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

[Krack]

This has gone too far. I think this is a useless debate as a resolution will not be reached. The queue exists and will not be going anywhere thus conversation ends. All opinions and feelings equally valid.

How does the fact that the queue exists and will not be going anywhere effectively end the conversation in a thread titled "What do you think of the new queue?" (paraphrase)

I know taxes aren't going anywhere, but that doesn't change my opinion of whether or not I pay too much or too little.

 

[darthspielberg]

Well, I think what he was trying to say was that this argument is incredibly circular. It just keeps going around and around.

HGB2 has his strong opinions based on what he feels. Others have different opinions, but it's become a back and forth thing to try and prove HGB2 wrong or right. (He isn't wrong, by the way, and this is coming from a person who really digs the new queue. It does change the atmosphere leading into the attraction. I personally think its a change for the better)

It's a major theme park that caters to changing needs in their customers, so things we like are going to get changed, updated, and the like all the time. Sometimes it will be to our liking, others, it may sour the mood, but nothing we say will change it, especially if it's already been implemented.

Basically, let's agree to disagree when it comes to the nit-picky details.

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

I blame the radiation in Japan and the failure of mothers to breast feed..........

 

[HBG2]

If WDWGoof07 and I and Krack and some others want to exchange opinions and debate over exactly the topic of the thread, and there are evidently several board members interested and contributing to the conversation as well, but someone doesn't like it, tough darts. Goof's latest posts broke new ground in the debate, so it's not the same thing all over again. Maybe it looks that way to someone disinterested in the whole conversation, but you know, some of these newer computers have a thingy over on the right. I think they call it a "scroll bar" or something...

 

[Wilt Dasney]

But if the artwork and crypts in the queue are examples of the same kind of activity (right out in broad daylight?? and left that way permanently??), long before you ever came around, that doesn't make much sense (to say nothing of poor show pacing). If this was done to scare previous visitors (let's say), you would think they'd "put things back" when they were done.

<snip>

But in the queue, evidently that's really supposed to be what Bertie looked like, sea serpent and all (unless you subscribe to your theory that the ghosts came out here and did a number on it and left it that way permanently, which seems like quite a stretch, as I've just explained).

I think there's a bit of a hole in this reasoning. If the theory is that the busts look the way they do because of supernatural activity, then how do we "know" (narratively, that is) that they don't return to normal when none of us (that is, no visitors to the mansion) are looking?

This is going to be a bit of a tautology, but the only time we see the busts is when we see the busts. It's really the same thing with the ghoul in the conservatory and the demon clock. You can convince yourself those effects aren't programmed on a loop, running throughout the entire operating day, but that's just your logical "I'm in a theme park" side taking over. If you want to "believe" they happened to occur right as you passed by, then you can do the same thing with the strangeness of the queue busts.

(You might have to adjust this a bit to say the strangeness only occurred as the visitors in front of you and behind you passed by, since I'm guessing any sounds from the game will bleed back a bit, but that's still not that different from the effects inside the house.)

Basically, if you're going to insist on making yourself cognizant that the busts exist in their "kooky" form regardless of whether guests are around, then I think you have to logically extend that same awareness to the fact that the raven is giving the Evil Eye to every Doom Buggy that passes, even the empty ones.

 

[WildcatDen]

I blame the radiation in Japan and the failure of mothers to breast feed..........

Mothers, wives, girlfriends. . .

 

[HBG2]

I think there's a bit of a hole in this reasoning. If the theory is that the busts look the way they do because of supernatural activity, then how do we "know" (narratively, that is) that they don't return to normal when none of us (that is, no visitors to the mansion) are looking?

This is going to be a bit of a tautology, but the only time we see the busts is when we see the busts. It's really the same thing with the ghoul in the conservatory and the demon clock. You can convince yourself those effects aren't programmed on a loop, running throughout the entire operating day, but that's just your logical "I'm in a theme park" side taking over. If you want to "believe" they happened to occur right as you passed by, then you can do the same thing with the strangeness of the queue busts.

(You might have to adjust this a bit to say the strangeness only occurred as the visitors in front of you and behind you passed by, since I'm guessing any sounds from the game will bleed back a bit, but that's still not that different from the effects inside the house.)

Basically, if you're going to insist on making yourself cognizant that the busts exist in their "kooky" form regardless of whether guests are around, then I think you have to logically extend that same awareness to the fact that the raven is giving the Evil Eye to every Doom Buggy that passes, even the empty ones.

