News Paradise Pier Becoming Pixar Pier

[Rich T]

...That’s because Pixar can’t literally screw up Paradise Pier. It is already a sorry land with minimal theming by definition as Ismael already pointed out.

Pixar certainly can screw it up (not *will*, just *can*). Paradise Pier was succeeding fairly well at feeling like a pleasant Disney-fied version of the Santa Cruz boardwalk (which is a very pleasant place to be if you're ever in Santa Cruz). It wasn't perfect, but a couple more good thrill rides and funnel cake stands would have done wonders to round it out. It worked. The Pixar additions certainly could make the place feel more... well, more stupidly Disney Coporate. There is nothing sincerely creative about this overlay. You might find this hard to believe, but a lot of guests loved Paradise Pier the way it was. It spoke to them. It brought back memories of amusement parks and county fairs at their best. The Pixar overlay just seems pointless. At its best its harmless. At its worst it cheapens the films (like taking one of the saddest, most tragic scenes from any Pixar film and cynically turning it into a freaking candy store) and takes away the Pier's identity. And yes, it had an identity (in Progress, but it was getting there) that a lot of people loved.

 

[DanielBB8]

Pixar certainly can screw it up (not *will*, just *can*). Paradise Pier was succeeding fairly well at feeling like a pleasant Disney-fied version of the Santa Cruz boardwalk (which is a very pleasant place to be if you're ever in Santa Cruz).

Describing it as Disney-fied already undermines the argument. Anyways, saying it is Disney corporate is interesting considering DCA once had the Epcot corporate sponsorship model. Just tragic.

 

[bluerhythym]

I said Pixar by definition didn’t add anything to add or subtract to the Paradise Pier theming, when it was already weak. I know that isn’t your perspective, but it is my opinion. Pixar is a plus (not theming). It adds character and characters. Is this very hard to interpret? PIXAR ADDS CHARACTER.

Characters ≠ Character

Cars Land doesn't succeed as a land because it's got Lightning and Mater driving around, its because they created an evocative land that harkens back to 1950s Route 66. Main Street is still Main Street when Mickey Mouse isn't around - that doesn't mean there isn't a place for him, but Mickey Mouse does not make the land what it is.

The Pixar characters themselves won't subtract from the pier theming, but doing things like building facades based on midcentury modern homes will. I won't argue that the current pier theming isn't already weak, but IMO this only makes it worse.

 

[Rich T]

Describing it as Disney-fied already undermines the argument. Anyways, saying it is Disney corporate is interesting considering DCA once had the Epcot corporate sponsorship model. Just tragic.

Everything Disney does is "Disney-fied." Frontierland is Disneyfied Old West. When it works, it works. No one in their right mind would want to travel back to the actual Old West the way it really was. And you know darn well the difference between a corporate sponsorship and what I mean by soulless "Corporate Disney" as opposed to "Creative Disney." I have no problem whatsoever with the corporate sponsorship model; it's my Disneyland childhood in a nutshell, and I loved every minute of it.

 

[Darkbeer1]

This discussion brings back the classic Powerpoint...

One of the main reasons why DCA 1.0 sucked was the decisions made while building the park, here is a perfect example from 1996.

A 10 slide PowerPoint internal WDI presentation.

The first slide is the title slide...

Quote:
THE "OFF THE SHELF" DECISION


Slide 2 is titled "1995 Company Mentality", which had 7 points.

Point 2 is "Can we do a "E" attraction for $70M?"

Point 6 is "With Paul Pressler's arrival our client became the "parks", not MDE."

Slide 3 is



>>1996 KEY TO A CHEAPER PARK

Facility, Show or Ride - Pick any 2.

Capitalize on an improving ride industry.

Take known technology & theme it with paint color, lighting & graphics.

Take advantage of engineering already spent by others.

"Direct Lifts"

If it's good enough for Six Flags ....

The "Guiding Principles"<<


As to the second point of Capitalizing, [To me, this is looking at outside companies, such as S&S Power, since the outside vendors have been making better products in the last decade or so]

And the fifth point, "Direct Lifts" [and as described in a later slide, this is taking attractions from other Disney parks, such as Muppets 3-D (the example they used)]

Slides 4 and 5 talks about the Guiding Principles.

The 4th slide is titled "How can Disney's California be realized for less than traditional practice?"



>>HOW CAN DISNEY'S CALIFORNIA BE REALIZED FOR LESS THAN TRADITIONAL PRACTICE?


No berm around the Park.

Each attraction will be designed to achieve a specific emotional impact. 'Mega E's with elaborate facilities, shows and rides will be avoided in favor of story.

Some visual intrusions are okay, including structures outside park boundary.

