News Paradise Pier Becoming Pixar Pier

[Animaniac93-98]

The thought of Mermaid being taken out never crossed my mind.

I see the building and track layout being kept, but the theme changed to something Pixar.

6 years and two tweaks later, I don't think Mermaid has been the kind of draw Disney had hoped it would be.

 

[Suspirian]

Thought about this a bit and I don't necessarily think this really weakens the CA theme. (at least compared to Marveland/GOTGMB but we'll see about that when it's announced. Not to be reductive, but it appears to still a Victorian CA Pier, just hosted by Pixar characters in the same way TSMM hosts midway games and the fab five in the entire pier after the redesign. I still think the change isn't needed but it's not really that offensive IMO.

 

[Californian Elitist]

I think there is zero chance of this happening.

Hope not.

I see the building and track layout being kept, but the theme changed to something Pixar.

6 years and two tweaks later, I don't think Mermaid has been the kind of draw Disney had hoped it would be.

True. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

[mickEblu]

Thought about this a bit and I don't necessarily think this really weakens the CA theme. (at least compared to Marveland/GOTGMB but we'll see about that when it's announced. Not to be reductive, but it appears to still a Victorian CA Pier, just hosted by Pixar characters in the same way that TSMM has always been. I still think the change isn't needed but it's not really that offensive IMO.

If they were just retheming the flats and not calling it "Pixar Pier" i would agree. I think a permanent Incredibles overlay to Screamin is uneccesary and will most likely be tacky and weaken theme. Removing Mickey from the Fun Wheel wouldn't be weakening theme but is ruining the park icon.

I just don't understand why things can't be even just a little subtle. As if we won't know that those are Pixar characters unless they call it Pixar Pier or that we re in Star Wars Land when riding the Millenium Falcon.

 

[Suspirian]

If they were just retheming the flats and not calling it "Pixar Pier" i would agree. I think a permanent Incredibles overlay to Screamin is uneccesary and will most likely be tacky and weaken theme. Removing Mickey from the Fun Wheel wouldn't be weakening theme but is ruining the park icon.

I just don't understand why things can't be even just a little subtle. As if we won't know that those are Pixar characters unless they call it Pixar Pier or that we re in Star Wars Land when riding the Millenium Falcon.

I agree that the Incredibles overlay sounds pretty tacky, especially considering that movie deserves a lot better than what will most likely be new paint and a soundtrack to an existing coaster (I'd love to see the original planned ride before Carsland came along). I don't think I'd care much about the Fun Wheel if the replacement was another sun like others have said or something neutral like that.

 

[Curious Constance]

If they were just retheming the flats and not calling it "Pixar Pier" i would agree. I think a permanent Incredibles overlay to Screamin is uneccesary and will most likely be tacky and weaken theme. Removing Mickey from the Fun Wheel wouldn't be weakening theme but is ruining the park icon.

I just don't understand why things can't be even just a little subtle. As if we won't know that those are Pixar characters unless they call it Pixar Pier or that we re in Star Wars Land when riding the Millenium Falcon.

Screamin overlay was part of Pixar Fest which is temporary. Like Pixar characters added to Small World will be temporary.

 

[mickEblu]

Screamin overlay was part of Pixar Fest which is temporary. Like Pixar characters added to Small World will be temporary.

I hope you re right.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Ever notice how they occasionally do temporary overlays at WDW yet DLR gets them every year?

 

[TP2000]

I would argue that Screamin is fine as is and its classic woody coaster theme (with a modern twist) works well with the seaside pier story. What it lacks is a proper Disney queue/boarding area.

That's what I think Screamin' needs, a proper Disney level queue and loading area. As the Screamin' queue is now, it's just Six Flags on a good day. Paul Pressler carved his initials in the cement here!

The rest of Screamin' just needs a full paint job, a good clean up, and then fix all the lighting that burned out a decade ago.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

You'd still be left with an ugly ride with tubes. Screaming is one of the most un-thrilling roller coasters I've ever been on. It's kinda boring, actually, although the exit/ending area is charming despite Six Flagishness because of the beach theming.

 

[nevol]

Heck yeah. Lonzo!



This probably falls under the Frozenstrom argument. Malestrom wasn't great, but ideologically does Frozen fit into Epcot and lamenting the branding of everything.

This could go one of two ways. 1. they could slap a Pixar character name to everything and add nothing but meet and greets. 2. Use the branding as an excuse to really spend some money and do the area right.

TDA has had success using money carved out for new offerings to upgrade existing infrastructure. World of Color is an example of budgeting an upgrade to the equipment into the overlays they have done over the years. If renaming a carnival game after a Pixar character is the price of doing business to get the funding to create a better area, then I'm fine with it. If all they do is cheaply add the Pixar characters and don't upgrade the area, then it is a bad move. They didn't give enough details on which way they are going.

When the announcement landed with a giant thud in the parks presentation it was because they didn't announce any new attraction or even explain what they were doing. That made everyone think it was just rebranding. After hearing all the WDW announcements the DLR heavy audience wanted something big for the local resort.

