Rumor Lion King Flume Ride being considered for Animal Kingdom

[lazyboy97o]

I do get what you are saying. But it's not like the park didn't launch with the show and a Pavilion hosted by Rafiki.

I think the 'why not' also has every bit to do with the park already having blown its load on Africa via Kilimanjaro to begin with.

But we know about things like the Excavator, the longer Kali River Rapids and Beastlie Kingdom. There is no plot at Disney’s Animal Kingdom where the Lion King or Jungle Book rides were supposed to go before getting cut.

But Lion King is low hanging fruit across their portfolio and a bit strange it has never resulted in a significant attraction to this day.

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.

The Lion King is a plot heavy drama focused on characters. Hamlet the Ride sounds like a lousy idea because it is. There’s to much plot for a short ride. You’ll run into the same problem as The Little Mermaid of making weird cuts. Something focused on the environment is redundant because it’s already been done in spectacular living fashion. The television specials on Disney’s Animal Kingdom always included Rhode talking about bringing a real tiger to a pitch meeting to demonstrate the power of real animals and we’ve got people scratching their heads as to why there hasn’t been an effort to just do fake animals in the park.

 

[Brer Panther]

Dinoland USA and Pandora are both questionable when contrasted with Harambe’s coherence.

Dinoland is gonna be turned into Indiana Jones and Encanto Land, I don't imagine that'll be any more coherent.

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

This is not what the film is about, so this is where you lose me. The circle of life is something touched on in the film and is indeed relevant to the themes of AK (and would therefore be a good angle of approach), but neither it nor nature are centered by the narrative.

How about we all rewatch The Lion King. The circle of life isn’t just “touched on” in the film — it's the central theme and repeatedly reinforced. Many “circles” are explored in the film, including portrayals of predator-prey and symbiotic relationships, the description of the food chain, the cyclical nature of life and death, responsibilities and wisdom passed on to future generations, and one lion's growth into a role he is destined to fill. “The Circle of Life” is the most iconic song from a film full of iconic songs, it is the cold start, the emotional centerpiece of the film, and what immediately sets the tone for how we observe these animals coexist with one another. They all take their "place” -- in some cases learn to take their place, or scheme to take a different place -- in the great circle of life. In these many different ways. Beautiful lessons we can apply to human relationships, too.

If you think the film is just about a lion who feels guilt about his father's death and finally overcomes it, then you’ve taken a most literal interpretation of the film and missed the bigger picture. Even then, it would still fit a park about animals

A book report might do us good actually

 

[James Alucobond]

If you think the film is just about a lion who feels guilt about his father's death and finally overcomes it, then you’ve taken a most literal interpretation of the film and missed the bigger picture.

The scraps of the CliffsNotes are all you’ll get in a book report ride, and with significant gaps to boot. If you don’t want it to focus on the literal happenings of a selection of popular scenes but rather larger themes or motifs, then the path forward is not that format.

 

[DisneyHead123]

Well said.

However, others, while generally understanding this idea (though not in exact words), have questioned the premise that AK is all that pure in its coherence.

Dinoland USA and Pandora are both questionable when contrasted with Harambe’s coherence.

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?

 

[EricsBiscuit]

A Lion King ride doesn’t need to be a retelling of The Lion King. It can work

 

[Sir_Cliff]

A lot of the Disney renaissance films are oddly underrepresented in the parks, attraction wise. It was only relatively recent that Little Mermaid and BatB got in, in terms of actual rides not shows - and this is worldwide. I guess we need to technically count Aladdin as having attraction representation, but that gets an asterisk as far as I’m concerned.

So with the conversation about TLK being low hanging fruit and there’s a good reason we don’t have it yet, is there really? Or is it like it’s late 80s & early 90s brothers and sisters?

In those cases, The Little Mermaid and Beauty & the Beast are great films that have become attractions that are not so great. That might give a hint as to why it took so long to turn such successful films into theme park attractions and give some pause when considering whether it was worth it when they finally did.

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. I'm sure Lion King, Aladdin, and other film-based attractions have been explored over the years, but I suspect the reason they haven't gone anywhere is that, when you start from the position of wanting an effective attraction rather than from wanting to create an attraction based on X film, the possibilities have never been as compelling as you might imagine from just enjoying the film.

 

[James Alucobond]

A Lion King ride doesn’t need to be a retelling of The Lion King. It can work

I don’t think anyone has said otherwise. The IP is already in the park in several forms that do work. People were just responding to the suggestion that it would fit perfectly as a vignetted retelling.

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

The scraps of the CliffsNotes are all you’ll get in a book report ride, and with significant gaps to boot. If you don’t want it to focus on the literal happenings of a selection of popular scenes but rather larger themes or motifs, then the path forward is not that format.

A 5 minute ride is obviously not meant to replace an 88 minute film. It adds. It's an opportunity to physically experience the emotion of key scenes while reminding us of themes already taught to us by the source material. Or inspire you to pick up the source material if you haven't yet seen it. You're suggesting any book report ride will never equate the depth of its source material, and I just fundamentally disagree with the need for it to do so

And if an 88 minute film still isn't enough to understand a film's themes (as some of the conversation here suggests), we can agree that Disney may need to publish a 400+ page novel explaining it for that audience

 

[RSoxNo1]

The Safari land bit isn't even set in stone btw. It could, quite literally, replace nothing.

