News Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind attraction confirmed for Epcot

[Incomudro]

Did you get upset when a leprechaun didn't try to steal your breakfast cereal or a giant, anthropomorphic cheetah failed to show up when you opened a bag of cheese snacks? Yes, people know to interpret explicit advertising material non-literally. Officially released concept art, on the other hand, is supposed to give a much more literal impression of the final product. Things might change during development, but if they do the publicly released concept art should change - when a company keeps using the same concept art over and over, they are attempting to create the impression that it accurately reflects the final product.

It's understandable why Disney leaned so heavily on the image in question - the actual attraction is uniformly visually unimpressive and the cost-cut preshow is stunningly lackluster. The continued use of the misleading concept art merely highlights the extent to which Disney knew that their budget slashing (on a ride that was still the most expensive ever built) was producing a much less appealing product then was initially suggested.

You're misunderstanding me.
Concept art isn't literal - I don't expect it to be, I made that quite clear.

 

[Incomudro]

How many times must it be stated that “concept art” is not always from the concept design phase? Seriously, why is this so hard to understand?

But it's concept art.
Why is this so hard to understand?

 

[UNCgolf]

But it's concept art.
Why is this so hard to understand?

It's not always concept art is the point. It's become a catch-all phrase and doesn't always refer to actual concept art. Sometimes, as in the case of the Riviera, it's a final rendering based off the actual blueprints -- not "concept" art in any way.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I'm totally on board with what you're saying. Keep up the good fight! Maybe this will help:

Concept Art: During the conceiving of what the ride **might** look like, artists draw out a possible look of the attraction. There not only may be, but will probably be, elements that don't actually get made (e.g., the trench part of SDD or the Barn Store in Toy Story Land). The art is made before final plans are finalized. Things can be changed due to engineering concerns, operational concerns, differing design choices, or the dread "value engineering," which is just trying to stay in budget.

Artist Rendering (of finalized plans): Once everything is finalized and blueprints are given to contractors to build, Disney can release an artist's rendering of what it will look like. Actually, they don't have to... they have the CAD drawings to create a 3D realistic rendering. But, they chose to give it to an artist to make it artsy by applying filters and blurring it and adding landscaping and people into the drawing. As @lazyboy97o mentioned above, the artist rendering of Riviera was based on the finalized plans. Not "conceptual" at all.

Promotional Art: Like the Artist Rendering, but designed to market the attraction. Make take liberties by adding fantastical elements, like one of the characters from the IP actually riding the ride, even though it's never intended to happen.

This is a decent summary of the ends of a spectrum. There is though a whole process in the middle that really gets glossed over. So many keep talking about creating the concept and then creating the plans which is about two phases of work. This is largely how the process is presented not just by Disney but even others in popular culture like HGTV. We see the pretty images that were the “concept” and then we see people building. We’re shown that Herb Roman rendering of Disneyland and told that was start, but it was a weekend’s effort so there were probably lot of sketches that Herb worked through as Walt painted a word picture.

The design process though is actually six phases: Blue Sky, concept design, schematic design, design development, construction documentation (and with the way things can change even during construction it probably counts as a seventh). It’s not a linear process but more of a rolling ball, cycling around, back and forth as it moves forwards. Each phase is more detailed than the prior but not necessarily in ways that are going to make sense to the wider public. If you look up the Swiss Pavilion pitch deck that the other site got a copy of a few years ago you’ll see plans with retail fixtures, seating layouts, restrooms, etc; something most people would just call plans but are actually nowhere near enough information to actually build. As a pitch for sponsors that document, with so much detail, might not even count as a complete concept design. A lot of the art that gets released is based on some level of formalized plans based on when it that process it was created. The Epic Universe aerial render wasn’t made to guide the park, it was created off the plans that existed at that time, but not the complete plans. Even the notion of “final plans” is not entirely true as the ideal scenario of plans being drawn and then given to a contractor to build, things keep changing and getting worked out.

In the case of things like Riviera, it’s a bit more than the art being based on the plans. It is the plans. Back when New Fantasyland was being built, Disney released a couple of videos about how they were using 3D models to figure out where things like air ducts go. Those 3D models weren’t something extra done to figure things out, they were the 3D model created by the architects and engineers which are used to create the 2D blueprints. That very same 3D model can be directly rendered. Even when the model isn’t directly rendered, it can be painted over and embellished by an artist, either way, the line between concept and plan. It’s true the other way too, a digital artist might make a 3D model as the “concept art”, something that could be illustrated by another artist and even integrated into the “blueprint” model.

