Little Mermaid and Beasts Castle waterfalls?

[psherman42]

Just to illustrate the Hogwarts shed... I took this photo during my first trip to Florida and my first trip to IoA and my first ride on Harry Potter.

I didn't know the shed existed I just managed to spot it from the queue in the outdoor conservatory area. Quite shocking to be honest.

I love the WWoHP (the only reason I bought a Universal annual pass when I was down doing my CP...) but that's bad. I have a picture very similar to that from when I first visited. I get that it's an enormous building but I feel like Universal could have tried harder to hide it.

I'll at least give them a bit of credit for lowering the Soarin building as much as they could. As you go through the queue, you walk quite a bit downhill. That monstrosity could be much more intrusive. I still don't like it, but they tried.

Universal hangs their hat on the "we're a working studio" mantra when they let show buildings hang out all over the place. DHS is the same way. They'll put up some nice facades, but then you see warehouses (wait, I mean soundstages) all over the place. I don't know if it's them being cheap, or honestly trying to live up to the "backstage" nature of it all.

I see Potter as being similar to ToT, in that they're not "backstage" themed attractions. WDW did a fantastic job of theming every square inch of ToT (including the modifications when they built Fantasmic), and rightfully so. Uni should have spent a few more dollars on Potter. It's such an immersive land (so I've heard), that it's a shame to have a warehouse sticking out.

Regarding Main Street and HM....I see those as mere oversights or accidents. When they built MK, they spared no expense and tried with all their might to hide this stuff. You only see HM because of the lack of foliage these days. A few more trees and it would disappear. But it's still painted natural green and somewhat disappears. They probably could have extended the Main Street facades a bit further by Tomorrowland, but perhaps they just missed that one line-of-sight when laying everything out. I give those early Imagineers way more credit than today's. Today, they'd see it and go "Meh, saved $50,000 in facade construction." Back then, they probably walked the park after opening and said, "OH $#!+, put that on the list to fix!"

The Imagineers deserve tons of credit for hiding show buildings. I'm slightly concerned by what you're going to see now without the Fantasyland skyway station there but I hope it won't be too bad and will be hidden when the renovation is complete. But my favorite thing the Disney Imagineers have done is painting Tower of Terror to match Morocco. Major props to the Imagineer who caught that sight line.

 

[wolf359]

I'm not sure the Imagineers back in the "good old days" were as fanatical about protecting every sight-line and hiding every showbuilding as we're giving them credit. After all, the Skyway pretty much gave away every showbuilding secret in the park and purposely flaunted every ugly rooftop in the Magic Kingdom.

 

[Tom]

I'm not sure the Imagineers back in the "good old days" were as fanatical about protecting every sight-line and hiding every showbuilding as we're giving them credit. After all, the Skyway pretty much gave away every showbuilding secret in the park and purposely flaunted every ugly rooftop in the Magic Kingdom.

The Skyway was definitely an exception....and quite the non-Disney attraction. But based on all the books written on the original design, they spent a LOT of time and effort on making sure sightlines were maintained and that outside influences weren't seen from within.

Examples....certain main street buildings being full size to block the view of local resorts.

 

[psherman42]

I'll at least give them a bit of credit for lowering the Soarin building as much as they could. As you go through the queue, you walk quite a bit downhill. That monstrosity could be much more intrusive. I still don't like it, but they tried.

Universal hangs their hat on the "we're a working studio" mantra when they let show buildings hang out all over the place. DHS is the same way. They'll put up some nice facades, but then you see warehouses (wait, I mean soundstages) all over the place. I don't know if it's them being cheap, or honestly trying to live up to the "backstage" nature of it all.

I see Potter as being similar to ToT, in that they're not "backstage" themed attractions. WDW did a fantastic job of theming every square inch of ToT (including the modifications when they built Fantasmic), and rightfully so. Uni should have spent a few more dollars on Potter. It's such an immersive land (so I've heard), that it's a shame to have a warehouse sticking out.

