News Remy's Ratatouille Adventure coming to Epcot

marni1971

marni1971

WDW History nut
Premium Member
yensidtlaw1969 said:
It wasn't attractive before, but it was hidden in the most tucked-away, rarely-visited corner of the Pavilion and obscured by trees from the International Gateway.

Now it's the entryway to what will undoubtedly be the most sought-after attraction in World Showcase, if not the whole park.


View from the Gateway prior to the Skyliner and Ratatouille expansion:
View attachment 523925

EDITED to Add: Apparently there used to be a Tree tucked in that corner, too, blocking the bare wall from even the France-side pathways. That tree is now gone and more needed than ever:

View attachment 523926
Click to expand...
Here’s a photo I took a few years ago for no reason:

2F3E1F2A-25E4-44F1-9E26-D678B1D74BD2.png
 
castlecake2.0

castlecake2.0

Well-Known Member
yensidtlaw1969 said:
It wasn't attractive before, but it was hidden in the most tucked-away, rarely-visited corner of the Pavilion and obscured by trees from the International Gateway.

Now it's the entryway to what will undoubtedly be the most sought-after attraction in World Showcase, if not the whole park.


View from the Gateway prior to the Skyliner and Ratatouille expansion:
View attachment 523925

EDITED to Add: Apparently there used to be a Tree tucked in that corner, too, blocking the bare wall from even the France-side pathways. That tree is now gone and more needed than ever:

View attachment 523926
Click to expand...
Dont get me started on awkward floating chimney lol

when the Main Street bypass was created and required tree removal they eventually added some theming to a bare wall on the side of the Plaza Restaurant, maybe this will happen here too once they see how bad it looks. I’ll be happy to remind them at guest relations anytime I visit the park.
 
yensidtlaw1969

yensidtlaw1969

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
FigmentFan82 said:
Objectively its the perfect park for an attraction that takes place in France. People here are constantly clamoring for the WS pavillions to have ride attractions. Well we've got one now, so Mexico and Norway finally have some company.
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It's fair enough to say that it's tonally an odd fit. Even if the France Pavilion is a bit more on the Romantic side than the Authentic side, there's never really been an element of caricature to it, which Ratatouille certainly introduces. Aesthetically, Remy's Paris and EPCOT's Paris are really not the same Paris.

Not to mention that the Cartoon Properties existing in the Mexico and Norway rides are basically just as tonally inconsistent with their respective Pavilions. That's fair to say regardless of how you feel about "toons" being introduced to EPCOT at large.
 
Giss Neric

Giss Neric

Well-Known Member
Surferboy567 said:
June seems super late to me. With Marni’s timeframe I think we are looking at the early March time but even that seems late to me.

Are we talking grand opening or soft openings? I could see a soft opening in February.
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Well, if the entrance is just covered with those bushes and they are putting in plants and flowers right now it seems it will be weeks and not months away. Valentines opening would be great.
 
FigmentFan82

FigmentFan82

Well-Known Member
yensidtlaw1969 said:
Aesthetically, Remy's Paris and EPCOT's Paris are really not the same Paris.
Click to expand...
Actually this is not really true. The film is beautifully animated and none of the settings or places have any degree of caricature to them. Paris in the film Ratatouille looks like it does IRL. The only thing given caricature in the film are the people and the rats. The making of docs even discuss how the kitchen is modeled to be identical to an authentic French restaurant kitchen.

As for the "toons in Epcot" debate. The fab five have been there for a long time so precedent was always established (also Figment). That argument simply boils down to whether you like it or not. And I think it's fine that people would prefer to not have as much toon presence in Epcot. But at the end of the day, it's a Disney park, and Disney gonna Disney
 
_caleb

_caleb

Well-Known Member
FigmentFan82 said:
Actually this is not really true. The film is beautifully animated and none of the settings or places have any degree of caricature to them. Paris in the film Ratatouille looks like it does IRL. The only thing given caricature in the film are the people and the rats. The making of docs even discuss how the kitchen is modeled to be identical to an authentic French restaurant kitchen.

