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POTC - New additions?
- Thread starter AEfx
- Start date
pumpkin7
Well-Known Member
too true! i think they went a bit over board with the movie tie ins. they should have just left it at jack. i much prefer the talking parrot/skull at the start than the davy jones fog screen. is there actually any referrence to the 'dead men tell no tales' left in the ride? i can't recall.
MightyGitis
New Member
You still hear the echoing proclamation of "Dead Men Tell No Tales" before the first drop, there just isn't a skull projection on the wall speaking it.
I agree if with the idea of randomizing it so that sometimes it's Davey Jones and sometimes it's Black Beard.
Jacks_Wench
Member
Havent been to Disneyland in a year, but it was there then. Davy Jones isn't until right before you go into the village at Disneyland, after the second drop. I like it a lot better than at WDW.
misterID
Well-Known Member
Yeah, and it's the same with the Al Lutz bashing. And Al has a really good track record, btw.
Good point that Disney has announced things that haven't happened. Things change. Plans change. You can see it from even the insiders here, you think something is for sure, then... Nothing.
Does he want traffic on his site? Of course, like anyone else with a site, that's the fun about speculating on what Disney is doing, but I've learned a lot about Disney projects like BK. The fact that he's reporting on projects is great reading, even if it doesn't happen. But I haven't seen any evidence that Jim has ever intentionally lied.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
The specific reference to "Disneyland" in the quote in the article is interesting, because there's a place that fits for the "waterfall" reference. It's that waterfall at the bottom of Drop Two in the Disneyland version, where a watery skull and crossbones flutters behind a waterfall as your boat curves around the corner after the second drop.
Waterfall at bottom of Drop Two, Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean
The 2006 Davy Jones waterfall effect comes along about 3 minutes later on the Disneyland version, as you head in to the Battle Scene.
But where to put a new Blackbeard waterfall effect in the WDW version? That's the question here, and it's harder to figure out where this will go in the WDW version of the ride. I look forward to learning the answer!
The 3D movie premiere for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is next Saturday at Disneyland. Perhaps this new waterfall effect will debut for the movie premiere that weekend? Or maybe it has to wait until the movie shows up in American theaters nationwide. I'm trying to remember when the Davy Jones projection and new Jack Sparrow animatronics showed up in the ride; on the day of the Disneyland movie premiere, or a couple weeks later when the movie arrived in theaters? Anyone remember?
Not to mention the fact that for the things he does do well (historical articles), never get finished. How many years ago were the Star Tours and Muppets ones supposed to be done? Five? Six?
Oh, and the "Hurley is Harry Knowles" thing (which has vanished from the site).
And that "laptop" fundraising drive? And whatever happened to those tour tapes?
Even if you take aside his lack of credibility when it comes to parks (throw enough pooh at the wall, some will stick), the guy is still shady...
But anyway, back to POTC. I'll be very excited to check it out on the 20th and see if indeed there is something new. Gosh knows I'll be out of MGM ASAP, so it looks like the MK is the next stop that day.
DisneyNut2007
Active Member
I don't see how a person's inability/refusal to finish projects he starts makes him "shady" ... imo, it just shows he's a little lazy and has no attention span. I don't think it devalues the information he does provide. As I pointed out earlier, if he says something will be built, it gets built. If he uses any wiggle words (maybe, sooner or later, under consideration, being discussed, etc), 90%+ it's never getting built. And that's just regarding information provided by his anonymous WDI sources.
He provided his source for this information, Ian McShane. If it turns out wrong, it's not Hill's fault - all he did was provide a quote by McShane. And, unless McShane posts on WDWMagic under the handle jt04, I have no reason to believe he'd just make up something to get a rise out of the general public. It makes no sense. So I would bet that by the end of the summer, there's a projection of McShane in DL's POTC.
As for Jim Hill, I find myself far more annoyed by his anti-Disneyphile commentary. While I recognize that he's just parroting the thoughts and comments of his "sources" in WDI, I still find it annoying (particularly since he appears to be sympathetic to the internal-WDI position). It makes me think he's content with crap; which is counter-productive to improving the WDW experience.
jt04
Well-Known Member
Yes, it almost sounds like a lower budgeted version of ST2 where you have a different experience each time. I like this trend in theme park attractions.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
Steve, with all due respect to your site - it's a different type of site. Your track record is impeccable largely because you are a first source for News, not rumors.
I know you didn't make the comparison between the two sites, but there has to be a context in which Jim Hill's stuff is read. Yes, he absolutely creates buzz, but does so with stories founded in truth. The problem as you said is the nature of rumors in general, all rumors should be taken with a grain of salt regardless of the source.
Jim Hill and Al Lutz have different sources. Jim's breadth spans far more than WDI as his site doesn't focus on one particular arm of the company. But you just brought up 3 horrible examples of "Jim Hill being used".
Monster's Inc Coaster - this story first appeared on the cast member portal when it was "mistakenly" uploaded by an Imagineer.
