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New Crypt Queue in Haunted Mansion-What do you think?
- Thread starter MickeyPeace
- Start date
Thrill
Well-Known Member
All I have to add is that they could have done an update without messing up the story progression or putting a lot into a small space.
thelookingglass
Well-Known Member
Yes. And while I think the Imagineers did the best job they could with the idea that "people like obnoxiously slapping their hands on things to make noises and stuff!" , there are other ways they could have plussed the queue that would have been more appropriate for the Haunted Mansion.
HBG2
Member
Every ride has a concept. In the HM, what is represented is your world, except with ghosts. It's as simple as that. If you remove the ghosts and ghostly activity, it's just you walking through an old house, and there is nothing presented to you that is illogical, nothing that contradicts the "real" world. That's so that YOU feel like you're still in your real world (but now with ghosts), and you can remain the main character. The "story" is nothing more than you going through a haunted house in real time, and that's why the HM has always been uniquely seductive and psychologically engrossing among Disney rides. Try it. Try to find one thing in there that doesn't make sense in the real world, OTHER than the ghosts and ghostly activities.
The new queue incorporates a ton of stuff that would be logically impossible in the real world, and so it's clear that the real world is no longer being represented. You have cartoony characters and sea serpents, and in that make-believe world there are also ghosts. Whoop-de-doo. WDI creates the only "reality" in any of these rides, and if you accept their new queue as part of the presentation, then that's where you go, imaginatively.
It should be obvious that this represents a fundamental change in the ride's concept.
Why an approach like this is considered overanalyzing or too complicated or merely a subjective opinion, I don't understand. I think that what I have just written is pretty simple, pretty clear, and is presented not as a "subjective opinion" but as a factual description of what is really there. I may be right or wrong in that description, but it's not just some vague feeling on the table alongside any number of other vague feelings.
Rich1
New Member
So you're saying people like it then they have no sense of style or subtly? I must disagree...i believe the "story" as been added to..I mean the indoor graveyard scene is just as slapstick and goofy. The haunted mansion story is what u want to make it. I think most guests and Disney fans will enjoy this. However, I don't believe the ppl that do or will are just the small minded. I still believe no matter what, people will complain...so what could u do?
thelookingglass
Well-Known Member
Not the "story", but the flow of the attraction has been altered. As I stated before, while it was just a standard queue, thats all it needed to be to be effective. Hasn't the logic as explained by the Imagineers always been that there would not be supernatural activity outside of the Mansion?
The attraction flows by starting off with mysterious, eerie tranquility of the outside, keeping you guessing as to what is going to happen inside, and also giving you the unsettling, ominous feeling that something isn't quite right. You've been told there are ghosts, you want to see them (otherwise, why would you be in line?) but instead there is nothing but quietness. Then once inside, you have an introduction, followed by the first few scenes which have very little visible supernatural activity, and no materialized spirits. Each scene adds a little more, until the seance circle, which leads into the big reveal of the grand ballroom scene. Then finally, the goofy, slapstick graveyard party which tells you that they're not bad spirits. It flows like the plot of an effective ghost movie.
I feel that having wacky spirits play silly games with you before you even enter disrupts the refined flow that the experience had. And that is why I, personally, am not a big fan of what they did.
I'm also aware that 99% of people won't care as long as something other than their iPhone can capture their attention.
The attraction flows by starting off with mysterious, eerie tranquility of the outside, keeping you guessing as to what is going to happen inside, and also giving you the unsettling, ominous feeling that something isn't quite right. You've been told there are ghosts, you want to see them (otherwise, why would you be in line?) but instead there is nothing but quietness. Then once inside, you have an introduction, followed by the first few scenes which have very little visible supernatural activity, and no materialized spirits. Each scene adds a little more, until the seance circle, which leads into the big reveal of the grand ballroom scene. Then finally, the goofy, slapstick graveyard party which tells you that they're not bad spirits. It flows like the plot of an effective ghost movie.
I feel that having wacky spirits play silly games with you before you even enter disrupts the refined flow that the experience had. And that is why I, personally, am not a big fan of what they did.
I'm also aware that 99% of people won't care as long as something other than their iPhone can capture their attention.
Atomicmickey
Well-Known Member
99 percent is probably a low estimate.
Of the 1/10 of 1 percent which represents, generously, fandom, I'd say opinion is split.
So, on any given week, there will be a few complainers.
Rich1
New Member
....but actually the ghosts are not all in the mansion. Think of it as an expansion of the graveyard scene. Say..u see the graveyard during the day with some subtle signs of the ghouls and then once inside you travel into that same graveyard at night. Having the option to go through that area would be like a visitor deciding whether or not to visit the creepy family graveyard.
thelookingglass
Well-Known Member
I'm talking about the old queue. With the exception of the Leota tombstone (which was effectively subtle and makes sense because of her character), nothing "supernatural" happened outside the Mansion. Now the ghosts are playing games with you.
HBG2
Member
The ghosts are slapstick and goofy. The graveyard they appear in is not. It's intended as a representation of a real-world graveyard.
So you're saying that what the original Imagineers intended is simply one interpretation, no more valid than any random rider's interpretation?
