The figure didn’t come from Spirit Halloween. You don’t just plop it down and plug it into an outlet.
I think there is room for some nuance between “I bring it down from the attic and plug it in” and “this took 14 months from announcement to installation; nearly five months of bona fide construction”.
Then don’t make comments that very clearly ignore the type of work involved.
You’re right. They should have left it in the attic.
I didn’t decide to announce a modest addition 14 months out. Thank goodness they didn’t announce the Candleman in August 2022…
Obviously it's not a spirit Halloween figure you just plug in. But the time taken seems excessive considering this isn't their first rodeo with AAs or this exact install. It is kind of odd to announce it, then go 16 months at least before it's done.
Just to clarify, is it your position that it should reasonably take 14 months (or more, considering it wasn't announced the same day they approved the project) to install one AA figure?
It’s not that odd when you recognize that many Disney projects are announced very early in the project development process. At some point the bellyaching about this is just deliberate ignorance. Yeah it’s kind of dumb but it’s what happens, so there shouldn’t be any surprise by the lack of visible work for some time after announcements.
Disney announces projects very early in the design process. They’ve even announced them before serious design work has actually begun (see TRON). I don’t know if that’s exactly the case here, but it should be generally understood that a lot of work has not actually been done when Disney announces a project.
This one animatronic took 20 percent as long as it took Universal to build an entirely new theme park.
Personally I don't care either way. I get what you're saying, things are different from place to place. Everything you said about the logistics is exactly right. The only thing I'd disagree with is the they haven't done it before. They installed it in Disneyland, yea it's not the exact same, but I don't see a years worth of figuring it out.
16 months doesn't seem that ridiculous. Consider how long the IT departments of most large companies take just to deploy a piece of software, particularly when they're working on legacy infrastructure. It's more that it's perceptually problematic because they initiate the hype cycle way too early to maintain interest, particularly when the addition is so small relative to the overall experience.
The location is what drives those logistical needs. As I said, I am assuming with little evidence that the location change was not fully settled when the project was announced and that is the sort of thing that would have been a definite kink in Disney’s bureaucracy.
It’s always going to be easier to do show install in a new facility custom built for that purpose versus adding to an existing, operating facility. But you are assuming that you’re comparing build time to build time which often is not the case with recent project where people compare build time to design and build time. A new park is also going to be given a scale of resources that isn’t comparable to a new show element. Disney definitely has issues with their project timelines that appear worse because of their marketing strategy, but people also too often assume an unrealistic pace of work.
I'd say that's kind of on Disney. Like you said, they announce things way too early. Especially for how they structure their builds And we also see the pace of work that can happen down the street. Disney is notoriously slow at building anything. That's why people are questioning this build out. It did take them like 5 years to build a mildly theamed BBQ place.
You see, Disneyland was built in a year with 1950s technology. But now that we have 2020s technology, it takes longer than that to install and program a single audio animatronic.
Hey this is entirely new groundbreaking technology!
