TROR
Well-Known Member
Your mistake is thinking the superiority of westerns and pirates is a matter of opinion.
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News Paradise Pier Becoming Pixar Pier
- Thread starter iHeartDisneylandCats
- Start date
shortstop
Well-Known Member
Pirates, westerns, space exploration, and other such motifs explored in Disneyland are timeless concepts, and as such will never lose relevance or become outdated.
Rich T
Well-Known Member
Speaking for myself (I'm a 60's kid who grew up with Walt on TV and an amazing Walt-era Disneyland): Star Wars debuted while I was in college, and I adored it. I've adored it less over the years, but I'll always have a place in my heart for that original film, which is the single greatest 2 hours of world-building in cinema history.
I loved Star Tours and Indy. They had their own way of fitting in.
What I don't like about the current Star Wars and Marvel influx is not the fact that they're Space Fantasy or Super Hero: It's the fact that Disney didn't create them. And now Disney will probably start working Fox IPs into the parks. The "Disney" in Disneyland is being ignored and someday might just become meaningless. You may scoff now, but someday--when Star Wars and Marvel are being ignored in favor of a new IP that Disney aquired-but-didn't-create that you don't particularly enjoy--you might understand how I feel.
That said, the younger members of my family adore it all. Times change, I'm a dinosaur, and I can still find much to love in the changing resort. I just hope the name "Disney" still means something stylistically 20 years from now.
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SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
I've always hated the "but that's what my kids like, so it's good" excuse. Disneyland thrives on creating experiences that both the parents, and the kids enjoy. Seriously- when I was a kid Disney was putting out Chicken Little, Home on the Range, Brother Bear. Imagine if Disney said "Hey! Let's put in a Meet the Robinsons Land! It's what the kids want!"
As you said, there should be some level of expectation that someone has seen the classic films- they have literally defined American pop culture. When the Fantasmic 2017 debuted, someone on the other forum was saying that the Jack Sparrow scene was better than Pan because his children hadn't seen Pan. I was blown away.
Disney and film is such a huge part of American pop culture, that I don't think it's too much to expect that people see the staples- Snow White, Pinocchio, Pan, Star Wars, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, etc at a reasonably young age and become familiar with the archetypes present in those works and how they've influenced what's come later.
Taking your kids to enjoy a Disney theme park shouldn't be equivalent to reading a book and watching a movie. It should be noted that Disney is quickly revising it's fairy tales in subsequent live action movies. Enjoying Disney movies isn't indoctrination that was implied like you see it or you're stupid. You should never apply the word intellectual to a crass mass produced products from Disney. Just enjoy it for what it is.
TROR
Well-Known Member
The theatrical Disney films of the 1930's through 1950's are objectively good art from their music to their animation and artwork to their storytelling to their moral lessons. There's no reason Disney shouldn't be held to that standard they started out on. They began to slip in the 60's and never once returned to that golden age. Even the Disney Renaissance is no where near the quality of the earliest animated Disney motion pictures such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Peter Pan, or Sleeping Beauty.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
The Mickey stuff was no different than the Pixar stuff, characters slapped on.
TROR
Well-Known Member
Other than Mickey's Fun Wheel, whose art design was far superior to that of Pal-Around, and Goofy's Sky School, which we can all agree isn't anything good, what had the Mickey stuff just slapped on? Perhaps the Games of the Boardwalk but I will definitely argue that having Casey at the Bat represented there was infinitely more charming than the ugly Heimlich game present now.
PP was already a Six Flags style land though. I guess this is the disconnect I'm having with this argument. End of the day people are arguing cosmetics and very little else.
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Rich T
Well-Known Member
I think the classic Mickey and Silly Symphony 1930's vibe fit the old-time amusement pier setting better. This is subjective, of course, but I would have preffered to see the Pier go full-out 1930's & 40's Disney cartoon short animation. Plus Midway Mania (which at least was dressed up for the part).
(And, again, no Pixar Pal-Around starring Mickey Mouse situation).
Exactly! It resonates with the people it was meant to, kids and teens. As another poster said that's what gets missed, Disney is trying to appeal to a certain segment and if my family is anything to go on, it worked. Not everybody has to love every land or ride. But in this case, very little has changed anyway and they made a pretty bland area a more endearing one for younger people. All a good thing IMO.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Not to mention they were built as beautiful themed lands and not painted iconography and on flat walls.
Rich T
Well-Known Member
Younger people also love street carnival rides and mildew-stained bounce houses. And Chuck E. Cheese.
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mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Yup, their was far less of the classic Mickey stuff and it was far less offensive aesthetically. Just take a look at that Chicken hutt or whatever it’s called. I do the think the Screamin Q was plussed... aesthetically speaking. With that said, I’d take back the old ugly Screamin Q if we could get the blue Scream tunnels back. Those red bubbly straws with the unsightly horizontal lines have to be the biggest offender of Pixar Pier aside from the terrible name of course.
It's a boardwalk pier with a roller coasters, games and spinners. Let's not lose perspective lol. And the fact you're expecting a corporate theme park to educate people kind of says it all. Most people just go to Disneyland the same reason they go to any theme park, a bit of escape and fun and very little else since that's why theme parks are made.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
I think the reason most of us preferred the Mickey situation at Paradise Pier is for that reason. Because it’s Classic Mickey’s on the Fun Wheel. Silly Symphony’s images on the swings etc. Even though they are not thematically accurate for a seaside pier from that time period the characters/ images feel timeless. Now you have modern characters that have been around for two minutes getting gigantic statues erected combined with rushed tacky aesthetics like the Chicken Hutt and Senior Buzz Churros and voila.
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
The folks you speak of are most likely general guests and not hardcore fans such as I am, looking at it, analyzing it, and experiencing it differently.
Regarding kids, they tend to enjoy just about anything. I loved That’s So Raven as a kid, but wouldn’t bother to watch it now as an adult because my tastes have changed and it no longer interests me.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Silly Symphony Swings was another. I wasn’t saying that there was a lot of it, but it where it was added it was the same idea. Why is Mickey in this land that is full of earlier visual references? Was it supposed to be another land built around the idea that Walt Disney was a plagiarist?
They only fit in a vague “old timey” sort of way that has a lot of prior brand reinforce as ”Mictorian” has become a generic Disney aesthetic.
shortstop
Well-Known Member
The Mickey ‘theme’ of the swings has always struck me as odd, although I’ll admit I like it better than the orange.
This is the problem with a land based on a seaside amusement pier. Your options for ‘theme’ are either a) doing absolutely nothing, and having a barebones swingset, or b) having your ‘theme’ be Six Flags-esque decor with characters slapped on.
The swings are charming - for a swing ride. But the real question is, should they even be there at all? Should they have even built a land based on a seaside pier in the first place? I say no.