Interesting argument. Actually, though, my reasoning does take this kind of thing into consideration. "Bit of a stretch" and "Doesn't make much sense" mean "Not impossible, but improbable." If we go with your theory, then hey, why not go whole hog and speculate that the entire queue (and all its logical problems!) isn't really there at all, that it's only there when you're looking at it. The problem? In any kind of "realistic" depiction (a realistic film, a realistic novel), you're only allowed about one extraordinary coincidence and perhaps a few oddities. Authors and filmmakers who go beyond that "quota" run the risk that the audience is just going to bail on them psychologically. "Far-fetched; Oh puhleeze." That sort of thing. They can only suspend their disbelief so far. I could argue that it would be perfectly possible to account for a 30-foot statue of Miley Cyrus in the HM front yard. (Madame Leota looked into the future and saw her, see, and then influenced a mad resident of the mansion to build the statue.) The kind of full-on hallucinatory influence on you and/or ghostly manipulation of artwork before you even get into the building that your theory requires takes us into the "conceivably possible" category at the very, very beginning of the whole show. At minimum, this would be extraordinarily bad writing (I'm thinking show script here). By comparison, accepting that the show elements are directed at you and not to other guests in other doombuggies (none of whom "exist") is a very basic suspension of disbelief that no one has trouble with.

 

[Wilt Dasney]

^ I can accept that the queue elements represent a downgrade in narrative tension or coherence (or "extraordinarily bad writing," in your words). What I don't think is so clear is that they are substantively all that different from phenomena in the house (except that poetess voice...yuck).

Without oversimplifying too much, your argument seems to come down to "the mansion already had the perfect amount of X (X being creepy phenomena of any type); now they added too much X, or put X in the wrong place, or went with a new brand of X, and now the whole thing is ruined." No one can objectively counter this, because it's entirely subjective, like comparing opinions on recipes or film remakes (and to be fair, you've said from the beginning you regard the HM as a work of art, so your reasoning was always bound to have subjective elements).

My only point was that it seems to me objectively true that WDWGoof07's position on the busts was not particularly different from the psychological position the "in-house" effects require of an observer. Countering that by saying the busts are essentially ONE dash of salt too much, or one poor casting choice that ruined the whole movie, is offering a subjective response to an objective position. You're not "wrong" of course, but you are speaking a different language in a sense.

 

[Wilt Dasney]

I'll quickly add that I don't really buy into the argument that the "busts-as-supernatural-activity" hypothesis is one suspension of disbelief too many. Once a particular phenomenon has been accepted as real in an imagined space (in this case, ghosts knocking around inside everyday objects and making them do strange things), then I don't see how it's even possible to ask the audience to believe in too many examples of that particular thing.

It strikes me a bit like saying that Harry Potter's world would be less believable if Harry cast too many spells. Once you accept that he can cast any spell, he can cast as many as he wants without straining the reader's credulity. Similarly, if ghosts can inhabit busts in the world of the HM, then that's simply a feature of that world. It can't be "overused" (at least from the standpoint of ruining the audience's suspension of disbelief).

Notice I'm not disagreeing that having all this stuff going on outside the mansion is bad story (on which I'm inclined to agree with you).

 

[skimbob]

You guys are killing me here. Oh I guess that means I am ghost 1000. Yeah me :ROFLOL::ROFLOL:

 

[HBG2]

Wilt, you're absolutely right that the "bail out" point is subjective, the point where you're asking the audience to accept too much. But there are two other problems with the theory we're entertaining here:

First, you the visitor are actually told (via a question, granted) that what you are seeing might be supernatural activity OR your imagination, so your nervous response to seeing the warping of the building and the transforming of artworks is acknowledged and addressed precisely when that stuff starts happening. Seems only fair, doesn't it? Subjectively speaking, I would say it's too much to expect anyone to say, "Hey, maybe this sort of thing was happening outside, back there, and maybe all that stuff is actually normal-looking when the ghosts aren't screwing around with it."

Second, the distortions and alterations wobble back and forth with the normal. The busts stop moving when you stop moving. The paintings flicker and return to normal. Doors bulge and then pull back. You could say that the stretchroom remains stretched, etc., but that's just OSHA and the lawyers at work again, messing things up. Originally, the stretchrooms remained dark as you exited (so you couldn't see what was up there). For the queue stuff to be recognized as exactly the same phenomenon, it would have to flash to normal somehow.

