lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Now put those in chronological order and you’ll notice a trend after 2006. The franchise mandate is not a secret.
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EPCOT Inside Out to Replace Journey into Imagination with Figment?
- Thread starter Just4Pics
- Start date
huwar18
Well-Known Member
Actually, Animal Kingdom has a lot of IPs. Nemo show, Lion King, Bug’s Life show, Up bird show, Dinosaur... there are probably things I am missing. Also, Disney doesn’t own Aerosmith. It’s not an IP of Disney’s.
starri42
Well-Known Member
They didn't own Avatar when Pandora opened either. Nor do they own the Twilight Zone. Nor did they own Star Wars or Indiana Jones when they started using them in the parks.
They're still intellectual properties being designed to hook guests. They're just not all IPs that are owned directly.
huwar18
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I agree. Those would still be IPs integrated into the parks. It just shows the push for IP driven attractions. If used appropriately, IP attractions don’t bother me. Especially, in a park like Hollywood Studios. It is basically the new Universal. The Tower of Terror is basically an original attraction. It just takes place in the Twilight Zone universe. Those are the types of IP attractions they need to create.
starri42
Well-Known Member
I totally agree with that. I'm just saying that using IP is not a recent idea.
Not a recent idea (Even the Jungle Cruise, an opening day attraction at Disneyland, was somewhat tied into the True Life Adventure series Walt had produced) but there was always a pretty good amount of equality between using IPs and not using IPs.
However, there is currently NO project that is greenlit without shoehorning an IP into it, whether it works thematically or not. Pixar Pier is embarrassing in every respect. Guardians DCA, while a fun ride, is out of place and looks hideous. Guardians at Epcot has no place in Future World.
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lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
You don’t see a difference between using and only being allowed to use?
starri42
Well-Known Member
Look, I got nothin' for Pixar Pier. I've never been to California Adventure, but so much about it doesn't make any sense to me. Especially why I'm supposed to think taking an area that didn't work in two previous incarnations and hosing it down in Pixar juice is somehow an improvement.
I'll reserve judgement on Mission Breakout until the rest of the Avengers move in.
Nor am I going to judge the Guardians at Epcot until I know what the ride actual is. I mean, beyond the basic mechanics that we already know.
Honestly? If the end result is a good ride, I don't.
RoysCabin
Well-Known Member
Right: Jungle Cruise drew from the True Life Adventure series, Frontierland from Davy Crockett, etc., Pirates got some inspiration from various Disney works including Treasure Island, but each were allowed to become their own thing independent of the inspiration behind them, and each was implemented to supplement the theming and experience of the area they were placed in. Fantasyland is where there was the more direct "experience parts of the movies you remember" vibe, but that Fantasyland style is now pretty much overtaking everything they do in the parks. Selfishly speaking, as a kid I probably was least interested in Fantasyland (never disliked it, just not quite as into it), so the trend in that direction hasn't sat well with me as an adult.
Plus, there's the shelf life of the IPs involved; nobody doubts that Inside Out, for example, is a fine film, and will certainly have legs under it for many years to come, but is that good enough material to create a potentially timeless attraction? Pirates became timeless in large part because it drew from pirate-related IPs, it didn't directly lift its entire narrative and character from them; the original Imagination was timeless, using original characters, music, and settings you couldn't experience elsewhere; Peter Pan has become a timeless ride because it gives you that experience of flight, not merely because "hey, look, it's the story of Peter Pan...in RIDE form!" The Finding Nemo ride at the Seas does that latter approach, and it's pretty much the most forgettable ride in the park.
starri42
Well-Known Member
Up until I stepped foot on Fight of Passage, I would have asked the same about Avatar.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Davy Crockett was a breakout mini series from Disneyland. Frontierland came first.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
The original Fantasyland rides in Florida took great liberties with the movies they were based on. The devils in Mr. Toad, Atlantis in 20,000 Leagues, the witch crushing you in the dwarfs' mine etc. were all invented to make the attractions more interesting as ride-through experiences and helped to tell their own stories.
There's a difference between taking inspiration from a movie and being strictly faithful to it.
RoysCabin
Well-Known Member
That's true; a lot of the common early complaints about many of the Fantasyland rides was "where's Snow White?", "where's Mr. Toad?", things along those lines, because people weren't catching on that the idea was that you, the guest, were assuming the role of the films' protagonists. And even then, those rides weren't designed to just be a "book report" version of the films' plots, they were designed around specific moments from the films or a general atmosphere people might have associated with them (keeping in mind that the rides opened in an era before home video releases), such as Snow White's scarier parts, or Toad's madcap style. That began to change in places over the years, like Snow White becoming more of a "book report" ride in its later iteration, but it certainly wasn't the original intention. My point was more that Fantasyland was originally the place with the attractions that were explicitly tied to movies, whereas the other lands avoided that, but the trend of "film property or bust" has made it into Tomorrowland (Stitch, Buzz, Monsters Inc.), Adventureland (Aladdin's carpets, Pirates w/Depp and company), Future World, World Showcase, etc., and it really does have an impact on the overall experience, kind of homogenizing the parks.
As for Flight of Passage, I'm looking forward to giving that a try when I get down to WDW in a couple of weeks, I've heard great things. It sounds like it comes from that older Fantasyland IP tradition: take a concept or an idea from a film and translate it into the medium of a theme park attraction, taking advantage of what the medium has to offer the experience, rather than just passively having guests consume a story or plot recycled from the original film. Doing that can definitely add to the "timeless" element of a ride; if you're not getting bogged down in the film's plot/characters/songs, etc., then the experience can stand on its own feet and thrive independent of the film's cultural relevance.
That said, I still have my doubts about the entire Avatar themed land; I'm sure it looks great, but man, the whole backstory/"lore" they did with it is really offputting to me.
FigmentJedi
Well-Known Member
Look who's headlining some new "Sleepy Disney Characters" plush line.
https://www.shopdisney.com/figment-dream-friend-plush-large-1520533
https://www.shopdisney.com/figment-dream-friend-plush-large-1520533
What part of the backstory is really off-putting to you?
DCLcruiser
Well-Known Member
We're cleaning out my parent's house and I found my Figment plush-book-bag from my first WDW visit in '88. Figment is still my favorite part of EPCOT and he deserves a better ride and maybe a reboot film.
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FigmentJedi
Well-Known Member
Jenny gets into a lot of the weird story issues in her big breakdown video. Lot of it amounts to weird implications of the relationship between the Na'vi and the tour company, how offputting it is that there's no Na'vi in the outside land, etc.
Me personally, I just feel weird about having a themed land extension of a movie that basically amounted to "Earth is screwed, so we gotta connect to nature somewhere in space and just abandon ship" in a park focused on trying to resolve our current environmental issues.
So I watched the video, and you do know that she really has NO idea what she is talking about. She puts out so much incorrect information that it isn't funny.
Disney Lover Addie
Well-Known Member
I feel like Disney needs to utilize Figment more since MANY of us are huge fans and we would definitely pay to see a film for him or wait in line for his (hopefully better) attraction. They don’t realize how crazy everyone would be if the did something with figment, they only think about IPs. (PS: Love the figment plush!)
pdude81
Well-Known Member
Nice. I have a doll of a similar vintage at home, but could use a dusting or 7.