mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Interesting. I remember seeing a ride through of Kong and thinking it’s a little bit of a let down as a stand-alone attraction. Unlike here where it’s part of a 1 hour long tram ride. They do have the 1 AA though
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Jungle Cruise Update
- Thread starter SSG
- Start date
Interesting. I remember seeing a ride through of Kong and thinking it’s a little bit of a let down as a stand-alone attraction. Unlike here where it’s part of a 1 hour long tram ride. They do have the 1 AA though
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I think you are confusing back stories and theme. Also, I’m confused about how the back story somehow helps you suspend disbelief that you are not on a boat on rails in Anaheim? So no Alberta Falls backstory = boat on rails in Anaheim and Alberta Falls back story = Amazon River?
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Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
Rides don’t need backstories. There are themes to which they follow, but backstories are not the same and unnecessary.
Mac Tonight
Well-Known Member
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
They just keep on coming lol. Do I need this one? I have the other one with generic skipper. This one does look cooler though. I honestly haven’t decided if I’m going to keep collecting these. Having to pay $300 + for that Treasure Skeleton POP is rubbing me the wrong way and I’m not going to do it. Might just downsize my collection and just keep the actual RIDE POPs. Which means I would still have to get this one. Lol.
Mac Tonight
Well-Known Member
I'll probably pass since I have the other one too. It's not surprising to see them just swap in Mickey for another character on a ride vehicle and sell it again. They've already done it with the Matterhorn bobsled. Easy profit.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
It is a let down (though the queue is really cool and sometimes they have random scareactors in there, just for ambiance!)
It's basically the same thing you know and love(?) from the USH tram tour, but with an outdoor portion through some trees before you enter the building and watch the screenz, and one AA that you see for like ten seconds tops after the screenz.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
True and every time the damn Mickey ones look more appealing. I’ll probably get it since I’ll be able to buy retail
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Also forgot to mention. So far I think I have all the Mickey Ride POPs. So I might have to keep that going.
Mac Tonight
Well-Known Member
For $29.99 it’s easily justified!
Darkbeer1
Well-Known Member
Disneyland puts woman of color at center of revamped Jungle Cruise backstory
Alberta Falls is the free spirited adventuress and descendant of world explorers from India and England who will serve as the fictional heroine of the renovated Jungle Cruise.
www.ocregister.com
TP2000
Well-Known Member
This is just a bad joke. And not a good-bad joke from the Jungle Cruise, but just bad-bad. 
Alberta Falls and her backstory appears to be created by Imagineers who have absolutely no idea how the Jungle Cruise works. And more importantly, no idea how the audience experiences the attraction as they wait in line, load into boats, and then pivot and strain to get 4 or 5 second glimpses at the animals and funny little vignettes along the river. While a CM delivers one-liner jokes and bad puns that can be understood over the roar of diesel engine by anyone older than 8.
This new Alberta Falls backstory, even if they try and hit us over the head with it via some new queue pre-show or blatant animatronic dialogue by a riverbank Skipper, will be ignored and/or missed by 99.5% of the audience. It doesn't matter what race or ethnicity Alberta Falls is, or isn't, she won't enter the audiences mind in the least.
And then there's the poor CM's who will be forced to tell a couple of new jokes that aren't that funny but mandatorily mention Alberta Falls. No joke created by a committee from HR will ever be funny. Ever.
This is yet another example of WDI losing complete sight of how the park works, and how its audience experiences it.
Alberta Falls and her backstory appears to be created by Imagineers who have absolutely no idea how the Jungle Cruise works. And more importantly, no idea how the audience experiences the attraction as they wait in line, load into boats, and then pivot and strain to get 4 or 5 second glimpses at the animals and funny little vignettes along the river. While a CM delivers one-liner jokes and bad puns that can be understood over the roar of diesel engine by anyone older than 8.
This new Alberta Falls backstory, even if they try and hit us over the head with it via some new queue pre-show or blatant animatronic dialogue by a riverbank Skipper, will be ignored and/or missed by 99.5% of the audience. It doesn't matter what race or ethnicity Alberta Falls is, or isn't, she won't enter the audiences mind in the least.
And then there's the poor CM's who will be forced to tell a couple of new jokes that aren't that funny but mandatorily mention Alberta Falls. No joke created by a committee from HR will ever be funny. Ever.
This is yet another example of WDI losing complete sight of how the park works, and how its audience experiences it.
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1HAPPYGHOSTHOST
Well-Known Member
Damn well said!This is just a bad joke. And not a good-bad joke from the Jungle Cruise, but just bad-bad.