Themed facades are faux, show-set like; not immersions into replications of period themed architecture.

Themed facades are limited to entries and front facades and thus cover only a portion of the visible facility.

Keep the Monorail as is.

Use 'direct lifts' (e.g. Muppets 3-D) where possible.

Surf City rides are 'off-the-shelf' except for paint, lighting, graphics and show features.

Where possible no new ride systems to be invented. We will use developed technology.

Make 'provisions only' for the future addition of a parade or water spectacular.

No upgrades or tie-in to the existing Disneyland systems.<<

Slide 5 contains 5 "Backstage Philosophy" points, including "First cost before life cycle savings"

Slide 6 is titled "Embracing the Industry... Their way"

5 points, my favorite is "We don't have any lawyers & we don't want to get any."

Slide 7 is titled "Our Experience", with the category of "good" and 11 points

Slide 8 is the category "Lessons Learned" and 6 points.

Slide 9 is just a title slide, "Would we do it again?" and nothing else.

Slide 10 starts with "Yes" in large letters, and then the sentence "The pros far out weigh the cons. But..."

Then we have 5 points, my favorite on this page is, "Have attractions partners sign(underlined) in advance of the buy." [I read this as get the prospective sponsor to pay up before spending the money, or at least be guaranteed that they will pay for it]

[OK, this is the end of the PowerPoint presentation. So what have we learned, that the statement "If it's good enough for Six Flags..." was actually made at a meeting inside the Disney company, and not made up, as some folks wanted us to believe! That Disney had serious cost control issues while designing and building DCA. That Disney made the decision to use "Off the Shelf" rides instead of designing and building their own. That Disney is looking to keep the costs down on new "E" attractions (the $70 million comment, and now the LA Times report of DCA's ToT costing $75 million). That Disney purposely cut back on the theming at DCA.]

Let's go back and look at the fourth slide, and the "Park Planning/Design/Theming" points.

point 1, "No berm around the Park", matches up with what was built.

point 2, "Each attraction will be designed to achieve a specific emotional impact. ?Mega E?s with elaborate facilities, shows and rides will be avoided in favor of story.", and the park opened with no Mega-E's, finally we are getting a large E with ToT, but nothing of that level was included in the original park.

point 3, "Some visual intrusions are okay, including structures outside park boundary", as people have mentioned (and complained about) seeing the city from GRR, the Sun Wheel, etc. detracts from the attraction.

point 4, "Themed facades are faux, show-set like; not immersions into replications of period themed architecture." Once again, matches up with what is offered at DCA.

point 5, "Themed facades are limited to entries and front facades and thus cover only a portion of the visible facility." Once again, a perfect match to what was delivered with DCA.

point 6, "Keep the Monorail as is". And that is exactly what happened, they didn't move one inch of track, instead the attractions and other park structures were built to accommodate the Monorail. Disney did try to hide and/or use the monorail a part of the design, for example the Golden Gate Bridge at the front entrance, or the Superstar Limo sign. And they helped to limit the intrusion, but by no means did it eliminate it. They also helped keep costs down by not moving the Monorail, or adding a DCA station.

Point 7, "Use ?direct lifts? (e.g. Muppets 3-D) where possible." And we got direct lifts, Muppets 3-D, WWTBAM-PI (but of course, without the pre-show offered at WDW) and ITTBAB. And Animation, which I would not call a "Direct Lift", but the majority of the attraction was.

Point 8, "Surf City rides are ?off-the-shelf? except for paint, lighting, graphics and show features.", And what did Paradise Pier (the revised name for Surf City) get ?

Point 9, "Where possible no new ride systems to be invented. We will use developed technology." And what did we get, the one new ride system (Soarin') was actually part of the Westcot design, so much of the design work was already completed.

Point 10, "Make ?provisions only? for the future addition of a parade or water spectacular." And what did they do, build a large path through the park to accommodate a Parade, and added no infrastructure to the lagoon. They had to build the Parade building after opening, and had to add many features when they attempted LuminAria. And some of those "provisions" for the water spectacular were not that well thought out in regards as to where the guests were going to gather to watch the future show.

And the last point "No upgrades or tie-in to the existing Disneyland systems.", also how DCA was delivered.

 

[Rich T]

In all, if I'd had my druthers, I'd have liked to have seen the 1930's classic Mickey theme carried further across the entire pier. That would have been a satisfying, pleasing-looking solution to the whole "Paradise Pier" problem. It could have been a home to all the classic shorts characters. Oswald could have been the Pier's owner. I think they turned away from a good direction here and wasted all that effort that went into prettying up the Swings. Just realized the Pier's now going to have THREE spinning swing rides. Right next to each other. Good. Grief. High five, Imagineering! Bonuses all around!

