MK's original intended Fantasyland dark rides

[The Empress Lilly]

Ichabod Crane could STILL be a great ride, and could be put in Liberty Square

Yes! Ichabod Crane would make for a nice double header with Toad. But only in Fantasyland.

But keep cartoons out of Libery Square!

Lands themed like actual places and bygone areas are what make Disney parks Disney. Is what makes them so unique.

Frontierland, Adventureland and Tomorrowland have already been cheapened with cartoons, clashing with their carefully designed placemaking. Keep Disney Disney, protect what makes Disney Parks so unique.

 

[Mickey_777]

What I don't understand is why WDW only has three classic dark rides, and is about to shut one of them down and turn it into a meet n' greet hall. That will leave only two classic Fantasyland-style dark rides in all of Walt Disney World.

And yet it's such a classic Disney theme park experience, and a loving throwback to the Walt Disney era of the 20th century. Why on earth would they give up on that at WDW?

Fantasyland-style Classic Dark Rides - Circa 2012

Walt Disney World Resort (all four parks combined) - Two Dark Ride Attractions
Peter Pan's Flight
The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh

Disneyland Resort (two parks combined) - Eight Dark Ride Attractions
Peter Pan's Flight
The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh
Snow White's Scary Adventures
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Pinnochio's Daring Journey
Alice In Wonderland
Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin
Monsters Inc. Mike & Sulley To The Rescue!

Wouldn't Journey into Imagination w/Figment also be included in this list? Besides the semi-plussed ride vehicle, it's set up pretty much like a classic dark ride.

Yeah I was thinking about this too the other day. Classic dark rides are such a Disney staple and there are only going to be two(three?) left pretty soon. I really do hope now that their moving ahead with Avatar at AK that they also look at other ways to do improve the park here and there. A Lion King dark ride in the vein of Monsters Inc and Roger Rabbit out at DL would be awesome. To me, those are what "new classic" Disney dark rides should be. Now if only they could do something about the awful screaching noise from the friction/railing underneath you on these dark rides at both WDW and DL...

 

[mharrington]

I think "The Little Mermaid" should count as a dark ride. It's pretty much designed the same way.

 

[Fable McCloud]

Here's what I think they need:

Monsters, Inc Dark Ride in Hollywood Studios.

Lion King Dark Ride in Animal Kingdom

Little Mermaid Dark Ride (coming soon!) in Magic Kingdom

Wall-E Dark Ride in EPCOT (perhaps in the Land area)

OR some sort of Dark Ride in one of the countries...There's so many movies that fir with the countries, Mulan (China), Beauty & the Beast (France), Alice in Wonderland (UK), Aladdin (Morocco) just to name a few.

Overall though, if they can't take care of the current dark rides, do we want to see new ones? All in all, some care needs to be given to what they've got now.

 

[George]

I really like the idea of a Mary Poppins ride. I like PPF a lot, but a Mary Poppins dark ride instead could have been amazing.

I've always thought there should be a theatre off of main street that had a condensed (30-45 minute) stage production of Mary Poppins off of Main Street. It would be nice to have a show like that at MK.

 

[Enchantâmes]

So do I, for that matter, but I went to the movie anyway. And why? Because I was so HUNGRY for a GREAT Disney animated film, a hunger not at all satisfied by "Tangled" (Disney's attempt to be Dreamworks) and "Princess and the Frog" (misfire). And I LOVED it. The 3D was pretty effective, but it was the story and the emotional impact it had that made me feel the premium price was worth it.

That statement right there is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Did you even see Tangled? Because if you did you would know it is nothing like a Dreamworks movie. All of your arguments from now on are invalid. :wave:

 

[TheBeatles]

That statement right there is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Did you even see Tangled? Because if you did you would know it is nothing like a Dreamworks movie. All of your arguments from now on are invalid. :wave:

To be fair, the trailer did make it look like a DreamWorks-esque movie.

 

[mharrington]

Here's what I think they need:

Monsters, Inc Dark Ride in Hollywood Studios.

Lion King Dark Ride in Animal Kingdom

Little Mermaid Dark Ride (coming soon!) in Magic Kingdom

Wall-E Dark Ride in EPCOT (perhaps in the Land area)

OR some sort of Dark Ride in one of the countries...There's so many movies that fir with the countries, Mulan (China), Beauty & the Beast (France), Alice in Wonderland (UK), Aladdin (Morocco) just to name a few.

Overall though, if they can't take care of the current dark rides, do we want to see new ones? All in all, some care needs to be given to what they've got now.

For some reason, I'm not liking the idea of movie dark rides in Epcot.

 

[invader]

Here's what I think they need:

Monsters, Inc Dark Ride in Hollywood Studios.

Lion King Dark Ride in Animal Kingdom

Little Mermaid Dark Ride (coming soon!) in Magic Kingdom

Wall-E Dark Ride in EPCOT (perhaps in the Land area)

OR some sort of Dark Ride in one of the countries...There's so many movies that fir with the countries, Mulan (China), Beauty & the Beast (France), Alice in Wonderland (UK), Aladdin (Morocco) just to name a few.

Overall though, if they can't take care of the current dark rides, do we want to see new ones? All in all, some care needs to be given to what they've got now.

All of your ideas I thought were great until you brought up animated characters in EPCOT. Sorry, but they just don't belong there.

 

[Mouse Wizard]

If they do get rid of Snow White's scary Adventures at the Magic Kingdom, they should move it over the Hollywood Studios as a nod to the first animated feature film. Kind of solves a few small problems, like DHS small ride count, lack of dark rides at WDW, but still removing it for a meet and greet... not so good.

Disneyland only lost an outdoor theater!

