For a land most originally said they weren't interested in ................

[ItlngrlBella]

I haven't been to the forum in awhile, but the only thing I'm interested are new technologies and upgrades in AA's. I'm sure it will be a land of fiber optics.

We are waiting to go to WDW, because the land that will get us come down there and spend the $ will be Star Wars, because we are nerds like that.

 

[jt04]

Huh...Did you just say that Avatar is a better fit because it's more based in reality than creatures humanity had stories of actually existing? Blue people in an alternative universe is more reality based than a dragon or unicorn?

The story is crafted as a real palace. Same as Star Wars. BK was more in the line of a Fantasyland fable. Nobody actually believes Rapunzel or Snow White are anything more than storytelling. But alien worlds remain a possibility. I guess.

 

[mergatroid]

Wasn't in the least bit interested when it was announced. Now...still not in the least bit interested.

I saw the movie. I enjoyed it. Have no desire to watch it again or see a sequel. No doubt, it sold a lot of tickets, but keep a few things in perspective. It was the largest Imax and 3D release ever. That boosted the money it made considerably. In terms of tickets sold, I don't believe it's in the top 10 of all time.

ETA: #15 in terms of tickets sold.

Again I'm still not quite sure why people insist on using 'stats' on why people bought tickets as an argument over whether the land will be successful or interest people etc? I used the 'stat' that it grossed twice as much as the first and most successful Potter only as a response to somebody using 'stats' to try to make their point. Again are we saying that only top grossing movies of all time can have attractions built for them to be successful, if not why bring this principal up in this debate? Cars wasn't the biggest movie ever and yet look how successful Cars Land has been. Also look closer to home at Universal with multiple attractions based on movies, or even Disney World!

I suppose the most important thing is that those people who want to go (regardless to them of where it stands in the top grossing movies table), enjoy it for whatever it is and enjoy going back to it. For those hating the concept or the fact that they believe people only saw it because it was in 3D, or on Blue ray, or won tickets in a competition or aliens abducted them and put implants in their brains encouraging them to pay to see it and then also buy it on blue ray and dvd, well I guess you'll just have to go on disliking it for quite a while.

 

[Incomudro]

Huh...Did you just say that Avatar is a better fit because it's more based in reality than creatures humanity had stories of actually existing? Blue people in an alternative universe is more reality based than a dragon or unicorn?

Actually, yes blue people in an alternate universe is indeed more reality based than dragons and unicorns.
At least how the story is utilized in this case.

 

[Incomudro]

All of this just made me realize something...
JAWS is my favorite movie.
Read the book before the movie, saw it twice in the theater, owned the vhs, owned the dvd, and own the blue ray.
I know the movie better than any other movie, and even own two Shark City Ozark Bruce replicas.
I had no desire to see the JAWS ride at Universal.
Ever.
I think Avatar is a lame movie. Predictable, cliche', unimaginative - blue people with cat like faces? Lame. Thundercats was cooler and more original.
And yet... WDW built this land.
Designed, engineered, and built this land that we will be able to walk through, gaze up at, and ride the rides that capture the best visuals of the film.
One of my first impressions of WDW, and one that continues is that people made this.
The creativity, the artwork, the labor...
It's what separates rides from theme parks.
Pandora fits this perfectly.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Top grossing: domestically? taking inflation into account? taking higher priced IMAX and 3D tickets into account?

These minutiae don't matter if we recast it thusly: Avatar was one of the top twenty films of all time.

Now that quibbling over a rank or two is moot, the point is that the claim that people aren't familiar with Avatar falls flat in the face of Avatar being "among the top 20 movies ever."

Sure, there is a new generation that may have missed out on it, but they could very well have missed out on so many of Disney's 'classic' movie repertoire, but that doesn't mean we demo Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty castles. How many people in the past 30 years have seen the entirety of the animated versions of Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, or Dumbo? [Disney superfans who populate a Disney discussion board, put your hands down.]

You don't need everyone to have 'seen it' to use it as IP-attraction, just enough people to have seen it. And Avatar has had enough.

One of the reasons Avatar is in the top twenty, however you measure it, is that people went back to see it again and again. There were articles in the newspapers at the time that there were a significant number of people so obsessed with Avatar, that they needed psychological counseling because they got caught up that wondrous world.