Yup and you think they'd save the best for last. Should have started with disneyland's disappointing announcements and ended things strong with WDW!

 

[Kram Sacul]

The rest of Screamin' just needs a full paint job, a good clean up, and then fix all the lighting that burned out a decade ago.

Bingo. It would also be nice for all the trains to have working audio and for the interactive lighting in the "scream tubes" to be restored. Also the wave machine to be turned back on somehow without disturbing the pipes for World of Color.

 

[nevol]

I've been thinking about Pixar Pier today, and have a few musings...

I must say, I had no idea that Paradise Pier had so many diehard fans that are upset at this news!

Paradise Pier was rethemed in 2010-11 to add a whole bunch of "Disney" characters, mostly just slapped onto the side of existing rides from 2001. Along with the reskin of existing structures with far nicer Victorian themed overlays, it was a nice freshening of what was arguably the weakest and cheapest looking section of DCA.

Paradise Pier went from this Paul Pressler stucco masterpiece...

To this properly budgeted and Imagineered environment....

Pixar Pier appears to be a similar project, replacing the Disney characters slapped on things with Pixar characters. Midway Mania is already there as an anchor attraction themed to Pixar, but there are still some sections of the Pier that haven't been upgraded fully from their 2001 cheap Paul Pressler aesthetic - King Triton's Carousel, Sideshow Shirts, Fun Wheel queue, all of California Screamin'.

Hopefully the Pixar Pier project will address those four remaining areas, and it's apparent the Sideshow Shirts building and Fun Wheel queue get plussed up from the one piece of official artwork released.

And it looks like they are using the work already done at Tokyo DisneySea for their Midway Mania mini-land as inspiration; an early 1900's trolley amusement park. (The trolley companies built these to encourage weekend use of their rail lines.)

So far, so good for me. But the big question is what becomes of all the Disney characters that were pushed into the Pier back in 2010?

There's still that Hollywood Backlot expansion out into the East Esplanade bus loading zones that is coming. And there's a new Mickey dark ride going into DHS, which was rumored to be under consideration for DCA's Hollywood area. The Hollywood expansion could be themed to classic Disney characters, eliminating Monsters Inc. And the Marvel expansion is rumored by Miceage to include A Bug's Land, eliminating another Pixar franchise.

This could mean that since Pixar will be eliminated from the rest of DCA, except for Cars Land obviously, WDI is giving the Pier over to Pixar while they remake big chunks of the rest of the park into properly Imagineered homes for Disney and Marvel characters.

Looking at the long game here of 5 to 7 years from now, that could very well be the method behind the madness of Pixar Pier for 2018. Judging from how insanely happy and hyper John Lasseter was when he announced this at D23, which even caused him to slur his words and act like a fool which was obviously not related to alcohol use whatsoever , Pixar Pier is the bone WDI and Burbank throw the Pixar team to keep them playing along as they remove Pixar from the rest of DCA

I'm into it, but questioning
a. mickey fun wheel
b. buzz lightyear
c. nemo (both of which would make sense at pixar pier and I'd give my left one to get them out of disneyland)

mickey ride i'd love at dca but would take in fantasyland as well

fab 5 hollywoodland surrounded by marvel is cool, allows them to keep the hyperion shows and non-marvel IP around when necessary, but keeping hollywoodland in any capacity calls into question the TOT renovation. And I secretly don't want them to keep hollywoodland because I despise that straight street that runs into the forced perspective wall and how lacking it was in mood and streetmosphere compared to similar projects at DHS and how terrible and anticlimactic the approach to TOT was, not only because "sunset boulevard" was junky but because hollywood boulevard is so dense and hides the TOT rather than flowing toward it a la sunset blvd. I guess if TOT is no longer part of hollywoodland my gripes about its layout and lack of approach with respect to that ride building are irrelevant, but in the absence of that gripe I'm still sent in circles with this one; it'll always feel like dca 1.0 to me. Animation still has the contempo facade as well. It will inevitably need and get a "Pixar Pier"-type placemaking treatment.

Mickey could take over the backlot facades building/backlot courtyard show space and that would allow them to fix those facades to be more period specific. If he took over monsters inc for example, it wouldn't solve the problem of the wasted courtyard space and all the flexible event and movie preview show buildings, so it's better just to keep mickey up along hollywood blvd. The rest of that area made clear by losing millionaire and monsters inc would go toward marvel. I guess if they reroute the monorail they'll plow through the Millionaire building so that's a strong disincentive to putting a new attraction in there and saving that whole programming of backlot space that has been the most problematic. Based on the size of the mickey show building, it would need false fronts running the entire length of hollywood blvd, or be set back a bit to allow for retail space and a queue. Or the queue takes over muppets building. Or they set it elsewhere near the new gateway bridge or rotate it 90 degrees to sit next to hyperion and harbor blvd, with marvel in what is now the backlot area.

