Rumor Muppets to Take Over The Hall of Presidents

[UNCgolf]

The Navi River works perfect. You never feel like you’re looking at a screen.

Rise vs. Ratatouille... I’ll have to tell you my thoughts later! (Sad that I haven’t been to Paris to see it yet but oh well.)

I've never been on either! Just going off ride videos, so of course the in person experience could be different. Rat looks like it's almost entirely screens, though, with basically one exception.

And yes, Navi River does so many things right -- it's just about half as long as it should be and needs more AAs.

 

[Ponderer]

Rise does have lots of screens and lots of projection mapping effects (So video based).

When DHS opened the Great Movie Ride had multiple cryo, Fire, and other physical effects. 30 years later... lots of screens.

Projection is an entirely different thing than screens, and it’s not easier to pull off than other kinds of effects. Of course they’re using that kind of thing a lot! I mean, honestly, the tech for that sort of thing - to do it with acceptable quality - has been around for less than a decade, and less than that for projection effects.

Anyway, it’s all relative, and everyone gripes about what the current thing is. My dad lived just long enough to see Epcot open. He was reading an article about it, and when he put it down, part of me was hoping, even though he was getting sick at the time, that he was gonna say, “Well, let’s have one more great trip together to Epcot over there in Florida.” It was possible, as he had surprised me with the long drive down to Disneyland a couple of times in my childhood.

Anyway, what he said instead was, “I’m not flying all the way across the country to go see a bunch of damn robots.”

 

[RSoxNo1]

The problem is they are trying to make everything an IP. I'm surprised they don't have a Lin Manuel Miranda rapping animatronic in the middle of the stage. "Hamilton and the hall of presidents."

My podcast cohost suggested using the America Gardens Theater as a showcase of the music of Hamilton. There's obvious precedence of having broadway performers as part of the Festival of the Arts, but a permanent show featuring that music would be welcome in that theater.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

My podcast cohost suggested using the America Gardens Theater is a showcase of the music of Hamilton. There's obvious precedence of having broadway performers as part of the Festival of the Arts, but a permanent show featuring that music would be welcome in that theater.

I’d be really torn on that. I love Hamilton but I don’t want to hear that style of music while walking through Epcot. At that point that might as well turn the American Adventure Rotunda into a bar. Oh wait.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Between Madame Leota, the singing busts, Constance, and the hitchhiking ghosts, Haunted Mansion is a screen based ride.

 

[Kittlesona]

My podcast cohost suggested using the America Gardens Theater is a showcase of the music of Hamilton. There's obvious precedence of having broadway performers as part of the Festival of the Arts, but a permanent show featuring that music would be welcome in that theater.

I’ve always wondered why there isn’t a more permanent show here.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Between Madame Leota, the singing busts, Constance, and the hitchhiking ghosts, Haunted Mansion is a screen based ride.

I can tell from this comment that you aren't interested in serious discussion and are just trolling. But i'll bite. Only Leota and the Singing Busts were screen based when the ride first opened. They're vastly outnumbered by the amount of physical scenery and animatronic figures in the rest of the ride. In addition, they're fully reliant on their underlying physical 3-dimensional facial surface to make them work properly.

The other two newer effects you mentioned are awful and (as i'm sure you're aware) weren't in the original. Constance not only ruins the atmosphere of the attic scene from a conceptual standpoint, but the effect itself is hideous and immensely worse than the other much older facial projections in the same ride. Unlike Leota and the singing busts, Constance's figure lacks physical facial features. So the resulting projection is hilariously flat and ugly. The current CGI video Hitchhiking Ghosts are also a vast downgrade over the animatronic figures that preceded them. Thankfully the other versions of the ride still use physical figures (for now).

Most attractions have some sort of video element to them. Handled correctly and with restraint, they can work well. But when it gets to the point where a significant percentage and primary focus of an attraction is just a bunch of video screens with comparatively less physical scenery and animatronics, I have serious problems.

 

[itsy bitsy spider]

My podcast cohost suggested using the America Gardens Theater is a showcase of the music of Hamilton. There's obvious precedence of having broadway performers as part of the Festival of the Arts, but a permanent show featuring that music would be welcome in that theater.