You know how children can put Frozen or some other show on the DVD player and watch it again and again and again? There were adults like that caught up with Avatar.

Arguments can be made about its quality holding up to today's standards, or how the original shine has faded, or whether it fits in AK. But an argument that Avatar isn't popular in the sense that it's not well-known just can't fly in the face of reality.

 

[NeedMoreMickey]

Still not interested. Didn't care for the movie and so far what I've seen from pictures I will wait until the newness wears off. Maybe by the time HS will have a new land ready I'll make a visit to the floating mountain.

 

[Eckert]

It's the classic "Say it to my face" moment; it was easier to gripe and pick it apart when it was first announced, but now that Disney built it anyway and it's closer to completion people realize that they can't really do anything about it.

 

[NoTime42]

I think the Pandora visuals and rides will be amazing... but at the end of every Pandora YouTube clip, could Disney please stop using that Navi mother? I feel like she is inviting me to eat Brussel sprouts.
Why can't they have a youthful Navi invite us into a great adventure,

 

[mergatroid]

I think the Pandora visuals and rides will be amazing... but at the end of every Pandora YouTube clip, could Disney please stop using that Navi mother? I feel like she is inviting me to eat Brussel sprouts.
Why can't they have a youthful Navi invite us into a great adventure,

Perhaps they're not 'ageist'

 

[NoTime42]

Perhaps they're not 'ageist'

I thought the movie was about a youthful Navi?

Ok, so let it be the "most interesting Navi in the World (or pandora)"

 

[L.C. Clench]

I think the Pandora visuals and rides will be amazing... but at the end of every Pandora YouTube clip, could Disney please stop using that Navi mother? I feel like she is inviting me to eat Brussel sprouts.
Why can't they have a youthful Navi invite us into a great adventure,

It's only an older Navi because that's what you want. Rohde said you have to develop your own story in this land so just make it a younger one.

 

[RSoxNo1]

It's not a realistic discussion as we have Mysterious Island and will have Pandora to compare. I think most will eventually come around to agreement that Pandora actually respects AK's overarching thematic narrative better... but then again it was built for AK. Of course less would have complained up front about Mysterious Island, because we would have known exactly what was coming. Mysterious Island we already knew was some of WDI's best work.

The only thing fans like more than their ideal armchair imagineering is actual amazing work that exists somewhere outside of their home resort.

Beastly Kingdom exists on cocktail napkins and fanboi's heads. So it's just as amazingly stellar or as sub-par as the person wants it to be.

It had the potential to fit better, but it also had the potential to be a great sounding idea on paper, but not actually live up to it in reality. Kind of like how New Fantasyland in theory was a much better idea for Magic Kingdom than Cars Land was for DCA.

Happily the original park imagineer's heart was clearly in this project and all the right decisions have been made.

This is very true. I've said more or less the same thing about Beastly Kingdom. We romanticize what we expect it to be. It's why we should be pushing for new things that are like Mysterious Island, like Cars Land, like Africa, etc. We want that level of quality, but we also want new things.

 

[Bob Harlem]

Avatar was (and still is) popular only for the visuals, it was *The* go to thing to showcase the fancy new blu ray and 3d TVs for a while, it was the state of the art for 3d/imax, it was pushed heavily as something new and sold that way.

BTW, The marketing campaign for Pandora at DAK is up there with some of the worst promotional campaigns for theme parks anywhere. It's almost Universal Escape bad at failing to get the point across.

It'll be beautiful, lack substance and probably lack maintenance after the first few years, it'll be fun to track how many effects will disappear never to be seen again here.

That said I'm looking forward to seeing it, just tempering expectations.

 

[G00fyDad]

It'll be beautiful, lack substance and probably lack maintenance after the first few years, it'll be fun to track how many effects will disappear never to be seen again here.

That is what we are wrestling with about SWL. Do we want to go to Disney when it opens and deal with the insane crowds or do we want to wait a bit for the crowds to die down only to get a land that is not maintained correctly and missing many of the original features?

 

[L.C. Clench]

The marketing campaign for Pandora at DAK is up there with some of the worst promotional campaigns for theme parks anywhere. It's almost Universal Escape bad at failing to get the point across.

I'm not sure it has a point outside of just "something new". When Rohde said they didn't develop a story for this land that was your first clue this was nothing more than an add on to AK in hopes to boost attendance.