Regarding Main Street and HM....I see those as mere oversights or accidents. When they built MK, they spared no expense and tried with all their might to hide this stuff. You only see HM because of the lack of foliage these days. A few more trees and it would disappear. But it's still painted natural green and somewhat disappears. They probably could have extended the Main Street facades a bit further by Tomorrowland, but perhaps they just missed that one line-of-sight when laying everything out. I give those early Imagineers way more credit than today's. Today, they'd see it and go "Meh, saved $50,000 in facade construction." Back then, they probably walked the park after opening and said, "OH $#!+, put that on the list to fix!"

The Imagineers deserve tons of credit for the work they've done hiding show buildings. I'm a little concerned about what the demolition of the Fantasyland skyway station will do for sightlines but I hope when it's complete, there will be enough there to cover anything that may have been exposed (Small World/Haunted Mansion) back up. My favorite is how they designed Tower of Terror to make it blend in with Morocco. Props to the Imagineer who caught that sightline.

Just to illustrate the Hogwarts shed... I took this photo during my first trip to Florida and my first trip to IoA and my first ride on Harry Potter.

I didn't know the shed existed I just managed to spot it from the queue in the outdoor conservatory area. Quite shocking to be honest.

I love WWoHP (It was the only reason I bought a Universal annual pass for my CP) but I wish they had done a bit more to try to hide the FJ show building. I get that it's huge but I think they could have done something. I have a picture very similar to this from my first trip there back in Summer 2010.

 

[RunnerEd]

Isn't there to be a water wheel on the northern side of Belle's cottage, too? Not sure whether there will be a waterfall/stream visible "feeding" it or if there will just be a trough feeding the waterwheel water.

-Rob

The concept art shows a good deal of water on/around the Seven Dwarves Mine ride as well.

 

[JungleTrekFan]

Regarding Main Street and HM....I see those as mere oversights or accidents. When they built MK, they spared no expense and tried with all their might to hide this stuff. You only see HM because of the lack of foliage these days. A few more trees and it would disappear. But it's still painted natural green and somewhat disappears. They probably could have extended the Main Street facades a bit further by Tomorrowland, but perhaps they just missed that one line-of-sight when laying everything out. I give those early Imagineers way more credit than today's. Today, they'd see it and go "Meh, saved $50,000 in facade construction." Back then, they probably walked the park after opening and said, "OH $#!+, put that on the list to fix!"

Im no magic kingdom historian but as far as my research and knowledge of the park goes, the current Tomorrowland Terrace, (and not what is known as now as Cosmic Ray’s) has only been around since the 1995 remake of Tomorrowland. Prior to that there never was a walkway from The Plaza restaurant to Tomorrowland, thus never a walkway that showed the back of Main Street prior to 1995. Now this doesn’t mean this is not bad show, but that probably with budgets of the 1995 renovations some things had to be cut, like something to disguise the back of main street, and not having all of peoplemover being the metal remodeled style.

And back on topic; It should be interesting how the waterfall and waterway of the Beauty and the Beast area will run into and possibly through the Seven Dwarves Mine ride.

 

[WDW97]

There's a 2nd part of the video "Behind the walls" that was posted yesterday on youtube. It says that there wil be about a 20 to 30 foot waterfall in the 'V' of the BatB mountains that flow under both bridges and stops after running into the Seven Dwarfs Mountain plus there is 4 or 5 more on the Little Mermaid building! :sohappy:

 

[Tom]

There's a 2nd part of the video "Behind the walls" that was posted yesterday on youtube. It says that there wil be about a 20 to 30 foot waterfall in the 'V' of the BatB mountains that flow under both bridges and stops after running into the Seven Dwarfs Mountain plus there is 4 or 5 more on the Little Mermaid building! :sohappy:

Yes. Lots of water.

 

[StepInTime]

I don't really think it's a fair comparison when one is based off of a cartoon medium.

Also the beast's castle is representative of the time when the castle was under the spell. As a result the castle was left to decay and deterriorate;that is why we see the patina on the golden dome and weathering on the spires. Additionally, it reflects the harsh weather that was evident in the beast's kingdom in the film; that is why we see the snow that is on the bottom of the turrets. Overall, not a lack of theming but an accurate representation of time and place.