_caleb
Well-Known Member
I know you’re being, um, smart with this comment, but some level of cultural insight makes a huge difference in the quality of Disney’s work in film and in the parks.
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Indiana Jones Adventure refurbishment
- Thread starter DznyRktekt
- Start date
Emmanuel
Well-Known Member
We could be looking at a multi month refurbishment starting after MMRR opens in Toontown and lasting until the summer when Indy 5 is released (Either Memorial Day weekend or June 30th when the movie is released)
Model3 McQueen
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
They need that money for more important things, like the completely unnecessary Splash mountain retheme.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
Joe Rohde and the rest are famous for their sabbaticals.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
Right. And they’re also famous for the amazing work those trips inspired them to do.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
Not always.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
If you were to look at Joe Rohde’s portfolio of work, you’d see some of the most ambitious, successful, and popular themed entertainment environments in the world. If he says that his trips to Nepal were important to his creative process, why would you second guess that?
Hey guess what. Rohde is lost in space now and Imagineering seems to be as well.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
It is amazing how Rohde was forced out and now immediately Imagineering is like, "duh, Zootopia in Animal Kingdom!1111111111"
Animal Kingdom likely stayed amazing because of him. Dark times ahead now that he's gone.
Animal Kingdom likely stayed amazing because of him. Dark times ahead now that he's gone.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
Well, Paradise Pier probably started with site visits to the Santa Monica Pier and Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
Pixar Pier, on the other hand, was inspired by trips to Emeryville, Burbank, and Wall Street.
Rich T
Well-Known Member
Rohde’s done much great work, and AK is a beautiful park, but it could have been a beautiful park without such expensive road trips for ”inspiration.” Spending fortunes and mind-boggling man-hours to recreate painstaking details that most people will never notice might not be as good a use of time and money as… I dunno… maybe designing the big show-off AA yeti in a way that allows it to be fixed in the event that.. y’know… it breaks? Like things do in the real world?
No one’s perfect, corporations waste lots of money every day, and Rhode’s portfolio has ups and downs. Mostly ups, by far, and his (arguable) downs are great fun to discuss. An artist could certainly do worse, and I never would have believed that anyone could make such a fun and charming land out of freaking Avatar.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
Rohde is also the guy that gave us this macaroni sculpture.
I'd hate to see his expense accounts for his flight to Pandora.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
How expensive do you think these inspiration trips were?
Maybe you’re getting hung up on the word “inspiration.” Would you feel differently if we referred to them as “research?”
Attention to details that most people will never notice is the Disney difference.
So you think research trips and the yeti being fixed are mutually exclusive?
Model3 McQueen
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Rohde is also the guy that gave us this macaroni sculpture.
I'd hate to see his expense accounts for his flight to Pandora.
Ah yes.. our beloved WaReHoUsE fOrTrEsS pOwErPlAnT
_caleb
Well-Known Member
Consumer
Well-Known Member
Is this supposed to make it less ugly
Ryan120420
Well-Known Member
Rich T
Well-Known Member
Lines 1&2: I’d rather hire the Imagineers who have created miraculous, beloved attractions without any inspuhresearchicle trips at all.
3: I’m a fan of good theme park design. I know what you mean. But that sentence, “Attention to details that most people will never notice is the Disney difference,” is as potentially hilarious as it is potentially true, and it all comes down to scale. How much money, time and effort are spent on a detail and what’s the guest experience payoff? Is it worth it in the long term? Rolly Crump personally carving tiki gods in the DL parking lot with a tablespoon because otherwise it wouldn’t get done is at the Awesome end of the spectrum. At the other end we have any time and money originally spent on Pleasure Island’s backstory—in my opinion.
4. Results matter. Expedition Everest is a mediocre coaster with a nonfunctioning, hyper-expensive-and-MUCH-ballyhooed AA as the ride’s centerpiece. But, boy, that queue is first-class museum-worthy. I personally think, in this case, the budget could have been doled out differently to create a better attraction.
Again, nobody’s perfect. Rohde’s an artist who has created great things and imperfect things. What artist hasn’t? He has certainly earned his place in theme park history. And in an age where Disney is becoming an increasingly greedy, faceless and soulless media provider, I wish there were more people like him in the company.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
Imagineers—especially when dealing with cultures that aren’t their own—need to do research in order to know how to treat different aspects of the themes and contexts attractions are based on. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to treat a culture with respect when it’s foreign to you, but not necessarily foreign to your audience? And to avoid stereotypes, religious offenses, and social implications?
But you seem to think (without knowing how much money these might actually cost), that they cost too much.
The line between “too much detail that nobody will notice” and “not enough detail and everyone notices” lies somewhere, but (good) imagineers tend to fall on one side of that equation and shrewd businesspeople on the other. But we all know there’s a difference, and that’s why we’re on a WDW fan site and not one for Six Flags.
So you think that if they’d spent more money on the Yeti and less on the queue, the Yeti would work today? Or do you think that if they’d spent less on the queue, there would somehow be extra money laying around to spend toward fixing the Yeti?
And where do you think the imagineers got the inspiration (and artifacts) for Everest’s museum-quality queue? (Hint, it was a research trip.)
I do, too. But not only him—WDI has a long tradition of amazing artists. But takes like yours are why we don’t have more of them. Disney’s thinking is like yours expressed here: “Why do we need that level of detail when so few people notice?” “Why should we do our homework before cultural treatments?”