New Crypt Queue in Haunted Mansion-What do you think?

[Animaniac93-98]

As I keep saying, everything is like the real world, except for ghosts and ghostly activity.

You've changed your descritpion to include this now and define what it means. Before it was just "ghosts".

I'm also eager to know your opinion on having Mr. Toad (an actual cartoon character) in the pet cemetery is.

 

[HBG2]

Yeah the portraits in the stretching room are so "real".

Ghosts are doing that.

This is about entertainment. The whole theme park is about entertainment. It is not a philosophical statement on life.

Are you saying that "A depiction of the real world except that ghosts are real" is not entertaining, but it is a philosophical statement of life?

 

[wayneway]

In my "rant" in favor of these new types of queues I suggested the motive is future financial gain in a less direct sense. If you have a positive experience in WDW are you not more likely to go back? If waiting in line is the worst part of a trip to WDW then isn't helping guests with that a good idea? Not everyone can have a Fastpass ticket and there are times of the year when most rides have long, unavoidable waits.

That is quite possible, I'm just not used to seeing the current management thinking that way...caring about the guest experience first and money second...sounds like something from Walt's playbook...:wave:

 

[Wilt Dasney]

I just took a look at the busts again. It could be my untrained eye, but I really don't see the art style as being wildly incongruent with what's seen in the stretching room portraits.

If I'm right about that, then you either have an imagined world where the human inhabitants look like cartoons, or where they are memorialized as such...in paintings and busts alike.

Either way, if it's a problem, I think you have to say it's always been one. :shrug:

I'm going to stick with the less damning criticism that these things just get the experiences of the ride out of order; the argument that they depart substantively from what already existed inside the house just doesn't seem fair to me.

 

[unkadug]

Ghosts are doing that.

Are you saying that "A depiction of the real world except that ghosts are real" is not entertaining, but it is a philosophical statement of life?

No I'm NOT saying that. I AM saying that you are reading WAY too much into this. This is just an entertaining diversion...not a philosophical statement on life.

Are you by any chance a Freshman in college with a professor that challenged you to think? :lol:

 

[HBG2]

You've changed your descritpion to include this now and define what it means. Before it was just "ghosts".

I'm also eager to know your opinion on having Mr. Toad (an actual cartoon character) in the pet cemetery is.

If you read through my earlier posts, I have mentioned "ghostly activity" more than once. It kind of goes without saying, doesn't it? The Mr. Toad tribute is kinda dumb in the HM environment, but it's a statue. A sculpture. If you ran across something like it on the grounds of some old house, you wouldn't say, "I'm in an alternate universe! That can't be!" You'd say, "That's odd. Someone around here has eccentric taste in artwork." Bertie, on the other hand, is a family plot memorial statue of (supposedly) one of the HM's actual residents. Um, no. Who would do that, and what's with the cartoon sea serpent?

As for your list of responses, they're weak. A wolf is sitting somewhere howling. He does it often. So what? I don't have a literal bat image handy, but Victorian depictions of spiders and spiderwebs in window design, for example, are well known. Odd, eccentric, and macabre taste among the Victorians is well-known. If you saw a bat design on an actual house, you wouldn't think you had slipped into an alternative universe. You really need some boot-hill humor epitaphs? "Here lies Lester Moore. Four slugs from a .44 No less. No more." That's real. As for staging things, like lighting and sound, you accept Imagineering illusions at face value in this game. If you can see Madame Leota's wires, that doesn't disprove my thesis. If you can see other rides while you're in the HM queue, that doesn't either. If you can see that there isn't lightning over there away from the ride, that doesn't mean a thing. A realistic painting ends at the frame, and what's beyond that doesn't count. And whatever Surrell's book says, the building is based on a real one.

I don't need this one anyway: Lots of houses from the Victorian era were into Gothic revival and equally creepy to the HM design. You don't have to leave the real world to account for them.

 

[HBG2]

I just took a look at the busts again. It could be my untrained eye, but I really don't see the art style as being wildly incongruent with what's seen in the stretching room portraits.

If I'm right about that, then you either have an imagined world where the human inhabitants look like cartoons, or where they are memorialized as such...in paintings and busts alike.

Either way, if it's a problem, I think you have to say it's always been one. :shrug:

I'm going to stick with the less damning criticism that these things just get the experiences of the ride out of order; the argument that they depart substantively from what already existed inside the house just doesn't seem fair to me.

