Magenta Panther
Well-Known Member
Wash, rinse, repeat: If Eisner did, as someone on this thread suggested, dump Beastly Kingdomme for dinosaurs, then it was a major mistake, and not his ONLY mistake. I mentioned the others for scale.
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Wash, rinse, repeat: If Eisner did, as someone on this thread suggested, dump Beastly Kingdomme for dinosaurs, then it was a major mistake, and not his ONLY mistake. I mentioned the others for scale.
Magenta Panther
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I remember one Wreck-It-Ralph poster in which Sonic was front and center. Bogus, although he did get a line or two...
Magenta Panther
Well-Known Member
Hopefully, someday, some animation studio will make a good new version of The Snow Queen. Sadly, that studio likely won't be Disney.
Matt_Black
Well-Known Member
A-ha! You did it again! Keep ragging about how they didn't make the Snow Queen. Frozen made "kiss my butt" amounts of money, so I'm thinking maybe Disney Animation knew what they were doing in this instance.
Magenta Panther
Well-Known Member
And to me, that is the only GOOD thing about that movie. That it's more than a success, it's a cultural phenomenon. Just the other day, I read that parents are freaking out because there's not enough Frozen merch. Elsa's dress, in particular, is sold out everywhere, and some people are selling the dress on Ebay for upwards of $1500 each. So I'm certainly not denying the movie's a success, and I'm happy that it is. It's just that...when I was a kid, I saw that Russian version of "The Snow Queen", and for some reason, I've never forgotten it. It's as much a part of my childhood as Pinocchio and Jungle Book and Lady and the Tramp. It was a very good version, but not as good as Disney would have made it. So I can't help but feel a little wistful over what might have been...
Matt_Black
Well-Known Member
Just because it's a Disney Animated adaptation, doesn't necessarily mean it would have been good. Case in point- Chicken Little. I liked it, but many people point to that as one of the worst Disney films ever.
And you mention the Jungle Book, and yet that was just as much "inspired by" rather than "based on" as Frozen is to the Snow Queen. Remember, Walt's advice to the writers was "Do NOT read this book."
Cmdr_Crimson
Well-Known Member
DisneyGentleman
Well-Known Member
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
The fact is that Disney is incredibly cheap and will repurpose any time they can get away with it. I'm surprised they don't yet have an attraction based on leftover food.
A classic example the Monsters Inc. ride at California Adventure. It is a highly recycled Superstar Limo that was the brainchild of one Michael Eisner. All the "stars" in that awful ride were chosen because they already were under contract with Disney. It was a real disaster, and nobody got the Hollywood insider jokes, because frankly the average park visitor is not a Hollywood insider.
There is an interesting site somewhere that shows how they recycled every figure from the old ride into characters for the new ride. El Cheapo to the max.
So don't confuse recycling for planning when it comes to the parks.
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
I was under the impression that Dinoland and Beastly Kingdom were both intended to have been included in AK, each occupying different spaces (Dinoland where it is now and BK over at the place Avatar is supposed to go). Beastly Kingdom just happened to have been one of the park's many cuts, part of the park budget cuts that began under Eisner. And had BK been built in some form with said cuts, it likely would have been unrecognizable from its intended form (the rest of the park's rides would have been mutilated further as well to compensate). Again though, far from the only (some may argue not even the worst) cut to happen to the park. Tiger River (a full on lengthy E Ticket boat safari through Asian animal habitats) for example was sliced down to Kali, a very short off the shelf rapids ride. Dinoland was also slashed to pieces. I don't know what all else was cut from the park, but there was probably more. I might have been more ok with a potential delay of BK, had they compensated by going all the way with the other rides instead- building a fully realized Tiger River along with a non-slashed Dinoland (along with an EPCOT-caliber ride instead of Dinorama). And had leadership not gone down the crapper in this era and forgotten the concept of a "phase 2", we still could have possibly seen BK soon after opening anyways instead of seeing it slashed outright. What sucks the most is that they didn't even reroute ANY of the money into improving the rest of the park, the rest of the rides were even further mutilated even beyond their own original forms.