But that show building is pretty big long-story-short. and with the hyperion staying, unless sunset blvd gets the marvel treatment, there is no way to connect marvel phase 1 with marvel phase 2. So if mickey takes over the backlot (not the backlot show buildings, but the backlot fronting hollywood blvd) then hyperion and sunset blvd go marvel to connect the two phases (does this mean just a broadway ny overlay of the theater or marvel-exclusive shows too?); if mickey goes north of hyperion, then sunset, hyperion, and mickey stay hollywoodland and the two marvels don't touch. If mickey goes in the northeasternmost area of this new expansion pad, which is possible, then marvel land and hollywoodland would be interwoven very oddly. I don't see that happening however unless they spend more money on development rather than directly lifting the DHS show building to make the most of that expansion pad and its organic curvature along the gateway path.

Here are some images to explain. Yellow is hollywoodland, blue marvel/superhero, and the brighter yellow belongs to an accurately scaled cut of the great movie ride show building. red is millionaire which will need to disappear for the monorail. By no means arguing with you just riffing off some points you raised! Curious what scale of Spiderman dark ride could go in ITTBAB or A Bug's Land; which leads me to further speculate that ITTBAB show building would make one bad@$$ home for the Star Tours simulators. We won't get a direct lift of Iron Man from HK because it is set at HKDL in the ride film so a new film is required no matter what; some ride vehicle justification to be swinging from building to building with spiderman would be quite the rush.

 

[BrianLo]

It won't be hard to remove Mickey and Goofy from their rides, but Mermaid is another matter. Both the ride and Grotto character meal. I could see the ride becoming Coco though, possibly to share development costs with the rumored overlay of Mexico's attraction at Epcot. Maybe the upcoming Fantasyland expansion will include a Princess dining hall?

Mermaid will become part of the wharf. I think the building was previously in Golden state park? It's basically the Matterhorn of DCA.

Thematically... not just aesthetically, it is not even apart of the physical pier.

One thing we need to keep in mind is that this is a relatively quick turnaround, I'd be shocked to see any attraction change in a truly meaningful way.

 

[mickEblu]

Mermaid will become part of the wharf. I think the building was previously in Golden state park? It's basically the Matterhorn of DCA.

.

True but I think or at least hope that a dark ride is part of a phase 2

 

[TP2000]

One thing we need to keep in mind is that this is a relatively quick turnaround, I'd be shocked to see any attraction change in a truly meaningful way.

I'm just hoping they'll remove that last few bits of Paul Pressler's stucco, paint Screamin' and fix the lights, and put a proper Victorian structure around King Triton's Carousel. There's probably not time to build this sort of structure that was in the Blue Sky Cellar model in 2008, but here's hoping...

 

[nevol]

I'm just hoping they'll remove that last few bits of Paul Pressler's stucco, paint Screamin' and fix the lights, and put a proper Victorian structure around King Triton's Carousel. There's probably not time to build this sort of structure that was in the Blue Sky Cellar model in 2008, but here's hoping...

I think there's time for that! Buildings and architectural details seem to take far less time and happen later in a project than show buildings and are especially fast if they don't include theme aging and rockwork. Silly symphony swings took 10 months by comparison, and that may have included the construction of a queue around the ride in the lagoon if I'm not mistaken.

 

[mikenatcity1]

DLR has gotten the short end of the hotel stick. I'm sure there's a business explanation why, but 16 years after the DLR expansion opened and 26 years after it was first announced, the Disney hotel experience at DLR is pretty sad compared to every other Disney theme resort property.


EDIT - Just look at the Disney hotels announced this weekend:

Star Wars hotel at WDW (OMG!):

Riviera Resort at WDW:

Marvel redo of the Hotel New York at DLP:

Meanwhile, at Disneyland Resort:

To DL's defense, a new hotel was already announced- the design is still TBD, but a newer, nicer hotel is supposed to be happening in the coming few years (just like these). And, if to compare quality to quality, it's better to use Grand Californian or Disneyland Hotel- Paradise Pier is on a completely over level of hotel as these new announcements (a much LOWER level).

 

[Deleted member 107043]

To DL's defense, a new hotel was already announced- the design is still TBD, but a newer, nicer hotel is supposed to be happening in the coming few years (just like these). And, if to compare quality to quality, it's better to use Grand Californian or Disneyland Hotel- Paradise Pier is on a completely over level of hotel as these new announcements (a much LOWER level).

That's true, but it doesn't help that DLR hasn't built a new hotel in nearly 17 years or that nothing was mentioned this weekend about the previously announced property under development.

 

[rle4lunch]

That's true, but it doesn't help that DLR hasn't built a new hotel in nearly 17 years or that nothing was mentioned this weekend about the previously announced property under development.

True....but.... DL/DCA/DD/ has been getting continual upgrades, reworks and additions for over a decade to the parks attractions. IASW, Alice, BTMR, Carsland, WOC 2.0, Downtown Disney upgrades (and more to come! for some unknown reason) and so forth and so on. The money pumped into Anaheim has been non-stop. DL Resort also had its big renovation as well. Paradise Pier Hotel needs to be set ablaze and replaced with something that actually embodies at least some similitude of an actual Disney resort (don't get me started on their elevator situation).

That said, DLR could really do itself justice and build a value resort (instead of staying at all the holes that offer transportation services to the park).