That isn't what I mean. I mean things like, who would carve an epitaph on a tomb telling people to touch the instruments to get music? Who would have a little banner with wording like the one in Prudence's tomb, with a saying like that one on it? How did three random hitchhikers (one a prisoner with ball-and-chain) become mutual family members and former residents of this house? There's a representation of the raven character on one crypt. You will see that raven in the ride, and it's not presented as a ghost but a real raven. Real ravens live about 13 years in the wild, max, about 44 years in captivity, max. So that crypt must have been built sometime in the last decade or two, three at the most. It's new, in other words. But who would have built a big new crypt like that in the family plot, since the house has supposedly been abandoned for a long time? That's the kind of logical error I mean, and there are a truckload of them with the new queue. Well, obviously you're not supposed to ask those kinds of questions, because it's not the real world being presented anymore. But in the HM until now, you would not find ANY logical howlers like that, no matter how close you looked. Why did the original Imagineers restrict their imaginations so tightly? Because they wanted it to look like the real world, except for ghosts.
Biff215
Well-Known Member
I think some are taking this a little too serious (and to heart). I'm all for a good story and no one does it better than Disney, but in the end, they are mainly selling fun. If this provides some entertainment to the majority of guests, then it has done its job. It might annoy a small fraction, but is it really going to change your entire opinion of Disney or make you avoid the HM altogether?
Kudos to Disney for trying to make the wait more fun and interesting, especially for HM that had one of the least themed queues around. I'm looking forward to checking this out in June (along with Pooh's queue).
Kudos to Disney for trying to make the wait more fun and interesting, especially for HM that had one of the least themed queues around. I'm looking forward to checking this out in June (along with Pooh's queue).
HBG2
Member
That's your opinion and you are entitled to it as much as I am to mine. But while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, no one is entitled to their own facts. I think it is a fact that the fundamental concept of the ride has been changed. If you say, "Yes, perhaps it has, but that's okay with me," then fine. But if you say, "No, it hasn't," then I think you are wrong about the facts, and I'll take on anyone who would like to debate the point. If someone is not only not interested in such a debate, but not interested in letting others have the debate without insulting them, then I think that's rude. If someone think it's all silly, they can scroll on past, you know.
Might be time to move this out of news and rumors and into chit-chat
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Seen any sculpted caricatures in an old graveyard?
Wilt Dasney
Well-Known Member
Just for argument's sake, HBG2 (since I somewhat sympathize with your overall position), couldn't you argue that you're still in the real world, only now it has ghosts AND sea serpents? How many mythological concepts have to come to life before an imagined world becomes irreversibly untethered from the world we all inhabit? 2? 3? 12? Is a world with ghosts still believable as the land we tread, while becoming too "out there" if you throw in aliens, the Olympian pantheon, and the Loch Ness Monster? What about just half of those elements? Or are some of them more applicable to a fake "real" world than others?
Anyway, you seem like a smart guy (or gal), so I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm saying here.
Anyway, you seem like a smart guy (or gal), so I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm saying here.
thelookingglass
Well-Known Member
But the entire thread and its purpose is to give your opinions on the new queue. :shrug:
HBG2
Member
Perfectly good question. Two things. One is a question of what is simply a good idea for an artistic, entertaining presentation. Lots of people have fantasized about visiting a haunted house and finding out that ghosts are real after all. Not many people throw sea serpents and aliens into such a daydream, do they? They could, of course, but most people would find ghosts quite enough for one daydream. It implies contact between two relatively coherent worlds (our world, and the world of the dead). No need to clutter it up with several more worlds, although technically you could.
Second, the new queue asks you to leave the real world entirely. It's not just a case of accepting sea serpents into the real world as a nice "what if?" exercise of the imagination. That Bertie bust stretches caricature almost to the breaking point: does any real man look like that? Maybe in a Fellini movie. Okay, let that go. Would anyone in the real world memorialize a relative with a bust like that? If sea serpents did exist, would they smirk knowingly like that, like they had a human intelligence? Not in the real world. This represents an imaginary world. So now you've got an imaginary world with ghosts in it, along with cartoon humans and intelligent sea serpents. Isn't that a lot more boring than imagining what it would be like if there were ghosts in our real world?
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
In the real world its a clichéd dark ride that has some new technology added but ultimately has to cater for the target demographic of the under 8s who are more interested in made in China plastic toys with lights than any fan boy created back story.
AEfx
Well-Known Member
Forgive me for over-simplifying, but isn't that the point of WDW?
I get it - I do. I haven't experienced it myself, so I can't give any final judgement, but yeah, it looks kinda cheesy to me.
That said, it's the queue. I know people get queue-obsessed around here, but...the ride is the same. The experience will be the same once you walk through those doors. I certainly won't let it ruin my HM experience (and HM is one of my very favorite rides in the world). I never sat and thought about it either way - and I think. A lot, LOL. The Haunted Mansion was always fantasy to me, all of WDW is.
I know how you feel, though - my absolute #1 favorite ride is getting demolished. It's going to be replaced by a hopefully better ride in a few years (though I fear it will lack the darkness that makes me love this one so much), but it's going away. Forever. At least the HM is the same on the inside, and still exists.