In my opinion, Kilimanjaro Safari is the only ride at Animal Kingdom that actually feels "complete", fully satisfying and worthy of what one expects of Disney. And I concede that it too may have been cut down considerably from its original form (I don't know about the history of this one). But for what it is (again not knowing its history or whether cuts were made), I don't get off with a nagging suspicion that it wasn't finished, I feel satisfied and don't leave it thinking "well that could have been much better". I do however get that feeling from all the other rides at AK, and this was even before I started researching Animal Kingdom's history and found out about all the budget cuts and ride downgrades. The Safari though to me is a fantastic experience and IMO lives up to classic Disney standards of quality. I will also say that as far as WDW rides go, it's kind of the last of its kind (as of now anyways, we'll have to see whether Disney World ever finds its way out of the slump it has been in for decades now). No WDW ride built since has given me the same feeling of satisfaction and made me feel like it lived up to Disney standards of quality.
I have nothing whatsoever against the idea of Dinoland because honestly a well done prehistoric land is a fantastic idea in my book with great potential. It's the execution where it falters. Like the rest of the park, it got a heavily value engineered version of what could have been a truly outstanding land. Besides the cutting of the Excavator coaster (which while it didn't look groundbreaking could still have been a nice addition), the concept form of Countdown to Extinction portrayed a much longer ride that even included an outside segment. I believe Martin's tribute for the ride goes somewhat into detail about it's concept form. They cut the outside and opted to clone the Indiana Jones track layout instead of a more customized one apparently. They further engineered what remained by not completing indoor show scenes (apparently so much is in darkness due to there being a lot of incomplete or not constructed show scenes that were supposed to go there). I do enjoy the current ride to some extent, but had they gone full throttle with the original concept then it would have been a truly amazing ride that people wouldn't dismissively compare to Indy. Hell, even filling in the dark empty parts within its current building space would go a long way to improving the ride and public opinion of it.
Dinorama needs to go though and replaced by an actually good ride (and one that looks good externally). Hideous thing that compromises an otherwise gorgeous park. And yes I am aware of the backstory they cobbled together for it, still not a fan. Thankfully it sounds like the entire thing could be demolished and removed in a ridiculously short time, not too unlike an actual roadside carnival. Of course it will never be done at this rate, but lets just play pretend for one moment and Disney hypothetically gets new leadership that aren't complete morons and are willing to grow the parks organically. To me it's a no brainer to build in its place a multi-level POTC-style boat ride (which has the added benefit of good capacity and efficiency) through various eras of prehistoric extinct animals. Classic Disney style, whole shebang of fantastic showscenes and lots of animatronic creatures. Give it a Smithsonian Castle theme to the facade and queue. They can even rename the land Prehistoria to celebrate all extinct animals. After that is finished and there's a new decent ride to compensate, Dinosaur should be taken offline for a decent lengthy refurb period, filling out the dark empty spaces with new show scenes (I don't see it being even a remote possibility even with more competent leadership, but ideally expand it to the original concept form with the outdoor portion). They can also add the Excavator for an added new attraction (further increasing capacity of the park) if they like. Those changes (along with appropriate thematic alterations to fit with the new rides and ideas) would IMO make this one hell of a great land. It would also pave the way for improving the park elsewhere, including taking other rides offline for necessary refurbishment and improvement (there would be a buffer of other rides to help compensate for the downtime).
In my opinion, Kilimanjaro Safari is the only ride at Animal Kingdom that actually feels "complete", fully satisfying and worthy of what one expects of Disney. And I concede that it too may have been cut down considerably from its original form (I don't know about the history of this one). But for what it is (again not knowing its history or whether cuts were made), I don't get off with a nagging suspicion that it wasn't finished, I feel satisfied and don't leave it thinking "well that could have been much better". I do however get that feeling from all the other rides at AK, and this was even before I started researching Animal Kingdom's history and found out about all the budget cuts and ride downgrades. The Safari though to me is a fantastic experience and IMO lives up to classic Disney standards of quality. I will also say that as far as WDW rides go, it's kind of the last of its kind (as of now anyways, we'll have to see whether Disney World ever finds its way out of the slump it has been in for decades now). No WDW ride built since has given me the same feeling of satisfaction and made me feel like it lived up to Disney standards of quality.
I have nothing whatsoever against the idea of Dinoland because honestly a well done prehistoric land is a fantastic idea in my book with great potential. It's the execution where it falters. Like the rest of the park, it got a heavily value engineered version of what could have been a truly outstanding land. Besides the cutting of the Excavator coaster (which while it didn't look groundbreaking could still have been a nice addition), the concept form of Countdown to Extinction portrayed a much longer ride that even included an outside segment. I believe Martin's tribute for the ride goes somewhat into detail about it's concept form. They cut the outside and opted to clone the Indiana Jones track layout instead of a more customized one apparently. They further engineered what remained by not completing indoor show scenes (apparently so much is in darkness due to there being a lot of incomplete or not constructed show scenes that were supposed to go there). I do enjoy the current ride to some extent, but had they gone full throttle with the original concept then it would have been a truly amazing ride that people wouldn't dismissively compare to Indy. Hell, even filling in the dark empty parts within its current building space would go a long way to improving the ride and public opinion of it.
