New atmosphere entertainment being tested at DinoLand U.S.A.

[KatMaria]

I am shocked they are using those sound effects, that is clearly from Jurassic Park. Plus do the eyes move at all? I mean c'mon at least have the thing blink.

 

[englanddg]

I've seen better creatures designed in 3 days on the Henson Puppet Reality show.

 

[themonkeyisthesultan]

I love Disney and Animal Kingdom and I really don't think Dinorama is as bad as people say.

That dinosaur sucks.

 

[cjkeating]

Whilst I often think people are a bit negative on here, this is without a doubt the worst thing I have ever seen!

From the videos I have seen online of Lucky, they should just bring that back.

 

[Cmdr_Crimson]

Boy, they really put a lot of effort into that one, didn't they?

More along the lines of..

 

[TubaGeek]

And it always annoyed me that Animal Kingdom was the perfect place for Lucky, yet it was moved. And then Muppet Mobile Lab fit better at both Epcot or the Studios ... and was moved. I take it they were too cheap to keep them?

Heck, we're too cheap to keep Merida's brothers! And they relied on only one puppeteer!
If they could re-skin this thing and get it to stop obsessing with the ground, we might have something! And maybe get that tail to calm down.

 

[coolbeans14]

I'm sorry, but during design did they have a conversation like:

Designer 1: "You know what, it would be a shame if this ridiculously bendy tail were to hit a little 4 year old and knock them over..."

Designer 2: "I know! We'll have 3 CMs surrounding him being hit instead of a kid. And if anyone gets close they can run to get the kid down. Nothing could go wrong here"

I worry about the world sometimes...

 

[MickeyPeace]

Putting the low in low budget.

 

[Cardinals314]

I'm shocked that Disney thinks that 5 CMs is worth the cost to operate this thing, given how stingy they have been with money.

 

[Bairstow]

Here's another video with more bottlecap-eating action:


While we've done plenty of bashing on the bad suit, I think it also serves to point out that the person operating it doesn't seem to be fully proficient yet either.
Take a look at this video, and especially this one. Notice 1) How the operator knows exactly how close he can get to a child without knocking him/her over 2) how to trigger the sound effects to properly "voice" the motions the puppeteer is performing and 3) how the operator is able to go through a whole range of motions, from running to almost kneeling to the floor while continuing to perform subtle motions with the head. There's definitely an artform to this.

Notice also how they make sure that the children/audience is contained behind a line so that the tail, which is probably necessary to counterbalance the head mechanisms, isn't in danger of knocking anyone over. The tail is also kept higher in the air to give it better clearance over young kids.

Again, assuming this is some sort of technical test, Disney is still miles behind the competition here.
The only explanation is that perhaps the "Walking With Dinosaurs" suits are too heavy, too fragile, and require too much finesse to be viable as theme park performance tools. If this is the case, then "V" as a stopgap measure is perhaps more understandable, but still bewilderingly disappointing.

 

[NearTheEars]

Video is 1000 times better than the photo. BUT the suit? Needs a lot of work. And as already noted, that tail is going to take someone out.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

There's no reason for them to add this. If anything, I would guess that this is some kind of test for an Avatar creature. If I recall, that move also ripped off Jurassic Park. The flying creature (which allegedly will feature in a ride) had the head of a Jurassic Park raptor and used the same sound effects. Maybe this will be their Avatar equivalent of the Cars Land meet and greet and little parade they do, with a Sigourney Weaver-esque scientist character.

 

[Tom Morrow]

There's no reason for them to add this. If anything, I would guess that this is some kind of test for an Avatar creature. If I recall, that move also ripped off Jurassic Park. The flying creature (which allegedly will feature in a ride) had the head of a Jurassic Park raptor and used the same sound effects. Maybe this will be their Avatar equivalent of the Cars Land meet and greet and little parade they do, with a Sigourney Weaver-esque scientist character.

Good point, this is only here until May 3rd, it's probably just a test.

 

[Bairstow]

There's no reason for them to add this. If anything, I would guess that this is some kind of test for an Avatar creature. If I recall, that move also ripped off Jurassic Park. The flying creature (which allegedly will feature in a ride) had the head of a Jurassic Park raptor and used the same sound effects. Maybe this will be their Avatar equivalent of the Cars Land meet and greet and little parade they do, with a Sigourney Weaver-esque scientist character.

That doesn't really seem applicable, though.
Looking at the bits of the Avatar world we already know about, we would expect to see the either the Na'vi (stilt walkers), someone in an AMP suit (stilts and huge body rig with animatronics? Static animatronic would make much more sense) and possibly the direhorse (Horse with extra pair of legs strapped on? Three guys in a suit?!) You wouldn't learn much about managing any of these with two-legged dinosaur suit, unless Disney is just experimenting with the general difficulties of maneuvering a cumbersome costume through a crowd without killing anyone.

 

[rct247]

-Suit isn't well made
-Movements aren't perfected
-Sounds are too canned.
-Eyes don't blink
-3 Cast just to watch it's tail?! and still kids are at risk of being hit

Nope, not a keeper. Bring back Lucky.

 

[DisneyGentleman]

Yep it's a pile of steaming suckage. My guess is they went cheap for the test. If it seems to be a hit they will spend the money for the high quality version.

Once again I'll say that TDO expects that "rubes with wristbands" will accept anything.
Five years from now we will be talking about this excuse-for-a-character as a high point.
One can only imagine what tragedies lie ahead.

We have to stop looking at this through the eyes of WDW as it was...

... this is WDW 2014, where suck is standard.

Forget about the days of Declining by Degrees.

This is Decline by Design.

 

[MKCP 1985]

Sad to say par for the course for the park that brought us Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama and the broken Yeti and falling debris at the Tree of Life. "Disney's Animal Kingdom - Consistently Disappointing Guests Since 1999"

Sorry to be negative. Get it together, Animal King-dumb.

 

[Nick Pappagiorgio]

I am shocked they are using those sound effects, that is clearly from Jurassic Park. Plus do the eyes move at all? I mean c'mon at least have the thing blink.

Especially considering how much the talking Mickey does blink. They need to take some of Mickey's blinking action and give it to this guy.

 

[PrincessNelly_NJ]

I am shocked they are using those sound effects, that is clearly from Jurassic Park. Plus do the eyes move at all? I mean c'mon at least have the thing blink.

He just took a day out of his Disney vacation to visit Islands of Adventure LOL

 

[Nick Pappagiorgio]

I've actually just discovered the training video utilized by the TDO to train their performer...