News Splash Mountain retheme to Princess and the Frog - Tiana's Bayou Adventure

[MerlinTheGoat]

Nothing about Mr Toad was comprehensible. That's kind of its appeal. "Wild Ride" also suggests just that.

I get why not seeing Snow White in Snow White's Adventure was a more obvious source of disappointment...even as someone who thinks the 1971 Snow White was superbly executed for what it actually was.

Mr Toad is silly and insane, and that WAS the point. But it also executed the "you're playing the role of Mr Toad" concept in a way that was very clear to most people. For one thing, you're actually driving Mr Toad's car with an interactive (though uncontrollable) steering wheel prop. This alone sets it apart from Snow White's wood carved vehicles, which do not convey at all who we're supposed to be. And for another, you're careening out of control and being a menace to society. Whatever crazy things happen in the ride, it is never confusing to the rider as to why Mr Toad doesn't appear in the ride and that we are in fact supposed to be him.

I wasn't referring to disappointment with the lack of Snow White btw, but rather the confusion as to why that was and what was going on. It wasn't well conveyed and obvious to a ton of riders. A combination of her absence, lack of context clues (or even contradictory ones) as well as what was happening in the ride (especially the end, which did not have the same reaction as the ending of Mr Toad's ride) caused the intent to fly over a lot of people's heads. Even had they retained the scarier 1971 version, the ride still warranted some additions to help provide more context to guests.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Probably because if you dropped the average person 52 feet onto the roof of their non-thorn-covered home they wouldn't expect to handle it well just because they live there.

It's not a particularly intuitive story element. Are Rabbits immune to thorns? To gravity? Is he just *that* nimble? The answer is seemingly the latter, that he has some home-field advantage. But there's a lot to take in over the relatively few minutes the ride lasts, and with so few people having seen the source material I'm not surprised that it doesn't fully register for everybody.

I'm a little hazier than @LittleBuford and others as to whether I had ever seen the film before going on the ride. I'm honestly still not sure I've ever seen the whole thing! I am pretty sure I was familiar with the story about Brer Rabbit getting thrown in the briar patch from somewhere, though. My understanding as a child and I don't think I've ever reconsidered it was that the briar patch may look dangerous to others, but for Brer Rabbit it was the place he knew best and in which he was most comfortable. So, once he was thrown in there he was like a fish in water and could quickly slip away.

I guess I at least had that in the back of my mind when riding it for the first time, so that point didn't need too much explanation and the set-up was pretty clear on the lift hill. As for the height, I always took it more to represent the feeling of being a little rabbit thrown into the briar patch rather than literally representing the height from which he was thrown.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

I'm a little hazier than @LittleBuford and others as to whether I had ever seen the film before going on the ride. I'm honestly still not sure I've ever seen the whole thing! I am pretty sure I was familiar with the story about Brer Rabbit getting thrown in the briar patch from somewhere, though. My understanding as a child and I don't think I've ever reconsidered it was that the briar patch may look dangerous to others, but for Brer Rabbit it was the place he knew best and in which he was most comfortable. So, once he was thrown in there he was like a fish in water and could quickly slip away.

I guess I at least had that in the back of my mind when riding it for the first time, so that point didn't need too much explanation and the set-up was pretty clear on the lift hill. As for the height, I always took it more to represent the feeling of being a little rabbit thrown into the briar patch rather than literally representing the height from which he was thrown.

. . . I think you're taking my post a little too literally.

The point is that anyone unfamiliar with the story may simply take the ride at face value - why do we end up okay when we plummet into the Briar Patch? Must just be luck, I guess.

My recollection as a child riding Splash for the first time was that I didn't totally get it but that I also didn't really question it. "He needed to get away and he got away by being thrown down the drop" . . . and by the next scene it's clear that worked out well enough for him, whatever the reason why, so the story is resolved even if the how isn't plain as day to every rider. It definitely wasn't clear to me why guests riding would be fine despite plunging face-first into the Briar Patch, and there wasn't plainly a great reason Br'er Rabbit would fare better than us. But we all made it out alive, so . . .