As for the "toons in Epcot" debate. The fab five have been there for a long time so precedent was always established (also Figment). That argument simply boils down to whether you like it or not. And I think it's fine that people would prefer to not have as much toon presence in Epcot. But at the end of the day, it's a Disney park, and Disney gonna Disney
Click to expand...
To me, the argument against animation IP in Epcot isn’t so much about “can you find characters in the parks/on merch” as it is “is Epcot supposed to represent real places or imaginary ones?“ World Showcase was always realistic (if scaled down) representations of real places. This was changed with the addition of Arrendelle (making the Norway pavilion a caricature) and now Ratatouille, which is making the French pavilion a caricature).

Ratatouille the film definitely does not try to present a photo-realistic Paris, but rather a romantic, timeless, surrealistic one with exaggerated textures, diffused lighting, and muted colors.

You can see this represented in the pavilion—in the front, scale, colors, proportions, lines, and angles are realistic. As you move around into the new Ratatouille courtyard, the design gradually changes—colors are more saturated, lines are softer. As your eye moves from street level up and to the “distance” of the 2D facades, the design becomes much more “cartoony”—chimneys become bent at extreme angles, lines skewed in the unrealistic forced rat-perspective from the film, textures are exaggerated, and uneven lines.
 
FigmentFan82

FigmentFan82

Well-Known Member
_caleb said:
Ratatouille the film definitely does not try to present a photo-realistic Paris, but rather a romantic, timeless, surrealistic one with exaggerated textures, diffused lighting, and muted colors.

You can see this represented in the pavilion—in the front, scale, colors, proportions, lines, and angles are realistic. As you move around into the new Ratatouille courtyard, the design gradually changes—colors are more saturated, lines are softer. As your eye moves from street level up and to the “distance” of the 2D facades, the design becomes much more “cartoony”—chimneys become bent at extreme angles, lines skewed in the unrealistic forced rat-perspective from the film, textures are exaggerated, and uneven lines.
Click to expand...
Romantic as it may be, the settings in the film are not caricatured. I have no idea why they may have caricatured the expansion area of the pavillion, but that is not reflective of the film. Again, the only thing that is caricatured in the film are the people and the rats
 
yensidtlaw1969

yensidtlaw1969

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
FigmentFan82 said:
Actually this is not really true. The film is beautifully animated and none of the settings or places have any degree of caricature to them. Paris in the film Ratatouille looks like it does IRL. The only thing given caricature in the film are the people and the rats. The making of docs even discuss how the kitchen is modeled to be identical to an authentic French restaurant kitchen.

As for the "toons in Epcot" debate. The fab five have been there for a long time so precedent was always established (also Figment). That argument simply boils down to whether you like it or not. And I think it's fine that people would prefer to not have as much toon presence in Epcot. But at the end of the day, it's a Disney park, and Disney gonna Disney
Click to expand...
As someone who both loves the design of the movie and has spent time living in Paris . . . it is caricatured. It is very Well Caricatured - it isn't egregious, it has a strong basis in the truth - but it's not a photorealistic representation of Paris. That's not a criticism - it's an animation, it would look weird to have cartoony Rats scampering over perfectly realistic rooftops. It was clearly their intention to soften things a little.

Soul does the same - there's been a lot of talk of the accuracy of its representation of New York City, but anyone who lives there will tell you it's still a caricatured version of it. It just selects the right things to caricature. Pixar is very good about this.

Ratatouille does this too, and it's reflected even in the arcitecture of the new facades in EPCOT - everything's a little more squat, the walls run at funny upward angles, the pipes and chimneys are eccentric. The existing France Pavilion facades are generally very slender with a lot of verticality and upright angles, and the pipes all run in rational ways. Even the Cornerstones are perfectly
"stacked" - in Ratatouille they're all stacked irregularly.

Compare:

Screen Shot 2021-01-14 at 11.57.16 AM.png



Screen Shot 2021-01-14 at 12.13.45 PM.png


I've got screenshots from the film that I can share as well, but I figured for the topic at hand the actual constructions in EPCOT were the most pertinent.

Again, none of this is a knock against Ratatouille or its interpretation of Paris - but it's fair to say it doesn't follow all the same rules as the 82 original France Pavilion. They're both different interpretations of the same source.
 

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