Rumor Lion King Flume Ride being considered for Animal Kingdom

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DisneyHead123

Well-Known Member
CoasterCowboy67 said:
Even if you buy that excuse for what is ultimately a jarring visual misfit for the park, it doesn’t explain the lack of any meaningful theme or message or education or connection to animals from a content perspective

Camp Minnie Mickey and the character meet ups weren’t gritty realism. Festival of the Lion King itself has animatronic cartoon animals being presented to us as actual animals - they’re not masks. The park has ever adhered to this gritty realism requirement from the day it opened. It’s always had cartoon animals
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I'm going to leave Camp Minnie Mickey out of it because honestly, I seriously doubt anyone in this thread is dreaming of theming all of AK to a Camp Minnie Mickey esque experience. Maybe that shows that AK was not 100% consistent, as is the case with all things and all people - but is anyone going - "Yes! We found an opening! Camp Minnie Mickey should be the inspiration moving forward!" I kinda doubt it.

I think Festival of the Lion King has been well regarded and maybe shows that classic IP motifs can be incorporated in small doses in specific places while maintaining the original vision of AK. I think you and I both know that a LK flume ride is not going to be any Festival of the Lion King though, unless I am greatly surprised. And maybe I'll be greatly surprised!

Side note - if you are interested, here is Rohdes talking about some of the thinking that went into AK. (And here's a page with individual links to the original posts on Instagram.) I'm hesitant to post this here because I'm inherently taking his comments out of context by putting them in this thread. Obviously he didn't make these comments in the context of this thread, and if talking to an enthusiastic theme park fan like yourself I have no idea what he'd say. Perhaps something along the lines of "Change is great, I love these new ideas, I want to speak the language that this generation understands!" So I'm not trying to inadvertently put words in his mouth by posting his thoughts out of context. This is more background on my thinking, when I say "You know, my understanding is that realism was quite important in AK".

And again, I'm not even saying I'm adamantly opposed to changing the theme (or just presenting it in a language that younger generations understand better) - it would really depend on how well they pull it off and what the rationale behind the change was. I'm just resistant to the idea that Animal Kingdom has always been about animals ergo let's put any random animal there. My logical side feels the need to post a long comment when I see that thinking, lol.
 
bwr827

bwr827

Well-Known Member
CoasterCowboy67 said:
The park has ever adhered to this gritty realism requirement from the day it opened. It’s always had cartoon animals
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New D23 rumour will address this gritty question once and for all with a new character meet and greet:

IMG_1738.jpeg
 
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CoasterCowboy67

Active Member
DisneyHead123 said:
I'm going to leave Camp Minnie Mickey out of it because honestly, I seriously doubt anyone in this thread is dreaming of theming all of AK to a Camp Minnie Mickey esque experience. Maybe that shows that AK was not 100% consistent, as is the case with all things and all people - but is anyone going - "Yes! We found an opening! Camp Minnie Mickey should be the inspiration moving forward!" I kinda doubt it.

I think Festival of the Lion King has been well regarded and maybe shows that classic IP motifs can be incorporated in small doses in specific places while maintaining the original vision of AK. I think you and I both know that a LK flume ride is not going to be any Festival of the Lion King though, unless I am greatly surprised. And maybe I'll be greatly surprised!
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I celebrate our personal preferences and ideas. But we can’t dismiss 1 of 4 opening day lands, or one of the only opening day attractions, to make a point that a film retelling ride with animatronic animals is a rewrite of AK’s themes. Cute animals have always been there. The rewrite would be to impose new rules about film retellings and gritty realism that have never been there.

And even less so today when we have a Finding Nemo show that also has cartoon animals (in a film retelling), cartoon insects putting on a variety show, and even more character meet and greets

We also can’t argue absence is proof. The park didn’t open with roller coasters, so would we say Everest was a rewrite? The park didn’t open with an IP land so is Avatar a rewrite? A film retelling ride is no different from these in that it shares some characteristics with the park, and deviates in others.
 
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DisneyHead123

Well-Known Member
CoasterCowboy67 said:
I celebrate our personal preferences and ideas. But we can’t dismiss 1 of 4 opening day lands, or one of the only opening day attractions, to make a point that a film retelling ride with animatronic animals is a rewrite of AK’s themes. Cute animals have always been there. The rewrite would be to impose new rules about film retellings and gritty realism that have never been there.

And even less so today when we have a Finding Nemo show that also has cartoon animals (in a film retelling), cartoon insects putting on a variety show, and even more character meet and greets

We also can’t argue absence is proof. The park didn’t open with roller coasters, so would we say Everest was a rewrite? The park didn’t open with an IP land so is Avatar a rewrite? A film retelling ride is no different from these in that it shares some characteristics with the park, and deviates in others.
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Ok, sure.

Animal Kingdom has always been the cute, IP based, fantasy themed park.

I welcome a kawaii overlay, in keeping with the original theme of the park. I hope they have some really good popcorn buckets.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
CoasterCowboy67 said:
I celebrate our personal preferences and ideas. But we can’t dismiss 1 of 4 opening day lands, or one of the only opening day attractions, to make a point that a film retelling ride with animatronic animals is a rewrite of AK’s themes. Cute animals have always been there. The rewrite would be to impose new rules about film retellings and gritty realism that have never been there.

