Spirited Spring Break News, Observations & Thoughts ...

WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Magenta Panther said:
Speaking of Dopey...I hope the Imagineers don't actually have him singing, like the other Dwarfs. It kind of looked like he was in that video...but..Dopey doesn't speak! It's not that he can't speak - "he never tried!"
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I hear that Dopey is going to be singing 'The Rainbow Connection' ... I hope so!!!
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Captain Neo said:
Design work? None but Staggs gets credit for canceling Rasolu's horrendous meet & greet projects and allocating the money into building a nice C-ticket attraction instead.
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Those meet-greet-and-gropes weren't Rasulo's. They were Eric Jacobson and his team's. As was the coaster. As was the Pixie Hollow mini area. As was the full blown almost billion dollar redo of the entire land.

The only thing Staggs did when he came in was look at the project, which was supposed to increase capacity, and realize the coaster did so better than Cindy and Aurora meet-and-greets, which they did anyway by simply removing the SW dark ride and making that into a character hall.

Captain Neo said:
I'm not trying painting you in a bad light at all unless you actually are Michael Eisner. In fact I am usually on board with what you have to say.
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No, I admire Michael greatly. But I am not Eisner ... he Tweets, I don't!
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
TP2000 said:
So far, Miceage via the Al Lutz (or his ghost writer now) update is the only one who has talked about rumored updates coming to the five Fantasyland dark rides at Disneyland. And they've been talking about it for over six months now. Most recently, about a month ago, Miceage writers mentioned that the Queen of Hearts in the Alice In Wonderland ride would have a new "projected" face after the current rehab. That comment suddenly makes more sense now that we see the new dwarves.

So apparently that's what's coming to Disneyland's Fantasyland dark rides with this rumored plussing in 2014 and '15. But again, Disney hasn't said a word and the only insider information mentioning this has been the Al Lutz Miceage updates of late.

I said this in the other SDMT thread on the Fantasyland Expansion board here, but I think this new projection-face animatronic effect works nicely. Especially for little cartoon figures like the dwarves, where the audience really has just one point of reference for them as animated cartoon characters. I'm not sure this projected effect would work well for life size humans, especially when the audience has a real point of reference from films or photos for them like Indiana Jones or Captain Jack Sparrow or Abraham Lincoln.

But for smaller cartoon characters like the dwarves, or presumably Peter Pan or Mr. Toad on Pinocchio or the Queen of Hearts later this year at Disneyland, the effect works very well in its dark ride environment.
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You actually mean the Dusty/Fishbulb updates and, to their credit, they are not passing the column off as Al's anymore. Just the 'team's' update ... and they have this one quite right. Queen of Hearts is getting added in this new redo and the plan is to do all of the classic F-land dark rides by next year. Clearly, with this style of AA being used in the Dwarfs coaster, it's very likely they will be using the same thing in other similar attractions.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
WDW1974 said:
It depends on what tech you are speaking of. While Lumiere is an effective and kewl use of technology, the AAs (and other than Ursula, I really have a hard time calling things that many fanbois could make in their garages actual AAs) in The Little Mermaid are a huge step backward. They are fake, plastic and don't do much at all.

Now, RSRs absolutely works perfectly, but one could also argue that giant cartoon cars work very well for having projections added to physical bodies.
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Not sure how we got on the little mermaid... since we were talking the projection tech... but Ursula and Scuttle are very impressive. The wardrobe and Lumiere are both great examples of both the flexible material and projection techniques in use now. RSR blends both techniques extremely well too. Remy is another impressive figure demonstrating technical achievements.

It's clear each attraction has its own objectives and choices in technical direction -- not that Disney as a whole is going backwards.

The type of setting that we get in POTC or even SSE are very different from what one would expect from fast moving cartoon-like characters. The 'living museum' as I call most of Disney's AA setups was always about 'live performance' to me and not about 'realism'. They were great because it was more than static displays. I mean, look at the Grand Canyon diorama vs UoE.. but no matter how realistic the Abe Lincoln face looks.. we are no where close to the type of live movement and variety you can get with the transparent projection screens like you see in Disaster at USF.

Talking mannequins >> static ones... but they still stand there like stiffs.
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
PhotoDave219 said:
Hey, I like Gary. Good guy, works hard. Always been good to me. Seems like he was brought in to clean up a mess someone else made and looks like he's doing a decent job of it. I'm not gonna criticize him for that.

I'll criticize those higher up the food chain who make the decisions of who to invite/credential....
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I don't know whether Gary is a good guy or not. But there is something disingenuous about being up on a stage in front of hundreds (thousands?) of Mommy Bloggers and espousing how important mothers are in a backwards fashion as the backbone of all families and the ''heart of all creativity'' when you are a life long bachelor that's approaching 50. It's also rather dismissive of all the dads and others out there who are raising children, but when you are selling snake oil, I guess you do what you have to do.

It was convenient the way he stepped into the Mommy Brigade after Laura Spencer (a former Mommy Blogger herself) suddenly left the company (you can fill in the blanks) with the credentialing of many of these people being bandied about as a reason after some Spirits made a lot of noise about it. I have seen nothing to suggest that Disney has cut back the gravy train at all. It seems, if anything, based on the Ragan conference at WDW last week and this whorefest in Anaheim, to be growing in numbers.

I very strongly believe that the 'just following orders' or 'what the company tells me' is a poor replacement for actually doing things the right way.
 
jlsHouston

jlsHouston

Well-Known Member
Stevek said:
His tweets from Coachella have been priceless. Imagine Eisner with a bunch of 20 somethings watching some DJ blast out super thump dance music. Makes me really wish I would have done a better job getting his attention when I saw him face to face at Epcot.
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OMG Eisner was at Coachella? OMG my daughter and niece were at that thing, why didn't I know this???? I could have told her she had to attempt getting an autograph for me since I bought her the plane ticket:banghead:
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Astro Blaster said:
I never understood the relationship between Lou and Disney. Since I love WDW I listen to Lou's podacst, but he occasionally devotes significant time to non-WDW parts of Disney, such as the movie club. He also has a lot of inside news so I always wondered about the parameters of his actual agreement with the company.

He's obviously more than a typical WDW fan but if he's not a paid employee of the company, what is he?
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Lou is one of Disney's top BRAND Advocates, likely the No. 1.
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Stevek said:
I don't know either. Disney has allowed him to broadcast live from it's parks and resorts, release audio tours of each of the MK lands and he does personal tours (at a cost I'm assuming) of the parks for guests. I guess by granting him this type of access along with the free dining, cruises, trips to Aulani, etc. that he's not a paid employee per se but gets his payola for all of the promotion he provides. At the end of the day, he and to a lesser extent Brigante (who I believe pays for his own AP but gets some of Lou's perks), are reaping the benefits of acting as spokesholes for Disney. As with the mommy bloggers, who can blame them for taking what Disney is willing to give them. I know I'd take what they give but I also know that I'd go insane if I spent as much time as they do covering the parks.

Brigante seems to have realized what he can get and expanded his scope to cover all theme parks in Orlando. Now he gets the perks from Disney, Universal and Sea World.
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Yes, Lou sees value in being an exclusive to Disney, while Ricky is spreading the love around.

With Lou, you wouldn't even know that UNI or SWO exist.
 
Stevek

Stevek

Well-Known Member
WDW1974 said:
I very strongly believe that the 'just following orders' or 'what the company tells me' is a poor replacement for actually doing things the right way.
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True but both of those ensure job security. I have a feeling that there are plenty of people out there (and possibly here) that would take his job in a heartbeat just to work for Disney in a social media capacity. Can't be the most stressful job in the world, beyond having to make sure mommy bloggers are satisfied (not, not that kind of satisfied you dirty minded people)
 
wdisney9000

wdisney9000

Truindenashendubapreser
Premium Member
PhotoDave219 said:
Hey, I like Gary. Good guy, works hard. Always been good to me. Seems like he was brought in to clean up a mess someone else made and looks like he's doing a decent job of it. I'm not gonna criticize him for that.

I'll criticize those higher up the food chain who make the decisions of who to invite/credential....
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It seems odd that a grown man with no children (at least i dont think he has kids) is the leader of the Disney Moms, but I dont know the man and he may be a cool guy. If you say he is, I'll give him the benefit of doubt.

But thanks to '74, and @TP2000 and his eye opening, extremely hillarious reporting on the recent mommies event, I have spent some time the last 2 days learning more about what the Disney moms actually do (nothing substantial), and after watching videos of the conferences that the mommies attend they are mostly estrogen fueled seminars of woman telling each other they can rule the world, and the "men", if you want to call them that, that attend, seem to serve no purpose other than being cheer leaders or purse holders to these suburban socialite wannabe's who are wasting the time of the woman speakers who are actually woman who work and/or make a REAL difference in the world. Gary is probly the only man there that they respect.

Some of the speakers are extremely well spoken and powerful but their efforts are most likely pointless as these mommies get all fired up in the moment with aspirations to do more in life but only return home and upload the video they took and call it a day.

And just for the record, I 100% respect stay at home moms and the extremely busy schedules/jobs they have. There is a difference between moms who bust their everyday to make a better life for their family, and the moms who have a few glasses of wine and then yap on youtube about rando topics.
 

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