Alberta Falls and her backstory appears to be created by Imagineers who have absolutely no idea how the Jungle Cruise works. And more importantly, no idea how the audience experiences the attraction as they wait in line, load into boats, and then pivot and strain to get 4 or 5 second glimpses at the animals and funny little vignettes along the river.
This new Alberta Falls backstory, even if they try and hit us over the head with it via some new queue pre-show or blatant animatronic dialogue by a riverbank Skipper, will be ignored and/or missed by 99.5% of the audience. It doesn't matter what race or ethnicity Alberta Falls is, or isn't, she won't enter the audiences mind in the least.
And then there's the poor CM's who will be forced to tell a couple of new jokes that aren't that funny but mandatorily mention Alberta Falls. No joke created by a committee from HR will ever be funny. Ever.
This is yet another example of WDI losing complete sight of how the park works, and how its audience experiences it.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
Has Disney come out and stated that they'll be removing the headhunters, or is that just one of those "well, if they're renovating the ride and they're on a PC kick, of course they're gonna take 'em out" kind of things?
I thought his name was Dr. Falls.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
No, I'm not. The backstory is the narrative––the made-up "history" within the attraction. The theme is the creative direction/design. They go hand-in-hand, but they're not the same, which was my point.
The theme of the Jungle Cruise is "1930s stuff along a river in a jungle." The backstory is all the stuff that "happened" to get us to the point we are when we enter the attraction's queue. Are we, the guest, transported back in time to the 30s, or is everything just really old? Are we still in Anaheim, or are we in the Amazon? The backstory set us up for the story, which is set in the themed environment.
Imagineers create backstories for every attraction and themed area. They don't always tell/explain these backstories to the public, but they use the backstory to help them tell a coherent and consistent story.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
I quoted the OG Skipper from the video interview I posted.
1HAPPYGHOSTHOST
Well-Known Member
It's like these execs or imagineers have high egos and they feel they need to leave their own stamp on classic attractions that have stood the test of time because they are worried about their own legacy because they have not created anything that equally compares.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
But the need for backstories is something of a newer invention from the Eisner era. I don't believe there has ever been a true backstory that actually originated from the WED days, though the modern WDC certainly has a habit of grafting backstories on older attractions.
Which is not to say that there wasn't thought put into the attractions or how things would logically progress, but they were very much prioritizing different things.
Even the 1930s touch came about not because it was original (I really don't think the original team or even many that led subsequent revisions had any idea other than Boat ride! See animals! Whimsy!) but because Indy was added next door.
And the 1930s date doesn't really add anything to the attraction. Maybe the queue. The actual attraction? I'd argue it's meaningless.
If we MUST have backstories, it would be nice to at least get something new to the table. Right now it seems to mostly be either a) Oh NO! Something's going (or is going to go) wrong! or b) well, Lord Hubert Fancyperson loved collecting exotic ________ and decided to decorate his (choose one: shop, restaurant, key object upon which the ride is centered) in this style because he wanted to show and impress the locals and educate them or something, and would you be interested in hearing the intricate story about what this tapestry represents that doesn't actually matter to the (thing) at all?
Average people don't care and don't notice, because it doesn't add anything of substance. It mostly give Imagineers and super supernerds an opportunity to feel superior in their cleverness that they get all the references.
And REDONGLE CRUISE 5.0(?) seems like more of the same. Bloated and unnecessary.
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Brer Oswald
Well-Known Member
This is going to sound harsh, so apologies in advance.
Who cares?
I’ve never questioned why I’m in an old boat in a jungle. I just am. I’m sure most people don’t question it either. Does anyone question why they’re in a Mickey Mouse cartoon? Or why they’re in Snow White world? Most just go along with it.
You can add a deep backstory to explain the “why”, but unless it was visually incorporated into the attraction from the start, it’s a bit of a wasted effort.
_caleb
Well-Known Member
I agree that detailed backstories shared with the public are a newer phenomenon in Disney attractions. But don’t you think the Haunted Mansion has always had a backstory? It doesn’t really have a “story” at all, does it? In a recent post, didn’t @TP2000 say something about how the Jungle Cruise doesn’t have a story? What about Big Thunder? They don’t NEED stories in order to work, but adding stories can—for some fans—make the ride more interesting and fun.
I get it, old-school fans were happy with the way things were. And these stories can be ridiculous and they always seem to try way too hard and “fill in” way too many “blanks.” But these days, fandoms run deep. Fans care about lore, canon, history, and world-building (see Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel, etc. etc. etc. The vast majority will indeed never even know about the backstory. But some will care about it, and they will be drawn in (as is already happening with the S.E.A. storyline in other parks).
Bloated, yes. Unnecessary, yes. But maybe fun (except for cranky people in the DL boards)!