Dinorama needs to go though and replaced by an actually good ride (and one that looks good externally). Hideous thing that compromises an otherwise gorgeous park. And yes I am aware of the backstory they cobbled together for it, still not a fan. Thankfully it sounds like the entire thing could be demolished and removed in a ridiculously short time, not too unlike an actual roadside carnival. Of course it will never be done at this rate, but lets just play pretend for one moment and Disney hypothetically gets new leadership that aren't complete morons and are willing to grow the parks organically. To me it's a no brainer to build in its place a multi-level POTC-style boat ride (which has the added benefit of good capacity and efficiency) through various eras of prehistoric extinct animals. Classic Disney style, whole shebang of fantastic showscenes and lots of animatronic creatures. Give it a Smithsonian Castle theme to the facade and queue. They can even rename the land Prehistoria to celebrate all extinct animals. After that is finished and there's a new decent ride to compensate, Dinosaur should be taken offline for a decent lengthy refurb period, filling out the dark empty spaces with new show scenes (I don't see it being even a remote possibility even with more competent leadership, but ideally expand it to the original concept form with the outdoor portion). They can also add the Excavator for an added new attraction (further increasing capacity of the park) if they like. Those changes (along with appropriate thematic alterations to fit with the new rides and ideas) would IMO make this one hell of a great land. It would also pave the way for improving the park elsewhere, including taking other rides offline for necessary refurbishment and improvement (there would be a buffer of other rides to help compensate for the downtime).
ctxak98
Well-Known Member
Yes thank you!!!!!! This is what I've been trying to say for the past few pages but couldn't find the words! It's not a direct tie in to the movies characters or plot, just similar dinosaurs....that's where it ends!
TubaGeek
God bless the "Ignore" button.
I'm a little disappointed with the end result. Seeing the performer's legs is fine; that's practically unavoidable. The big, black hole on the body, though, is just terrible, as are the action figure joints.
Why bother doing this if there are already better costumes being used by someone else?
Why bother doing this if there are already better costumes being used by someone else?
darthspielberg
Well-Known Member
This thing looks doofy as heck.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
This is an important point. It's safe to say that if Beastly Kingdom had been built it wouldn't have been the land that we saw in the concept art.
As for cuts to Kilimanjaro Safaris, I have heard that Gemsboks, Wild African Dogs and Hyenas were intended to be included at one point or another but were cut because they would have required separate separated areas. Gemsboks are herbivores but are apparently aggressive. Wild African Dogs and Hyenas are carnivores and would have had to be separated. Pangani Forest has some images of Hyenas in the indoor section and my understanding was that this was a nod to the fact that they were to be in the attraction.
With regards to Dinorama, there's another name for an elaborate backstory... a bad excuse. The backstory is a decent enough concept but it doesn't make up for a land that was obviously short on cash and was only added for a capacity boost.
No Time To Say Hello Goodbye
Member
If you have to explain an area to people, and that explanation takes more than 60 seconds....it is probably going to be lost on most people. Our first trip, I didn't know the backstory and couldn't figure it out by walking through the land. We still enjoyed the rides that were there but I definitely didn't understand the theme. I had to read about the theme and story on sites like this one to understand what I was supposed to "get" when I was in the land.
rct247
Well-Known Member
Saw pictures from another site and I am very disappointed. They had quite a few options to try to pull off a dinosaur that seem alive. Islands of Adventure had their version. Lucky was another. The video from the mall is the the closest to what we got, but it was executed on a Six Flags scale. Tisk Tisk Disney.
roj2323
Well-Known Member
Found this on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/disney/comments/23fzjx/professor_parker_woodson_took_her_pet/
http://www.reddit.com/r/disney/comments/23fzjx/professor_parker_woodson_took_her_pet/
rct247
Well-Known Member
Found this on reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/disney/comments/23fzjx/professor_parker_woodson_took_her_pet/
Dare I say that Dinorama looks more authentic and more Disney than this!
doctornick
Well-Known Member
OMG, that is terrible.