New nighttime show 'Rivers of Light' confirmed to be coming to Disney's Animal Kingdom

Bocabear

Bocabear

Well-Known Member
EXACTLY... a lack of staging...It is pretty, but pretty becomes boring after the same boats go by 4 or 5 times, and the same lotus floats with fountains do the same things...The fire tower at the end is a lot of construction for a not quite so wow effect...and again, it's pretty, just not engaging...
 
montyz81

montyz81

Well-Known Member
Bocabear said:
I finally saw the show last week...I agree with all of the critiques...it really is not a great show...It is nice.
It suffers from a lack of staging...there is no build.,...it just becomes the same things over and over and over... It is not transportive... There seem to be no "wow" moments,the storytelling is lacking, and there really is no big finale... just more of the same same same.
Maybe they need more fountain barges...different ones that roll out towards the end... Maybe they need the giant water spirits that Tokyo Disney Seas uses in their water pageant...not sure exactly, but it definitely needs something... It does not have the scale or drama of WOC....and truthfully this should be even better than....
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How does it compare to RoE? I know it isn't really apples to apples (probably closer to apples to pears), but I'm just curious.
 
Bocabear

Bocabear

Well-Known Member
montyz81 said:
How does it compare to RoE? I know it isn't really apples to apples (probably closer to apples to pears), but I'm just curious.
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Apples to raisins... The scale is so much smaller than ROE... no Pyro, and a lot of water screen repetition.
Not a real clear definition of acts....and the finale is the same as the middle as the beginning... they just add the fire tower float which is less impressive than it should be.... Lots of hyper colored spotlights and new-age-twinkle-ding-dong-music... There are performers on the boats, but they just don't seem to add much... there is no real story....
ROE has more of a narrative...
 
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FigmentJedi

FigmentJedi

Well-Known Member
Bocabear said:
I finally saw the show last week...I agree with all of the critiques...it really is not a great show...It is nice.
It suffers from a lack of staging...there is no build.,...it just becomes the same things over and over and over... It is not transportive... There seem to be no "wow" moments,the storytelling is lacking, and there really is no big finale... just more of the same same same.
Maybe they need more fountain barges...different ones that roll out towards the end... Maybe they need the giant water spirits that Tokyo Disney Seas uses in their water pageant...not sure exactly, but it definitely needs something... It does not have the scale or drama of WOC....and truthfully this should be even better than....
Click to expand...

Because of the restructuring of the show from the technical problems, the lotuses get introduced too early. The original idea was that they start coming in as the animal spirits leave their barges at the end of the "Animal Spirit Parade" segment, hence why you see lotus imagery go over the water screen as each spirit ascends. If they were able to fix the problem with the little lanterns or perhaps, rework the concept behind them in some way like making them more like little rafts with fountain elements for the parade sequence, the act structure could be a lot clearer.

And they do need something more impressive then the tower. I'm very much in the "Put a dragon in there" camp to give the constellation finale a Draco/Seiryu figure.
 
Bocabear

Bocabear

Well-Known Member
Tahu said:
Because of the restructuring of the show from the technical problems, the lotuses get introduced too early. The original idea was that they start coming in as the animal spirits leave their barges at the end of the "Animal Spirit Parade" segment, hence why you see lotus imagery go over the water screen as each spirit ascends. If they were able to fix the problem with the little lanterns or perhaps, rework the concept behind them in some way like making them more like little rafts with fountain elements for the parade sequence, the act structure could be a lot clearer.

And they do need something more impressive then the tower. I'm very much in the "Put a dragon in there" camp to give the constellation finale a Draco/Seiryu figure.
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The animal spirits leave their barges? I didn't get that at all... just saw the animal barges go around a couple times and the lights twinkle and flash... then more water screens... I didn't get any sense at all of animal "spirits"... it was all just stuff... pretty, but stuff....
 
FigmentJedi

FigmentJedi

Well-Known Member
Bocabear said:
The animal spirits leave their barges? I didn't get that at all... just saw the animal barges go around a couple times and the lights twinkle and flash... then more water screens... I didn't get any sense at all of animal "spirits"... it was all just stuff... pretty, but stuff....
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When the lights inside the Animal Barges go out in the first act, you see their glowing astral forms appear on the water screens and they all make noises as they go except the turtle because sea turtles don't really make any noises and Turtle Talk is a sham.

