Poll: Disneyland has outgrown Sleeping Beauty Castle

[nevol]

You make great points but they’re all moot when you consider we can’t trust WDI to replace it with something bigger, better and equally as charming that also fits with Disneyland’s hub. That’s a tall feat. The risk far outweighs the reward. I vote no.

Personally I’ve never once walked down Main Street or by the castle and thought it didn’t look perfect. But then again I’m not really analyzing it in that way when I’m at the park. It’s part of park tapestry to me and maybe that’s your point. It’s not something that commands your attention.

Anyway I’d rather they ended the fireworks before they cut down the trees in the hub or have the Pixar Pier team re-do the castle. Hell to the No.

Thanks for playing! I'll model you a castle in 3d and send you some renders. You have final say.

 

[mickEblu]

Thanks for playing! I'll model you a castle in 3d and send you some renders. You have final say.

Lol! I’ll be waiting.

 

[lazyboy97o]

You haven't been able to explain what dimensions exactly we are talking about. You are trying to make a mathematical argument in defense of the castle, and I am looking at and measuring everything, seeing no consistency in proportions or scaling. The show buildings, land facades, scale of walkways, icons. Distance between structures. Trees; do they grow differently in different places? None of these things are scaled proportionally from one park to another.

I outlined why one could argue that disneyland has outgrown its castle. It not being visible is a major factor. Needing more guest space on stage is another. The rest I've already written about. I am not obsessed with height. You are obsessed with me being obsessed with height because it is a convenient way of dismissing and attacking my arguments without providing any explanations yourself. You're arguing with a life-long disney theme park fan with an urban planning degree and a masters degree in architecture, who has studied entertainment design professionally as well. You are trying to quantify a biased, emotionally charged belief, and then failing to do so. I am asking you to explain your foggy ideas of scale and proportion, and you can't. You are eluding to some pot of gold that is beyond my intellect and it just isn't there.

I haven’t made any mathematical arguments. Overall dimensions don’t tell you anything about the composition of space within a specific context and they tell you even less in a well designed theme park where perspectives are forced. Two streets have a typical building height of 40’. Street A is three stories tall and Street B is two stories tall. The experience of each is going to be different and that isn’t communicated by just knowing the overall dimensions.

More guest space only relates to height if you intend to visibly occupy three floors throughout the park. That would be a radical change way beyond the scope of the castle, one that would involve rebuilding the entire park.

 

[KeithVH]

Do you know how much it would cost to reconfigure the silos for the ICBM launchpads under the castle if they had to replace it?

 

[hawkfam]

Don't forget that Walt looked at the original castle design and said "Nope, we definitely need to turn this thing around because I like the backside better." So, to say the castle has always been perfect for the park is to forget that even Walt wasn't happy with it before it was built.

As to whether they would actually ever change it I don't think for a second that they would but to say it should never be considered doesn't make sense to me either.

 

[mickEblu]

Don't forget that Walt looked at the original castle design and said "Nope, we definitely need to turn this thing around because I like the backside better."

I think we can conclude that Walt was definitely an @$$ man.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Physically, the castle is small.

Emotionally- that thing is about as big as you can get. It's touched the lives of millions. It's a beacon of light- it represents the charm, friendliness, and hospitality of the park.

When you see the Mona Lisa- the most famous painting ever- the thing is actually quite small (I'm stealing that analogy from Tony Baxter). Yet it's captured the world

Another thing Tony has said- the castle isn't big enough to prop up these ridiculous shows with projections, faux roofs with snow and diamonds and buntings. He recommends scaling it back and just letting the castle be- you wouldn't put a mustache on the Mona Lisa.

 

[SuddenStorm]

So, to say the castle has always been perfect for the park is to forget that even Walt wasn't happy with it before it was built.

Is there any indication that Walt wasn't happy with the final product? In production, loads of stuff changes. But when people say that the castle is perfect for the park, it's implied that they mean from opening day- not production before the thing was built.

As to whether they would actually ever change it I don't think for a second that they would but to say it should never be considered doesn't make sense to me either.