 

[Darkbeer1]

One major point, WDI had nothing to do with DCA 1.0, except for Soarin', which was already designed for WestCot.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

I think Toy Story Land would be much worse. Giant Woody’s and Toy story characters EVERYWHERE. Yuck. I’ll always prefer multiple IPs to one. Especially in this case.

Although I'm extremely skeptical about Pixar Pier I completely agree with you. Some type of Toy Story/Pixar themed land was inevitable at DLR, and of all the directions they could have taken this hybrid is the best outcome. Cohesive theme or not it could have been a lot worse.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

I have no problem whatsoever with the corporate sponsorship model; it's my Disneyland childhood in a nutshell, and I loved every minute of it.

I actually thought it was disruptive to the experience, but that is a discussion for another time.

 

[lazyboy97o]

wouldn't that be subjective of the person experiencing it first hand? A person that is a Pixar movie fan can possibly see it as an experience especially if WDI is creating "neighborhoods" within the Pier.

couldn't it be seen as a Fantasyland of DCA? a collection of fantasy characters unified by one theme?
The fantasyland rides consist of a collection of fables, fairytales, a mountain peek and a wherehouse of singing dolls.


I wonder if they had gone ahead with these changes and kept the name to Paradise Pier, would that make a difference? creating a collection of fantasy based characters within a land.

I actually think they should just have continued to with the classic characters and changed the whole thing to Pleasure Island but I have a feeling that they want to try and eventually keep Walt Disney animation brands in Disneyland and use DCA for its other animation department

Being a Pixar fan does not change the content of the land. A room filled with Batman paraphernalia (a Batman themed room) does not become the Batcave even if the biggest Batman fan is in the room. Both would be Batman themed rooms but how they work is very different. The former is about reminding you of something you already know and the latter is about you entering into that story.

Fantasyland is not defined by a production studio. Even the IP rides (which would never have been built with today’s criteria) are there because of their story content. Wreck-It Ralph is not a fit for Fantasyland even though the movie was also made by Walt Disney Animation Studios. Pixar as a connection has nothing to do with story and excludes other stories because they were not told in a certain medium by a certain group of people.

I never said that any Disney park land has been depicted realistically or that it should and therefore that is my point. People argue that elements added do not fit a "Victorian Pier" or a "California" setting. If anyone is going to use that as an argument as a reason for the changes to be wrong then they must then analyze what they are asking for and realize that if WDI did supposedly follow guidelines and did an idealized setting for what a Seaside Pier in the California coast looked like then it would be basically DCA 1.0 with even more crappy off the shelve rides and unthemed kiosks.
You can't argue that someone vision is wrong when in actually the idea of Pier filled with wood clad buildings on a seaside Pier in California never existed. would lit look great, yes it would but it theory it would still clash with the overall theme of the park.

so you are correct, New Orleans Square doesn't represent a real life depiction of New Orleans and Frontierland also didn't just consist of old west mining towns so why should a Seaside Pier consist of Wood clad Victorian architecture only?
Aren't we talking about someone idealized vision of what could be a seaside amusement park, in this case a Disney vision of that?

If New Orleans square has drunken pirates and wine drinking skeletons and frontierland have whimsical animal creatures while riding a wild ride in the wilderness then why can't a seaside Pier, or which really never had a specific theme architecture style, not have a few animated characters?

An idealized version of something is still going to relate to its inspiration, what is being idealized. Pixar Street as an enhancement to Main Street, USA does not work because Pixar has nothing to do with the theme and Main Streets themselves never had a theme.

That said, those who keep insisting on a Victorian pier clearly don’t know what they are talking about. Victorian describes a rather long period of time and a group of popular architectural styles, not one single style. The Queen was also quite dead during the heyday of the seaside pier that is typically romanticized. It seems what is more desired is Mictorian architecture, the go-to filler for things that currently underwhelm.

Considering yet again that I agreed with you that branding is Not theming, you keep going back to the argument that I said something that I didn’t.

I said Pixar by definition didn’t add anything to add or subtract to the Paradise Pier theming, when it was already weak. I know that isn’t your perspective, but it is my opinion. Pixar is a plus (not theming). It adds character and characters. Is this very hard to interpret? PIXAR ADDS CHARACTER.

The anti-Pixar people made their opinions well known that they hate the addition. You said it too. Funny how you do not describe yourself as anti-Pixar when you don’t like it precisely because you think it’s branding. It is irrelevant as you said as well since it’s a movie or more accurately series of movies. Pixar can’t literally screw up Paradise Pier. It is already a sorry land with minimal theming by definition as Ismael already pointed out.

