So, You Want to be an Imagineer Season 20: The Final Frontier(Land) - An Invite Only All Stars Event!

Tegan pilots a chicken

Sharpie Queen 💜
Premium Member
Team Chapek Presents...



Reading Music


Credits
Land Descriptions - @TheSorcerersApprentice
Map/Art - @spacemt354
Flight of the Banshee (E-Ticket) - @Tegan pilots a chicken
Journey to the Cove (D-Ticket) - @Tegan pilots a chicken and @spacemt354
Way of the Tulkun (B-Ticket) - @Lizzy May Bee
Syor's Surf Shack - @Imagineer Brandon
Floral Cafe - @spacemt354
Shops - @Shannoninthemagic
Assorted Merchandise Art - @Brer Panther
Entertainment - @TheSorcerersApprentice
Presentation - Team
 

AceAstro

Well-Known Member
Team Eisner Presents...
PandoraLogoEdit.png


Tourism Commercial:


Tourism Magazine:

Reading Music:
 

TheOriginalTiki

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Before I get to my thoughts on the projects, I just want to do a bit of housekeeping about the season moving forward. First off, the last three rounds have been really successful as far as the structure of Space/Tegan as leaders Chapek vs. the team of Superstars on Eisner. With the first act of the game in the rear-view, I can confirm that those who survive the double elimination will be swapped into two new teams of six. We'll do our very best to make sure the skill levels of the players as even as they can be. This double elimination followed by the team swap has always been a part of the plan. What I didn't anticipate was just how much of a powerhouse Eisner has really become.

While everyone on Chapek should certainly be proud of their contributions as well, this round really just saw Eisner become unstoppable. I'm stressing this just because whoever does end up becoming the Eisner elimination will be a really, really key part of the story of the overall season as the first big time "Power Player" taken out, since literally every single person on that team can handily wear that label based on their contributions over the past three projects. While one of your games will be coming to an end tomorrow, make no mistake that in the storytelling of the season you're pretty much bound to become one of the more memorable moments.

Okay, with that in mind let's start with Chapek. I really appreciate how much you all rallied together to deliver a solid project in light of this maybe being THE single most unpopular IP by metric of the personal cast preferences we've ever done. I actually really love your use of the Innoventions space as a hub of sorts. I've been doing a bit of research into Vegas given the recent HHN news and that element actually reminded me of how a lot of the casinos have large hyper-themed hub spaces. I say this in a really positive way because I always appreciate different design elements coming into the Imagineering space. It's honestly a pretty fascinating mix of indoor and outdoor land design elements that I really appreciated. think it's a very interesting contrast between the two projects that I'm sure I'll highlight throughout my feedback given Eisner's much more naturalistic take on the same source material.

@Tegan pilots a chicken, I find it really cool that much like Space you have a realy talent for writing coaster descriptions, and this one might be one of the most well written I've seen in the game. I really love just how much of the footprint of the land this ride takes up. It gives me the same sort of epic scale and hyper-themed landscaping that the Hagrid's coaster is so masterful at. Major points for the description of the unqiue panoramic view of the park you get from the coaster's peak. That made me REALLY want a more thrill-centric coaster to fill the blanks in Disneyland's staggeringly great collection of famiy attractions. I especially love how the coaster interacts with the boat ride's brief outdoor settings. It's an excellent contrast to Flight of Passage.

You know me...I'm a coaster nerd. On that note I don't have nearly as much to say about the boat ride but it is really solid and definitely a step up from what we have in the current Na'vi River Journey. It did a solid job of incorporating that 80s edu-tainment vibe we all love about Living with the Land into the current spectale of Pandora. I especially loved the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea homage. Not gonna lie, very simple stuff like "I wonder what the Pandora version of a giant squid looks like" is pretty much THE root of my fascination with the franchise, so that scene in particular captured that feeling really well. Much like how the land itself has a really interesting mix of indoor and outdoor elements, I love how the ride was able to incorporate that into building up to the outdoors "money shot" which can only be fully appreciated from the attraction's vantage point. Way of the Tulken was a really solid flat ride that actually gave me vibes of the kinds of short but sweet contributions @Snoopy was known for pulling off during his winning game.

