BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Mystic Manor was cutesified somewhere along the development process. I know what you mean, it's a purposeful style choice. I don't think that's a problem with imagineering though, but maybe I like the cartoony aspect.
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Is Walt Disney Imagineering dead?
- Thread starter TROR
- Start date
Mystic Manor was cutesified somewhere along the development process. I know what you mean, it's a purposeful style choice. I don't think that's a problem with imagineering though, but maybe I like the cartoony aspect.
dweezil78
Well-Known Member
This isn't an article, it's a discussion topic.
Ismael Flores
Well-Known Member
Isn’t OLC just the management company? They still have to buy out the creative side and environment from Disney’s WDI.
So I would say that no WDI is not dead because obviously they are producing what every fan adores about the OLC parks.
It wasn’t the OLC the ones that created Winnie the Pooh they just paid the big bucks for it from Disney’s WDI teams
George Lucas on a Bench
Well-Known Member
"Oh hey there, you rang?"
Mulder?
FerretAfros
Well-Known Member
No, quite the opposite. I'm asking Disney to rely less on linear storytelling and return to a more atmospheric approach to design. The best classic attractions establish a setting (location and era) and a mood, and leave the rest to the guests to piece together. It works for smaller attractions like the Swiss Family Treehouse or Mr Toad's Wild Ride, as well as big ones like Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion. Even more modern classics, like Tower of Terror and Indiana Jones Adventure, rely on this basic setup despite their overly-talky introductions.
In this regard, the Navi River Journey boat ride is far more successful (though it's still too short and lacks a real finale) than the high-tech Flight of Passage. FOP's preshow is one of the worst elements I've seen in any park, as it bends over backwards to explain every little detail of how and why the process is supposed to work (and still leaves most guests scratching their heads), making the whole experience a chore to slog through. As snazzy as the ride system is, the overall experience is weighed down by WDI's need to micromanage every piece of information the guests receive. NRJ on the other hand simply puts guests into the environment with a sense of celebratory anticipation, which results in a more interesting and rewarding experience.
It's tough to say. I think part of it is that the top-level decision makers fundamentally don't understand the medium of a theme park. As I mentioned in the Marvel land thread, theme parks are most successful when they create unique environments, rather than focusing on linear storytelling or existing characters. The current decision makers seem more focused on what is easily recognizable and marketable, rather than what makes for the best experience for actual guests in an actual operating theme park. The relatively-low capacity of most recent headliners only highlights how little they understand about how the parks' needs.
Much like film, the built environment is a visual medium and it's always more effective to show people something than to tell them something. So many additions in the last 20+ years have relied on telling guests something (whether in marquee signage, miscellaneous text, recorded audio, or spoken word) as a shorthand way to express something that it seems they've forgotten a lot of the fundamentals of why certain concepts work and others don't. Perhaps not coincidentally, that's around the same time that much of the decision-making power for the parks was taken from the designers and operators, and shifted to the corporate strategic planning team.
Disney would never let their so-called theme park experts be the decision-makers for strategic planning, marketing, consumer products, studios, etc. Why is it acceptable for it to be done the other way around?
For better or for worse, the costume changes were mainly a result of operational changes in the 90's that allowed CMs to take costumes home with them (thus eliminating the need to pay them to change clothes at work). This led to the transition to easy care, machine-washable costumes that could be worn for large areas of the park, rather than in just a single facility.
The worst offenders were DCA and WDW's Studios (where many costumes are a patterned button-down shirt with solid-colored pants) and DAK (where some are literally just a T-shirts and shorts), whose costumes were largely designed during that initial transition period. It seems like more recent efforts on both coasts have found a happy medium between easy care materials and professional looking design, though a lot of the lackluster costumes remain in use.
Old Mouseketeer
Well-Known Member
Right. And Marc Davis' character designs were sooo realistically proportioned. Helloooo???
Old Mouseketeer
Well-Known Member
"Oh hey there, you rang?"
Is that original 1975 WDW Tomorrowland? If so, the design concepts were done by Disney Studio designer Chuck Keene. I got to spend about half an hour with him in his office on the inside ground floor of DL's Old Admin Building. His secretary was the wife of my mother's boss. He was really nice and showed me his sketches for the TL costumes. IIRC, that's Space Mountain in the picture. His sketch had calf-high white boots! Mind you, it's all 100% double knit polyester (hail Monsanto!). And you should have seen the bright polyester hoop skirts WDW put on the Dickens Carollers (a true costuming abomination).
