finally know where the design for the monorail in Universals King Kong ride came from. I always thought it was a cool concept but because I was from a relatively small place, I had never seen anything that was attached and rode on a track from above until that ride. Even was the same color as the German one.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
The ride vehicles for Kongfrontation were cars on the Roosevelt Island Tramway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosevelt_Island_Tramway
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Well, slap my butt and call me Shirley! Learn something new everyday. Regardless, I had never heard of that type until I rode KongFrontation.
Jeanine
Member
I actually thought the Expo had a little more stuff than two years ago, but less than four years ago, but I mostly end up concentrating on the different panels versus the exhibitor's floor. Two years ago they had a Destination D right around the same time, which took out most of the historical content--this year, they had so many worthwhile-sounding panels, it would have been nice if they had gone back to the four days they originally had.
The store lines were amazing. I never did get into the Disney Store booth because the line was always an hour long. I saw the Legends Ceremony and it was very nice--each nominee got escorted by a character, and Baxter got Dreamfinder and Figment.
Are you familiar with the Optimist game? It's basically viral marketing for the in-production Brad Bird movie "Tomorrowland." It's been pretty fun, with the alternate reality being that there has existed a secret society of inventors/dreamers/doers throughout the ages, of which Walt may have been a member, dedicated to the development of a better future for Humanity. In order to find out about it, you had to visit various places around Disneyland, Los Angeles, and the Expo at specific times and decode various messages. If they were also playtesting it as something they might use in the parks, I thought it was much more interesting than the Kim Possible/Sorcerers of the MK games they've been doing.
Some information on it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Is-PH_ASc-um6jDD-BdS5wPNnuZ5fcayci_mRd2Yb5Y/edit?pli=1
Omnispace
Well-Known Member
Watched the video on the Hatbox Ghost animatronic. While being very cool it's not really the original figure so I am a bit confused -- is this simply a demo of what the new technology can do with an older figure? ....or are they planning to add this to the HM?? Perhaps someone who saw it firsthand has some insight.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Disney is being coy about it and not saying why the figure exists or if it has a future purpose.
BlueSkyDriveBy
Well-Known Member
Jeepers. Hmm. I have a few odd tales.
There was a service door from the back area of Character Shop into ATIS, just below the Mighty Microscope and the AtomMobile track. We used to duck inside the ride to cool off when the shop's A/C occasionally went south. Apparently the two areas were on separate environmental systems. Anyway, you almost needed ear protection standing under the track. Not quite as loud as standing under SM's track during operation, but close. (You'll find out how I was able to do stuff like this, further down.)
TL is beautiful at dawn with no one around. And sound travels really well under those conditions. Standing at the entrance to the old Mission to Mars attraction at that hour, you could easily hear the music playing at Snow White's Wishing Well. Without the sea of humanity, Disneyland is surprisingly quick to circumnavigate.
PeopleMover needed constant repair, what a surprise. Some nights the blue shirts would hang out with us while waiting during test cycles. The PM motors were amazingly noisy, given how small they were. There was one section of the shop's merch storage area upstairs next to Starcade's second floor where the blue shirts would access that portion of the track. They'd sometimes leave the door open during test cycling. The "thump thump thump" of the vehicles passing over the motors used to bug the hell out of me. It was always much worse being next to the track or slightly below it than riding from above. Sound is incredible that way.
I also had the opportunity to see the carousel in motion one night from the sub-basement underneath America Sings. That was kind of cool. And also kind of not allowed. What can I say? One of my fellow cast members was a bad influence on me, and a total hottie that the blue shirts always tried to impress.
We also managed to get kicked out of the Big Thunder construction area early one morning before the park opened. (It wasn't our fault; the construction workers invited us in to look around. Like I said, she was a babe.) I'm not sure, but I think the tall skinny guy in the hard hat telling us to get out might have been Baxter.
You should ask him, Eddie, if he ever stopped by the site in the early AM before heading into Glendale. And if he does remember ejecting two TL cast members for chatting with the construction guys, I'll never be able to face him again.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
I will ask him for sure! Thank you for those stories. You write in a way that I visualize those same kind of Grad Night@dawn or early AM show readiness walk thrus... the sounds wafting from BGM, the wet streets and work lights, the park feeling smaller when it's empty. Love the stories, keep em coming.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Introducing the "Hyperloop" on Tesla "stationery" no less. Guts. Guts. Guts.
"Tony Stark..... white courtesy phone, calling Tony Stark".
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop
Then get the PDF.. Now that Jobs is gone is nice to know you can still say "here's to the crazies"....
"Tony Stark..... white courtesy phone, calling Tony Stark".
http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/hyperloop
Then get the PDF.. Now that Jobs is gone is nice to know you can still say "here's to the crazies"....
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Walt and Coy Disney.
The Empress Lilly
Well-Known Member
I think WRE could've worked, despite that.
WRE's spiritual successor, World of Motion worked too, for all of it's zany humour. Even as a somewhat serious EPCOT ride.
WRE may not have worked as an immersive ride into the Spanish Main. But maybe Pirates isn't the closest thing to WRE, but the Jungle Cruise. A ride which I personally adore, even if it shouldn't for being an uneasy mix between serious exotic cruise and cheesy irony. A succession of humouress tablaux seems to work for a Disney ride. Humour can afford to be less serious about, and is far more forgiving of, its physical surroundings than spooky, eerie, adventurous. Maybe that's why Toad worked too, whereas those cardboard cutouts wouldn't have sufficed at all for a darkride like Peter Pan.
I do think WRE wouldn't have stood the test of time well. Cowboys and India...erm native Americans is a touchy subject. WRE was a late product of a previous era, with sensitivities that rapidly changed at the precise moment WRE was conceived, at the late 60s early 70s. Some scenes were already changed for more politically correct ones even before it was going to be build. I think this too played a role in WRE not being build.
I enjoy the irony in WRE's physical replacement, Splash, somewhat suffering from the same.
The Empress Lilly
Well-Known Member
Puns! Do you roylly want to go there?
The_Mesh_Hatter
Well-Known Member
I agree that WRE's style could have worked too. It seams similar stylistically to Sinbad's Storybook Voyage, which was one of my favorite rides at TDR. Although I know the locals don't embrace it as much so you never know.
Eddie Sotto
Premium Member
Interesting points all, although I was not a fan of WOM for the same reasons. I want to "escape", and vignettes with lights on them in a room just does not take me there, but to each their own.