Beastly Kingdom - Jim did a great 3 part writeup on Beastly Kingdom back in 2001 saying it probably WOULDN'T Happen
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Night Kingdom - While I don't believe this to be true, this is really the only story that could have been fed to him by Disney. What's more likely is that Jay Rasulo wanted to get this done, the money wasn't there and Wild Africa Trek was the compromise.
Until the attraction opens it's still not guaranteed. Look at the delays surrounding Test Track, or the Legendary Years at Pop Century.
The fault that anyone that deals in rumors has to face is how do you "sell the rumor"? Is it realistic to handicap every rumor? Should Jim, Al or anyone else that discusses rumors put a likelihood of occurance? Should Jay Rasulo have done that at D23?
"The rumors about Fantasyland are true. We're making enhanced meet and greets for all of your favorite princesses... but we may change our mind and do something else. It really depends on a lot of stuff I don't really want to get into right now like whether or not my successor's kids are little girls or little boys." - Jay Rasulo
BTW, you would be impressed if you knew who Al's main source was.
I gotta be honest, I don't know about all of those unfinished projects so I can't speak to them.
Some things in the past few months that Jim hasn't posted to his site that he told us off the record:
He saw New Fantasyland re-designs that showed the entire center area in flux and was told that the Seven Dwarf's Mine Train was being re-considered and Pixie Hollow was out. This was before anyone else made it public. Lee was chasing the same story and broke it.
He attended a media event where a senior Imagineer casually mentioned that C3PO would be piloting our StarSpeeder in Star Tours 2.0. I brought the scenario to this site and had it immediately refuted. Then on the Disney Parks Blog I pointedly asked Tom Fitzgerald to clarify and he said that C3PO would indeed "wind up" as the pilot of the Star Speeder.
You'd be amazed how often media types find themselves handed things like this and don't act on it because they can't get a second source on the info, or they just didn't believe the story themselves.
With the McShane quote, he has spelled out this source. I could have anticipated a similar article regarding C3PO where he cited the specific Imagineer, and then when it didn't happen Jim would get blamed for havign bad sources.
It comes down to this - if you want to read rumors, you have to be willing to accept that not all rumors come true. I for one don't think the Monster's Inc Coaster is going to happen - it has nothing to do with questioning Jim's information, I just think it's not a logical choice for that park, nor do I think it's the best usage of whatever the cost of the attraction would be.
As for the Blackbeard water screen, it seems logical, Ian McShane alluded to it, so I think this has some legs. However, I would by no means say that this is 100% guaranteed.
Yes it was. Of course, the information provided in Jim's article included many details and obviously came from a WDI source (just like the rest of Hill's information). In July 2008 he said it would be in DHS by the Fall of 2011. They better start building quick.
And three years later, he wrote a very detailed account of how WDI was hoping to turn the living character initiative dinosaur into Beastly Kingdom over a several year process. To anyone paying attention, this is called "An Imagineer came up with an idea, management said no, so now they leak to Jim how wonderful this could potentially be, so he writes an article and drums up internet support" - it's the exact same thing that happened with Night Kingdom.
I think you'll find I defend Jim Hill more than most on this forum, but there is no doubt in my mind he (1) often gets used by his sources and (2) is sympathetic to their "anti-hardcore-fan" thought process. And I don't particularly care for either one of those concepts.
NoChesterHester
Well-Known Member
Well done sir. I know it seems everyone is pumped for the Monster's Inc Coaster... I think the longer it sits the less likely it is to happen. While the Lucasland expansion rumors may be just daydreaming, it does point out what Studios really needs more... A real long term plan and vision. The "studio" thing is more than dead.
The Duck
Well-Known Member
The only place that I could see it at WDW would be right before you go over the waterfall. Ever since the last refurb, the talking skull was removed and the drop is in total darkness. Maybe something could be added there as a sort of "screen" before the drop. Of course, all of this is still speculation :lookaroun so lets just wait and see.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Tony Baxter, or someone close to Tony? That's my guess.
I enjoy Jim Hill from time to time, and I appreciate info like this stuff from Ian McShane that I hadn't heard about until it came up via Jim Hill.
I do think Hill went way, way out on a limb with that Night Kingdom stuff back in '08, but I imagine he learned a lesson there. Of course, an argument could be made that the global financial panic of late '08 killed Night Kingdom, something that Jim Hill nor anyone in WDI could have forseen just six months earlier. But still, a lesson on reporting rumors so confidently was likely learned there.
Because some of them involved donations/money/time of people and just vanished. They also just show his overall personal track record - kind of like how they check your credit report when you apply for a job now.
KRACK said:
Make no mistake, the absolute sole goal of that site is to promote Hilly's name. That's why I refuse to type it out, LOL. I also greatly hesitated before I started this thread (I almost never start threads - usually someone else's is already appropriate), but it was an interesting bit and I was curious of our "insiders" opinions.
Like many, when I first started discovering the Disney community online, I was enthralled by his site. I read all the archival stories I could over a few weeks, and the guy can tell a good story. And I've no doubt that there are no "lies" in them (though, as time has gone on in the seven years or so since then, I now wonder how much was really educated assumption and not out and out sourced).
That said, over those past seven or so years I've watched him put on almost as many coats. It seems he gave up on telling all those stories (and never finished a lot of them that he started) and wanted to be a name beyond "wow that guy has great historical stories).