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

Yeah, still not getting how anyone could miss the plot like that...

It doesn't really surprise me since they try to cram a ton of explanatory dialogue from multiple characters in at the top of the lift hill, at a time when most people are going to be more focused on the drop and not the dialogue playing. Especially when the dialogue is often out of sync or doesn't play correctly.

Plus even if Br'er Rabbit is shown as being from the briar patch, it's not an obvious place for rabbits to be.

 

[BrerFoxesBayouAdventure]

When I was younger, I was able to follow the plot and understood it to a degree but I more or less dreaded the drop and focused on that entirely.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

. . . I think you're taking my post a little too literally.

The point is that anyone unfamiliar with the story may simply take the ride at face value - why do we end up okay when we plummet into the Briar Patch? Must just be luck, I guess.

My recollection as a child riding Splash for the first time was that I didn't totally get it but that I also didn't really question it. "He needed to get away and he got away by being thrown down the drop" . . . and by the next scene it's clear that worked out well enough for him, whatever the reason why, so the story is resolved even if the how isn't plain as day to every rider. It definitely wasn't clear to me why guests riding would be fine despite plunging face-first into the Briar Patch, and there wasn't plainly a great reason Br'er Rabbit would fare better than us. But we all made it out alive, so . . .

Fair enough. I am learning that what was happening in the ride was less clear to at least some people who had more than a passing interest in the attraction that I thought it would have been. Maybe for that story element about the briar patch to be intuitive you have to have some prior knowledge of the story. As a child growing up in the 1980s in Australia I knew it (I first went on the ride at DL in 1992), but younger generations may not know it particularly as the film has disappeared. My hazy recollection is knowing it from a (possibly Disney) book of stories rather than the film, but I could be wrong.

All in all, I agree with @UNCgolf that they probably told a linear story about as well as they could in this medium on Splash Mountain without a literal narrator spelling it out for you. The confusion some felt about certain elements is probably why so many rides just involve running away from something, going to somewhere, or things going horribly wrong.

In the case of Splash, I don't think anyone is disagreeing that it works whether you understand every beat of the story and just assume Brer Rabbit was lucky enough to survive the drop and get away at the end of the ride. I think that's a big step up from something like Dinosaur where you have to watch a video beforehand in which they explain to you what is going to happen, without which you would have no idea what the story was supposed to be.

 

[SpectreJordan]

52!

Oh yes, that could be, as with music, film, etc. Are there young people who prefer Smuggler's Run to, say, Pirates? Maybe so.

FOP would benefit from better glasses, frames that prevent peripheral distraction. It's blurry for me, too.

I'll hand it to the Millennials, though. I'm sure they could build a better video game than Tony Baxter...

Ehhhh with the current state of western video games, maybe not lmao

It's not though. I've expressed this several times in this thread, as well as the newly formed Tiana's Bayou Adventure Construction thread. Disney will ensure that the quality of this attraction will be well done. This is because as many have explained, it can not fail, and it won't. The "success" is again, objective, from Disney's eyes it will be a success.

I'm a lot more optimistic than a lot of people on this board. But what Disney considers a success & what fans consider a success might be two different things.

Since I can’t remember having ridden it before seeing the film, I can’t say for certain whether I would have worked the plot out from Splash Mountain alone. I think it’s generally clear what’s going on, but that Br’er Rabbit gets out of his predicament using reverse psychology is not, to my mind, readily apparent. I know that’s what he’s doing because I’m very familiar with the story, but I doubt I could have deduced it otherwise, except, perhaps, after multiple rerides.

Until recently, I always thought he just escaped by being tricky. Which I guess is true, but I didn't realize the reverse psychology part lol

 

[flynnibus]

Their job is to tell the story. Thats the purpose of the backstory. If the backstory isn’t part of conveying the story then they’re not doing their jobs well and it’s a waste.

