Rumor Figment, well, to be replaced by Figment

dreamfinding

dreamfinding

Well-Known Member
Sneakman said:
Question, has their ever been an attempt to get a sponsor for figment?
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The last sponsor was Kodak, but that ended in 2010. I don't think they'd be very keen on coming back, especially since the company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012 (but has since reorganized/restructured). FWIW - they also used to sponsor Philharmagic.

As to who to even suggest as a sponsor, I don't know. It would be cool to see the IMAX people do it, but it probably isn't feasible.
 
dreamfinding

dreamfinding

Well-Known Member
mysto said:
What's really needed is a poject to refresh the ride. A project with a budget and designers with love in their hearts. They could use new or old figures, the project manager makes it happen.

I guess this thread is about a rumour they might do that, but I'm not that optimistic. Yet.
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There are people at TWDC (not just specifically WDI) who love the little lavender lizard. I think *most* of the problem is getting higher-ups to realize that it would be a good investment. It's like when Chapek (or maybe it was Vahle) decided that adding the explosion effect to Big Thunder was not a good ROI because you know, something like that doesn't sell merch.

Higher-ups (like Jeff Vahle) are always concerned about return on investment (ROI). Think about when Universe of Energy became Cosmic Rewind:
1. It replaced something that wasn't aging well

2. Gives Disney an excuse to sell more GOTG merchandise

3. Gives people a reason to buy a 4-day park ticket to visit Epcot specifically for the ride, instead of a 3-day park ticket. don't know how many people/families use CR as a teetering edge when it comes to park tickets. It has been used as a device to get people to buy a park hopper ticket, that's for sure.

4. New attractions generate a lot of buzz (good, bad, and ugly). This kind of matches point 3, but someone may be deciding to book a WDW vacation and happens to be a huge GOTG fan. They see a new GOTG rollercoaster has opened in Epcot and boom. Vacation package booked. I'm sure this is not a huge category of people.

5. This is a later effect (not one that people thought about when the announcement happened), but paid attraction access. They are technically "making money" off of CR via Individual Lightning Lane. It sells out almost every day and is at a minimum - $12 per person. There is no number for how many are sold each day as that is an internal number. But let's assume they sell 500 every day @ 12 bucks a pop. That is $6,000 a day. For sanity's sake, let's assume it stays the same price year-round. Take the $6,000 x 365 and you get 2,190,000. Of course, I feel like 500 ILL sold each day for CR is a very conservative number, but eh. This also does not take into effect the price fluctuation depending on the crowd level. 2 million is a very small chunk of the rumored 450 million CR is rumored to have cost.

6. A lot of APs visit Epcot just to ride GOTG (hi, it's me). While I'm in Epcot to ride just CR, I may decide to stop in Creations and buy some merch. Or, I may stop by Connections and eat some food. OR heck, I may use a VQ to ride once and then buy the ILL again.

7. They use this attraction as a selling point for both Disney After Hours and Deluxe Resort stays. If you tell a disney fan that they can pay $200 and ride CR as much as they want during after hours, a majority of them would say "sign me up!".

8. CR has helped make Epcot the "cool park" because teenagers like a thrill ride. This is the same logic that Eisner used to greenlight Splash back in the day.

of course, this is all speculation and I could be wrong :)
 
Homemade Imagineering

Homemade Imagineering

Well-Known Member
IMG_6760.png
IMG_6759.png

Getting up close with this guy last year was very surreal for me, got some nice detailed shots of him including what looks like his lock collar wing attachment to the mech. Visited him many times thru the summer till the auction ended, hopefully we get even more AAs with version 4 we can appreciate for even longer!
 
Bill Cipher

Bill Cipher

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
DreamfinderGuy said:
No.

Entirely depends on your definition of what "works". Lighting and the fiber optics would technically work if they turned it on, but audio/video is long gone. Everything between the virtual classroom and city sets (excluding those two, only the things between them) is still intact. As is the backdrop for the city set, though it's covered up.
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When you say audio/video is gone, do you mean the hardware like projectors and speakers were removed, or do you mean all of the original media tapes/files have been destroyed or lost?
 
