No Name
Well-Known Member
I was vaguely with you until your last paragraph. The “problem” as you’re describing it is not IP persay, but the execution of the IP’s use and it’s underlying message.
All the examples you explicitly listed are IP based. Heck, the park itself when it opened was IP branded - it had the MGM Lion in its logo.
I think the shift you’re feeling from MGM to DHS is one of thematic consistency that started much further back than you peg it. You’re right in that the original theme of the park could have been phrased, “respect and honor of the craft of filmmaking.” But I actually think that theme started to break down when they added ToT. It’s the first fully realized environment in the park. They never roll the styrofoam boulder back up the track. You never see the steel girders behind the false flats. You *are* stepping into the Twilight Zone, not the set of a TZ episode in production.
The ToT’s theme is not “respect for filmmaking,” in that it doesn’t acknowledge it’s a false environment. Its theme is more akin to “the fantastic and impossible is possible.” And almost every addition to the park since then has trended more toward this line (with the exception of LAM).
MMRR feels thematically consistent with the newer theme of DHS, which is really that the fantasy lands of film and entertainment can be real. Here, the world of Mickey’s cartoons is a real place you get sucked into.
I don’t think that people are chafing at “no theme,” I think they’re chafing at a theme they don’t like and that is more fantasy based than grounded in “reality.”
“The fantasy lands of film and entertainment can be real.” In that case, what makes Cars Land, Pandora, etc. not fit in DHS though? Heck, does every attraction Disney has built stateside since 2006 inherently fit in DHS?
I think Star Tours and TSMM are better examples of how the shift started further back. The ToT is not exactly the same because you’re ironically shown and told exactly what’s about to happen on the ride before you are directly invited to experience it for yourself. On the ride, everything happens just as you were told, with narration too. What other ride does that? Guests are actively and consciously stepping into the lost episode. Here’s the difference... Galaxy’s Edge avoids the Star Wars logo because it doesn’t make thematic sense, whereas ToT incorporates the Twilight Zone intro and logo in the story of the attraction. The former is ignoring the fact that it’s a media franchise, the latter is incorporating the fact that it’s a media franchise.
Explicitly acknowledging the false environment as you mention with the girders and whatnot sometimes has the adverse effect of pulling you out of the story rather than pulling you into it. That was one of the problems with the original park. But the ToT is well-executed, in my opinion, and I think that’s a widely-shared opinion. It is fantasy-based and that’s central to the story.
MMRR sounds like it’s in the same vein as the ToT, GMR, or even RnRC which I think has proven most compelling among guests. I’m excited for that.
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