News Reflections of Earth confirmed to be replaced by Harmonious

Brad Bishop

Well-Known Member
Well lets just take a look...

View attachment 543019

I tried to break it down by circles.
Red will clearly be Dinner Packages/Fastpass/Reserved/Pay-Per-View areas.
Blue seems to be the best areas that will be first come first serve, still trees in these areas might obscure some stuff.
Orange might still give you a partial view of the Stargate's screen but will be covered by trees/structures/Water Tacos.
Yellow will still give you a good view but the Japanese Archway will be front and center in the middle of the Stargate.
Green will be generally a bad view/incomplete since you will not be able to see the Stargate screen.
Pink are the 3 waterfront restaurants and the Illuminations dessert party/fastpass viewing area. These now seem to be bad/generally poor viewing areas as none of them face the Stargate's screen and half of them look right into the exposed side of a Water Taco.

Overall it seems that the prime viewing angles of the arguably largest nighttime show viewing area has been reduced down to less than 40% of the entire lagoon.

I didn't think about it until your post: I wonder if this nighttime spectacular will be enough for them to get rid of all of those unsightly trees around the lake which obscure people viewing the show.
 

GimpYancIent

Well-Known Member
I didn't think about it until your post: I wonder if this nighttime spectacular will be enough for them to get rid of all of those unsightly trees around the lake which obscure people viewing the show.
There you go. Let's take out our frustrations on the vegetation. No need for a little shade during the day.
 

TTA94

Well-Known Member
I am guessing it will be Coco in Spanish, Mulan in Chinese, Lion King in Zulu, Frozen in Arrendellian and Finding Nemo in Whale among the languages used.

I can see the different languages getting mixed reviews for sure, and not on the more positive side.
 

Inspired Figment

Well-Known Member
Who's more likely to stop funding an attraction, Chiquita or Elsa?
In all honesty, it’s less to do with sponsorship and more to do with Disney themselves and their lack of faith, respect, and understanding of the appeal of park-exclusive concepts compared to film originated ones. Why? I have no idea.. You’d think they’d use the same mentality they use at Pixar for instance with EPCOT & the parks.. but I guess not. Apparently only movies are the medium that require genuine creativity and even then, that needs work in the film department as a whole.
 

Inspired Figment

Well-Known Member
Ultimately I think it’s because for some strange reason.. they genuinely believe that Universal Studios’ approach to the parks is the only solid & profitable one.. and not their pre-established model built from upon decades of experience, popularity, and legacy in having a balance of both unique park exclusive content ‘and’ film IP inspired stuff. The current mentality boggles my mind as much as it does many, many others..
 

MatheusPG

Well-Known Member
Ultimately I think it’s because for some strange reason.. they genuinely believe that Universal Studios’ approach to the parks is the only solid & profitable one.. and not their pre-established model built from upon decades of experience, popularity, and legacy in having a balance of both unique park exclusive content ‘and’ film IP inspired stuff. The current mentality boggles my mind as much as it does many, many others..
Agreed and Chapek has already recognized that that is their kind of thinking... Which is weird, because Disney is still more visited and profitable than Universal, at least for now... When Epic Universe opens and Epcot becomes a generic park with generic rides and generic areas, they will be in the same "IP Field" as Universal, and everyone that I know (all regular visitors, not aficionados) believes that Universal does IP´s and new rides much better than Disney, but what makes the difference is the theming and feel of the parks, like Epcot, where almost everyone felt touched, but I don´t believe that they will still feel like that, now that it will be just a Six Flags where you go from generic ride to generic ride...
 

Brad Bishop

Well-Known Member
There you go. Let's take out our frustrations on the vegetation. No need for a little shade during the day.

I meant it two ways:
- tongue in cheek
- reality: It really wouldn't surprise me if they just removed it all, said it was for the show, and then reduced the maintenance costs in the park because it's just less landscaping to maintain. (tell me you'd be surprised if they actually did this)
 

Brad Bishop

Well-Known Member

That was one of the best things about Illuminations: It wasn't a pointless cavalcade of Disney characters marching about which is what most shows are (on the castle, Fantasmic, Philharmagic, etc.)