You say you agree in between contradicting that claimed agreement. You said Mickey’s Fun Wheel will be more themed and don’t get how Paradise Pier will be even less themed. And it is amazing how you still can’t figure out how the quality of movies are irrelevant to the quality of attractions.

 

[lazyboy97o]

One major point, WDI had nothing to do with DCA 1.0, except for Soarin', which was already designed for WestCot.

Huh? Are you just talking about ride systems?

 

[TwilightZone]

One major point, WDI had nothing to do with DCA 1.0, except for Soarin', which was already designed for WestCot.

I thought it was designed for disney's america, as well as many elements in paradise pier and grizzly river run.
dca is just sugar coated disney's america after all.

 

[DanielBB8]

You say you agree in between contradicting that claimed agreement. You said Mickey’s Fun Wheel will be more themed and don’t get how Paradise Pier will be even less themed. And it is amazing how you still can’t figure out how the quality of movies are irrelevant to the quality of attractions.

Your rebuttal cannot even be responded to as it is a bunch of gibberish. You presume to understand what I might mean instead of responding to the arguments. You make no sense especially with the last point since you jumped all over the place with quality of story telling to OWNERSHIP to finally movies are irrelevant. And Pixar was never given the benefit of the doubt.

 

[DanielBB8]

Everything Disney does is "Disney-fied." Frontierland is Disneyfied Old West. When it works, it works. No one in their right mind would want to travel back to the actual Old West the way it really was. And you know darn well the difference between a corporate sponsorship and what I mean by soulless "Corporate Disney" as opposed to "Creative Disney." I have no problem whatsoever with the corporate sponsorship model; it's my Disneyland childhood in a nutshell, and I loved every minute of it.

No matter who’s paying for it, Disney is still in the drivers seat. Corporate Sponsorships and Corporate Disney is the same side of the same coin. Then there’s the Creative Disney, which we would call Imagineering. We claim Disney has this split personality. It’s a theory that makes us feel better. That we can put the enemies one side is reassuring.

 

[Rich T]

I actually thought it was disruptive to the experience, but that is a discussion for another time.

I certainly is great to listen to CoP's 60's script today and realize just how hilariously blatant and unrelenting the show got with its GE mentions

 

[Rich T]

Although I'm extremely skeptical about Pixar Pier I completely agree with you. Some type of Toy Story/Pixar themed land was inevitable at DLR, and of all the directions they could have taken this hybrid is the best outcome. Cohesive theme or not it could have been a lot worse.

I would have actually preferred the Monstropolis plan to this, and Iiked the 30s Mickey pier direction better, but I'm trying to not lose all hope about this bizarre overlay. I think the key is simply in adding more sustained energy to the land. If they pull that off with details, performers, background music and facades all working together, then Lassiter Pier could be a step up. But I will never be on board with using poor dead Bing Bong to sell candy. Talk about tasteless.

 

[Curious Constance]

I would have actually preferred the Monstropolis plan to this, and Iiked the 30s Mickey pier direction better, but I'm trying to not lose all hope about this bizarre overlay. I think the key is simply in adding more sustained energy to the land. If they pull that off with details, performers, background music and facades all working together, then Lassiter Pier could be a step up. But I will never be on board with using poor dead Bing Bong to sell candy. Talk about tasteless.

Even if the pier turns out amazing, and is better than it is now, I'm still going to be against it in principle. Because it will still be much less than it could have been had they used this investment in something better than blatant advertising. No one will convince me that the direction the parks are going is good for the parks. I don't care if they make gazillions of dollars because of all of their changes, it will all have been at the expense of the parks in the end.

 

[Disneylover152]

I still believe that this started out as a temporary overlay for California Screamin' specifically for Pixar Fest, and then evolved into this mess.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Your rebuttal cannot even be responded to as it is a bunch of gibberish. You presume to understand what I might mean instead of responding to the arguments. You make no sense especially with the last point since you jumped all over the place with quality of story telling to OWNERSHIP to finally movies are irrelevant. And Pixar was never given the benefit of the doubt.

I have responded to each of your arguments and every time you follow up with a different claim and denial of what you previously stated. Quality of storytelling in a theme park has nothing to do with ownership of a movie or the movie itself. What part of that is gibberish and so hard to understand?

 

[DanielBB8]

I have responded to each of your arguments and every time you follow up with a different claim and denial of what you previously stated. Quality of storytelling in a theme park has nothing to do with ownership of a movie or the movie itself. What part of that is gibberish and so hard to understand?

Each one is YOUR argument. Go back to the posts and verify. I rebutted your lame arguments each time. That’s why I’m describing it a gibberish since you’re trying to foist it as if I said it originally.