 

[Magenta Panther]

That statement right there is so wrong I don't even know where to begin. Did you even see Tangled? Because if you did you would know it is nothing like a Dreamworks movie. All of your arguments from now on are invalid. :wave:

There's nothing like a closed mind. Adieu! :wave:

 

[Magenta Panther]

To be fair, the trailer did make it look like a DreamWorks-esque movie.

Which I'd call truth in advertising, unfortunately.

Tangled was beautiful-looking. I thought it was the most beautiful CGI movie I've ever seen. But the story lacked...something. I didn't really feel much for Rapunzel. The songs were blah. Frankly, I didn't blame Mother Gothel for getting mad that she lost the flower, because she did, after all, find it first. I had mixed feelings about her, and thus, she didn't reach the heights of villainy that the Wicked Queen or Scar or Maleficent did. So we had a blah heroine and a blah villain. Doesn't make a good Disney film IMO. Sorry...just didn't really like Tangled. :shrug: I'm glad it did well at the box office, though.

 

[TP2000]

Disneyland only lost an outdoor theater!

Yes, sadly Disneyland lost its big outdoor Fantasyland Theater from 2006 to 2012 as it became Princess Fantasy Faire.

The good news is, and it's obviously tied in to what they are doing at WDW with the Snow White dark ride, Princess Fantasy Faire is being evicted from the Fantasyland Theater and is being installed in a new facilty to be built on the southwest corner of Disneyland's Fantasyland, just off the Hub.

This new little village will soon house the princesses at Disneyland, coming in 2012.

As announced at D23 Expo, that village square is to be used for maypole dancing and other group activities, but also leads to several different pavilions in the village houses where the various Princesses hang out for meet n' greets. And off to the side is a covered theater space where Princess shows are performed in the daytime, and Disneyland's famous big band swing dancing to live orchestras can still take place in the evenings.

This plan is not without controversy with Disneyland fans though, as many folks are worried the beloved swing dancing bandstand and dancefloor called Plaza Gardens may be infested with too much Princess germs to still retain its evening charm. We shall see, but the silver lining is that the big Fantasyland Theater on the opposite side of Fantasyland near Toontown is now available again for large stage productions from 2013 onward.

I have no doubt that Disneyland's new outdoor Fantasy Faire and WDW's upcoming indoor Princess Fairytale Hall in the old Snow White ride are being co-developed simultaneously. I'm sure they will share many of the same elements, even with the dramatically different settings and facilities that are indoor and air-conditioned in Florida and outdoor and open-air in California.

 

[koryadams]

There are so many movies that aren't attractions that should become attractions before bringing in AVATAR. But, now I am excited to see it in 2016. I finally saw the movie and now I can't wait to see how they create it.

But I would rather see a Jungle Book attraction at AK

other dark rides: Princess and the Frog

 

[Mickey_777]

Which I'd call truth in advertising, unfortunately.

Tangled was beautiful-looking. I thought it was the most beautiful CGI movie I've ever seen. But the story lacked...something. I didn't really feel much for Rapunzel. The songs were blah. Frankly, I didn't blame Mother Gothel for getting mad that she lost the flower, because she did, after all, find it first. I had mixed feelings about her, and thus, she didn't reach the heights of villainy that the Wicked Queen or Scar or Maleficent did. So we had a blah heroine and a blah villain. Doesn't make a good Disney film IMO. Sorry...just didn't really like Tangled. :shrug: I'm glad it did well at the box office, though.

I understand what you said above but I see no connection with DreamWorks. DreamWorks movies have A LOT of references to pop culture and pretty much only use music from outside (popular recording artists). The humor is very adult in some cases. Also, DreamWorks movies do not have any of the good kind of warm and fuzziness that Disney movies do and thier animation has a pretty consistent style except for Shrek. Tangled, Meet the Robinsons, and Bolt all look very different.

Sorry everybody for going further off topic here

 

[Enchantâmes]

There's nothing like a closed mind. Adieu! :wave:

Actually let me take back what I said and give you a history lesson. Jeffery Katzenberg (The man who basically started and owns Dreamworks) was the chairman of the Disney Studios from The Black Cauldron to The Lion King. So technically Lion King would be like a Dreamworks film or vice versa because if you saw Kung Fu Panda 2 this summer it had several similarities to The Lion King and that's because a lot of the people who worked on that movie are working at Dreamworks now. Back to the point: you are basically calling Tangled Disney's attempt at being "Dreamworks" yet it was made to be in the style of Disney classics just like Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid and etc. All of those movies were pioneered by Katzenberg, Roy Disney, Howard Ashman and all of the artists, writers, and more. So basically Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Lion King could be called early Dreamworks films because they wouldn't exist without Katzenberg, he lit the fire under Animation to start making betters films, and he was so successful that articles at the time were calling him the new Walt Disney. So Tangled is like a Dreamworks film? It is but not in a way you understand.

 

[Mouse Wizard]

But then, Roy Disney intervened and insisted that the Imagineers remain true to Walt's original thinking at Disneyland and retain that park's original rides. Thus, they were duplicated at Florida. However, the Imagineers did revise the rides themselves so they were not complete duplicates of the original rides.

Does anyone else have any thoughts about the original thoughts for the dark rides?

Perhaps if Roy hadn't made this decision, we wouldn't have the huge amount and effort made to clone attractions these days.

 

[mharrington]

Perhaps if Roy hadn't made this decision, we wouldn't have the huge amount and effort made to clone attractions these days.

Well, you know how he was. He was never fond of Walt's ideas that were unproven (Snow White, Disneyland, etc.). Roy, as the financier for the studio, always feared they would be financial follies. He always preferred sticking to what was known.