If you count all the fish on a stick and all the fish glued to a wall, the Little Mermaid ride has 200 AAs!!
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News Splash Mountain retheme to Princess and the Frog - Tiana's Bayou Adventure
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If you count all the fish on a stick and all the fish glued to a wall, the Little Mermaid ride has 200 AAs!!
Turned out to be a *disaster* of a name that was very short lived (only 9 of the 31 years of the park's existence) and led to lawsuits (plus nothing MGM-y in the park at all except a few movie references in TGMR).
It'd be like continuing to call "Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!" ride "Superstar Limo."
DCLcruiser
Well-Known Member
It will always be MGM. Hollywood Studios is too many syllables.
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
I'm fairly certain Disneyland hasn't lost any. Except the occasional one or two temporarily removed for mechanical work. I've ridden the WDW version countless times, it definitely hasn't lost any since it was opened (again excepting temporary maintenance). You can always spot the platforms they were removed from.
Disney's official page for the ride also claims over 100. So I guess the number didn't just come out of nowhere. Though the page for the WDW ride also claims 100+... They're just copy/pasting stuff between versions. Even with static figures included, there's still far below 100.
I did notice something on the WDW page that caught my eye. "Over 100 AA geese, frogs, raccoons, possums, bees, alliga.......wait hold on....bees....BEES? There aren't any animatronic bees. The only bees in the entire ride are the hives in the Laughing Place. Are they counting these as AA's? That's just a bunch of metal sticks tipped with blacklight paint and attached to a spinning motor. Those in no way are animatronics. A neat looking little prop, but good lord no. Is this where they're getting the other 30 AA's from? Counting each individual blob of paint on those sticks? What a ridiculous lie if so, 60-70 actual AA's is already an extremely impressive number...
My camp staff group actually had a Disney marathon and one of them was PaTF. After watching the full movie, I definitely think they could do Splash justice with a proper retheme,
jt04
Well-Known Member
Yes, with a mix of all the tech available in 2020+ it could be very amazing. I know that word gets overused but it really should exceed expectations. Best decision they have made for the MK in a very long time.
DCLcruiser
Well-Known Member
So is this the official, unofficial, PR announcement to appease the Disneyverse that this was always in development? I can't remember if we believe TP anymore.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
The animals from PATF are still the general shape of real life animals. Example being the roseate spoonbills from Dig a Little Deeper.
Note that these birds are only a couple feet tall at most (Mama Odie is tiny, half the height of Tiana). Overall, despite being cartooned up (particularly the eyes, colors and silly facial expressions), these birds do compared to the size and general shape of real life spoonbills. Their heads are extremely small and their legs and necks are extremely thin.
Now look at the commonly seen birds from Splash Mtn-
You can probably see the difference just by looking. Even those small frog figures are WAY too large, fat and overall improperly shaped for PATF's frogs. Movies that share similarly more "realistic" animal designs to PATF include Lady and the Tramp, Bambi, 101 Dalmations, Aristocats, Lion King, Brother Bear, Tarzan etc.
The animals in Splash Mtn are different, the word "anthropomorphic" being the key. If you aren't familiar with the term, it refers to animals that have been drawn to have more human-like bodies (to varying degrees). Do a google image search for the term and you'll find a lot of examples. Besides Splash Mtn, Disney's Robin Hood and Zootopia are two examples that also use this anthropomorphic style.
True except from what I remember Louis is very anthropomorphic and if we use him as reference then it is possible to keep some or most of the big anthropomorphic dogs, geese, alligators etc. The clothes for me is the biggest distinction between Splash Mountain and PatF. I guess we can just make them naked and voila. Although it would be kind of strange to disrobe AAs that have been dressed for 31 years.
In the end if they really want to make it work they can. I don’t think anyone would bat an eye at the different style Splash AAs except for the imagineers who created Galaxies Edge that need everything to be hyper real, depressing and boring. They can kind of meet in the middle and make some of the newer figures match the AAs that are there now. That and a little proper staging go a long way. Besides, you can find a way to justify anything. Like why are we in a log on a mountain in New Orleans in the first place? Why is that not an issue but the show enhancing AAs are? I just think it’s pretty silly to take out these great AAs because they wont match the new fiberglass figure. That would be like taking all of the nice expensive furniture out of your house because it doesn’t match the new cheap rug someone bought you.
Easy fix - put a shirt on Louis. This is after the movie and in New Orleans people prefer him clothed so he’s uncomfortable being naked now.
