lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
The truck is moving on a level surface whereas the track will have some banking. The final vehicles will also likely be adjustable to tune in the movement as desired.
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Seven Dwarf's Mine Train Virtual Ride
- Thread starter baloofigment14
- Start date
The truck is moving on a level surface whereas the track will have some banking. The final vehicles will also likely be adjustable to tune in the movement as desired.
Disneyfan_76
Well-Known Member
All of which have had constant content put out either in the form of marketing, stories, books, DVDs, etc. They have never left the public eye. Besides the theme parks, nothing is going on with Harry Potter. I'm not trying to knock Harry Potter. The books were ok, but in general it's nothing that is going to have staying power. In fact I would argue that it already has lost its staying power. Kids are all about the hunger games or something else.
Disneyfan_76
Well-Known Member
You are clearly young. Anyone who lived during the 70s or 80s would know how ridiculous that last statement sounds. You are entitled to say what you will, but it doesn't make it correct. We can just agree to disagree.
Harry potter hasn't been around long enough to say one way or the other. They certainly don't have gen 2 fans or that is really messed up. See, the way that works is that the first generation grows up with something, and then has children of there own, making them gen 2. So, unless a bunch of 12 year-olds are having kids.....
I'm not trying to knock what Universal has done. I am merely saying that the IP will not last and they will probably need to adjust the attractions around new generalized characters. The attractions are fantastic, it just may need some revamping down the line as the IP stagnates. I don't see Avatar lasting either and Disney will probably need to come up with something as well.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
It has been 16 years since the first book was published. A 5 year old in 1997 is now old enough to drink. A 12 year old is now 28.
Disneyfan_76
Well-Known Member
The first movie came out in 2001 and really didn't have a cultural impact prior to that. Besides we are comparing movies to movies not the books.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Talk about needing to twist and distort to fit a point. The medium is irrelevant to the comparison. The Harry Potter series was huge as a book series, that is why the films were made. Those first fans don't get to just be tossed aside because they don't fit your attempt to claim the franchise has not existed for a long enough time.
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englanddg
One Little Spark...
Exactly.
Sped2424
Well-Known Member
Yup he has a point, I remember everyone going crazy about the books, myself included when they came out. The movie phenomenon only added more fuel to a fire that was already huge. The fourth book had already come out when the first film had hit cinemas.
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Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
The Harry Potter books were amazing. I remember being in elementary school and all the kids going crazy over them. Then the first movie came out and it was all she wrote.
mickeysbrother
Well-Known Member
Well some stuff i totally agree with you. Cutting into Disneys overall numbers not so much. Uni is pretty much and always will imo taking away those last couple of days of a Disney vacation. once upon a time Disney had those people locked in for a week. Now 5 days which from a business perspective is lost revenue for the days they could have had them in the parks. Yes some things are cut back on.
Also when did we start to notice the decline of disney parks? When we got older or was it when we went for our 50th visit and started to look past all that magic? I have to blame myself also looking too deep into things and have to remember im on vcation and scale back nitpicking and stuff i read on the forums. Not an attack at you personally just a general question to everyone. Think of the first time you started to complain about stuff. Honestly i have been with my gf these past 2 years after being on this forum and i cant find all the hate and bashing for the parks. Yes i agree new rides new rides new rides but then everyone gets mad for disney taking out all the old rides old rides old rides lol go figure right...
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
The first signs of WDW beginning to decline in quality was around the mid-90's, probably around 1993-1996. That I believe is the general consensus many people seem to agree on (give or take a year or so depending on the person you ask). I was just a child at the time and that is indeed when I started to complain about things. The beginning of that really wasn't very long after I first started visiting the place. So absolutely no, it's not just because we're all old or visited 50 or more times. Even at such a young age and without a whole lifetime of visits I was noticing issues. WDW legitimately is just worse now than it was in the past. With any sort of seriousness or unbiased objectivity, I can't imagine anyone being able to truthfully say the parks are as good now as they were in the 80's and early 90's.
Maintenance and upkeep still seemed to be at least somewhat competent until around the early 2000's or so. Not to say there weren't any issues, may have been. But it certainly wasn't even close to being in as dire of a state as it is today. I believe it has been said that the corporate leadership shut down a massive chunk of the maintenance departments at US Disney parks around the time 9/11 happened. Supposedly they did so expecting that Disney park attendance would plummet as people were more afraid to travel and go on vacation after the bombing, so reduced their money spent on upkeep as a compensation for what they expected to be huge losses. Though from what I gather, regarding WDW this ended up not being necessary as the attendance levels were still good. Still i'm quite sure corporate were more than happy not to have to spend money on properly maintaining their parks (though this really came back to bite them in the when multiple deaths occurred at Disneyland due to unsafe conditions from lack of proper maintenance).
But the beginning of bad creative decisions really probably began at some point in the 90's. Someone else that has more inside information on the company shifts in business practices such as @marni1971. But many people agree that it had something to do with Frank Wells' tragic and sudden death. Allowing Eisner free reign and his ego to grow out of control, making some very stupid decisions that may have permanently crippled the company's full creative potential.
Of the parks i'd say EPCOT was the earliest to start seeing issues. I think one of the first major signs of trouble was Horizons losing its sponsor in '93. After that its operation was sort of intermittent. It closed down for a year or so shortly after that but reopened while parts of the rest of Future World were refurbed or changed. Finally closing down in '99 to make room for Mission Space. World of Motion followed in '96 to make way for Test Track. And then the original Imagination in '98 to be replaced with one of the current abominations. Not to mention the other messes such as the Ellen version of Energy, Wonders of Life being turned into convention space, the '07 overhaul of Spaceship Earth (i'm more forgiving here because at least a large portion of the ride is still intact and they didn't go through with plans to gut it and turn it into a roller coaster as they wanted to in the 90's) etc.