The only artwork inside the HM (or "out back") that is in the same goofy style as the Bertie bust is George with the hatchet in his head at the bottom of the widow portrait. I suspect that it is a direct stylistic influence, actually. The problem is, the bizarre bottoms to those portraits are the result of ghostly activity. You don't know if they're real or hallucinations. They're stretching the walls and paintings, and they're adding to what was there to begin with. You can justify Bertie by claiming that the ghosts went outside and did the same thing to a real bust, permanently, out in broad daylight, in the family plot, but that's pretty crappy show flow. "Or is it your imagination?" is going to be a meaningless question in that case. The new queue expects you to accept the sea serpent with the human-intelligence smirk as perfectly "real" within the HM world as it is now presented. When you see something like that inside (up until now), you're supposed to think, "That's impossible; is my mind playing tricks on me?" See the difference?

 

[HBG2]

No I'm NOT saying that. I AM saying that you are reading WAY too much into this. This is just an entertaining diversion...not a philosophical statement on life.

Are you by any chance a Freshman in college with a professor that challenged you to think? :lol:

Actually, I am a college professor.
Where are these "philosophical statements on life" in my posts?

 

[unkadug]

Actually, I am a college professor.
Where are these "philosophical statements on life" in my posts?

:lol:

That explains a lot.

Once again, the HM is purely entertainment. Why are you trying so hard to disassemble the pieces. Will making sense of the HM help you make sense of other things in life? I doubt it. Enjoy it for what it is. No less, no more.

I'm done with this nonsense. :wave:

 

[HBG2]

Enjoy it for what it is.

Exactly what I have always done.

Think I could use a break too.

 

[Wilt Dasney]

The new queue expects you to accept the sea serpent with the human-intelligence smirk as perfectly "real" within the HM world as it is now presented.

Putting the issue of the human busts aside for a second...if you're willing to wave away a bust of Mr. Toad as the result of someone's eccentric taste, why can't the same be done to an ornamental representation of a wily sea serpent? When I see strange creatures carved on a crypt, my first thought definitely isn't "these must be faithful depictions of actual beings."

 

[HBG2]

Putting the issue of the human busts aside for a second...if you're willing to wave away a bust of Mr. Toad as the result of someone's eccentric taste, why can't the same be done to an ornamental representation of a wily sea serpent? When I see strange creatures carved on a crypt, my first thought definitely isn't "these must be faithful depictions of actual beings."

Keep in mind that I'm always talking about the original Imagineers and their show concept. Some of the stuff that's come along since then has been an awkward fit (like that stupid hearse and horse harness), and if push comes to shove, okay, I'll concede that the Mr. Toad statue may be an outright violation. It's such a small item, off to the side, that it really can be ignored. It's a one-off. It's not like they're planning on expanding Mr. Toad's presence in the HM. The new queue, however, is ambitiously adding whole new story-lines to the HM, and it expects you to accept cartoon features into the world of the HM full-on.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

If you read through my earlier posts, I have mentioned "ghostly activity" more than once. It kind of goes without saying, doesn't it?

To me and Ukadug it didn't as we interpreted ghosts and strictly the ghost characters themsleves..

The Mr. Toad tribute is kinda dumb in the HM environment, but it's a statue. A sculpture. If you ran across something like it on the grounds of some old house, you wouldn't say, "I'm in an alternate universe! That can't be!" You'd say, "That's odd. Someone around here has eccentric taste in artwork." Bertie, on the other hand, is a family plot memorial statue of (supposedly) one of the HM's actual residents. Um, no. Who would do that, and what's with the cartoon sea serpent?

I wasn't really using Mr. Toad as part of the overall argumnet, just curious to see what you thought of an actual cartoon, Disney character being incorporated into the exterior of HM.

As for your list of responses, they're weak. A wolf is sitting somewhere howling. He does it often. So what? I don't have a literal bat image handy, but Victorian depictions of spiders and spiderwebs in window design, for example, are well known. Odd, eccentric, and macabre taste among the Victorians is well-known. If you saw a bat design on an actual house, you wouldn't think you had slipped into an alternative universe. You really need some boot-hill humor epitaphs? "Here lies Lester Moore. Four slugs from a .44 No less. No more." That's real. As for staging things, like lighting and sound, you accept Imagineering illusions at face value in this game. If you can see Madame Leota's wires, that doesn't disprove my thesis. If you can see other rides while you're in the HM queue, that doesn't either. If you can see that there isn't lightning over there away from the ride, that doesn't mean a thing. A realistic painting ends at the frame, and what's beyond that doesn't count. And whatever Surrell's book says, the building is based on a real one.

While you've proven most of what is depicted outisde to have existed in some fashion in reality, the total combination of such things still suggests at the very least creepy and unusual to me. And while you may dislike the hearse, its been there for so long now I can't remember the mansion without it. Its presence has in my mind and others has suggested what is acceptable to feature outside the attraction.

The new queue like the hearse does not feature visible ghosts or anything that is more bizare to me than the other combined exterior elements and therefore does not offend me. You diagree, but my mind has still not changed, and probably won't in the future.