 

[mergatroid]

What's ironic is that the last few pages people appeared to be falling over each other blasting Disney for putting out 'art' showing things different to the end result. I actually agreed. Somebody also said that "The public shouldn't be blamed for not knowing whether concept art is the final product or not" (or words to that effect). People saying "I don't understand what people don't get" etc.

When it's Universal doing it all of a sudden we get lectures about all the different types of art. Paragraph after paragraph explaining the complexities of said art and the differences in what is expected or permissible at each stage. All of a sudden it's as though it's the guest fault for not understanding the nuances of different art stages that Universal release, how dare those pesky guests not educate themselves before looking at Uni's marketing art

 

[mergatroid]

Again, the issue is not that an image was not exactly recreated. These pieces are also clearly advertising collages, not “concept art,” with there being little concern for things like scale and perspective.

It actually says 'Artist conceptual rendering' on the bottom of the art? Also the scale is misleading but you've probably not noticed, it took me a while too. The large dinosaur on this one isn't a larger dinosaur, if you look at his tail it becomes apparent that he or she, (they're difficult to sex) is in front of the track rather than towering behind it. The fact you didn't realise that kind of shows that the artists conceptual rendering is either deliberately misleading or the positioning of his head and mouth is badly placed making it look as though he's trying to bite the ride vehicle thus conveying the size as being much larger.

The reason I realised it was misleading and looked again was purely because I didn't think that raptors got that big so looked much closer. In essence I suppose you're saying that it's the guests responsibility to go and find the definition of 'Artist Conceptual Rendering' and find it's definition (A conceptual rendering will capture the spirit and direction of a project, but the creative process will continue as the work is developed, fabricated, and installed.) rather than believe that the art work released by Universal is that accurate?

When you say "These pieces are also clearly advertising collages, not “concept art,” how is the average Joe going to know this? Also why does it literally say "Artist Conceptual Rendering" in the bottom left hand corner if it's not? I'm not well up on all the different types of art so googled "Artist Conceptual Rending", "Conceptual Art" and "Advertising collages" to better educate myself.

Artist Conceptual Rendering = A conceptual rendering will capture the spirit and direction of a project, but the creative process will continue as the work is developed, fabricated, and installed.

Concept Art = concept art is the idea of what the character, environment, or prop might look like. Illustration is when you put all of those elements into one image to tell a story

Advertising Collages I couldn't even find? The closest I can get is Media Collages which is defined = Collage is a type of mixed media work. The term “mixed media” refers to a work that incorporates multiple visual materials. The resultant work may be two- or three-dimensional.

So it would appear that 'Concept Art' and 'Artist Conceptual Rendering' appear to be very similar in definition? They both capture the spirit, direction or idea of the project and what it might look like. So when you say that it's clearly not concept art (despite it officially saying Artist Conceptual Rendering) it seems like you may be wrong going off those definitions?

Wow, who thought 'concept art' could be so complex

 

[Casper Gutman]

The Tower of Terror ADVERTISEMENT is fine. The Cosmic Rewind ADVERTISEMENT is fine. Those are Walt Disney World ADVERTISEMENTS. People know not to take those literally, just like noone takes the Trix Rabbit or Chester Cheetah or Axe Body Spray ads literally.

Concept art used for PR over many years during a rides development is a different thing in a different context intentionally inviting different interpretations. Concept art is presented as a largely accurate image of what is being built. Again, different things are different, and completely baseless accusations of bad faith that ignore what other posters are clearly and repeatedly saying doesn't change that.

Universal doesn't come in for as much criticism about misleading concept art because their approach to PR regarding new attractions is entirely different. They don't generally announce rides until well after construction has begun, until everyone who is interested knows what is being built from non-official sources. Because of this, they don't tend to announce entire attractions they never build, as Disney did with the Main Street Theatre - Universal has repeatedly cancelled plans for makeovers of the Fear Factor Theater or Kidzone (at one point the construction walls were even up before plans changed) but they don't catch as much criticism because those makeovers were never actually announced. Relatedly, they also tend not to lean heavily on concept art over multiple years, shamelessly grasping for attention while dragging out the development and construction process as long as possible. Again, different things are different.

 

[mergatroid]

I think in the Hagrid's case, it's absolute crap. (I like the ride, mind you)

I could understand this one creating a ton of confusion for people who've actually already been to the land because what they show, frankly, IS a major way they do things in Forbidden Journey. Based on that commercial, it looks more like a simulator or simulator hybrid than the actual coaster it is.