I should mention that I was actually quite young when these declines were happening. About 5-7 years old during the point when Disney World began its decline. I only began visiting WDW in the early 90's in the first place and caught WDW on the tail end of its remaining glory days RIGHT before it began its great fall. So I had really only visited a few times before things started going sour anyways. I basically got a front seat to this rather painful chain of events. And even to the point of view of a young child it was quite clear that WDW had serious issues. 1997 was my final trip as a kid until I finally returned in 2010 as an adult to find it had gotten even worse, particularly the maintenance of the place was in a dire shape. Though again even back then it was pretty clear that things were starting to fall apart.
Probably Splash Mountain, the '94 overhaul of Spaceship Earth and to an extent Tower of Terror were the last really notable genius moves I experienced occurring at WDW (while Splash Mountain was technically already a Disneyland ride before it came to WDW, it gets some extra credit because it substantially improved upon Disneyland's version). Animal Kingdom is a split issue. Wonderful idea and concept, and an absolutely beautiful park visually. But unfortunately it was built too late. By that time Disney World was in its downward spiral and AK ended up being neutered an value engineered to death, opening in an incredibly incomplete state with many of its intended attractions never built. And the ones that were built were generally massively cut down from what they were intended to be (it remains that way until something drastic changes in the company to allow it to expand and flourish). The one ride i'd say ended up being fully fleshed out and awesome was probably the safari. That might be my choice for WDW's last truly great ride they built to this very day. I never visited Animal Kingdom as a kid (I stopped going to WDW the year before it was finished). I only visited AK for the first time in 2010 as an adult.
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JimboJones123
Well-Known Member
You mean to tell me that in 1988 there were rabid Star Wars fans? Timothy Zahn single handedly brought it back from the dead. After that, in the late 90s, about 2 dozen books and 4 dozen comic issues later, we started seeing the toys revisited (with extra body building powers), then the Special Editions, and return to fandom with T-shirts and the buzz of the Prequels.
Oh, and second generation Potter fans being 0 and their parents 12? Because the parents were 0 when they read the books or saw the movies? What an idiotic statement.
HP1 the movie. was released in 2001. 10 year old sees it and loves it. Guess what, they are 22 now and sure as heck may have kids.
18 year old sees HP1 (or read the book years earlier), has kids at 25, guess what - SECOND GENERATION FAN!! Too young to appreciate when the last movie came out, 6 years old now, and visits Universal in full wizard robes.
HP is already 16 years old. Much more alive today than Star Wars in 1988. Remember, just a few years after the Endor movies and Droids/Ewoks cartoons nearly killed the franchise?
Absolute lie. It was a dead franchise. Just because you feel like you want to be right, does not make your right. You know all of those pop culture SW references? They did not start until after Clerks was released.
Butter
Member
Isn't that an absolute? Does that mean you are wrong?
I'll try to keep my humor a little more obvious going forward.
danlb_2000
Premium Member
I am a big Star Wars fan and I agree with your assertion that HP is more popular now then Star Wars was in 1989. The late 80's there the dark times for Star Wars fans. Jedi was done, we didn't know if any more movies were coming, there were no EU books or until 1991, Marvel had finished with Star Wars comics but Dark Horse hadn't started with them yet, there were very few new video games and there weren't a lot of toys available. This was probably the lowest point of Star Wars popularity.
Lucky
Well-Known Member
If you build great rides in nicely-themed settings it really doesn't matter that much if people are still reading the books or watching the movies. Splash Mt. doesn't seem to suffer much from the fact that maybe 1% of guests ever saw Song of the South or read the stories it was based on. PotC was such a popular ride that they made movies about it instead of vice versa. HP will be a great draw for Uni for decades whether or not the books and movies stay popular with kids.
doctornick
Well-Known Member
Barring more books/movies/etc, I think that the long term popularity of HP will be similar to The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. A generally well known cultural phenomena, books that are consistently being read by new generations (and re-read) but with relatively few obsessive fanatics and a muted mainstream presence.
That said, the existence of a popular theme park land -- and expansion to other parks -- will perhaps mitigate the potential of HP to fade into a less popular status. It will help to keep the franchise in the public consciousness, much like has happened with older Disney movies/franchises.
Disneyfan_76
Well-Known Member
Yes from the 70s all thru the 80s, 90s and beyond, there were hundreds of thousands of rabid fans. It never went away. The fanbase only grew.
Disneyfan_76
Well-Known Member
I'm merely saying that the books really didn't become popular until the series got picked up as a movie. There wasn't a huge line of people out the door waiting to get books until the third or forth book, at least not around here. I just feel the movies were when the series became noticed in large by the public besides a few tweens.
We seem to be drifting off topic. I was just saying that Harry potter will not have the staying power that people think it will. I think that Universal did an amazing job with the HP land and I am sure they will come up with an amazing overlay of the land in five to ten years when the IP is stale.
Disneyfan_76
Well-Known Member
Really well said. Thank you for your long and thoughtful post. I'd have to agree that EPCOT was the first park to really show the systemic signs of the decline of the company. I miss the future that was future world. Granted, it is hard to constantly update a park such as this, but you think they would have put budgets in early on in the park designs with the intention of doing so, with or without sponsors.