OF COURSE it should never be considered. Do we really trust an Imagineering team that can't even deliver a proper E ticket Avengers ride, to somehow top one of the most iconic structures ever built? Trust me. The less talk of making the castle different, the better. Both inside Disneyland, and out.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Perhaps Disney would be wise to spend more time maintaining the foliage around the castle and Main Street- to help preserve the scale of the park.

 

[lazyboy97o]

OF COURSE it should never be considered. Do we really trust an Imagineering team that can't even deliver a proper E ticket Avengers ride, to somehow top one of the most iconic structures ever built? Trust me. The less talk of making the castle different, the better. Both inside Disneyland, and out.

While I wouldn’t trust Disney today (just look at the Chinese castles), nothing should be sacred. Everything should be up for replacement by something better.

 

[SuddenStorm]

While I wouldn’t trust Disney today (just look at the Chinese castles), nothing should be sacred. Everything should be up for replacement by something better.

With all due respect, this is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard on a Disney forum. Of course the castle should be sacred. Of course it shouldn't be up for replacement.

And how could we define "better"? Sure, they could build something bigger. Something grander. Something more ornate. But would that be "better" in the eyes of millions of Disney fans worldwide? Would that be better for the park, or would it be tampering with forces best left alone?

That Castle is the heart of the park- the park's icon.

The day Disney changes it is the day I never return.

 

[mickEblu]

While I wouldn’t trust Disney today (just look at the Chinese castles), nothing should be sacred. Everything should be up for replacement by something better.

Everything? So you’d be ok with POTC or HM being replaced by something “better?”

 

[TP2000]

All that Disneyland's castle really needs is an all-plastic house by Monsanto sitting directly across the moat from it. Because... Walt.

 

[Kiwiduck]

View attachment 310895
Is this so triggering? I don't care about the tallest; but as I have laid out above, it is neither sacred nor fulfilling its functions. And in its current state, it isn't quality either. The roof and the facade walls are dented and cracked.

While I don't want a change of castle i've sometimes thought to myself about what would happen if the castle needed to be replaced due to structural issues such as earthquake damage etc. If that ever happens I would be happy with either soaring or wizards tower. They both seem more grand but still sympathetic to the original.

 

[Minthorne]

Why does Sleeping Beauty Castle smell so bad on the inside?

 

[drizgirl]

I agree 100%. I think it should be some sort of warehouse fortress power plant design. Maybe change it to "Rocket Raccoon's castle"

No no no no no. That's the other park.

This is the Star Wars park.

 

[John park hopper]

NEVER NEVER NEVER

 

[lazyboy97o]

With all due respect, this is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard on a Disney forum. Of course the castle should be sacred. Of course it shouldn't be up for replacement.

And how could we define "better"? Sure, they could build something bigger. Something grander. Something more ornate. But would that be "better" in the eyes of millions of Disney fans worldwide? Would that be better for the park, or would it be tampering with forces best left alone?

That Castle is the heart of the park- the park's icon.

The day Disney changes it is the day I never return.

Everything? So you’d be ok with POTC or HM being replaced by something “better?”

Absolutely Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion should be open for replacement. I didn’t define better, much less reduce it to one quality, because that would be stupid and be unnecessarily limiting. The whole beauty of creative endeavors is the creation of something new.

 

[BrianLo]

Just trying to raise everybody's blood pressure. Happy friday!

But in all seriousness, the castle is not visible, even from areas of the hub. Trees and other foreground obstructions like ODVs and Rocks block a vast majority of it from view in many viewing locations.