First, he tried to be an out and out general insider (the bi-coastal Al Lutz). However, he failed because (and I'm sure other WDWMAGIC members can attest) it was almost like he was reading these boards some days and writing a story. Someone would post a little tidbit, or there would be a seed in a discussion, and then this whole story would come out about it that often times was no deeper than what was posted here, only drawn out with "I don't know, but this sounds like..." speculation that any number of us could (and did say) about the possibilities. If you really read it, you could see that there was no insider info, it was all really speculation and nothing other than the initial seed planted here (and sometimes other sites, but it was primarily this one) drawn out into a few more paragraphs.
Then he wasn't getting anywhere, so he started to broaden his stories into other aspects of Disney. He tried to make a name for himself there with his "OMG Harry Knowles was the inspiration for Hurley on LOST!" story. (Last time I looked, you couldn't find that story on his site anymore.) He thought this would get him some attention, at least on AICN, and it didn't. It named some insider who knew it on strong authority that the character (because of their physical similarities) was based on/inspired by him. It went nowhere, and then a few months later there was this little footnote post in one of the dark alleys of AICN (it wasn't even on the main page, I don't think) saying, "Yeah, this blogger made this post a few months ago...we called over, Lost guys said they never heard of such a thing, even asked JJ, nope, isn't true." And that was it, LOL. When they posted that is when I tried to go and find the article, but it was gone.
So next he decides to be Mr. Bad-Mama-Jamma Disney Man and orchestrates himself getting thrown out of Disneyland, turning him into the anti-Disney crusader. He was gonna out-Lutz Lutz (though, to be fair, I like Al - the only thing that bothers me is his utter hatred of WDW, but since he rarely covers our parks I can deal with it). He got removed from the park (was he actually banned for a time? can't be bothered to go look). And it was spew spew spew and that's when he started his money making scheme with "preorders" of all these audio tours he was going to sell since Disney threw him out for charging people to take his in-park tours.
Then he kind of disappeared for awhile off the radar, until the whole AK thing (I didn't really follow it, others have spoken about it above), until finally recently he's been scooped up by someone in Imagineering to do their dirty work for them. Others have outlined it very well above. No doubt he has insider(s), but he doesn't know anything they don't want him to tell us and he has been used by them on a few occasions as well.
The last bit is why I actually have him on my RSS again, because of the occasional story like this. I don't actually doubt it's true and a done deal, and there is no buzz so this was the way for whomever to get a bit - maybe jealous that the Mansion stuff was so lovingly documented by the Disney Blogs folk, who knows, LOL. Regardless, it just reeks of "hey we want to get this out there" so they sent it to him. Now, don't get me wrong - hey, I love the info, so that's why I check his headlines again now. But that doesn't change all the crap I've seen out of him over the years. Like most Disney Bloggers, they are mostly out for the name they can make and the $ possibly attained from it. Most others have some more reliable track records, and while Hilly isn't the worst of them, he's also fallen so flat on his face so often before it's tough to take him that seriously most of the time.
(And yes, that was a major thread drift -but I started the thread, so what the hay.)
Mickey_777
Well-Known Member
On a related note, I was at the parks about 3 weeks ago and Barbosa WAS NOT the pirate on the ship. It wasn't movie Blackbeard either. Has anybody else reported on this? It was another (generic?) pirate...but ofcourse I don't remember the ride in its "pre-movie" state so mabye it was the original blackbeard?
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
A few things.
Re: Al's sources, it shouldn't be too difficult to connect the dots.
Re: Jim Hill - I'm not going to say I'm done defending him, but I'm done for now. AeFX - I've been brought up to speed on the Lost story. I never watched the show, so an article about that didn't really interest me. I'm sorry for being unfamiliar with it.
As for the backstory and articles having to disappear - that happens quite a bit. Back in the old days newspapers would print retractions to front page stories on page 37. On the web, people are asked to remove content all the time, if anyting it often lends creedence to their validity.
Now back to your regularly scheduled thread:
I do think that both Davy Jones and Blackbeard could have a place in the attraction but would this disrupt some sort of timeline if they both appear?
Re: Al's sources, it shouldn't be too difficult to connect the dots.
Re: Jim Hill - I'm not going to say I'm done defending him, but I'm done for now. AeFX - I've been brought up to speed on the Lost story. I never watched the show, so an article about that didn't really interest me. I'm sorry for being unfamiliar with it.
As for the backstory and articles having to disappear - that happens quite a bit. Back in the old days newspapers would print retractions to front page stories on page 37. On the web, people are asked to remove content all the time, if anyting it often lends creedence to their validity.
Now back to your regularly scheduled thread:
I do think that both Davy Jones and Blackbeard could have a place in the attraction but would this disrupt some sort of timeline if they both appear?
wdwfan22
Well-Known Member
I just don't believe Jim is as big of an insider as he lets on. He misses the mark so many times. If he did have access to the information above like you said he does, then he should have posted it. He was a fool not to. I personally don't believe he did. His site is all about what if and what could have been, never what is.