By the way, that's also what you get with the Leota tombstone. Weird, normal, weird, normal. Why is that one allowed outside, anyway? Well, Leota is the only ghost having no problems getting around, isn't she? She's the one that helps the others cross over. Previous Imagineers followed the "rules" pretty well.

 

[Wilt Dasney]

Wilt, you're absolutely right

This is where I stopped reading and yelled "HA! SUCK IT!" while waving my fingers in the air.

Wait, there was more? :lookaroun

...that the "bail out" point is subjective, the point where you're asking the audience to accept too much. But there are two other problems with the theory we're entertaining here:

First, you the visitor are actually told (via a question, granted) that what you are seeing might be supernatural activity OR your imagination, so your nervous response to seeing the warping of the building and the transforming of artworks is acknowledged and addressed precisely when that stuff starts happening. Seems only fair, doesn't it? Subjectively speaking, I would say it's too much to expect anyone to say, "Hey, maybe this sort of thing was happening outside, back there, and maybe all that stuff is actually normal-looking when the ghosts aren't screwing around with it."

Second, the distortions and alterations wobble back and forth with the normal. The busts stop moving when you stop moving. The paintings flicker and return to normal. Doors bulge and then pull back. You could say that the stretchroom remains stretched, etc., but that's just OSHA and the lawyers at work again, messing things up. Originally, the stretchrooms remained dark as you exited (so you couldn't see what was up there). For the queue stuff to be recognized as exactly the same phenomenon, it would have to flash to normal somehow.

By the way, that's also what you get with the Leota tombstone. Weird, normal, weird, normal. Why is that one allowed outside, anyway? Well, Leota is the only ghost having no problems getting around, isn't she? She's the one that helps the others cross over. Previous Imagineers followed the "rules" pretty well.

These strike me as fair points. I've never seriously entertained the "...or is it your imagination?" suggestion, or considered it a plausible alternative, but I'm probably more literal-minded than some of the Imagineers would prefer.

I can see how the ephemeral nature of some of the indoor effects (that casket ghoul is still making a hell of a racket without giving your mind a chance to consider he might not be there) is a more appropriate mood-setter than the more straightforward nature of some elements, including the outdoor effects.

That still leaves me much closer to the "bad storytelling" pole than the "implausible within the logic of the attraction" pole...but I'll accept that a case can be made that the Coates half of the attraction is more effective when it takes a subtler route, even if it doesn't completely follow that rule in every instance. (I think the flashing paintings are creepier than the casket ghoul, for instance.)

 

[HBG2]

I can see how the ephemeral nature of some of the indoor effects (that casket ghoul is still making a hell of a racket without giving your mind a chance to consider he might not be there) is a more appropriate mood-setter than the more straightforward nature of some elements, including the outdoor effects.

That still leaves me much closer to the "bad storytelling" pole than the "implausible within the logic of the attraction" pole...but I'll accept that a case can be made that the Coates half of the attraction is more effective when it takes a subtler route, even if it doesn't completely follow that rule in every instance. (I think the flashing paintings are creepier than the casket ghoul, for instance.)

You know, even here, the coherence of the HM never ceases to amaze me. I'm not sure any "rule" is violated. There is a noticeable difference between downstairs and upstairs. Downstairs, they're trying to unnerve you, silently making ugly faces at you as it were. When you go upstairs they kick it up a notch and are plainly angry. You haven't fled the premises (or tried to), so no more games, no more Mr. Nice Ghost, no more switching back to normal, for the most part. The stuff hanging on the walls stays scary-looking. Same with the weird clock. It all climaxes with an actual (simulated?) attack, so there's little doubt they're angry at you. Scariest point in the ride, some would say.

 

[WDWGoof07]

I read your theory, and it's not bad, but there's one problem you need to address: inside, the ghosts are in a bad mood before they materialize and in a good mood afterwards. Incidentally, this accords with a lot of traditional ghost/spirit possession lore that the spirits are miserable while disembodied. You could argue that they are just play acting before the séance, but I think that's a little far-fetched. Look at the ghost trying to get free in the Conservatory. Just teasing? He sounds pretty authentically desperate to me. Compare that guy with the bubble-blowing Sea Captain and you see the problem.