At least this back-and-forth has provided good entertainment.

 

[HBG2]

Same here. I find the exchanges enjoyable and stimulating rather than something to be angry about. Hey, sometimes I even change my mind.

There are a lot of features of "real reality" that would be tedious and irritating if incorporated into artistic depictions. On TV, in supposedly realistic detective shows, the hero never has a problem finding a parking space when he needs to pull over and jump out of the car in a hurry. We don't re-categorize the show as fantasy because of things like that.

Similarly, in the real world, you would probably never find that many spooky elements conveniently bunched into one place at one time. You're right about that. So long as they really don't overdo it, you accept it like the detective's convenient parking space. It would be pretty tedious to have to go to five or six different Haunted Mansion rides just so that the spooky elements were distributed in a more "realistic" fashion.

One last comment on Mr. Toad, and then I'll leave the poor guy alone. With that statue, I'm not being asked to accept it as a realistic portrait of an actual character who once resided in the house in front of me. With Bertie, I am. He's not just a random goofy artwork concocted by an eccentric sculptor in the house; he's an actual character who supposedly looked like that.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

After all of this I realize I still forgot the Leota tombstone added back in '02. She probably didn't help me dislike the new queue either.

 

[thelookingglass]

Well that was a subtle, tasteful change, and unless you looked closely, you wouldn't even notice it moved.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Since when did we go to the philosophical side of determining what is right or wrong for Disney to place in their parks? Who cares about what you are asked to do at this point? WDW is supposed to be an escape from reality into a world of fantasy, and many times history.

:lol:

That explains a lot.

Once again, the HM is purely entertainment. Why are you trying so hard to disassemble the pieces. Will making sense of the HM help you make sense of other things in life? I doubt it. Enjoy it for what it is. No less, no more.

I'm done with this nonsense. :wave:

Why is it acceptable to criticize a film, book or play for its plot holes and inconsistencies, to look into the meanings, both intentional and unintentional, but theme parks are totally off limits? Was not Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland Paris rearranged to get the "moral" of crime not paying to be better conveyed? Stories and entertainment being reflective of a time and ideas or having intentional morals, allusions and using allegory is absolutely nothing new, so why are theme parks supposed to just be dumb filler?

So fastpass was invented with the thought that guest would spend more time spending money away from attractions, now they want guest to spend more time in queues where there are no money spending opportunities? There must be a catch to this, perhaps more will be revealed as time goes on. Or maybe this is just there to enhance the guest experience...I hope so.

I do not think it is a coincidence that the focus for these queues is the Magic Kingdom. Diversions in a queue help to make you unaware of longer waits, a result of larger crowds in a park needing capacity.

Since the interactive queues are supposedly a part of the Next Gen project, it also makes me wonder about the
expansion of reservations, including ride reservations. If free and/or same day FastPasses are set to be decreased from currently offered levels, then more people will be using the Stand By queues, and the interactive queues distract from the longer waits.

My third thought is that Disney may be hoping that, since people no longer feel as if they were waiting, the number of attractions per day that satisfies a typical guests may lower. If people are distracted the whole time, maybe they will be happy if they only do seven a attractions a day, maybe less. They may also be interesting in buying merchandise based on the new elements. Would it be a hard task to scale down the new Haunted mansion queue elements and sell them as plastic toys? Long gone are the days of plussing for the sake of plussing, there has to be a catch behind all of this, even if it never works out as planned.

 

[thelookingglass]

My third thought is that Disney may be hoping that, since people no longer feel as if they were waiting, the number of attractions per day that satisfies a typical guests may lower. If people are distracted the whole time, maybe they will be happy if they only do seven a attractions a day, maybe less. They may also be interesting in buying merchandise based on the new elements. Would it be a hard task to scale down the new Haunted mansion queue elements and sell them as plastic toys? Long gone are the days of plussing for the sake of plussing, there has to be a catch behind all of this, even if it never works out as planned.

So in other words, its easier, cheaper, and faster to "improve" the guest's experience by adding interactive elements to existing queues, rather than addressing the real issues of needing more legitimate attractions and improving the ones that already exist... (and not just their queues)

 

[Biff215]

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.

I have no problem with opinions, that's what these boards are all about. To be honest though, facts are not what concern me when I'm in WDW. Whether or not I enjoy the new queue, I'll enjoy the HM itself just as much as ever. I appreciate your desire to back up your point of view, I just can't go there myself. To me it's a rather small thing in a place with so many options.

To each his own I guess!

 

[FigmentJedi]

Is the snake around Bertie's neck explicitly called a sea serpent? I just figured the man liked pythons, like that scientist in the second Series of Unfortunate Events book. Hell, that's what those busts remind me of now that I think of it.

EDIT: Scratch that, I see the fins.