That sounds much better than the "Guardians Mix Tape" thingy or the lame Acapella group.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

That sounds much better than the "Guardians Mix Tape" thingy or the lame Acapella group.

The Voices of Liberty or the modern acapella group that was in American gardens before mix tape?

 

[Lil Copter Cap]

Soarin' and FoP are definitively a screen-based ride.

Spoilers below for those that have yet to ride Rise of the Resistance.

Calling RotR anything close to a screen-based ride is just silly. I know we're off-topic here, but the amount of non-screen technology woven into the ride to recreate the onboard experience (And subsequent escaping) of a spaceship is nothing short of amazing. (AAs, including the droids "controlling" each and every ride vehicle that interact with its surroundings? Brilliant. Like Horizons, RotR also has limited-movement objects such as firing cannons, AT-ATs, a lightsaber, broken fragments of ship interior, etc.)

Is the pre-show and latter half of the ride screen-based? Yes. I'll give you that. But if you were to walk on to that ride (and the argument around "when does the ride actually begin" is another discussion) and the screens were removed or malfunctioning/turned off, you could still have a thrilling experiencing with story, movement, sound, and the above mentioned aspects.

Now...back to the Hall of Presidents.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

I can tell from this comment that you aren't interested in serious discussion and are just trolling. But i'll bite. Only Leota and the Singing Busts were screen based when the ride first opened. They're vastly outnumbered by the amount of physical scenery and animatronic figures in the rest of the ride. In addition, they're fully reliant on their underlying physical 3-dimensional facial surface to make them work properly.

The other two newer effects you mentioned are awful and (as i'm sure you're aware) weren't in the original. Constance not only ruins the atmosphere of the attic scene from a conceptual standpoint, but the effect itself is hideous and immensely worse than the other much older facial projections in the same ride. Unlike Leota and the singing busts, Constance's figure lacks physical facial features. So the resulting projection is hilariously flat and ugly. The current CGI video Hitchhiking Ghosts are also a vast downgrade over the animatronic figures that preceded them. Thankfully the other versions of the ride still use physical figures (for now).

Most attractions have some sort of video element to them. Handled correctly and with restraint, they can work well. But when it gets to the point where a significant percentage and primary focus of an attraction is just a bunch of video screens with comparatively less physical scenery and animatronics, I have serious problems.

Not to mention how state-of-the-art the Leota effect was when Yale developed it for the attraction. People had never seen anything like it.

 

[itsy bitsy spider]

The Voices of Liberty or the modern acapella group that was in American gardens before mix tape?

The modern acapella group with the 30 year olds that act like they're teenagers. They look like they belong in a "Say No to Drugs" school assembly.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

The modern acapella group with the 30 year olds that act like they're teenagers. They look like they belong in a "Say No to Drugs" school assembly.

Yeah I wasn’t a fan of them either. Not sure who did the arrangements but they were... lacking.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I’d be really torn on that. I love Hamilton but I don’t want to hear that style of music while walking through Epcot. At that point that might as well turn the American Adventure Rotunda into a bar. Oh wait.

There has been rock music playing at that venue for 20 years.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

There has been rock music playing at that venue for 20 years.

I prefer the Voices, Candlelight, and Broadway Shows. Of course Hamilton is broadway so once again I’m torn

 

[Rich Brownn]

Projection is an entirely different thing than screens, and it’s not easier to pull off than other kinds of effects. Of course they’re using that kind of thing a lot! I mean, honestly, the tech for that sort of thing - to do it with acceptable quality - has been around for less than a decade, and less than that for projection effects.

Anyway, it’s all relative, and everyone gripes about what the current thing is. My dad lived just long enough to see Epcot open. He was reading an article about it, and when he put it down, part of me was hoping, even though he was getting sick at the time, that he was gonna say, “Well, let’s have one more great trip together to Epcot over there in Florida.” It was possible, as he had surprised me with the long drive down to Disneyland a couple of times in my childhood.

Anyway, what he said instead was, “I’m not flying all the way across the country to go see a bunch of damn robots.”

Funny how times change. In 1964 people waited six hours just to see one robot

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Funny how times change. In 1964 people waited six hours just to see one robot

And threw Ball bearings at him!

