Is Imagineering going through an Experimental Phase?

[CaptinEO]

Is Disney Imagineering in some weird experimental phase where they only want to make more abstract rides and concepts?

I've been thinking about whats been happening with Avengers Land and Star Wars Land, and how the approach is so different from your standard themepark fare.

It seems Disney doesn't want to go about the route of having rides/lands that fully showcases the highlights of what people love about a property (Star Tours, Indy), and is in this weird experimental phase.

Maybe Imagineering thinks this abstraction from traditional lands/rides is whats best? Maybe they are trying something new? Instead of highlighting whats great about a series they are trying to do something else entirely.

-"Spiderman teaches you how to shoot webs" ride
- A super hero land that is based on an office building and "training to be your own super hero"
- "You drive the Milenium Falcon, but only to collect shipping containers" ride
- "Live your own personal Star Wars Adventure" land with little to no characters, where all the "personal" experiences are upcharge events

Is it possible that maybe Imagineering had some concepts they want to do, but have to randomly skew a property to their own ideas in order to get their pitches greenlit?

For example:

1)Imagineer has an idea for a steampunk park area and a ride where you shoot robots, attaches avengers IP just to get the idea greenlit

2) Imagineer has an idea for an interactive tommorowland ride where you are running a shipping/freight service in space, needs a property to sell the idea so makes it a millennium falcon ride.

I think this is the only explanation for the products we got. There's no way that these attractions were created by looking at the source material from the ground up.

I honestly miss when rides and lands were straightforward and didnt require any explanation to understand.

I'm sure all these conversations below have happened:

"We don't get to see any villians because we're training to be our own hero"

"We can't have Star Wars music or Star Wars shirts because we are in the world of star wars right now, oh and no Vader or Luke because they aren't alive right now"

 

[ToTBellHop]

Experimenting with drugs, maybe.

 

[Newtwo]

Oh boy the Chapek years are going to be bad

 

[DavidDL]

"We can't have Star Wars music or Star Wars shirts because we are in the world of star wars right now, oh and no Vader or Luke because they aren't alive right now"

The interesting thing about this statement, is that you actually could, even with the timeline restrictions imposed.

I think back to the old Halloween Carnival at Big Thunder Ranch's "Conjure a villain". Star Wars is full of nexus' in the Force and Force Visions. There's no reason they couldn't have a character meet n' greet show building designed to look like a series of caves where could could experience "visions" of famous heroes and villains just like how Luke saw Vader in the cave on Dagobah. Get in line to meet your favorite characters, Disney Imagineering gets to write them off as "visions" for storytelling purposes, everyone wins.

 

[el_super]

Is Disney Imagineering in some weird experimental phase where they only want to make more abstract rides and concepts?

Isn't that what they've always done?

Maybe Imagineering thinks this abstraction from traditional lands/rides is whats best? Maybe they are trying something new? Instead of highlighting whats great about a series they are trying to do something else entirely.

They built a Star Wars ride around the concept of a tour agency. No Luke, No Leia, No Force. No Darth Vader.

A Tour Agency in Space.

I think this is the only explanation for the products we got. There's no way that these attractions were created by looking at the source material from the ground up.

I honestly miss when rides and lands were straightforward and didnt require any explanation to understand.

How much of this is your expectation/desire versus actual history? How much of it can be attributed to being more willing to accept something from the past versus now?

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

I think Imagineering forgot who they are and why they exist. Same could be said for the suits running the company and especially the theme park division.

 

[Mac Tonight]

The only "experimenting" going on in Glendale is seeing just how far they can hack and slash a budget on any given project and still deliver what is (in their eyes) a quality product. Under the Iger/Chapek regime, an attractions quality is only measured in dollar signs.

 

[Stevek]

I think you may be overthinking it. Ultimately, I believe these are just a result of multiple pitch meetings, designs, redesigns, etc and we just end up with what we get. They are generally looking for new ways to incorporate technology while at the same time integrating IP (for many attractions). I think that's really the problem...failure to keep things simple vs trying things like smugglers run and spidey. I'd take another boat ride or omnimover attraction any day of the week...but I'm old and Disney apparently feels that our overstimulated, always looking at our smartphone society needs that same level of overstimuation on attractions. There should be a happy medium.

 

[truecoat]

Like someone once said, if you have a committee of 8 people deciding on an idea, you get the 8th best idea.