Homemade Imagineering

Homemade Imagineering

Well-Known Member
One silver lining I suppose to the timeline with a JII refurb (if things stay consistent), is the fact that us old school Epcot fans will have staggered things to look forward to. That is of course IF the new TT and SSE live up to their predecessors and are timeless homages to what came before. I could see this as a “save the best for last” type of scenario, slowly feeding us these updates culminating in the one everyone has been asking for all along. Now if the budget for a redo will give us another bandaid as of right now, let’s hope they use the next couple years to put more time & energy into an update, alongside earmarking some significant capital for this attraction
 
DreamfinderGuy

DreamfinderGuy

Well-Known Member
Bill Cipher said:
When you say audio/video is gone, do you mean the hardware like projectors and speakers were removed, or do you mean all of the original media tapes/files have been destroyed or lost?
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A bit of both. The physical hardware, being the projectors and speakers, were removed in 2007. A full revamp of SSE's media systems that same year included the removal of everything that had played in the attraction before (with notable exception to the film projectors, which were simply too much of a hassle to remove and just ended up shut off. The Chariot projector had to be disassembled in place and hauled off in pieces earlier this year). Only what was relevant to reinstall was reinstalled. Just because it's gone from SSE doesn't mean its gone for good though, I'm sure it's all rotting on a server somewhere in Glendale.
 
Tha Realest

Tha Realest

Well-Known Member
Not sure how this affects the project’s viability or timetable, but Josh Gad just posted a submitted script he just finished with Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit that may or may not be Spaceballs 2. Now, screenwriters can multitask, but it seems that’s been a priority for them lately (possibly to the exclusion of their Figment project).
 
Rhinocerous

Rhinocerous

Premium Member
Tha Realest said:
Not sure how this affects the project’s viability or timetable, but Josh Gad just posted a submitted script he just finished with Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit that may or may not be Spaceballs 2. Now, screenwriters can multitask, but it seems that’s been a priority for them lately (possibly to the exclusion of their Figment project).
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The Search for More Money?
 
Rodj

Rodj

Well-Known Member
One thing that I'm not sure if someone pointed out before, but for quite a bit now(since late 2010's), the audio for the finale scene has been "incomplete", in that not all of the Figment voice speakers are working for the song.
From what I observed, each speaker for Figment's lines plays a different take/tone, some are more higher pitched and some are more lower pitched. Videos back around 2002/2003 shown that there was a good mix of them and it was lively, but currently, there seems to be only around 2 or 3 of them working.
One of them is the deep toned/unenthusiastic Figment voice, which is playing towards the start of the scene, and it's what you primarily hear if you are sitting further back. It's quite hilarious to me when there is a hold up like in this video where you hear that deep voice for the extended part of the song. It's also hilarious how the Channing moon projection will pause itself on Eric giving you a straight face after the first iteration of the song loop is over.


For comparison, here is a video from 2003 where the finale had all of its speakers working, it sounds much more lively:
 
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WeNamedTheDogIndiana

WeNamedTheDogIndiana

Well-Known Member
Rodj said:
One thing that I'm not sure if someone pointed out before, but for quite a bit now(since late 2010's), the audio for the finale scene has been "incomplete", in that not all of the Figment voice speakers are working for the song.
From what I observed, each speaker for Figment's lines plays a different take/tone, some are more higher pitched and some are more lower pitched. Videos back around 2002/2003 shown that there was a good mix of them and it was lively, but currently, there seems to be only around 2 or 3 of them working.
One of them is the deep toned/unenthusiastic Figment voice, which is playing towards the start of the scene, and it's what you primarily hear if you are sitting further back. It's quite hilarious to me when there is a hold up like in this video where you hear that deep voice for the extended part of the song. It's also hilarious how the Channing moon projection will pause itself on Eric giving you a straight face after the first iteration of the song loop is over.


For comparison, here is a video from 2003 where the finale had all of its speakers working, it sounds much more lively:
Click to expand...

To me, that just sounds more like an alto is in charge of the mix and determined to have her say for once!


But in all seriousness, yeah. Even if some people in maintenance do care about this attraction enough to occasionally fix up a Figment animatronic, there aren't enough of them to keep this shambling mess running much longer.
 

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