I actually really love the concept of Syor's Surf Shack and admire the ambition of pulling off a full table service experience. It's certainly something Disneyland desperately needs more of. Bonus points for the menu, definitely a highlight of the presentation. Yet another good strike in balancing out the indoor and outdoor elements of the land. It was a really smart call to have an area where guests can just sit down and soak in the outdoor atmosphere as limited as the actual walking space of the land's outdoor sections are. The Floral Cafe had a really solid and inventive vegitatrian menu that sticks true to the Disneyland Resort tradition of being a foodie heaven. My only nitpick there is that the actual name felt like a placeholder that perhaps could have been ironed out a bit more. One last note...dear god that Taylor Swift art is disturbing. Kill it with fire. I am no longer a fan of this franchise. :p


Alright...Team Eisner's project might just be a top ten of all time. Ace, I'm going to throw you a bone right now and say there's NO WAY you're going out this round. Truly one of the great Project Leader tenors I've seen since we've started that format and though you didn't take on any one big part of the actual project your leadership skills and intimate familiarty with both the IP and the park were absolutely invaluable to the team. This is a project that just really fires on all cylinders, from the Disney Adventures inspired format to every single person's contribution. The latter factor is going to make eliminating anyone this round absolutely impossible.

I honestly am probably not going to have as much to say about each individual part here just because I think they all come together so well. Even smaller stuff like the monorail/railroad stations are done masterfully. As I said, I think it's really interesting how one team went with the indoor hub while this team completely and totally embraced the naturalistic side of the IP. While I really appreciate the bold choices Chapek made, I think this approach is equally as bold because much like the very best moments of theme park design in Animal Kingdom the line between what's part of the land and what's an attraction truly does get blurred.

First off, I love, love, LOVE the idea of the land taking place around a centerpiece lagoon. Just a fantastic way to homage Disneyland's past design elements while modernizing them. I actually will give Chapek a bit more points though as far as actually dealing with the sightline of the Matterhorn which I'm sure you're not going to fully get rid of no matter how much "berm" you place around this land. The boat ride was really solid and a great example of using current technology in new and exciting ways. I especially love the drop track element and for some reason the tiny detail of the thrill level being JUST high enough to require a simple lap bar on the boats just really sung with me in a way I can't even fully explain haha. I also give a lot of credit to the boldness of making the land's main E ticket the boat ride, as I definitely think the framework of the actual IP rests on its slower and more serene elements (eyes the entire second hour of The Way of Water...aka the only part of the film where no plot is happening :p )

The ocean habitat attraction was another really solid addition and a super interesting use of a new technology that has thus far proven to be a bit underwhelming. The big vibe I get off of this is that it's essentially a Pandora version of the Jurassic Park carousel theater attraction that BlueDragonFive and I have a hyper-fixation on wanting to see the entirety of since it gets interupted in the actual film. Gathering of Voices is an equally cool show that very much calls to mind my beloved Knott's Mystery Lodge. I guess my only nitpick here is that while I appreciate that these two attractions take on the more naturalistic and scientific sides of the Avatar IP respectively, I think they're a bit too similar to each other as far as fitting into the actual attraction line up. Don't get me wrong, they're both SUPER solid concepts, I just think that with the E ticket of the land already being a slow boat ride perhaps one of these supporting attractions could have used a bit more of a thrill factor to it. Or even combine the two settings into one larger experience. Still, great work on both.

The village walkthrough...My god. I love it. I love it so much haha. It's truly next level design and exactly what I was talking about as far as blending what's an attraction with what's the layout of the land proper. I truly think that as great as all the other elements of this project were, THIS is what truly pushed everything over the edge. It's kind of crazy that this experience both has LOADS more AAs than River Journey but is also pretty darn realistic and super interactive. I think this type of experience really understands what makes Disneyland as a park so special and why I think the two Galaxy's Edge lands on opposite coasts being so identicial to each other just rubs me the wrong way and makes me really wish Disney put the energy into crafting the Star Wars lands into two unique experiences. (YES @monkey92514 I KNOW THE COLOR SCHEME IS DIFFERENT :p :p ) I'm never great at talking about shopping/dining components, but they were implimented here very well, though I actually think I'd give Chapek the slight edge in this department.

Overall while I would personally lean towards Eisner having the overall superior of the two projects, I actually think it's a closer call than some were expecting. There's certainly elements of Chapek's project that shine a bit more, most notably the fact that the attraction roster included a thrilling option that felt a bit lacking in Eisner's lineup. As a reminder, @Prometheus will be joining us on the live show as a guest judge. He won't be involved at all with the elimination process. God...I am NOT looking forward to this. ;)
 

Disney Warrior

Well-Known Member
Some comments on this round (no big reviews this time)

I have never seen either of the Avatar movies (or went to Pandora, it was under construction when I went to AK in 2016), but both teams had good projects even if a Disney Adventure situation was inevitable. I really like Eisner’s formatting and details (which also gives off major @PerGron vibes), but I also liked Chapek’s roller coaster and the fact that they addressed the Matterhorn and the monorail.

Overall this round was very close and it is going to make the elimination very difficult and heartwarming. I bet this is just the beginning in terms of strange prompts and competitiveness.
 

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