Rumor Lion King Flume Ride being considered for Animal Kingdom

[J4546]

i think this will be a fantastic addition to AK in an area where there are no rides. Kinda like Rat in Epcot imo. Love it

 

[OptimusPrime]

Thank you for telling me that you missed the point. Rides are a lousy format to present a character focused drama.

Like a year and a half ago a bunch of people were going nutd because a character focused log flume was being replaced

 

[999th Happy Haunt]

Everyone forgets how much Lion King was in early Animal Kingdom marketing. It has always been the Lion King park.

 

[lazyboy97o]

They didn't miss the point. They're challenging a loose-at-best comparison to Hamlet that has been used to suggest (in what I have no choice to believe is a serious argument) that Lion King is not a movie about animals and its basic plot isn't coherent with the themes of Animal Kingdom. Which is mind-boggling. That was the initial debate, but we've now moved to "well even if it is a story about animals, book report rides aren't good formats for character dramas" and I'm now convinced people will just never be happy with anything

The comparison to Hamlet is not new.

We’ve moved to plot heavy dramas not being good rides because the other aspects of movies that are used to create attractions have already been covered in the park. There is already an attraction using the characters to enhance edutainment. There is already a show that is built around the iconic music. There is already a massive ride built around the setting. So what else would it be? What else are people alluding to when they talk about the movie “deserving” to be in the park?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Everyone forgets how much Lion King was in early Animal Kingdom marketing. It has always been the Lion King park.

Marketing isn’t done by the park designers.

 

[OptimusPrime]

This thread in a nutshell

 

[Sir_Cliff]

This thread in a nutshell

How so?

 

[Brer Panther]

I have a hazy memory of an anecdote from the 1970s when the Robin Hood animated feature came out, was successful, and WDI considered creating an attraction based on the film. When they looked into it, they found the setting of the film didn't really translate to a compelling theme park attraction and so it never went anywhere.

That anecdote comes from the book Mouse Under Glass - Tony Baxter explained, "Whether it's a good movie or not is beside the point. It's a movie that's characters, there's no atmosphere in it. I call it 'sticks and stones and rocks and leaves'. First you have the stone walls outside the castle, then the stone walls inside the castle, then the leaves in the forest, that's it. There are no exotic environments, you just have all these scenes with Robin meeting Friar Tuck, then Robin meeting Little John, then Robin meeting Maid Marian. That's when I figured it out: rides are about exotic places, not characters. The best attractions are where you suddenly find yourself in a jewel mine or flying over London."

Of course, Tiana's Bayou Adventure is more about the "exotic location" of the bayou than characters from The Princess and the Frog and we know how THAT turned out.

 

[MisterPenguin]

That anecdote comes from the book Mouse Under Glass - Tony Baxter explained, "Whether it's a good movie or not is beside the point. It's a movie that's characters, there's no atmosphere in it. I call it 'sticks and stones and rocks and leaves'. First you have the stone walls outside the castle, then the stone walls inside the castle, then the leaves in the forest, that's it. There are no exotic environments, you just have all these scenes with Robin meeting Friar Tuck, then Robin meeting Little John, then Robin meeting Maid Marian. That's when I figured it out: rides are about exotic places, not characters. The best attractions are where you suddenly find yourself in a jewel mine or flying over London."

Of course, Tiana's Bayou Adventure is more about the "exotic location" of the bayou than characters from The Princess and the Frog and we know how THAT turned out.

Was the setting of Splash Mountain 'an exotic place'?

 

[denyuntilcaught]

Marketing isn’t done by the park designers.

When the purpose in totality is perception, and when starting from a customer POV, that point doesn't matter.

 

[bwr827]

Dinoland, ok, I was under the impression that was due to budgeting concerns and meant to be semi-temporary. What about Pandora doesn’t fit with the rest of the park though?

Oh for the record, I think Pandora fits just fine.

But it sure doesn’t fit the thesis of purity highlighting Harambe as a rejection of Lion King IP (or an implication that LK needs very careful consideration to somehow make it fit a park about animals).

 

[DonniePeverley]

Forget this utter nonsense.

Copy the same plans as Zootopia in Shanghai and shut up.

 

[999th Happy Haunt]

Forget this utter nonsense.