Nah - it can be support without being the purpose/ intended takeaway

See HM… pirates…. You don’t focus on the conclusion of the story as the element people go home with as their memory.

I like to think of it more like… staging. It’s purpose is to help set the tone and surrounds.

 

[mysto]

It couldn't have been any clearer that Brer Rabbit was baiting Brer Fox into flinging him in. Even if you did somehow miss that, they make it even more explicit in the finale scenes where Brer Rabbit is sitting outside his front door of his briar patch house (which again was shown at the start of the ride) and boasting about how he tricked them again.

I didn't quite get that Brer Rabbit was baiting Fox as a trick. I always felt Rabbit's tone sounded ironic, but I thought I was mistaken about that. I saw the references to him being a trickster but still didn't get it.

The point is that anyone unfamiliar with the story may simply take the ride at face value - why do we end up okay when we plummet into the Briar Patch? Must just be luck, I guess.

This is about how I saw it.

I missed it all - not kidding.
I never knew 'till now that he was flung into the brier patch.

Courageous confession! Props.

 

[flynnibus]

The sad thing is…, the ride story isn’t even about the ‘troublesome’ parts of the movie… but the brer rabbit tales the movie tells.

And apparently not enough people know thd basic premise that brer rabbit is a trickster…. And the stories are about how he gets out of trouble.

The ride version really does rely on hearing the dialogue well.. as it moved through the important plot elements so quickly

 

[LittleBuford]

I didn't quite get that Brer Rabbit was baiting Fox as a trick. I always felt Rabbit's tone sounded ironic, but I thought I was mistaken about that. I saw the references to him being a trickster but still didn't get it.


This is about how I saw it.


Courageous confession! Props.

I noticed you were among the posters who liked @MerlinTheGoat‘s posts insisting that the story is easy to follow (I paid attention because I wanted a sense of how many people felt that way). It’s interesting that you’re now acknowledging you didn’t pick up on the reverse-psychology part. It makes me wonder how many others think they’ve understood the whole plot but have actually (and very understandably!) missed certain details, including some pretty major ones.

 

[mysto]

I noticed you were among the posters who liked @MerlinTheGoat‘s posts insisting that the story is easy to follow (I paid attention because I wanted a sense of how many people felt that way). It’s interesting that you’re now acknowledging you didn’t pick up on the reverse-psychology part. It makes me wonder how many others think they’ve understood the whole plot but have actually (and very understandably!) missed certain details, including some pretty major ones.

I give a lot of likes, sometimes because I agree but sometimes just because a point is well made, and even sometimes as a silent "agree to disagree". So it's complicated. In this case @MerlinTheGoat gave a bit of explanation that helped me to see it, so "liked". Also I try to like posts I reply to and reply to me regardless of agreement.

 

[UNCgolf]

Fair enough. I am learning that what was happening in the ride was less clear to at least some people who had more than a passing interest in the attraction that I thought it would have been. Maybe for that story element about the briar patch to be intuitive you have to have some prior knowledge of the story. As a child growing up in the 1980s in Australia I knew it (I first went on the ride at DL in 1992), but younger generations may not know it particularly as the film has disappeared. My hazy recollection is knowing it from a (possibly Disney) book of stories rather than the film, but I could be wrong.

All in all, I agree with @UNCgolf that they probably told a linear story about as well as they could in this medium on Splash Mountain without a literal narrator spelling it out for you. The confusion some felt about certain elements is probably why so many rides just involve running away from something, going to somewhere, or things going horribly wrong.

In the case of Splash, I don't think anyone is disagreeing that it works whether you understand every beat of the story and just assume Brer Rabbit was lucky enough to survive the drop and get away at the end of the ride. I think that's a big step up from something like Dinosaur where you have to watch a video beforehand in which they explain to you what is going to happen, without which you would have no idea what the story was supposed to be.

I've never seen Song of the South, so I definitely didn't have any knowledge of it before riding Splash Mountain. That said, it's possible I had knowledge of the story in general, since Song of the South was merely an adaptation of those stories.