And even less so today when we have a Finding Nemo show that also has cartoon animals (in a film retelling), cartoon insects putting on a variety show, and even more character meet and greets

We also can’t argue absence is proof. The park didn’t open with roller coasters, so would we say Everest was a rewrite? The park didn’t open with an IP land so is Avatar a rewrite? A film retelling ride is no different from these in that it shares some characteristics with the park, and deviates in others.
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This is ignoring so much context.
 
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CoasterCowboy67

Active Member
DisneyHead123 said:
Ok, sure.

Animal Kingdom has always been the cute, IP based, fantasy themed park.

I welcome a kawaii overlay, in keeping with the original theme of the park. I hope they have some really good popcorn buckets.
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“Animal Kingdom has always been the park about all animals — real and fictional, gritty and cartoon, and of past, present, and myth” doesn’t require all that hyperbole that nobody is actually trying to say
 
cjkeating

cjkeating

Well-Known Member
CoasterCowboy67 said:
Even if you buy that excuse for what is ultimately a jarring visual misfit for the park, it doesn’t explain the lack of any meaningful theme or message or education or connection to animals from a content perspective
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I don't often see mentioned on here that the basis to Africa, Asia, Pandora and Dinoland is all tourism. You are visiting these lands on the premise that you are a tourist on holiday.

Africa - safari excursion
Asia - water rafting excursion, mountain/yeti train excursion
Pandora - boat tour, banshee flight
Dinoland - dinosaur safari, roadside carnival

Within these lands the supporting attractions/restaurants are set up to support the tourist economic activity of tourism in each land. FOTLK is a performance in a venue in Harambe, Maharaja Jungle Trek is exploring historic ruins, Chester and Hesters is profiteering off the Dino Institute.

Therefore for a Lion King boat ride to 'fit' it seems like a push to apply the above principles unless they doing a very bold story treatment for the ride which is where I think a lot of people are trying to express their concerns around it's fit in the park. To be fair they went completely left field for Tianna's so it could be possible.

CoasterCowboy67 said:
Camp Minnie Mickey and the character meet ups weren’t gritty realism. Festival of the Lion King itself has animatronic cartoon animals being presented to us as actual animals - they’re not masks. The park has ever adhered to this gritty realism requirement from the day it opened. It’s always had cartoon animals
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CMM was a last minute cheap and temporary fix as Beastly Kingdom was cut none of the parks values applied to that land. The same applied to FOTLK however as I said above its story treatment in Harambe works well.
 
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CoasterCowboy67

Active Member
cjkeating said:
Therefore for a Lion King boat ride to 'fit' it seems like a push to apply the above principles unless they doing a very bold story treatment for the ride which is where I think a lot of people are trying to express their concerns around it's fit in the park.
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So if we're touristing in Harambe, we can't have ventured into a corner of the Savannah where lions are in the middle of a (familiar) succession struggle? I don't see how bold changes to the film are necessary, even if you believe tourism is the theme of the park. These animals live in Africa, we're on vacay in Africa, we see them while on a boat...

Feels like people are desperate to find ways to define Animal Kingdom in a way that boxes out a Lion King retelling. But none of these definitions work without cherry picking parts of the park to define a pattern of convenience, or cherry picking elements of the film to ignore

I get Camp Minnie Mickey wasn't the original vision. Anyone would have preferred Beastly Kingdom. But Camp Minnie Mickey is what we got, and countless other additions to the park have combined the kawaii with the gritty, the fictional with the real, into the park it is today.

We can't hold on to what could've been or else we'll never be happy with what we have or get
 
HauntedPirate

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
Bob's "A non-descript coaster themed to India or whatever" comment about Everest is all one needs to know about how anyone in Burbank sees AK, and really, all the parks these days. Everything to them needs to be a movie IP smorgasbord now (and preferably movies of assets bought or produced under Bob). Just step up to the trough, pigs, and enjoy your slop.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
cjkeating said:
I don't often see mentioned on here that the basis to Africa, Asia, Pandora and Dinoland is all tourism. You are visiting these lands on the premise that you are a tourist on holiday.

Africa - safari excursion
Asia - water rafting excursion, mountain/yeti train excursion
Pandora - boat tour, banshee flight
Dinoland - dinosaur safari, roadside carnival

Within these lands the supporting attractions/restaurants are set up to support the tourist economic activity of tourism in each land. FOTLK is a performance in a venue in Harambe, Maharaja Jungle Trek is exploring historic ruins, Chester and Hesters is profiteering off the Dino Institute.

Therefore for a Lion King boat ride to 'fit' it seems like a push to apply the above principles unless they doing a very bold story treatment for the ride which is where I think a lot of people are trying to express their concerns around it's fit in the park. To be fair they went completely left field for Tianna's so it could be possible.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure I’d characterize the tourism angle as a principle of the park. It’s a framing devise. It’s the park’s equivalent of “recruits” but one that doesn’t require hollow on-the-nose statements as we are in facts tourists.

Theaters are interesting as in themed entertainment they are often treated as a sort of play within a play. Their content is often considered to be detached for their surrounding. Big theater shows really became a thing with studio parks and their content does not remain the purview of the park designers.
 

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