Where on the Safari would it be located?

The scraps of the CliffsNotes are all you’ll get in a book report ride, and with significant gaps to boot. If you don’t want it to focus on the literal happenings of a selection of popular scenes but rather larger themes or motifs, then the path forward is not that format.

I dunno, massive opening scene with all the animals arriving to welcome baby Simba seems like a pretty awesome way to kick off a ride.

 

[DCLcruiser]

You can offer your services for a "How to Read The Lion King" book to accompany the novel.

After that, perhaps you can pen one explaining how Frozen is actually about Norwegian culture and history and Disney's Hercules is faithful to Ancient Greek theology for those of us who missed the true meaning of those films.

Funny enough, "Hercules" is the Roman name. The character should be Heracles since the other characters are Greek.

 

[James Alucobond]

A 5 minute ride is obviously not meant to replace an 88 minute film. It adds. It's an opportunity to physically experience the emotion of key scenes while reminding us of themes already taught to us by the source material. Or inspire you to pick up the source material if you haven't yet seen it. You're suggesting any book report ride will never equate the depth of its source material, and I just fundamentally disagree with the need for it to do so

And if an 88 minute film still isn't enough to understand a film's themes (as some of the conversation here suggests), we can agree that Disney may need to publish a 400+ page novel explaining it for that audience

There is a reason book reports in WDW generally only show up in Fantasyland. There, the storybook/fairy tale quality is the point. Elsewhere, the characters and associated motifs are typically explored in other ways to emphasize the theme of the land or park as a whole.

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

You can offer your services for a "How to Read The Lion King" book to accompany the novel.

After that, perhaps you can pen one explaining how Frozen is actually about Norwegian culture and history and Disney's Hercules is faithful to Ancient Greek theology for those of us who missed the true meaning of those films.

Happily. I'll make it a podcast series and throw in a few other episodes:
"How to chill out and have fun on a Lion King ride",
"Help -- I thought I was at a park about animals and now I'm surrounded by animatronic lions, a warthog and a meerkat", and
"What is an animal, anyway?"

Never claimed anything about Frozen <> Norwegian culture and Hercules <> Ancient Greek theology, so I'll leave that up to other volunteers. I also haven't said anything about Lion King <> African culture as you're implying, so don't expect that in the podcast series either

 

[OptimusPrime]

But we know about things like the Excavator, the longer Kali River Rapids and Beastlie Kingdom. There is no plot at Disney’s Animal Kingdom where the Lion King or Jungle Book rides were supposed to go before getting cut.


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.

The Lion King is a plot heavy drama focused on characters. Hamlet the Ride sounds like a lousy idea because it is. There’s to much plot for a short ride. You’ll run into the same problem as The Little Mermaid of making weird cuts. Something focused on the environment is redundant because it’s already been done in spectacular living fashion. The television specials on Disney’s Animal Kingdom always included Rhode talking about bringing a real tiger to a pitch meeting to demonstrate the power of real animals and we’ve got people scratching their heads as to why there hasn’t been an effort to just do fake animals in the park.

The Lion King is very loosely Hamlet. Tell me you’ve never studied Shakespeare without telling me you’ve never studied Shakespeare.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The Lion King is very loosely Hamlet. Tell me you’ve never studied Shakespeare without telling me you’ve never studied Shakespeare.

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

 

[Timothy_Q]

Looking forward to this endless circular discussion to continue for the next 7 years until this ride opens

 

[Gusey]

Apologies to anyone who may have actually pointed this out, because I don't think anyone noticed this detail on these forums. Just heard it on a podcast and it's indeed there... There's a Lion on the Tree of Life (in addition to Mickeys rock looking like Pride rock, which was discussed).

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Should we go back to discussing this and the first proper hint towards a Lion King ride at Animal Kingdom by Disney?

 

[Moth]

Looking forward to this endless circular discussion to continue for the next 7 years until this ride opens

You think it ends after it opens?

 

[Starship824]

You think it ends after it opens?

No

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

There is a reason book reports in WDW generally only show up in Fantasyland. There, the storybook/fairy tale quality is the point. Elsewhere, the characters and associated motifs are typically explored in other ways to emphasize the theme of the land or park as a whole.

The Fantasyland comparison doesn't hold. Snow White, Mr. Toad, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, and Pinocchio were literally books and fairtyales before they were movies. Lion King was never a book and has zero storybook or fantasy quality. The argument they're forcing a Fantasyland-style ride into Animal Kingdom is thus dead on arrival

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

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

Should we go back to discussing this and the first proper hint towards a Lion King ride at Animal Kingdom by Disney?

I'm here for it. My only thing is, there's gotta be more hidden messages like it in there right? Why would they only choose to tease Lion King when there's all these other projects swirling. I'm looking for more...