Here though, Disney led the way, too.

Take this commercial from 1994 for Tower of Terror:



Now, I love ToT but the ride they show in the commercial simply doesn't exist and I recall friends reactions the first time they rode it and were confused about sitting down and getting lap bars because of the commercials (they had lap bars back then).

Also, Alien Encounter was shown like like a classic style attraction with plenty of in-theater visuals; oozing slime, shots of parts of the alien outside the capsule, etc. none of which were in the actual attraction. (I couldn't find the commercial for that one)

In the case of Alien, I sort of understand because it's really hard to make a TV commercial about something that happens all in the dark but the commercial really did project the idea of a much more complete experience than you got.

The false way things are presented has always bugged me and yeah, although I don't have examples front of mind beyond what you're showing (mostly because I don't watch live TV anymore to see the commercials and for a long time Universal was simply not interesting enough to me to try to keep track of), Universal doesn't get a pass for it in my book, either.

Yup, agree with all of that. I've never liked Disney or Universal advertising rides using CGI to create a different or better illusion of the attraction when it's already built and could just be done more honestly. Sometimes it's so obvious (like an animated tink landing on a childs shoulder) that you know that's not going to happen like that, however none of it's necessary and like you I think it's wrong to do.

 

[lazyboy97o]

What's ironic is that the last few pages people appeared to be falling over each other blasting Disney for putting out 'art' showing things different to the end result. I actually agreed. Somebody also said that "The public shouldn't be blamed for not knowing whether concept art is the final product or not" (or words to that effect). People saying "I don't understand what people don't get" etc.

When it's Universal doing it all of a sudden we get lectures about all the different types of art. Paragraph after paragraph explaining the complexities of said art and the differences in what is expected or permissible at each stage. All of a sudden it's as though it's the guest fault for not understanding the nuances of different art stages that Universal release, how dare those pesky guests not educate themselves before looking at Uni's marketing art

The distinction was noted because YOU, tried to equate advertisements with pieces made to illustrate specific scenes.

It actually says 'Artist conceptual rendering' on the bottom of the art? Also the scale is misleading but you've probably not noticed, it took me a while too. The large dinosaur on this one isn't a larger dinosaur, if you look at his tail it becomes apparent that he or she, (they're difficult to sex) is in front of the track rather than towering behind it. The fact you didn't realise that kind of shows that the artists conceptual rendering is either deliberately misleading or the positioning of his head and mouth is badly placed making it look as though he's trying to bite the ride vehicle thus conveying the size as being much larger.

The reason I realised it was misleading and looked again was purely because I didn't think that raptors got that big so looked much closer. In essence I suppose you're saying that it's the guests responsibility to go and find the definition of 'Artist Conceptual Rendering' and find it's definition (A conceptual rendering will capture the spirit and direction of a project, but the creative process will continue as the work is developed, fabricated, and installed.) rather than believe that the art work released by Universal is that accurate?

When you say "These pieces are also clearly advertising collages, not “concept art,” how is the average Joe going to know this? Also why does it literally say "Artist Conceptual Rendering" in the bottom left hand corner if it's not? I'm not well up on all the different types of art so googled "Artist Conceptual Rending", "Conceptual Art" and "Advertising collages" to better educate myself.

Artist Conceptual Rendering = A conceptual rendering will capture the spirit and direction of a project, but the creative process will continue as the work is developed, fabricated, and installed.

Concept Art = concept art is the idea of what the character, environment, or prop might look like. Illustration is when you put all of those elements into one image to tell a story

Advertising Collages I couldn't even find? The closest I can get is Media Collages which is defined = Collage is a type of mixed media work. The term “mixed media” refers to a work that incorporates multiple visual materials. The resultant work may be two- or three-dimensional.

So it would appear that 'Concept Art' and 'Artist Conceptual Rendering' appear to be very similar in definition? They both capture the spirit, direction or idea of the project and what it might look like. So when you say that it's clearly not concept art (despite it officially saying Artist Conceptual Rendering) it seems like you may be wrong going off those definitions?

Wow, who thought 'concept art' could be so complex

Different types of art have different purposes. Some art is made to convey an overall idea while other pieces are made to illustrate something specific. Two different purposes that are going to both be called “concept art.” It’s a phrase that covers a wide variety of purposes. A rendering of permitted blueprints is also called concept art.

