Poll: Disneyland has outgrown Sleeping Beauty Castle

[TP2000]

The wonky sightlines are part of DL's charm. It's all kind of magical. I especially like the views from the new train route over the ROA. So much depth and feeling. It all goes together. Seeing the towering facade of Mission: Break Pads from Disneyland? Not so much.

Agreed. But you can only see Mission: Breakout, along with the rest of the Eslplanade and DCA, from the platform of the Main Street Depot.

But in Walt's day, you got a view of the parking lot and mid 20th century Harbor Blvd. and the monorail going to the Disneyland Hotel, plus the SoCal Edison high tension lines and the typical hazy smog of 1960's skies.

Compared to the similar view in the 21st century...

 

[Curious Constance]

Agreed. But you can only see Mission: Breakout, along with the rest of the Eslplanade and DCA, from the platform of the Main Street Depot.

But in Walt's day, you got a view of the parking lot and mid 20th century Harbor Blvd. and the monorail going to the Disneyland Hotel, plus the SoCal Edison high tension lines and the typical hazy smog of 1960's skies.

Compared to the similar view in the 21st century...

You also need to take into account Walt had to settle a lot of times due to budgets. He also only had ten years of tinkering before he died. If he had the resources and time of today’s Disney, you can be the he’d be making better choices than today’s Disney is.

 

[mickEblu]

Wow 103 voters? We have some lurkin going on.

 

[Curious Constance]

Wow 103 voters? We have some lurkin going on.

Half of those alone make up the various people all over the world who post as me and Hans.

 

[TP2000]

You also need to take into account Walt had to settle a lot of times due to budgets. He also only had ten years of tinkering before he died. If he had the resources and time of today’s Disney, you can be the he’d be making better choices than today’s Disney is.

True. But let's say Walt lived to be 100 and he spent 5 Gajillion dollars to built Westcot II in 1990.

This would be the view from the platform of the Main Street USA train station, and it wouldn't be any less thematically wrong to see from circa 1905 Marceline, Missouri than a brick ticket plaza and a 1920's Los Angeles is today.

 

[180º]

I will defend seeing the Matterhorn, the Castle, and MSUSA next to each other as I defend Cinderella Castle being visible from all over the Magic Kingdom. It just works on a subconscious, hedonic level. I resent how literal we’ve become about theme park design.

 

[dweezil78]

If you were an artist and decade after decade you saw your work being trashed and modified to fit some stupid “staying relevant” goal then I think you would be a little grumpy after a while. Stroller park indeed.

Of course he has valid points... but the company has also been pretty darn respectful to Rolly, Mary, Marc, Claude, and all the other Imagineering/Studio greats throughout that time too -- doing much to celebrate and preserve the work they've done and honor their legacy.

What other entertainment/theme park company constantly looks back and celebrates their past employees with such admiration and regard in the same way Disney does? I can't think of many.

He's right to have his opinion and he's not entirely wrong, but it's also not a good look to go on a tirade to the LA Times about it.

 

[Kram Sacul]

Agreed. But you can only see Mission: Breakout, along with the rest of the Eslplanade and DCA, from the platform of the Main Street Depot.

But in Walt's day, you got a view of the parking lot and mid 20th century Harbor Blvd. and the monorail going to the Disneyland Hotel, plus the SoCal Edison high tension lines and the typical hazy smog of 1960's skies.

Compared to the similar view in the 21st century...

Actually, no. You can see M:BO surprising well from the hub if you stand by the castle and while on the train as it goes by BTM. It's way back there but it's pretty obvious. Tower of Terror was a dull pale wall from most angles but it at least blended in a little with the smog and didn't have all the pipes and crap on top of it which makes it look even taller.

 

[dweezil78]

You also need to take into account Walt had to settle a lot of times due to budgets. He also only had ten years of tinkering before he died. If he had the resources and time of today’s Disney, you can be the he’d be making better choices than today’s Disney is.

Repeating what I've said multiple times... but I think Walt would've handed Disneyland off as some low priority project had he lived another 10 years. He was moving on to creating cities -- Disneyland was starting to become just a test run in urban planning to him by the time he died. He spent the last years of his life secretly buying up a massive chunk of a state, I seriously doubt the theme park business was going to be on his mind much longer.

My personal belief is that, the longer Walt lived, the more drastically different Disneyland would be today as he would've given others more power to tinker with the park and change things around. No one would still be muttering "What would Walt do?" for every little change had he passed in 1976 instead of 1966. NOS and Tomorrowland 67 were his theme park swan song, he was ready to do far bigger things in life.

 

[dweezil78]

Actually, no. You can see M:BO surprising well from the hub if you stand by the castle and while on the train as it goes by BTM. It's way back there but it's pretty obvious. Tower of Terror was a dull pale wall from most angles but it at least blended in a little with the smog and didn't have all the pipes and crap on top of it which makes it look even taller.

View attachment 312185

Really...

 

[Disney Irish]

Actually, no. You can see M:BO surprising well from the hub if you stand by the castle and while on the train as it goes by BTM. It's way back there but it's pretty obvious. Tower of Terror was a dull pale wall from most angles but it at least blended in a little with the smog and didn't have all the pipes and crap on top of it which makes it look even taller.

View attachment 312185

Now you're reaching....

 

[dweezil78]

It really helps when you have tall things that can be seen all over the park be aesthetically pleasing. A snow capped mountain overlooking a castle and European village. Great. A 20 Story oil refinery just doesn’t work anywhere.

Feelings about losing ToT aside -- from far away within the walls of Disneyland park (especially from that one little viewpoint on the train from the ROA that you catch for all of 15ms), do you really think that this:

Looks drastically different than this... ?