My theory doesn't require any of the ghosts to be play acting before the seance is performed. If anyone is play acting, it's the ghosts in the graveyard being a bunch of pranksters to lull you into a false sense of security, but I'm more inclined to believe there is no play-acting going on. It's simply the dichotomy between friendly and malevolent spirits that permeates many works dealing with the supernatural. Not all ghosts have to be angry when they are disembodied - just the fact that enough of them inside the house are angry enough to be a perceived threat and that the friendly spirits are seemingly nowhere to be found before the seance is sufficient to preserve the effect of the Coats-scary/Davis-silly progression.

I think there's a bit of a hole in this reasoning. If the theory is that the busts look the way they do because of supernatural activity, then how do we "know" (narratively, that is) that they don't return to normal when none of us (that is, no visitors to the mansion) are looking?

This is going to be a bit of a tautology, but the only time we see the busts is when we see the busts. It's really the same thing with the ghoul in the conservatory and the demon clock. You can convince yourself those effects aren't programmed on a loop, running throughout the entire operating day, but that's just your logical "I'm in a theme park" side taking over. If you want to "believe" they happened to occur right as you passed by, then you can do the same thing with the strangeness of the queue busts.

(You might have to adjust this a bit to say the strangeness only occurred as the visitors in front of you and behind you passed by, since I'm guessing any sounds from the game will bleed back a bit, but that's still not that different from the effects inside the house.)

Basically, if you're going to insist on making yourself cognizant that the busts exist in their "kooky" form regardless of whether guests are around, then I think you have to logically extend that same awareness to the fact that the raven is giving the Evil Eye to every Doom Buggy that passes, even the empty ones.

Interestingly enough, Wilt, you do not like the new queue despite being able to explain the logic. I'd like to hear your reasons why, even if they're purely subjective reasons.

Now onto my final point:

Second, the distortions and alterations wobble back and forth with the normal. The busts stop moving when you stop moving. The paintings flicker and return to normal. Doors bulge and then pull back. You could say that the stretchroom remains stretched, etc., but that's just OSHA and the lawyers at work again, messing things up. Originally, the stretchrooms remained dark as you exited (so you couldn't see what was up there). For the queue stuff to be recognized as exactly the same phenomenon, it would have to flash to normal somehow.

Not necessarily. I've read your Long-Forgotten Blog where you talk about how the spirits keep the house in an unnatural state of preservation until they are able to materialize, at which point the house falls into a normal state of decay. You do not witness the decay of the house because it happens during the seance. The same explanation should be applied to other instances of this "wobbling" of the warped and the normal, as you say. These distortions continue until you are out of sight; therefore, you do not see the various objects resume their unaltered states.

 

[WDWGoof07]

I just want to be clear to those who have objected to the debate: I'm not trying to silence HBG2 or anyone else who doesn't like the new queue. In fact, I find the debate very interesting because I also appreciate WDW from an artistic perspective. Clearly, HBG2, Krack, and others have reacted quite differently than I have, and I'm curious as to the reasons why, given the fact that we all view WDW, at least partially, through an artistic lens.

The more well-thought, civil discussion like this fans have, the more seriously Disney will appreciate the concerns of the fanbase.

 

[Disney Rocks]

I just want to be clear to those who have objected to the debate: I'm not trying to silence HBG2 or anyone else who doesn't like the new queue. In fact, I find the debate very interesting because I also appreciate WDW from an artistic perspective. Clearly, HBG2, Krack, and others have reacted quite differently than I have, and I'm curious as to the reasons why, given the fact that we all view WDW, at least partially, through an artistic lens.

The more well-thought, civil discussion like this fans have, the more seriously Disney will appreciate the concerns of the fanbase.

Well said.

 

[Wilt Dasney]

Interestingly enough, Wilt, you do not like the new queue despite being able to explain the logic. I'd like to hear your reasons why, even if they're purely subjective reasons.

Oh, they definitely are. I am of the completely unoriginal opinion that the new queue seems to wreck the story* pacing I've always enjoyed. (Although I did come up with that criticism before I read anybody else say it here, so I can at least honestly say I arrived at the conclusion on my own!)

I read your post theorizing how the queue elements might still form a coherent story by being a "headfake" and I admire it (if for no other reason than that it gives me a potentially positive way to look at the queue, since it's not going anywhere) — but I also feel like it's probably a bit of a bail-out for the queue designers, who likely didn't put as much thought into how well their ideas fit the attraction as you did after the fact.

I'm also completely reserving the right to change my mind if I get a different feel from seeing it in person. I think it has the potential to work with a little toning down: nixing the poetess would go a long way IMO, although I'm not sure what to do with the ghostly jam session. That seems almost irredeemable to me, unless they completely remove the interactive element and cause the instruments to "come to life" briefly every so often.