If and when most of the AAs are removed it won’t because they have to or because it’s better for the show it will be to save money on maintenance and so the imagineers working on it can really put their stamp on the new attraction - for better or (probably) worse.
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DCLcruiser
Well-Known Member
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
I mentioned earlier in this thread that Louis is the exception to this rule. The movie goes out of its way to point out this exception as well. He taught himself to walk upright and play the trumpet (he wants to be a human and join a jazz band). There are a handful of other alligators in the movie that contrast with him, behaving and moving much more like actual alligators would.
It might be possible to repurpose a couple of the Brer Bear AA's for new Louis figures (a new skin on top of the underlying endoskeleton). But this is probably the only character this could work for.
It might be possible to repurpose a couple of the Brer Bear AA's for new Louis figures (a new skin on top of the underlying endoskeleton). But this is probably the only character this could work for.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Ahhh ok. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie yet that still doesn’t explain why his body looks human. If we can overlook that we can overlook other things. My points in my prior post still stand.
So dumb to purposely diminish the existing show to match 4 new AAs and a bunch of fiberglass figures. You work around the good stuff not the other way around.
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Sharon&Susan
Well-Known Member
Got the standard PR SM reply today:
TP2000
Well-Known Member
If you expand Adventureland to take in the log ride formerly known as Splash Mountain...
Doesn't that strand Big Thunder Mountain as an island of dry, dusty Frontierland cut off from the rest of Frontierland?
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MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
His "human" appearance is largely due to the way he learned to carry himself (along with his silly/friendly expressions). There's even a scene where he manages to pass as a human wearing a costume for a while. But later on, he has clear the room out and goes back to running around on four legs and pretending to act vicious to scare people. Then everyone realizes he's an alligator and run away.
Here are some of the other alligators seen in the movie for reference-
The Grand Inquisitor
Well-Known Member
Dang @realBobChapek our plans leaked again!Please for the love of Walt and all that is magic,
NOMORE
_caleb
Well-Known Member
Thanks!!The animals from PATF are still the general shape of real life animals. Example being the roseate spoonbills from Dig a Little Deeper.
Note that these birds are only a couple feet tall at most (Mama Odie is tiny, half the height of Tiana). Overall, despite being cartooned up (particularly the eyes, colors and silly facial expressions), these birds do compared to the size and general shape of real life spoonbills. Their heads are extremely small and their legs and necks are extremely thin.
Now look at the commonly seen birds from Splash Mtn-
You can probably see the difference just by looking. Even those small frog figures are WAY too large, fat and overall improperly shaped for PATF's frogs. Movies that share similarly more "realistic" animal designs to PATF include Lady and the Tramp, Bambi, 101 Dalmations, Aristocats, Lion King, Brother Bear, Tarzan etc.
The animals in Splash Mtn are different, the word "anthropomorphic" being the key. If you aren't familiar with the term, it refers to animals that have been drawn to have more human-like bodies (to varying degrees). Do a google image search for the term and you'll find a lot of examples. Besides Splash Mtn, Disney's Robin Hood and Zootopia are two examples that also use this anthropomorphic style.
jt04
Well-Known Member
Hypothetically if you designed/imagineered something 'western-ish' on the pad behind BTMRR and allowed the attraction and WDWRR to serve as gateways to the area everything would flow. Like a river. Hypothetically of course.
P.S. Great diagram and question.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
His "human" appearance is largely due to the way he learned to carry himself (along with his silly/friendly expressions). There's even a scene where he manages to pass as a human wearing a costume for a while. But later on, he has clear the room out and goes back to running around on four legs and pretending to act vicious to scare people. Then everyone realizes he's an alligator and run away.
Here are some of the other alligators seen in the movie for reference-
The fact that he’s walking upright didn’t give him give him the body type that he has. Clearly, they wanted to make him look like a fat human Jazz player with a big build. All I’m saying is liberties can be taken If someone wants to. In the movie they took this liberty with Louis. In PatF: Splash Mountain they can do it with the other characters/AA’s that exist today. They all wanted to be people too. After all, they weren’t in the movie so it wouldn’t be inconsistent.
Basically I don’t want imagineers to think too hard about this. Remember it’s a magic kingdom with talking skulls and singing ghosts. It doesn’t take a lot to justify keeping a bunch wonderfully animated AAs and not getting rid of them just so things can be 100% consistent with the less impressive characters in the movie, the majority of which will be most likely represented by fiberglass figures on the ride.
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