The characters marching about was great when I was 5yos. As an adult it's more, "OH, great.. More random Disney characters marching about to music." Illuminations told a story and had a flow.
 

Brad Bishop

Well-Known Member
In all honesty, it’s less to do with sponsorship and more to do with Disney themselves and their lack of faith, respect, and understanding of the appeal of park-exclusive concepts compared to film originated ones. Why? I have no idea.. You’d think they’d use the same mentality they use at Pixar for instance with EPCOT & the parks.. but I guess not. Apparently only movies are the medium that require genuine creativity and even then, that needs work in the film department as a whole.

The kid (although he's growing up) who does the YouTube channel "Mickey Views" once said something along the lines of, "Disney doesn't believe in Disney," meaning that Disney executives really don't believe in the talent that they employee across the board from filmmaking to theme park design. As a result, they buy properties and then beat them to death (Star Wars, Avengers, and, yes... even Pixar (they're movies, on average, really aren't up to the same level they were 10-20 years back). Even then Pixar was bought because they really didn't believe in Disney animation.

I think the "IPs in Epcot" is just more of that. "don't create something new and interesting.. Here's a popular IP - make people ride that."

Part of this goes back to Eisner with "Riding the movies is the future!" It's -a- future. It's an interesting concept. There are also other interesting concepts that could be done.

Imagine if Pirates or Haunted Mansion had never been built (no movies for either) and someone came up with the idea today? It'd be crushed and they'd be told, "Look.. <some movie> has taken off! Go build that. Make people ride that!"...

There has to be more ideas than just "ride the IP" inside Disney but I think we may never see that again. Mission: Space or Everest was the last ones and that was 20 years back.
 

IveBeenJack

Well-Known Member
Lol. I wonder if any of these will happen. Frozen obviously.


Just to clarify, this is my list of songs I would like to be featured in the show, on the basis that the show is going ahead and we are going to end up with I.P.C.O.T after all. As I said in my recent video on Harmonious, I LOVED IllumiNations RoE and I WOULD HAVE MUCH preferred an updated version of IllumiNations instead. But it is what it is... and Harmonious is going to debut whether we like it or not.
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Just to clarify, this is my list of songs I would like to be featured in the show, on the basis that the show is going ahead and we are going to end up with I.P.C.O.T after all. As I said in my recent video on Harmonious, I LOVED IllumiNations RoE and I WOULD HAVE MUCH preferred an updated version of IllumiNations instead. But it is what it is... and Harmonious is going to debut whether we like it or not.
That it is. More reason to go elsewhere .
 

Horizons '83

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Haven't been to UO in almost 25 years, but just picked up premier passes for the family. Not abandoning WDW, but it's time to shop around.
You know I was thinking of just doing a quick weekend, no parks, just pool relaxation and to be honest, Universal's resort's are just not a great value if you aren't going to the parks because of the built in price of express passes at some of their resorts. Coronado Springs was about 100 bucks cheaper a night for the time we were looking for. Small sample size buts its not like Uni is giving stuff away :p
 

pdude81

Well-Known Member
You know I was thinking of just doing a quick weekend, no parks, just pool relaxation and to be honest, Universal's resort's are just not a great value if you aren't going to the parks because of the built in price of express passes at some of their resorts. Coronado Springs was about 100 bucks cheaper a night for the time we were looking for. Small sample size buts its not like Uni is giving stuff away :p
Understood completely. For our first trip there in the summer we're going to do a couple days at the Hard Rock for unlimited express pass, but I stepped up to their premier AP because after that I can stay wherever I want and get early entry plus the limited express pass after 4pm. Easy enough to do a Disney park early or a relaxing pool day, then hit up Universal in the evening for a few rides and dinner at Citywalk. I'd always been meaning to check out universal again, but previously it was just for a day or two. Now for twice the price of a 3 day ticket, I can go whenever for 15 months. I honestly don't know much of anything about the Universal hotels as we've been staying mostly DVC the past few years.

It's really this multi year construction/destruction of my favorite park that is causing me to actively plan other destinations.
 

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