The four animals represented in those barges stay within the water screen and shadow puppetry side of things until they go back into their barges at the end of the show. The astral forms of the water shaman's owl and turtle dance along with the Lotuses during the "Dance of the Lotus" segment and the fire shaman's tiger kicks off the whole "Animal Spirits taking you through their respective natural habitats" stuff you see in the "We Are One" segment before we get to the auroras and constellations that form the cosmic realm that these animal spirits have been leading this journey to.

It's just this very symbolic pageant thing that's probably too smart for its own good and the show tweaks they did in the wake of those technical problems would have been better put to use conveying things a little better. Give the Shamans dialog instead of having a narrator. And put the opening processional part back in.
 
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montyz81

montyz81

Well-Known Member
Bocabear said:
Apples to raisins... The scale is so much smaller than ROE... no Pyro, and a lot of water screen repetition.
Not a real clear definition of acts....and the finale is the same as the middle as the beginning... they just add the fire tower float which is less impressive than it should be.... Lots of hyper colored spotlights and new-age-twinkle-ding-dong-music... There are performers on the boats, but they just don't seem to add much... there is no real story....
ROE has more of a narrative...
Click to expand...
Not that it was ever threatened, but it feels like ROE is likely to remain as the gold standard for fireworks/after dark show of all the Disney Parks, in my mind.
 
Bocabear

Bocabear

Well-Known Member
montyz81 said:
Not that it was ever threatened, but it feels like ROE is likely to remain as the gold standard for fireworks/after dark show of all the Disney Parks, in my mind.
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Unfortunately I think that is true... ROE is a diminished version of what it was for the Millenium Celebration... I am hoping they will retool it for the 50th and really give us some fresh spectacle...
I think probably the first version of Rivers Of Light set the scenes better... The current version seemed ponderous, and I don't think anyone got the symbology... It just wasn't clear... I like the way Tahu describes it..., I just did not see that happening ...The ideas are lovely, I am just not sure it is coming across...
 
cjkeating

cjkeating

Well-Known Member
Tahu said:
When the lights inside the Animal Barges go out in the first act, you see their glowing astral forms appear on the water screens and they all make noises as they go except the turtle because sea turtles don't really make any noises and Turtle Talk is a sham.

The four animals represented in those barges stay within the water screen and shadow puppetry side of things until they go back into their barges at the end of the show. The astral forms of the water shaman's owl and turtle dance along with the Lotuses during the "Dance of the Lotus" segment and the fire shaman's tiger kicks off the whole "Animal Spirits taking you through their respective natural habitats" stuff you see in the "We Are One" segment before we get to the auroras and constellations that form the cosmic realm that these animal spirits have been leading this journey to.

It's just this very symbolic pageant thing that's probably too smart for its own good and the show tweaks they did in the wake of those technical problems would have been better put to use conveying things a little better. Give the Shamans dialog instead of having a narrator. And put the opening processional part back in.
Click to expand...

I think it's a shame that what was already a high concept narrative was made inexplicable for the majority of guests due to having to settle for a 'Plan B' show. Like you say I think the lotuses not arriving until after the animal spirits would be a significant help to both the story and pacing.

I was hoping the lanterns would see the light of day (excuse the pun) but as there has been no insider acknowledgement of them or day time testing (like we saw for months when the show wasn't working) makes me think they are gathering dust somewhere or even had the Spectromagic crusher treatment.
 
Next Big Thing

Next Big Thing

Well-Known Member
Saw this in passing for the Asia/Dinoland bridge last night, decided to watch the last 5 minutes of the show. I had seen the show one other time, way back around opening week in February. It was just a so-so show for me that night (never will I ever do FP+ for that show again... can't believe I waited 45 mins for this thing back then). Back to last night though, it again reminded me of how beautiful, yet how meh the show manages to be all at once.

To give an analogy, imagine MK trying to pass off Once Upon a Time off as their nighttime spectacular or DHS trying to pass Disney Movie Magic off as theirs? RoL feels like a pre-show for something much more extravagant - it's a poor man's Reflections of Earth if you will.
 
Next Big Thing

Next Big Thing

Well-Known Member
AJH219 said:
Once Upon a Time would have been a fantastic nighttime show if they fleshed it out with pyro and all the fun special effects we got with HEA
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That's a lot of ifs + ands. I'm not speaking in hypotheticals, i'm speaking in what we currently have as of this day.

Besides, that was completely besides the point. RoL simply doesn't feel like it's the "main event". It feels like it's the opening act before the main event.
 
Andrew C

Andrew C

You know what's funny?
I don't think this was covered in here but I noticed starting in September, ROL is only scheduled 4 times a week (Sun, Tues, Thurs, Sat). Anyone know the reason for this?
 

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