The term you’re looking for is “CYA”. The ads says “artist conceptual rendering” because they’re not photos or illustrations of actual scenes. They are collages of various elements, some from the attraction and others that are not.

 

[mergatroid]

The distinction was noted because YOU, tried to equate advertisements with pieces made to illustrate specific scenes.


Different types of art have different purposes. Some art is made to convey an overall idea while other pieces are made to illustrate something specific. Two different purposes that are going to both be called “concept art.” It’s a phrase that covers a wide variety of purposes. A rendering of permitted blueprints is also called concept art.

The term you’re looking for is “CYA”. The ads says “artist conceptual rendering” because they’re not photos or illustrations of actual scenes. They are collages of various elements, some from the attraction and others that are not.

Yet you said

"These pieces are also clearly advertising collages, not “concept art,”

So they're concept art but they're also not concept art, which is it?

I'm sure several other folks were saying that it's not the guests fault if Disney produce some art that ends up being inaccurate, that's why I've pointed it out. Yet when Universal do similar we're supposed to know it's like a different set of rules? Surely the rules are the same for all? I've quoted you only because you've contradicted yourself by saying it's clearly not concept art and yet are telling me it is concept art but there's different types of concept art?

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

Yet you said

So they're concept art but they're also not concept art, which is it?

I'm sure several other folks were saying that it's not the guests fault if Disney produce some art that ends up being inaccurate, that's why I've pointed it out. Yet when Universal do similar we're supposed to know it's like a different set of rules? Surely the rules are the same for all? I've quoted you only because you've contradicted yourself by saying it's clearly not concept art and yet are telling me it is concept art but there's different types of concept art?

The use of some context clues would do you wonders in this situation. What's being said is not contradictory, and pretty easy to determine for anyone who's actually interested in understanding rather than just kicking up dust.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Yet you said

So they're concept art but they're also not concept art, which is it?

I'm sure several other folks were saying that it's not the guests fault if Disney produce some art that ends up being inaccurate, that's why I've pointed it out. Yet when Universal do similar we're supposed to know it's like a different set of rules? Surely the rules are the same for all? I've quoted you only because you've contradicted yourself by saying it's clearly not concept art and yet are telling me it is concept art but there's different types of concept art?

I never referred to the Velocicoaster ads as concept art. Again, that was YOU in this weird gotcha you’re trying to play using very different things. The ads were created as ads. There were released as ads. They are not the same thing as a piece of art depicting a specific scene.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

So anyway, about that Cosmic Rewind . . .

 

[mergatroid]

So anyway, about that Cosmic Rewind . . .

Indeed, a truly splendid attraction going off reviews

 

[khlaylav]

So anyway, about that Cosmic Rewind . . .

It sure Cosmics and Rewinds, doesn't it?

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

Indeed, a truly splendid attraction going off reviews

It was pretty meh for me. And despite what anyone will believe, I did go in wanting to like it.

It's fun, sure, but the phrase in my mind when I got off was "shockingly threadbare".

 

[trainplane3]

It was pretty meh for me. And despite what anyone will believe, I did go in wanting to like it.

It's fun, sure, but the phrase in my mind when I got off was "shockingly threadbare".

The story just keeps making less sense the more I think about it. I remember in GotG 1 how those little ships did nothing with holding back whatever it was and somehow they're holding back a giant space god?

Give me a version with that UoE intro theme they have a 90 second recording laying around of. Still probably would've enjoyed a storyless energy coaster more.

Also, the night lighting package on the UoE building is shockingly bad in person. Like, really bad. This picture probably isn't fair to use but the whole building is incredibly bland looking:

I'm willing to excuse the other pavilions since they were from a different generation. But looking at how nice the Creations/Connections walkway is and the entire entrance plaza including the restrooms and then you have this as your flagship attraction? Someone dropped the ball along the way. Oh and there isn't an external pavilion loop, is there? It's just the entrance plaza music with some spaceship hum, right?

 

[donsullivan]

Indeed, a truly splendid attraction going off reviews

A truly splendid attraction based on actual experiences and rides as well.

 

[disneygeek90]

Both of my past two ride, last Saturday and yesterday, featured at least two broken screens. Really hope that issue isn’t lasting longer than a few hours or even a day because it is woefully noticeable when there’s just a big dark empty wall next to you.

 

[wdwmagic]

Both of my past two ride, last Saturday and yesterday, featured at least two broken screens. Really hope that issue isn’t lasting longer than a few hours or even a day because it is woefully noticeable when there’s just a big dark empty wall next to you.

Interesting, do you recall which ones?