Make your own story may be the new answer to make your own magic.

 

[twebber55]

I'm not sure it has a point outside of just "something new". When Rohde said they didn't develop a story for this land that was your first clue this was nothing more than an add on to AK in hopes to boost attendance.

Make your own story may be the new answer to make your own magic.

BTW Joe has always talked about DAK as a first person park (the adventure is yours). This is why you dont see dark rides about disney movies in the parks like you do at MK
this goes well before the avatar project

 

[Hula Popper]

Wasn't in the least bit interested when it was announced. Now...still not in the least bit interested.

I saw the movie. I enjoyed it. Have no desire to watch it again or see a sequel. No doubt, it sold a lot of tickets, but keep a few things in perspective. It was the largest Imax and 3D release ever. That boosted the money it made considerably. In terms of tickets sold, I don't believe it's in the top 10 of all time.

ETA: #15 in terms of tickets sold.

15th in terms of tickets sold domestically. But of course Avatar made 72.7% of its revenue overseas. Avatar is #3 all-time in terms of revenue adjusted for inflation/estimated tickets sold worldwide behind only Gone With the Wind and Titanic.

Of course some of the older movies in the top 15 domestic list didn't have access to the size of the international market Avatar did, but since its 2009 release, no movie has even come close to touching the money Avatar made overseas. Force Awakens, Furious 7 and Jurassic World, all released in 2015, are the only movies since Avatar to make more than $1 billion overseas (Titanic made $1.5 billion overseas in 1997). None of those three movies made more than $1.2 billion overseas whereas Avatar made more than $2 billion overseas.

Also, some of the movies ahead of Avatar on the domestic tickets sold list have had multiple releases years after the original release that added to their totals. Avatar is a relatively young film in comparison that hasn't had that opportunity. For example:

Empire Strikes Back - 14.7 million of its 98.1 million tickets were sold in 1997 - 17 years after its original release.

101 Dalmations - 23.5 million of its 100 million tickets were sold in 1985 and or 1991 - decades after the original release.

Snow White - 31.5 million of its 109 million tickets were sold in 1983, 1987 and 1993 - decades after the original release.

Avatar would move up to at least 12th domestically if you looked at tickets sold for the original release.

I was actually someone who didn't see Avatar until DirecTV On Demand, several years after its release. Although it was entertaining, it's certainly not anywhere near one of my personal favorite movies. And I wasn't at all in agreement with WDW's decision to add a Pandora-land to AK. But there's no diminishing the success it had at the box office - particularly on a global scale.

 

[monothingie]

15th in terms of tickets sold domestically. But of course Avatar made 72.7% of its revenue overseas. Avatar is #3 all-time in terms of revenue adjusted for inflation/estimated tickets sold worldwide behind only Gone With the Wind and Titanic.

Of course some of the older movies in the top 15 domestic list didn't have access to the size of the international market Avatar did, but since its 2009 release, no movie has even come close to touching the money Avatar made overseas. Force Awakens, Furious 7 and Jurassic World, all released in 2015, are the only movies since Avatar to make more than $1 billion overseas (Titanic made $1.5 billion overseas in 1997). None of those three movies made more than $1.2 billion overseas whereas Avatar made more than $2 billion overseas.

Also, some of the movies ahead of Avatar on the domestic tickets sold list have had multiple releases years after the original release that added to their totals. Avatar is a relatively young film in comparison that hasn't had that opportunity. For example:

Empire Strikes Back - 14.7 million of its 98.1 million tickets were sold in 1997 - 17 years after its original release.

101 Dalmations - 23.5 million of its 100 million tickets were sold in 1985 and or 1991 - decades after the original release.

Snow White - 31.5 million of its 109 million tickets were sold in 1983, 1987 and 1993 - decades after the original release.

Avatar would move up to at least 12th domestically if you looked at tickets sold for the original release.

I was actually someone who didn't see Avatar until DirecTV On Demand, several years after its release. Although it was entertaining, it's certainly not anywhere near one of my personal favorite movies. And I wasn't at all in agreement with WDW's decision to add a Pandora-land to AK. But there's no diminishing the success it had at the box office - particularly on a global scale.

And if/when the sequel(s) bomb.....

 

[twebber55]

And if/when the sequel(s) bomb.....

is James Cameron known for movies that bomb?