Regardless, yes, I have a hard time imagining how they could have done it any better in the context of a theme park attraction even if many people only picked up part of the story.

 

[LittleBuford]

I give a lot of likes, sometimes because I agree but sometimes just because a point is well made, and even sometimes as a silent "agree to disagree". So it's complicated. In this case @MerlinTheGoat gave a bit of explanation that helped me to see it, so "liked". Also I try to like posts I reply to and reply to me regardless of agreement.

Sorry for misunderstanding!

I like your “like” policy. I wish more people did as you do.

 

[LittleBuford]

Regardless, yes, I have a hard time imagining how they could have done it any better in the context of a theme park attraction even if many people only picked up part of the story.

One of the big differences between the ride’s interpretation and the film itself is that, in the latter, Br’er Rabbit isn’t tied up when he’s about to be thrown into the briar patch. Having him bound in the ride makes the drop seem scarier (a good thing!) but also makes it more difficult to work out how and why he emerges unscathed after the drop.

 

[SNS]

One of the big differences between the ride’s interpretation and the film itself is that, in the latter, Br’er Rabbit isn’t tied up when he’s about to be thrown into the briar patch. Having him bound in the ride makes the drop seem scarier (a good thing!) but also makes it more difficult to work out how and why he emerges unscathed after the drop.

Yeah, the scene of him being tied off is taken from the next story (the one where the laughing place song comes from). They combined the two to have the exciting briar patch climax.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

I first took the plunge from Chickapin Hill in 1993, when I was 5, and the story was always very clear to me. I've also never seen Song of the South, so I had no reference point to go off. My only familiarity with it was the songs from SotS they included on the Classic Disney cassettes I had as a kid.

Honestly, I was very surprised that there are people (especially on here) who don't understand the story. Or, at the very least, the basic beats of him wanting to leave, getting caught and escaping to his home to learn the lesson that he should just stay put. It feels like you'd have to actively ignore everything happening for that to be the case. There's a ton of dialogue that tells you what's going on along the way, as well as rewritten songs with explicit references to the story.

It's not that I don't believe the people who are saying they didn't pick up on it, or even that there's anything wrong with it, but it honestly really surprised me to see. I think one person said they weren't even aware that Br'er Rabbit gets flung into the Briar Patch? It's just wild to me that a person could ride multiple times and never get that.

I've always regarded Splash so highly because of how well it tells a relatively complex story in a medium as difficult as a dark ride. Now I feel like everything I thought I knew was a lie.

 

[LittleBuford]

I've always regarded Splash so highly because of how well it tells a relatively complex story in a medium as difficult as a dark ride. Now I feel like everything I thought I knew was a lie.

I don't think one needed to understand the intricacies of the plot to really enjoy the ride. I think that's what made it a truly great attraction.

 

[LittleBuford]

I just started a poll for those who are interested:

Intelligibility of Splash Mountain's plot

I created this poll in response to a discussion taking place now over in the Splash Mountain thread. How much of the plot did you personally understand from the ride alone? The options I've provided seem to cover the full spectrum, but please let me know if you think I should add any. For those...

forums.wdwmagic.com

 

[Brer Oswald]

I don't think one needed to understand the intricacies of the plot to really enjoy the ride. I think that's what made it a truly great attraction.

The ride was both great at linear storytelling and atmospheric storytelling. Even if you didn’t follow along with the narrative, the music and set design conveyed the proper emotions of the journey.

The first outdoor section with the instrumental music served as the transition from the real world to this fictional cartoon world. The HDYD section pulled you into the cartoonish animal habitat filling you with a sense of joy. The Laughing Place section combined a sense of adventure and fun with a bit of danger. Then, the danger took over with the frightening final drop. After the drop was conquered, then came the celebration.

The narrative of the replacement attraction will be different, and that’s okay. But I think it’s pretty important that they maintain these similar atmospheric and emotional beats. Otherwise I don’t know if it will be as effective of an attraction.