UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
What's worse is that for all those self-imposed restrictions, it's still one of the best rides built at WDW this century.
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What's worse is that for all those self-imposed restrictions, it's still one of the best rides built at WDW this century.
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
It is Pandora's Small World ride....without a catchy tune. lol
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
That was kind of my point - they looked and said "hey, there's this unused space here, can we do something cool with it?" and thought that would be enough, but it isn't. Nobody who doesn't already know this walks off Na'vi River Journey and says "all things considered, this is definitely better than the large empty stockroom this could have been". They look and say "considering how much time and money I sunk to be able to ride this thing, did it deliver an awesome experience"? And if the answer is no, then no amount of explanation will suffice to change their mind.
That's the blessing and the curse of this medium - you've got to grab people by the throat with how good the experience is on its own merits. When you get it right people will build their lives around coming to see what you made - but when it tanks it tends to tank hard, and you don't get an explanation from the people behind the scenes to say "actually, that was a good ride if you look at how it worked out on paper". The constraints don't matter, the spreadsheets don't matter, the dollars saved don't matter - either it delivers for the guest or it doesn't, and they are the ones who decide if it's a success or not.
That's part of the great shame of MyMagic+ and Genie+ . . . remember how people called it a shell game? They were looking for ways to spread people out, discouraging you somewhat from already-popular attractions to help move you to attractions they weren't necessarily actually interested in riding because the line was shorter or you had a free Fastpass. That's a cheaper way to optimize the performance of the parks and their attractions than to simply spending the money make all your attractions world-class experiences that people actually want to devote time to.
They want to add more factors into the equation than the empirical, guest-dependent decision of "that ride seems good and I'd like to ride it".
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
There are fourteen moons
And one gas giant.
We just wish the blues
Were more compliant.
Can't they just give us some
More unobtanium?
It's a small Pandora after all!
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
not like there's a ton on nominees for that award, though. :/
No Name
Well-Known Member
That’s a fiery hot take!
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Is it? To me it's a better (in terms of execution, place setting, attention to detail, etc.) ride than Little Mermaid, Seven Dwarfs, Alien Swirling Saucers, Smugglers Run, Slinky Dog, Toy Story Mania, Finding Nemo, Magic Carpets of Aladdin, Imagination, Frozen Ever After, Mission: Space, Ratatouille, Test Track 2.0, Triceratops Spin, Primeval Whirl, and Soarin'.
I'm not going to say it's better than Flight of Passage, even though I think I personally enjoy it more if all things were equal (i.e. if they were both always a walk-on I'd probably ride NRJ 6 or 7 times out of 10). It's not better than fully functioning Expedition Everest, although I might prefer it to the current diminished version (not just the Yeti, which I never saw operational anyways, but all of the other missing effects). I haven't been on Rise or MMRR, but I'm okay with calling them better.
I think that's every ride that's opened at WDW this century, although I could be forgetting one or two.
Obviously it's all subjective and there are several rides on my list that many people will prefer to NRJ, but I don't think anyone would have it in their bottom 5 and a significant number wouldn't have it in their bottom 10. That's not the same as best, of course, but I was only talking about my personal opinion with that modifier anyways.
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UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I've always thought this was the biggest issue most people have with NRJ. It's not a 60+ minute wait kind of ride, so of course people are let down when they wait that long to ride it. If it was at the Magic Kingdom, where it would probably have waits more in line with something like Winnie the Pooh, I think people would appreciate it far more for what it is.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
It's funny to me that part of the reason the New Fantasyland project came about was because of the problem where "The smallest guests were waiting in the longest lines for the shortest rides" . . . so they built Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, which solves approximately none of those problems.
Similar could be said for Na'vi River Journey - most of the attractions in Animal Kingdom throw you around to some extent, and there are few tame enough for the whole family to enjoy together . . . which means the line for the newest one that everyone can ride will always have a ridiculous wait that never seems worth it, because the demographic for Na'vi River Journey is simply too large and has too few alternatives within that park.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
Where do you see this?
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Little Mermaid solves them! Although that's because it's not very good so people don't really care about riding it, which was certainly not the intention.
No Name
Well-Known Member
Yes
Yeah of course there’s nothing wrong with that opinion, I just think most would indeed have it in their bottom 10, nor did I take “one of the best” to include the entire top half.
For one thing, the website TouringPlans takes detailed surveys similar to Disney’s GSATs, and NRJ is pretty much lower than everything on that list but Imagination, Nemo, Mermaid, the green Mission:Space, and the flat rides (except among little kids). So that’s like 13.5th place. TouringPlans probably isn’t the most representative sample (though I don’t know any specific bias) but really there’s not much objective stuff to go off of. I’d just bet good money that if you asked 100 random guests, NRJ wouldn’t sit toward the top for most.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
As I said above, though, the wait time is a major factor in GSAT scores. I bet the GSAT scores for NRJ would be significantly higher if people were only waiting 20 minutes to ride it instead of an hour or longer. That's true for every ride to an extent, but NRJ is a C ticket with D or sometimes E ticket wait times. That makes it underwhelming almost by default for average guests.
Physical thrill also has a major effect on GSATs. Roller coasters almost always have high guest satisfaction ratings, but a ride like Slinky Dog Dash (or Primeval Whirl before it closed) is close to being an off the shelf coaster that you can ride all over the country. Disney could probably drop in 5 off the shelf coasters around the parks and they'd all get good GSAT scores, but that wouldn't mean they were great attractions. Even Kali River Rapids has pretty good scores on Touring Plans.