I'd argue that, from a distance, the latter is the more industrial and drab looking of the two while the former is more vibrant and interesting. Close up may be another story... but that's a matter of personal opinion.

Also, looking back at our ToT makes me realize what a cheap POS that design was compared to the original. Everything from the elevator shafts up was pretty ugly to begin with.

 

[Kram Sacul]

Really...

Now you're reaching....

 

[mickEblu]

Feelings about losing ToT aside -- from far away within the walls of Disneyland park (especially from that one little viewpoint on the train from the ROA that you catch for all of 15ms), do you really think that this:

Looks drastically different than this... ?

I'd argue that, from a distance, the latter is the more industrial and drab looking of the two while the former is more vibrant and interesting. Close up may be another story... but that's a matter of personal opinion.

Also, looking back at our ToT makes me realize what a cheap POS that design was compared to the original. Everything from the elevator shafts up was pretty ugly to begin with.

Drab yes. Industrial no. My attachment to TOT had nothing to do with the forgettable and lackluster exterior but the attraction itself. But that lackluster exterior is better than a bright attention grabbing oil refinery IMO.

 

[mickEblu]

Now which one do you like more? MBs lighting package sucks. It reminds me of a Batman movie from the 90s.

Sigh. Not to mention the classic marquee, theming and music. Rod Serlings voice and ride narration. Star field effect....

 

[dweezil78]

Now which one do you like more? MBs lighting package sucks. It reminds me of a Batman movie from the 90s.

Sigh. Not to mention the classic marquee, theming and music. Rod Serlings voice and ride narration. Star field effect....

View attachment 312186

View attachment 312187

Definitely prefer the original at night. But MB is a bit more dynamic -- at times the color scheme more closely resembles the first pic (which is also way over HDR'd!).

 

[nevol]

Actually, no. You can see M:BO surprising well from the hub if you stand by the castle and while on the train as it goes by BTM. It's way back there but it's pretty obvious. Tower of Terror was a dull pale wall from most angles but it at least blended in a little with the smog and didn't have all the pipes and crap on top of it which makes it look even taller.

View attachment 312185

You can see the tower of terror in paris from adventureland and frontierland. I don't think it is ruining anybody's day. Maybe it doesn't look good and we don't like the attraction as it relates to DCA, but from a separate park altogether, both attractions are visual and thematic intrusions. But they're still attractions.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

I couldn’t agree more. My only regret is that I have no memories of it from my youth.

But it’s such a perfect example of how Walt and his designers never took things too seriously when it came to Disneyland. A giant plastic house of tomorrow next to a Bavarian Castle in the shadow of a Swiss mountain and across from an Oregon Trail log fort and a singing Tiki bird show with African elephant tusks on the marquee?!? Sure, why not? After all, Monsanto and United Airlines and Pendleton Woolen Mills are all paying sponsors of those shows, and Walt says it’s fine!

Nowadays, us fans fret over every new paint job and slight alteration to the planters and benches and wallpaper. Walt would have changed the park four times over by now if he’d lived to 120.

Hmm..it appears I entered in the middle of a discussion I wasn't aware of.

DL, and the MK, are less obsessed with thematic consistency and precision of setting than modern fans and designers. Owing in part to changing times, in part to a certain overtheorising that misunderstands these more intuitive parks.

But not anything goes either. That is overcompensating. The House of the Future is not misplaced in the hub, in between Main Street and the castle. But it would be misplaced if it would replace the Treehouse in AL.

As for Walt's Disneyland will never be complete. Personally I wonder. Walt only got to tinker with DL for a decade. Really just a few years of a starting park, without prior expertise. I think the replacements and experiments inevitably would've settled down. At some point the creation has succeeded.

From a Walt personality view, I'm torn. He was no George Lucas. He never revisited his old works. He didn't obsess and finetune Snow White three decades later. In fact Walt even lost interest in entire mediums. By 1966 neither animation nor theme parks occupied his mind anymore.
Then again, had he had two more productive decades in him, perhaps he would've continued to think of DL as his personal backyard trainset, to be tinkered with at will.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Feelings about losing ToT aside -- from far away within the walls of Disneyland park (especially from that one little viewpoint on the train from the ROA that you catch for all of 15ms), do you really think that this:

Looks drastically different than this... ?

I'd argue that, from a distance, the latter is the more industrial and drab looking of the two while the former is more vibrant and interesting. Close up may be another story... but that's a matter of personal opinion.

Also, looking back at our ToT makes me realize what a cheap POS that design was compared to the original. Everything from the elevator shafts up was pretty ugly to begin with.

ToT perhaps could've defended itself better if it hadn't looked like a prefab apartment in a war-torn Syrian city after a bombardment.

Who builds a 150 ft ruin? ToT was doomed from the beginning, that unfortunate late nineties design era of 'dirty, broken and disrepair = authentic' was destined to be removed once sense took over again. (Now to adress that issue in DAK...)

 

[TROR]

ToT perhaps could've defended itself better if it hadn't looked like a prefab apartment in a war-torn Syrian city after a bombardment.

Who builds a 150 ft ruin? ToT was doomed from the beginning, that unfortunate late nineties design era of 'dirty, broken and disrepair = authentic' was destined to be removed once sense took over again. (Now to adress that issue in DAK...)

Tower of Terror in Orlando is in ruins as well, though. Also Mission Breakout still has the ruins of Tower of Terror plus a bunch of ugly pipes. Tower of Terror's exterior, even if you didn't like it, told a story far more so than Mission Breakout's does.