News Reflections of Earth confirmed to be replaced by Harmonious

[Magic Feather]

So... my big mental struggle is how could they even recon this? General guest feedback has already been really negative to the point where even Disney is a little worried about the show's GSATs being able to make up for it.

For starters, the marina and drawbridge are effectively out of play for hiding the barges at this point, which only leaves areas on the lagoon, but these things are effectively too big to be hidden. Really the only barges that could be hidden even remotely would be the arms adjoined to the stargate.

Personally, the closest I can come to a solution is for the only barge that gets moved to be the stargate (and its arms if necessary), to be stashed in one of two places: Right up against the American Theater where the old boat usually is, or right up against showplace plaza. In both instances, the barge would actually be centered, which, while huge would be an aesthetic improvement, and it could have the area surrounding it modified to hide/embrace it slightly more. I just struggle to find a way for all 4 tacos and the stargate to be successfully hidden. Best one that moves all of them that I've found puts two tacos flanking the American Gardens Theater (one where globe was, one of the other side) and then two behind the gift shops in Showcase Plaza, then the Stargate in either of the previously discussed locations, and thats still a mess.

@marni1971 Do you know exactly all the effects these barges will have asside from the obvious lighting and fountains? Any fire effects or any other surprises in store?

There are pyro effects on the barges. But, I guess when being reductionist about it, the barges just hold fountains, arm, lighting effects, and pyro.

 

[wdwmagic]

Some more views from today

 

[wdwmagic]

The roll down scrims are visible in this photo. They run all around the ring, but are deployed in the lower left and right. Not sure this is really going to help.

 

[TTA94]

So... my big mental struggle is how could they even recon this? General guest feedback has already been really negative to the point where even Disney is a little worried about the show's GSATs being able to make up for it.

For starters, the marina and drawbridge are effectively out of play for hiding the barges at this point, which only leaves areas on the lagoon, but these things are effectively too big to be hidden. Really the only barges that could be hidden even remotely would be the arms adjoined to the stargate.

Personally, the closest I can come to a solution is for the only barge that gets moved to be the stargate (and its arms if necessary), to be stashed in one of two places: Right up against the American Theater where the old boat usually is, or right up against showplace plaza. In both instances, the barge would actually be centered, which, while huge would be an aesthetic improvement, and it could have the area surrounding it modified to hide/embrace it slightly more. I just struggle to find a way for all 4 tacos and the stargate to be successfully hidden. Best one that moves all of them that I've found puts two tacos flanking the American Gardens Theater (one where globe was, one of the other side) and then two behind the gift shops in Showcase Plaza, then the Stargate in either of the previously discussed locations, and thats still a mess.


There are pyro effects on the barges. But, I guess when being reductionist about it, the barges just hold fountains, arm, lighting effects, and pyro.

How exciting lol . Well hopefully Harm has a strong soundtrack, IP aside. Harm is doomed for sure if the soundtrack doesn’t impress and is a mishmosh and no flow, like umm RoL: We are one.

 

[Touchdown]

The tacos didn’t bother me. If they moved the stargate to where the globe used to hide (and flipped it 90 degrees so it was as camlifloged as much as possible during most of the day I think they would get less complaints.

I also think they picked the wrong time to do something like this, with the pandemic slowing travel and DL closed the current average park guest is much more likely to be one of us and be informed, opinionated and not afraid to let them know. In summary the current WDW average guest is what historically an average DL guest is.

 

[DonaldDoleWhip]

How exciting lol . Well hopefully Harm has a strong soundtrack, IP aside. Harm is doomed for sure if the soundtrack doesn’t impress and is a mishmosh and no flow, like umm RoL: We are one.

Harmonious seems like a mashup of Happily Ever After and World of Color. No matter how pleasant the soundtrack is, the concept is so basic and meaningless in comparison to what they already had.

Whereas RoE could repeatedly bring people to tears, I think Harmonious will leave most of its viewers empty, aside from those who are particularly passionate about its featured characters.

 

[trainplane3]

The roll down scrims are visible in this photo. They run all around the ring, but are deployed in the lower left and right. Not sure this is really going to help.

All those will do is, I think, just make the silhouette worse.

For starters, the marina and drawbridge are effectively out of play for hiding the barges at this point, which only leaves areas on the lagoon, but these things are effectively too big to be hidden. Really the only barges that could be hidden even remotely would be the arms adjoined to the stargate.

They should've thought it through. Marina expansion and drawbridge replacement should've been budgeted for. EF was the perfect time to expand and replace the drawbridge with a longer one. Construction would've been ugly for a bit but the long-term gain would've outweighed it.

Whatever negative scores they get from this is entirely their own doing.

 

[TTA94]

Harmonious seems like a mashup of Happily Ever After and World of Color. No matter how pleasant the soundtrack is, the concept is so basic and meaningless in comparison to what they already had.