I know this sounds like BS based on the time I've spent on this thread, but it really is a minor issue to me. If I can still walk into the lobby with that same sense of foreboding I always feel (yes, I always feel it!), then I won't be giving a second thought to the queue. I guess that's my litmus test.

*I know the word "story" has come in for a lot of abuse here. I'm using it anyway, because it strikes me as the most appropriate — if inexact — term for describing the progression of the attraction experiences.

 

[HBG2]

Guys, I appreciate the debate very much. It's one reason I posted here, knowing full-well I'd be taking a minority position and viewed as an reactionary. I also figured I'd get some good feedback and alternate views, and I have. I'm eventually going to write a review at the blog, and this kind of thing sharpens and—yes—corrects one's thinking.

Goof07, your argument that the "wobble back to normal" by the queue may simply be unobserved (like the house going to decay) overlooks the fact that the wobble back to normal is something they do with the deliberate intent of you witnessing it. If they don't want you to be able to figure out if you're going crazy or if you're witnessing supernatural activity (so as to unnerve you), then they're going to want you to see things looking normal between flashes of impossible distortions.

You think that maybe the good ghosts are happy materialized or not, and similarly the bad ones unhappy either way. Okay. Perhaps the wacky phase of the queue is the result of the happy ghosts twisting things around, so they have no desire to make you nervous and don't flash back and forth in front of you? I'm having great difficulty in swallowing the notion that you need to already have these specific and less-than-self-evident metaphysical ideas clear in your mind before you can even begin to make sense of the presentation, but let that go. It still doesn't work. Maybe the Captain, the Organist, and Prudence are happy campers, but the Dread bunch look mostly mean and unhappy, and there's an unsolved murder mystery involving the whole lot of them. Are they supposed to be good, contented ghosts, resting in peace? Aren't they (most of them anyway) exactly the sort you would expect to issue in restless, angry, and possibly malevolent spirits?

It's been an interesting exploration, but in the end I don't think the "oscillating queue" theory is going to work. The Dread family is not likely to be resting in peace any more than coffin guy, and if they're diddling around with their funerary artwork, it's not likely to be for your amusement. And I still can't see how you could possibly say "it's not your imagination, it is real" any more emphatically than by sliding stone books in and out while your hand is right on them, in broad daylight.

 

[HBG2]

How does character development of some of the ghosts make the ride no longer your story?

Forgot to answer this. If the characters are not realistic enough to pass for people in your own world, then you're simply an audience to fictional characters in a fictional world. If they are realistic enough (e.g., the Constance saga), then too much development tends to erode the sense that it's your story, that's all. It's not cut-and-dried. You can get the feeling that all of this is an artificial set up for the REAL story, which is not about you but someone else. There's also the outer limits of "conceivably possible" that you have to avoid in order to maintain believability. How much information about the former residents and ghosts are you really going to pick up on a short visit to a genuine haunted house, unless you sit down in there and read diaries and letters left lying around, or a ghost decides to sit you down and tell you a full story? In the original HM, this was practically nil, on purpose. The WDI tendency to keep putting more and more stories in there corrodes the intended effect, I think. This thing is about you.

 

[tirian]

The WDI tendency to keep putting more and more stories in there corrodes the intended effect, I think. This thing is about you.

As much as I have disregarded most of your arguments as overdeveloped, overwrought theories (no offense—but it's just a queue), you have made an excellent point. The catch to a show-based attraction, as opposed to a simple thrill ride, is that the more WDI shoves a storyline into the limited timespan, the less engaging the experience actually is. WDI has acknowledged Marc Davis' genius in developing environments rather than linear storylines, and the experiential approach assured the HM and POTC longstanding success; why are they suddenly intent upon shoving stories into everything? POTC suffered first by making the whole ride about Jack Sparrow's treasure, and the HM is dangerously close to crossing the line between story and experience. I'm in the minority of people who thinks Phantom Manor's storyline weakens the attraction's repeatability. It's basically like sitting through the same movie again and again and again.

This is also a huge factor between Disney's attractions and Universal's. Even though "something suddenly goes wrong" in the majority of thrill rides at both parks, Disney usually adds enough padding through environments and detail to boost repeatability. At Universal, on the other hand, I often feel like every ride follows the same pattern: "Watch out! It's going to get you! Oh no! Aaaaugh! Be careful! Oh no!"