 

[Tamandua]

Everything Disney does now is part of leveraging an existing brand. The last attraction with an original theme that opened at a Disney park was Expedition Everest, and that project was started before Iger took over. Everything since has been a rehash of something else. Is there a single element of the haunted mansion that hasn't been merchandised to death? Why not create a new spooky attraction at a Disney park, something in the same vein but with new characters, ideas, and designs, to refresh the IP well?

Look at the death cycle of Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a classic beloved ride about Pirates sacking a city. Then they made it into a movie where the pirates were the good guys. Then they took the characters from the movie and put them into the ride. Then the other pirates in the ride could hardly be considered villains anymore, so they started changing the scenes to make the pirates act less like pirates. Now you have a ride where the pirates are just sort of hanging out amidst some unrelated chaos in the city. Over-leveraging IP has ruined the ride.

IP-based rides have their place, but they really need to come up with some original ideas once in a while. They can even consider an original attraction as R&D for future movies if they want to, but do something new and exciting.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

They're certainly experimenting with how crappy they can make a ride and keep it operating.

 

[Too Many Hats]

Maybe Imagineering thinks this abstraction from traditional lands/rides is whats best? Maybe they are trying something new? Instead of highlighting whats great about a series they are trying to do something else entirely.

Exactly. If they're going to use IP, why not give the people what they want? Save the experimental, expectations-defying stuff for non-IP attractions.

It's okay for theme park experiences to be a bit dumb and obvious, as long as they're well executed. John Williams' scores blast from speakers as you walk through Hogsmeade and Jurassic Park. Forbidden Journey features the halls of Hogwarts, a dragon, Hagrid, spiders, Dementors, and Quidditch. The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman features six (!) villains and a scene where you swing through NYC. Indiana Jones Adventure features a temple, skeletons, bugs, a snake, poison darts, and a runaway boulder.

Then there's a Millennium Falcon attraction centered around stealing coaxium. A Spiderman attraction in which riders shoot webs at... robot spiders. An Incredibles attraction that takes place on an old wooden roller coaster.

It's not just Disney. Fast and Furious: Supercharged and Mario Kart: Koopa's Challenge both eschew the obvious ride experiences demanded by their IPs, with incredibly disappointing results. However, with Universal I suspect these bizarre miscalculations are more the product of financial considerations than creatives overthinking it.

I haven't been to Animal Kingdom in years, but Pandora seems like an example of Disney getting it right. Both attractions, as well as the land itself, seem to tap into precisely the elements that wowed audiences back in 2009 (taking flight on a Banshee, the bioluminescent environment, etc.).

 

[Rich T]

If DCA’s Spiderman ride is any indication, it seems their new phase is, “Create ugly, unimaginative rides that only exist to serve as commercials for expensive toys.”

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Exactly. If they're going to use IP, why not give the people what they want? Save the experimental, expectations-defying stuff for non-IP attractions.

You’re supposed to use the buy in from the public’s association with the IP to do ambitious, risky swings. Think the Lion King stage show, various MCU films, Pooh’s Hunny Hunt or this thing you might have heard of called Disneyland.

 

[shambolicdefending]

Boy, some of you all spend way more time thinking about these attractions than I do.

 

[misfitdoll]

As a Star Wars fan, the choice to do Galaxy’s Edge as they did defies explanation. It doesn’t feel like it was made by people who have ever “played Star Wars” or get what is fun about the films. Star Tours gets it, and you can feel that energy the whole time you’re in the building.
My kids call Batuu “the Midwest of the galaxy” because it’s like we are just there getting gas (Smuggler’s Run) in an empty quiet place. We’ve been to Disneyland seven times since ROTR opened and have managed to get a boarding pass and successfully ride Rise ONCE. We like the little Black Spire Outpost area okay but it’s weirdly awkward to shop because of the lack of music and energy. It’s like shopping in your middle school bookstore for smelly erasers while a teacher watches. The Midwest of the galaxy.

(No offense midwesterners— a year ago we moved from Indianapolis to Los Angeles! We joke because we came from there.)

 

[DLR92]

I kinda blame more on upper management. I also think the new team don’t have the discipline to create something convincing with tight restrictions of space either.

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

Well they are not going through a creative phase that's for sure.

 

[Miru]

Experimental in some areas, excessively conservative in others *cough*censorship*cough*
There hasn’t been an original ride over here since the miserable failure of Habit Heroes, and as mentioned, there’s this sticky sort of unwillingness to have a good premise, which is slowly but surely spreading to Universal. Hey, at least we got decent animatronics out of it.

 

[Tamandua]

Today, the "imagine" part of imagineering comes from the commonly used phrase "imagine how much money we can save if we..."