Whereas RoE could repeatedly bring people to tears, I think Harmonious will leave most of its viewers empty, aside from those who are particularly passionate about its featured characters.

They are probably afraid to show us a new segment of the soundtrack lol. How Far I’ll Go and Go The Distance reeks of HEA and every castle park show.

 

[Brenthodge]

Don't think for a second that it will actually look like this... That is a highly romanticized view of the most perfect conditions, and if the water was actually opaque... It is most likeley going to look like fire hoses on a drilling platform.

That. Was. Sarcasm.

 

[mikejs78]

All those will do is, I think, just make the silhouette worse.


They should've thought it through. Marina expansion and drawbridge replacement should've been budgeted for. EF was the perfect time to expand and replace the drawbridge with a longer one. Construction would've been ugly for a bit but the long-term gain would've outweighed it.

Whatever negative scores they get from this is entirely their own doing.

Given the negative GSATs, could something like this still be considered?

 

[mikejs78]

where even Disney is a little worried about the show's GSATs being able to make up for it.

They should be more than a little worried....

 

[marni1971]

They are probably afraid to show us a new segment of the soundtrack lol. How Far I’ll Go and Go The Distance reeks of HEA and every castle park show.

That’s what happens when you turn something into something it isn’t. Orlando already has a castle park. Epcot night shows have always been markedly different to MK shows for several reasons.

A castle show on a lake does not make it an Epcot show. Hardware travesties, sightlines and ruined forced perspective notwithstanding.

 

[HauntedMansionFLA]

Only one theme park is home to Nessie, and she is iconic, stunning, and looks like this:

Maybe Disney can clone it?

 

[Magic Feather]

I'll stand by not being horribly offended by the show itself. IMO, its (sort of) what should have been done if Disney was hell bent on putting a permanent IP mish mash show into AK (which more natural looking show equipment ala RoL).

 

[Epcot_Imagineer]

For starters, the marina and drawbridge are effectively out of play for hiding the barges at this point

Is this due to the fact that it would take too long to raise/lower and move given the size of the tacos/stargate? I'm currently in the camp of, if nothing else due to complexity, just push the ring of fire to behind the scenes and leave the tacos and arms. Pull the Hula-hoop from Hell out when it's close to showtime.

 

[Magic Feather]

Is this due to the fact that it would take too long to raise/lower and move given the size of the tacos/stargate? I'm currently in the camp of, if nothing else due to complexity, just push the ring of fire to behind the scenes and leave the tacos and arms. Pull the Hula-hoop from Hell out when it's close to showtime.

Which is another gut instinct of mine, except (and this is fully unconfirmed), I'm not sure if the Stargate can be moved with all other barges in place.

 

[trainplane3]

Given the negative GSATs, could something like this still be considered?

Considering the one person from WDI laughing at the reaction to the barges, they'll probably keep their attitude of "we know what we're doing and everyone else is wrong". So no, they'll stay the course.

 

[Epcot_Imagineer]

Which is another gut instinct of mine, except (and this is fully unconfirmed), I'm not sure if the Stargate can be moved with all other barges in place.

That's a good point... it may be possible to move the stargate... but with all of those incredibly expensive barges, how many people and how much time would it take to realistically move it every night. I'm placing bets on guest surveys remaining negative enough to the point of removing one or both of the gate's sandwich arms so they can remove the gate daily. But if the show gets rated well; the argument is moot, this is staying for the next decade.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Like, we'll still see them, they'll still be ugly but instead of pyro/lighting equipment, they'll look like weird, poorly designed fountains, instead.

Must say that I have the exact same reaction to the concept art of the fountains. They don't look majestic or pretty, just... odd.

I really hope some higher ups at Disney seeing these pictures and the reaction are having a moment of panic wondering "what have we done?" It's so jaw dropping to think this is what the Disney of 2021 finds acceptable when designing theme park shows.

 

[MrPromey]

I couldn't put my finger on what this reminded me of and then it hit me. This looks like the Travis Scott stage from the in-game "concert" in Fortnite last year:

Of course, that whole stage in the water thing was just a misdirection to throw everyone off from the much better, more elaborate and interactive experience they really had up their sleeve.

So yeah, Disney's using the thing the creator's of Fortnite set up in a game for the opening act of a show, as their central focal point.

Here is a link to someone's recording of it but it really doesn't give you the full effect because in the actual "experience" you had 360 view and could move around to wherever you wanted.

If you watch the video below, hose wooden ramp things you're seeing are all things players built in the game to try to get better views.. You'll also notice it involved going underwater and ended with you barreling through space towards a singularity.

Not saying I expect that from a real-world experience from Disney (I'm not that loony) but it's interesting that it was the starting point of expectations for a "concert" used in the game to reduce people's expectations before giving them something way better than that... in their living room... and for free... and that's the kind of stuff Disney's supposedly competing with for young people's attention these days with things like this: