Splash Mountain re-theme announced

[larryz]

If this change can get us a QS or TS restaurant serving gumbo, jambalaya and beignets in the MK, then I'm all for it.

 

[lebeau]

Wow...

Arguably the greatest ride Disney has ever produced being thrown away because of "woke culture"

Bend the knee to communist Disney. I won't be back

You don't know what a communist is, do you?

 

[Tony Perkis]

Dont let the Zootopia furries hear you say that...

 

[Tom Morrow]

I though that Prince Naveen was Indian or from somewhere in that region. He did not come across as being black.

Um. The MAIN protagonist. Tiana.

 

[Beacon Joe]

As an African American, I want to thank all of those who complained without understanding that SPlash was the last big remnant of my ancestors stories in the world. This SERIOUSLY does wonders to the black community....This is an absolute joke. I am beyond disappointed..My all time favorite attraction, the one that made me feel close to My heritage, My stories.

Thanks, Disney.

Bumping this because it's a perspective that deserves to be considered.

But it probably won't.

 

[davis_unoxx]

I don’t think it’s crazy to say Walt isn’t safe from the mob

 

[MisterPenguin]

Disney can hardly get new projects out these days and they’re trying to retheme one of the most popular rides in their most popular park. Ok

It's not about adding PatF or a new ride.

It's about killing off associations with Song of the South.

 

[Kate F]

I don’t think I want to go to Disney any more.

 

[ppete1975]

So, moving on from all the crying in this thread, do we have an idea of when it'll close for the change and if there are any generic predictions yet like it's supposed to be ready by year 2999?

I think disneyland wont reopen... they might not even reopen disneyworlds version... something tells me this reskin is number one priority and moved ahead of everything else. This hasnt been planned for a year... this has been planned maybe 2 weeks and is now fast tracked all hands on deck.*




*im prob wrong i have no sources and when both reopen feel free to throw tomatoes

 

[comics101]

They're not going to reverse course now - imagine the backlash if, having publicly acknowledged the perceived issues with Splash Mountain, they didn't follow through on re-theming it.

Still worth letting them know your displeasure though, right? After all, isn‘t Disney all about their “guests?”

 

[Tony Perkis]

It's not about adding PatF or a new ride.

It's about killing of associations with Song of the South.

Ding ding ding!

 

[RoysCabin]

So why are you on a Disney forum, why like Disney?? If you do, you apparently support a brand that has allowed racism to exist in a park attraction for 30 years plus. Or are you a closet racist?

We live in an entire country built on racism, from the Spanish encomienda and limpieza de sagre systems, to Puritan extermination squads against Native Americans, to African chattel slavery, to the genocidal bloodshed of the westward expansion against more Native populations and against Mexico, let alone what wound up happening in the Spanish-American War. The economic bounty of the post-World War II economy in America was partly built on denying the financial benefits of the GI Bill to black veterans, thus enabling things like white flight to the government-backed suburbs while depriving the cities where minority populations were left behind of economic activity and jobs.

So, yeah, Disney has long been a company comfortable with racism (one need only see the depiction of, say, the black-drawn centaurs in Fantasia, but there are plenty of other examples; heck, Mickey's design itself is based on the appearance of actors in minstrel shows), but not because of anything that's unique to Disney. It's instead due to a culture and society that was built on separating people into hierarchies based on the non-biological concept of race, then willfully exploiting or harming those at the bottom of that hierarchy, and that culture becoming ingrained and accepted as normal and "just the way things are." That's the foundation of the entire nation we live in, whether we want to accept it or not, especially when you go back and see how the slavery-era South was the Silicon Valley of its day, or how the railroad companies exploited and killed immigrants and other non-white groups to make their money and in turn make America an economic powerhouse by the turn of the 20th century. Again, this isn't because Walt or someone was uniquely bad in their views, but that's why racism is referred to as "systemic"; it transcends individuals and shapes entire societies.

So, effectively, your argument becomes "why do you choose to live in this society at all?", and I hope you can see how absurd that becomes.

 

[999th Happy Haunt]

It’s the truth. It’s actual.

Nothing here is satisfactual.

 

[TaoBoxer]

I can assure you, the woke people are not the people I was referring to.

I can assure you that I don't care.

 

[Bairstow]

It's naturally too early to tell and the brief exposition on the general plot doesn't give it away, but my main concern will be:

The climax.

The drop is fun and all, but what adds to it is the tension that the ride gives you before it. The slow climb up, the eerie music, the rabbit about to get eaten, and the clearly evil birds over your head laughing at you.

I hope that with Tiana (as I would with any IP) they make sure to add some "suspense" just before the drop so you can feel the same sort of fear/adrenaline you feel in current Splash.

The most obvious choice:

 

[Kate F]

The funny thing is that my parents were looking at going to Tokyo Disneyland for the first time. I’m glad Tokyo’s not included in this mess.

 

[lentesta]

At the MK, "Frontierland" is a mess. It mixes "The South" with "The Frontier." Yes, at one time "The South" was the frontier, but, two hundred years earlier.

How did a ride based on Song of the South fit with "The Frontier"?

And how does a ride based on New Orleans not fit in with the Mississippi Riverboat and Tom Sawyer right next door? Neither of those are "The Frontier."

Thank you.

You're right. I was talking with someone on my team (who lives in New Orleans) after I posted this, and he made the same point: Tom Sawyer Island is the Mississippi River, and that empties into New Orleans. So geographically, PATF fits in Frontierland - I was wrong.

The chronology needs to be addressed. PATF is 1926. There's nothing in Frontierland that's later than 1899, as far as I can tell, and probably nothing later than 1880. I think the actual American frontier was gone by 1890.

 

[disneygeek90]

Everyone, let’s make #SaveSplashMountain trend on Twitter.

Seriously. Do it. If you don’t have a Twitter, make one. @ The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney Imagineering, Disney Parks, D23, Walt Disney World, and Disneyland and let them know we want to #SaveSplashMountain. Let them know you think this is a terrible idea.

Edit: While you’re at it, @ Bob Chapek, Bob Iger, Michael Eisner, Josh D’Amaro, Ken Potrock and Jeff Vahle and flood their twitter accounts as well!

It's not gonna happen. The negative publicity of pulling back on what is portrayed as a decision to rid itself of characters associated with a problematic movie would be more so than if they did no announcement to begin with.

 

[Brer Oswald]

From one form of hatred to another. We as a human race are unusual. It should be interesting in 2200 when they start a movement to denounce the Cancel Culture of the 2000s. Which will of course lead to more problems and more racism.

This cycle will never end because we’re too stupid to deal with it properly.

 

[SirNim]

As an African American, I want to thank all of those who complained without understanding that SPlash was the last big remnant of my ancestors stories in the world. This SERIOUSLY does wonders to the black community....This is an absolute joke. I am beyond disappointed..My all time favorite attraction, the one that made me feel close to My heritage, My stories.

Thanks, Disney.

That's what I was thinking, replacing a ride about African-American folklore with another European fairytale. Disney is the wokest!

This.

Politics is perception.

The absolute only way for any reversal of this, is to somehow make an argument that TPATF is more egregious of a film than SOTS, more culturally insensitive (perhaps by finding some scene or another and taking it out of context, blasting it across Twitter), and making it an example of raw cultural appropriation.

If that political game can be played in the social media echo chambers, then THAT is the only way to get this plan reversed prior to implementation.

How can you cherrypick elements of the story, setting, and caricatures of TPATF to make that movie appear terrible or outdated or a shining example of cultural appropriation? If you can... then... politics is perception.