I don't think it makes any sense to argue they're better attractions in terms of overall design than a ride like NRJ. Of course ride design is subjective too, but that was the basis of my argument -- and I didn't expect many people to agree regardless.
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BrianLo
Well-Known Member
I just want to point out to @yensidtlaw1969 and @UNCgolf that you do not stop in Shanghai Pirates in front of screens. Apart from perhaps the reverse section briefly. There is constant motion with the Imax portions.
As someone who takes major issues with both Gringott's and Ratatouille over these perceived issues, I will say videos again do not do it justice. A common refrain. The integration looks way worse in still video frames than it really is.
As someone who takes major issues with both Gringott's and Ratatouille over these perceived issues, I will say videos again do not do it justice. A common refrain. The integration looks way worse in still video frames than it really is.
Yes. I m well aware of its length
EricsBiscuit
Well-Known Member
Not to mention the score is amazing.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I know you don't stop -- it's the fact that in places screens and action on them are a replacement for physical sets/AAs. That's the ride's biggest failing. The fact that you're moving while looking at the screens doesn't really make a difference to the way I perceive them and how they break my immersion.
Again, though, it looks like a tremendous ride. It's not like we're arguing it's a poorly made, bad ride. Screens used in the way they're used in places on Shanghai Pirates just fundamentally don't work for some people, so those areas are flawed for us.
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yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
I'm aware, hence my use of quotes around "parked" (in front of the screen). The motion of the boat relative to the action onscreen is minimal. The sideways crawl hardly provides sufficient simulator effect relative to the dramatic forward, downward, and upward motions the projections suggest you're doing - In effect, you are essentially stopped in front of the screens, despite not being literally stopped.
I do find it funny how I can sing the praises of so many elements of this attraction, but my dislike of this one point becomes so contentious. Unfortunately, I don't really expect to be swayed - Projection domes without a sufficient motion base (or 3D glasses, which I don't love but do at least increase the impact of video) are already too much of a shortcut to storytelling for my tastes, and then on top of that leaving edge of the screen nearest guests so plainly unmasked . . . It's one thing when it's the top edge 40 feet above the riders' heads, but right there? I don't accept it - there are simple solutions to this that could have been utilized and weren't. They cost money, sure, but they have it. It shouldn't be expected that we wave our attention away, it should not be visible.
If you want to call your attraction seamless then you must either hide the seams or feature them meaningfully. The nearest they come to featuring it is this moment where the waterline meets that of the surface of the ocean in the video, but it's a little undone by 2 things - 1) That we "rise" from the depths of the ocean to the surface right before this moment, taking us from a bit where we're meant to ignore the edge of the screen as we have so far in the ride, then immediately to one where it suddenly "counts", which is an odd choice that would have been improved by some physical separation of these moments, and 2) By not taking the opportunity to have jets of actual water shoot out along the edge of the screen in conjunction with the Flying Dutchman breaching the surface - intsead the rushing water onscreen immediately just stops and the water we ride through is awkwardly still, even though we're suddenly meant feel we're on the same plane as all the ships on the screen:
Let me be clear, none of this "tanks" the attraction - it's still very good and has lots of exceptional features. But these sorts of moments are just such a turn-off for me, likely because the attraction has so many strengths. I simply expect better integration of the screens if they're going to be such a meaningful part of the experience - and if they can't be integrated then I wish they'd have found ways to navigate with less of them. I think they are the weakest points of a great attraction and that editing them out or raising their grade would have made the attraction virtually unimpeachable. Though I am still disappointed by how few Animatronics there are, given how Pirates historically is known for having so many.
But now we're wildly off topic.
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UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
By the way, as for NRJ -- I was thinking about it more and I think this is the easiest way to sum up my feelings. It's not even really about the quality of NRJ itself but about the overall design ethos behind it.
If Disney was going to give someone $300m to build a new E ticket dark ride in the vein of things like Spaceship Earth, Splash Mountain, POTC, and Haunted Mansion, and you had to pick someone to design it based on one ride of NRJ, Frozen Ever After, Slinky Dog Dash, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Ratatouille, and Toy Story Mania, I think the NRJ designer is the easy pick based on the overall attention to detail in that attraction. I'd have more faith they would build something approaching the quality of the aforementioned attractions than any of the other designers (for the sake of argument here this is a blind pick where you know nothing else about the people beyond those specific attractions -- also if you threw in the Shanghai Pirates designer they'd be my #2 choice over the others!). That's my favorite type of ride, so of course I'm going to prefer/enjoy something that leans closer to them in overall execution.
And that's my last comment regarding NRJ in this thread.
If Disney was going to give someone $300m to build a new E ticket dark ride in the vein of things like Spaceship Earth, Splash Mountain, POTC, and Haunted Mansion, and you had to pick someone to design it based on one ride of NRJ, Frozen Ever After, Slinky Dog Dash, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Ratatouille, and Toy Story Mania, I think the NRJ designer is the easy pick based on the overall attention to detail in that attraction. I'd have more faith they would build something approaching the quality of the aforementioned attractions than any of the other designers (for the sake of argument here this is a blind pick where you know nothing else about the people beyond those specific attractions -- also if you threw in the Shanghai Pirates designer they'd be my #2 choice over the others!). That's my favorite type of ride, so of course I'm going to prefer/enjoy something that leans closer to them in overall execution.
And that's my last comment regarding NRJ in this thread.
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