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?
See, I don't know what's wrong with me, but the subtlety and invisibility of the castle that says just enough to say "this isn't your typical main street" might as well not say anything at all, or say it more loudly. I understand the Mona Lisa analogy mentioned, but I really don't believe that the aesthetic experience of seeing sleeping beauty castle is anything like that of the mona lisa. It is attractive, but its purpose of showing us that we aren't in Kansas anymore, its transcendence, its level of picturesque-ness in pursuit of the sublime and in capturing the largest aesthetic and emotional response in the viewer is not being fully fulfilled. Architects spent centuries perfecting castles and churches to evoke those feelings, and the theatrics of baroque are leveraged in modern theme parks all the time. I know I am taking it for granted, but I also am confident that it could be more successful at hacking our brains and playing with our emotions. Right now, it communicates a historic narrative about Disneyland, which has its own value, while underselling/managing our expectations about the rest that it has to offer. It is nostalgic, prolific, historic, Walt built it, etc, but all of that weight also just perfectly encapsulates in one object the narrative that Disneyland is limited by its first buildout, its size, its age, that it can't be improved upon or continue to grow because of all of its context.
However, New Orleans Square is a masterpiece. It is beautiful, rich, multileveled, multilayered, has beautiful topographical and grade changes, blends landscape rich zones with dense streets, and blurs the lines between indoors and outdoors, paranormal and normal, transcendental magic and realism. I have a 54 inch wide blueprint of the front elevation of sleeping beauty castle in my apartment, and the line weight is incredible, and I appreciate it... but not to the same extent. Let's say I hypothetically had my way and got to change it. Would I be able to say now with certainty that I wouldn't regret what I had done? No, but I have never been totally in love with the structure and always stared at it and tinkered with it. I have often argued that Disneyland is essentially public space and that we should arguably be able to fight for its preservation, defending it against brash changes at the will of the walt disney company. That the changes to pirates were ridiculous because you would never go back in time and edit a movie once it has been released, and we should treat theme park attractions as art as well, preserving them rather than editing them. However, I am also a hypocrite and this is a far more subtle example of one man's trash being another man's treasure.
I think if and when the day comes that the castle needs replacement, for operations reasons, safety reasons, or structural, the best course of action would be to crowdsource the process and involve the public. Have votes for the best design and ultimately have a final vote of whether to rebuild the original or move forward with the new one. Disneyland belongs to the hearts and minds of its fans in the public, and the only way to pull something like this off is to give them some skin in the game and some say/feeling of control. As we know, so much of the panic of being a theme park fan isn't just in the end result, it is in the lack of creative control/involvement as well.