Copy the same plans as Zootopia in Shanghai and shut up.

A police chase ride (where you are an active participant) in the states would go over just fine I’m sure

 

[Moth]

A police chase ride (where you are an active participant) in the states would go over just fine I’m sure

This is a bad time to pitch my Zootopia P.D. series, isn't it?

 

[bwr827]

This is a bad time to pitch my Zootopia P.D. series, isn't it?

Paw & Order?

 

[DisneyHead123]

Oh for the record, I think Pandora fits just fine.

But it sure doesn’t fit the thesis of purity highlighting Harambe as a rejection of Lion King IP (or an implication that LK needs very careful consideration to somehow make it fit a park about animals).

To my mind Lion King and Pandora are incredibly different, though. Pandora is a natural environment that can be approached like any of the other environments in the park, it just happens to be fictional. Lion King is a cartoon (I say that not to be derogatory, as “cartoon” has a slightly negative connotation, just to highlight that it’s all the things associated with a cartoon. Cute. Big, bold, brightly colored with lots of contrast. Exaggerated emotion to help children follow along. Archetypal vs. nuanced characters. The bad guy is veeeery bad. The good guy is veeeery good. Cheery singing ensues. Etc.)

I will admit, I don’t think the AK of yore - the one where Joe Rohde traveled to exotic places in a time when that was somewhat less common and created exotic lands for people to explore within AK - will last much longer. Cute IP is coming, and I don’t see anything changing that. And I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing - Disney has a lot of meaning to people in many ways. That IP is a “happy place” for many people for many reasons. I’m not opposed to incorporating it, if that’s what this moment in time calls for. Change is the nature of things. But I do resist the argument that this is really just an extension of the original AK. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it. It’s a new direction that may speak to the needs of a new zeitgeist, and that may be a good thing, but it’s not a continuation of the original theming.

 

[ednamodedarling]

Forget this utter nonsense.

Copy the same plans as Zootopia in Shanghai and shut up.

I too think Zootopia land will eventually end up in DAK ...

 

[BrianLo]

It’s only strange if one has completely bought into the idea of movies “deserving” to be in the parks. It is an assessment based entirely on the movie and completely detached from the question of the actual experience.

Correct. It’s strange that the company that has employed this strategy for the better part of 15 years hasn’t done this yet. For the record this is not a defense of a book report.

It’s also equally strange to me the best we’ve seen out of a magic carpet ride is a spinner. Which is far more suggestive of an actual experience that is probably deserving and hasn’t really been done before.

 

[Haymarket2008]

To my mind Lion King and Pandora are incredibly different, though. Pandora is a natural environment that can be approached like any of the other environments in the park, it just happens to be fictional. Lion King is a cartoon (I say that not to be derogatory, as “cartoon” has a slightly negative connotation, just to highlight that it’s all the things associated with a cartoon. Cute. Big, bold, brightly colored with lots of contrast. Exaggerated emotion to help children follow along. Archetypal vs. nuanced characters. The bad guy is veeeery bad. The good guy is veeeery good. Cheery singing ensues. Etc.)

I will admit, I don’t think the AK of yore - the one where Joe Rohde traveled to exotic places in a time when that was somewhat less common and created exotic lands for people to explore within AK - will last much longer. Cute IP is coming, and I don’t see anything changing that. And I’m not even saying that’s a bad thing - Disney has a lot of meaning to people in many ways. That IP is a “happy place” for many people for many reasons. I’m not opposed to incorporating it, if that’s what this moment in time calls for. Change is the nature of things. But I do resist the argument that this is really just an extension of the original AK. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it. It’s a new direction that may speak to the needs of a new zeitgeist, and that may be a good thing, but it’s not a continuation of the original theming.

Luckily, the bones of DAK are so strong that I don’t see it being stripped of its identity like EPCOT.

 

[DisneyHead123]

Luckily, the bones of DAK are so strong that I don’t see it being stripped of its identity like EPCOT.

Hopefully not. If it gets to the point where the criteria is “Any animal IP, and also any IP with some nature scenes,” it could be easily become a hodgepodge land. If they focus more on IP that is specific to the geographical regions outlined in the park I think that would help retain a theme of sorts.