Is that picture CosPlay? The necklace, bracelet and haircut are what make me question.
NOTE: To clarify, Chuck Keene was a long-time costume designer at the Disney Studios. He was loaned to the parks to do costumes for the completion of WDW Tomorrowland. I'm sure he was working on some other projects, but I don't remember now.
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brb1006
Well-Known Member
Also I disagree with you saying the character designs are atrocious and how the ride vehicle stops. It's standard for LPS rides so far
brb1006
Well-Known Member
But Lord Mystic looks charming, he reminds me of Archimedes Q. Porter from Disney's Tarzan.
bluerhythym
Well-Known Member
I work in a creative position for some very un-creative bosses. I can say that sometimes you can work your off on something, only to have the higher ups say, "Make it like this". Maybe they really don't have much say, and they're only used as tools to execute someone else's vision? Also, it can be really disheartening to constantly have your ideas shot down, maybe some of them have clocked out.
I think to know if WDI is really dead, we'd have to see the projects that get left on the cutting room floor.
I think to know if WDI is really dead, we'd have to see the projects that get left on the cutting room floor.
Model3 McQueen
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
I think the imagineers are being held back either by budget and / or limitations by the Chapek regime. I mean how much of a story can you make out of Guardians of the Galaxy in a haunted hotel? Or re-theme a rollercoaster to be Incredibles? These are ridiculous ideas that somehow imagineering has to go with. Some people love it. I don't.
With Mystic Manor, I feel like they had more room to be creative, and the results show it.
SWL? I think it's more of a burden on imagineering to create something that isn't been-there-done-that, when it would've been easier to give them a general direction and have WDI go wild.
I blame it on Chapek, I really do.
With Mystic Manor, I feel like they had more room to be creative, and the results show it.
SWL? I think it's more of a burden on imagineering to create something that isn't been-there-done-that, when it would've been easier to give them a general direction and have WDI go wild.
I blame it on Chapek, I really do.
October82
Well-Known Member
I would be a lot more optimistic if I could blame it on Chapek. The reality is that it's a problem with corporate culture, both in the company and in the industry as a whole.
dweezil78
Well-Known Member
Haha, I'm really not sure of the origin on this photo. I thought the same thing... the hair cut and necklace is more late 90s/early 00s than era the costume would have been used. Either way, the costume is legit (and I love it)!
Rich T
Well-Known Member
I was about to argue about this, since I really like Lord Mystic's design, but I have to admit when I first watched a ride-through of MM, I wondered why they decided to make the characters so toony. It definitely changes the feel of the attraction and makes it more of a charming fantasy adventure and eliminates any kind of creepiness or sense of danger. I guess that's what they were going for. I wouldn't want Lord Mystic to look hyper realistic, but a style more in line with Marc Davis's designs for PoC and HM would have really worked well here.
Model3 McQueen
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Agreed, and especially those who put someone like Chapek in charge in the first place
180º
Well-Known Member
It depended on the style of the attraction. I'd say Pirates of the Caribbean and Jungle Cruise had some of his most realistic designs, and America Sings the most cartoony. Mystic Manor falls more on the America Sings side of cartoony. Even then, Marc Davis was a fine artist, and it still shows in his most stylized work. This is a matter of opinion, but I find the Mystic Manor styling much, much less focused and finely designed than anything Marc Davis put out.
Hatbox Ghostbuster
Well-Known Member
I see it like this:
Imagine an imagineer is given a brand new box of 64 crayons with which he/she can color their drawing.
However, just when they're about to get started, their boss comes into the room and takes the crayon box away, and only gives them back 6 crayons. "Here, this'll be good enough to get the job done", he says. He/she then takes those six crayons and does their best, all the while knowing that they are being absolutely limited by a boss who doesn't care to understand how much better something can be when they're given more creative freedom.
Imagine an imagineer is given a brand new box of 64 crayons with which he/she can color their drawing.
However, just when they're about to get started, their boss comes into the room and takes the crayon box away, and only gives them back 6 crayons. "Here, this'll be good enough to get the job done", he says. He/she then takes those six crayons and does their best, all the while knowing that they are being absolutely limited by a boss who doesn't care to understand how much better something can be when they're given more creative freedom.
The_Mesh_Hatter
Well-Known Member
I see it more as the boss micromanaging what you draw. You can still blend colors together effectively with only six crayons if you are a skilled artist. But if you're told to draw something derivative, there's not much to do about it.