The argument that Disneyland's castle has to be small to fit the scale of disneyland doesn't make sense. I have heard it for a decade and I finally will explain why this is ridiculous. The castle in Paris is twice the height of Disneyland's. Orlando's is more than double. Their buildings, however, are not twice as tall as those on our main street. Their Main Street is not twice as wide as ours. The castle takes up roughly the same surface area on the ground at the end of the street, it just reaches higher into the sky so it is visible over people's heads and other obstructions like trees. Disneyland's castle is so small that if you stand in town square and draw lines down the building facades and the street toward the center to create one point perspective, it doesn't even push above the height of the street wall on main street. In the recent halloweentime commercial playing on cable tv right now, the castle has the same architecture, but has been CGI'd to make it more prominent in the shot. When standing at the back of fantasyland and looking toward the castle, Peter Pan's flight and Snow White's scary adventures facades dwarf it in the foreground. Some argue that it is to scale with matterhorn; are the other mountains in Disneyland and Castle parks around the globe subject to this same requirement? Space mountain, big thunder, splash mountain... none of these structures are expected to be taller than their respective castles, and many a space mountain are visible at the same time as their park's castles. It seems like an odd design decision that has been defended but actually doesn't do anything to benefit either participating structure. At the time of Disneyland's opening, the trees had not grown in and the castle functioned as an icon that oriented guests within the park. You could look at it and know how to get around the place. Every castle park has followed the hub spoke and wheel tradition, and the castles still function in this way, except for Disneyland's, which is no longer visible from within most of the park. So in this way, the castle is no longer performing its basic functions as it set out to on opening day. Finally, the original concept artist/designer for Disneyland's castle went on to make dramatic changes to its design, more dramatic than any other subtle changes made to the magic kingdom park, when they opened their second castle park in Orlando.

I know, it is a really charming design. It is walt's original and many of us who grew up with the park would hate to see it go and don't trust the current imagineering teams to give it a superior replacement. However, I often feel like we are preserving the past in exchange for inferior show quality and guest experience. I live in hollywood, where spanish style and french chateau apartment buildings, hotels, and single family homes dot the landscape. Jim Henson's office on la brea blvd looks like fantasyland. The castle is of the same design style and scale as many homes around mid-city/wilshire, west LA, hollywood, Silver Lake, Los Feliz. I don't think anybody looking at the paris castle would equate it with single-family homes; there, it operates on the scale of iconic institutional architecture. The castle was considered to be replaced in 1984 with Tony Baxter's new fantasyland, and ultimately they decided against it, but how different would the park be now had they gone through with it and the public embraced the new castle? Arguments against changing it because it is the original and too sacred are silly to me, when I consider that St. Peter's Basilica, the home of the Catholic Church, was relocated and rebuilt once, and then the current Vatican City location was added on to and modified by several architects for centuries. Sleeping Beauty Castle is more sacred than the capital of the Catholic Church now?

Disneyland has become extremely crowded in recent years. Widening of midways is going on all over the park as well as the reconfiguring of queues for guest comfort. With a taller castle, we could create viewing areas for nighttime spectaculars in several lands, and do projections on the side and back for viewing from tomorrowland and fantasyland to better distribute crowds and ease congestion.

Okay, I said my bit. Let's argue! Happy friday and don't forget to vote.

Honestly, I agree with most of your devil's advocate stance. This is particularly why for years I think Hong Kong's castle has been particularly out of whack. There is no 'but Walt' to fall back on and some very real mountains in the backdrop, which make the toy sized castle look pathetic and further out of scale.

However, Hong Kong is not classic Disneyland. For historical and cultural reasons this is actually a piece of art in California. It deserves preservation and maintenance for that reason. Reducing some of the pink palate would be nice. If we could go back to the 60's and start over, I probably would have gone with that Soaring version.

But now... it is art.

 

[mickEblu]

Absolutely Pirates of the Caribbean and The Haunted Mansion should be open for replacement. I didn’t define better, much less reduce it to one quality, because that would be stupid and be unnecessarily limiting. The whole beauty of creative endeavors is the creation of something new.

You and I both know you wouldn’t sign off on that. It’s one thing to state something like this in a fan forum but real world if they come with you with some “better” plans for POTC and HM and you had the power to greenlight the project you would not. Also I think the key word you said was “replace” and not necessarily “better.” And if you did greenlight it, who is this team that you’re trusting as you sacrifice two of Disneyland’s most historic and signature attractions?