 

[RSoxNo1]

I prefer the Voices, Candlelight, and Broadway Shows. Of course Hamilton is broadway so once again I’m torn

Performances were often linked to the Festivals. Eat to the Beat, Sounds of Summer that sort of thing. Voices of Liberty has performed on that stage, but they more often perform indoors in the Rotunda at the American Adventure.

It's a flexible stage, and doesn't always get a ton of use during the day. I would welcome a show like "Hits of Hamilton" during the day with the nightly concerts of Candlelight Processional still taking place.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

AAs, including the droids "controlling" each and every ride vehicle that interact with its surroundings? Brilliant. Like Horizons, RotR also has limited-movement objects such as firing cannons, AT-ATs, a lightsaber, broken fragments of ship interior, etc.)

Rise has a grand total of 5 real animatronics while you're on the ride. Finn, Hux, two Kylo Rens and the Admiral Ackbar replacement. With two more in the queue I believe (though one of these is BB8, nowhere near the same amount of axes/movement as a humanoid figure)

None of the droids are real "animatronics". They vehicle astromechs and the probe droid only have two axes of movement (head swivel and raising/lowering a little). There aren't even that many simple moving props either, only about a dozen more or less.

Most of the perceived motion in the ride is done with flashy lighting and/or projection mapping. And for the record, I don't actually have a problem with a lot of these effects when judged on a supplemental level (Ratatouille and even Mickey's Runaway Railway are far more guilty of video overkill IMO). My issue again is that most of the physical detail is shoved up against the wall, leaving large empty rooms and corridors and again almost no animatronics. Even using a bunch of older "A1" model AA's (instead of more advanced/expensive A100/1000 type) to fill out the scenes would have been a massive improvement. Especially for characters like Stormtroopers or protocol droids who don't need physical faces.

By comparison Horizons had about 40 real animatronics throughout, with several individual scenes having more than RotR has in its entirety. The simpler moving props also vastly outnumbered the ones in RotR's scenes. And yes, video projection was used to fill out some of the backgrounds or provide a transition between the scenes (the densely detailed physical sets and large amount of AA's at the forefront ensured these video elements didn't dominate the ride). World of Motion had even more AA's and moving props than Horizons (also with supplemental video). But Sinbad at Tokyo Disneysea tops them all, the entire ride has around 140 animatronics. So many that it's hard to count them all, there's around 45 in just the first scene. And absolutely zero video screens thoughout.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Rise has a grand total of 5 real animatronics while you're on the ride. Finn, Hux, two Kylo Rens and the Admiral Ackbar replacement. With two more in the queue I believe (though one of these is BB8, nowhere near the same amount of axes/movement as a humanoid figure)

None of the droids are real "animatronics". They vehicle astromechs and the probe droid only have two axes of movement (head swivel and raising/lowering a little). There aren't even that many simple moving props either, only about a dozen more or less.

Most of the perceived motion in the ride is done with flashy lighting and/or projection mapping. And for the record, I don't actually have a problem with a lot of these effects when judged on a supplemental level (Ratatouille and even Mickey's Runaway Railway are far more guilty of video overkill IMO). My issue again is that most of the physical detail is shoved up against the wall, leaving large empty rooms and corridors and again almost no animatronics. Even using a bunch of older "A1" model AA's (instead of more advanced/expensive A100/1000 type) to fill out the scenes would have been a massive improvement. Especially for characters like Stormtroopers or protocol droids who don't need physical faces.

By comparison Horizons had about 40 real animatronics throughout, with several individual scenes having more than RotR has in its entirety. The simpler moving props also vastly outnumbered the ones in RotR's scenes. And yes, video projection was used to fill out some of the backgrounds or provide a transition between the scenes (the densely detailed physical sets and large amount of AA's at the forefront ensured these video elements didn't dominate the ride). World of Motion had even more AA's and moving props than Horizons (also with supplemental video). But Sinbad at Tokyo Disneysea tops them all, the entire ride has around 140 animatronics. So many that it's hard to count them all, there's around 45 in just the first scene. And absolutely zero video screens thoughout.

Yeah that’s my problem with Rise - it feels very empty and sterile so the video screens stick out more than if they are in the background.

Aren’t there 2 bb-8’s - one indoors at the preshow and one outdoors? Again not a full AA but still counts for something. So a grand total of 8 AA’s for the entire attraction?