A good something or a bad something?
Not necessarily bad, just expensive. It would be sort of like buying an industrial dish washer for your home kitchen. Sure, it will get the job done, but it's really not the most effective use of your money
Similarly, along Big Thunder Trail they've been doing a lot of sculpted concrete work to look like wood:
True, concrete has a longer lifespan than wood, but is it worth it? Aged-look wood would likely last 20+ years before needing to be replaced, and would be relatively cheap and easy to remove and replace. Sculpted concrete is significantly more expensive to build, and will likely need to be repainted more frequently than wood would need to be replaced. Additionally, replacing the wood is a fairly quick and simple task that could be completed by nearly any contractor, while repainting the concrete will require high-end faux finish painters. You could probably replace all the wood 3 or 4 times (effectively 70-100 years of maintenance) before you approach the startup price of making it out of concrete and the initial paint job
And to what purpose? Sure, it looks like the sculptors and painters have done an incredible job, but in a land that's full of "real" aged wood, it just doesn't quite match its surroundings; this is an issue in WDW's new Fantasyland project, where they also used a ton of sculpted concrete but the uncanny valley remains. Why not just make the dilapidated wood shack and timber retaining wall out of wood? I'm not an accountant, but it just doesn't make sense to me for either the initial construction or lifecycle costs
This is what value engineering is all about. And they don't seem to be applying any of those common sense principles to this project
I'm inclined to think that these AT-ATs will be more involved than what meets the eye. While clearly the legs are stationary, the head could actually be remarkably complex. An AT-AT head has four weapons mounted to it. Two under the cockpit and two on either side of the pilot. AT-AT's weapons are extremely powerful, and as a result recoil. That quick pulse after each firing is a quintisential part of their look and feel. Additionally the side mounted weapons are equipped with a greater freedom of movement, being built onto a rotating joint that moves vertically to the ground. This gives AT-ATs greater flexibility for both close range ground targets and aerial targets.
These particular features (recoil and rotating joint) can be seen clearly in this quick compilation of AT-ATs from Hoth:
I suspect in Disney's obsessive focus to detail, these characteristics won't go unnoticed. I'm guessing many Star Wars nerds who know Episode 5 by heart are working on this!
So considering the idea these heads will be supporting 4 constantly recoiling and possibly pivoting canons with electrical for lights and simulated lasers the overbuilt head becomes more reasonable.
Now obviously this is conjecture, but with this attraction I'm betting on more realism. Static AT-ATs wouldn't fit the bill.
That's an interesting theory, and probably partially correct. If they fire, I imagine they would have some movement on the guns, to make them as realistic as possible
But there's still seemingly no reason why they couldn't build a heavy-duty framework that attaches the moving pieces to the tall legs, and attach a lighter superstructure for the aesthetic-only elements. That approach would be somewhat similar to the approach Disney uses for most buildings, which are framed out of steel, and then have wood additions for façade elements like rooflines, cupolas, and widows. There's still plenty of strength for the functional elements, but the non-functional items aren't overbuilt
The only logic I can think of is that the project was given a massive budget, and WDI feels they need to spend every cent of it, regardless of whether there might be a more affordable option. Whether this is to hide WDI's own huge costs relative to the overall project cost, or to ensure that large budgets are approved for future projects (a frequent problem with publically-funded operations like snow removal), or some other reason, I just don't know
Well, the AT-AT building just leaped up another 20+ feet taller. This building is going to be the biggest at Disneyland by leaps and bounds; height, width, depth, scale, etc.
I read somewhere recently that the building will have the highest rockwork in DLR, so presumably part of it will be taller than the Matterhorn. Similar to the Cadillac Range in Carsland, I expect that it will mostly be mid-height with occasional spires going higher, but it will be quite large regardless. At least from what we can see so far, it looks like the 3rd level won't be incorporated into the ride space, so it is likely all for the façade
Also, at the 6:00 mark we get really good shots of the Indian Village. Am I wrong in thinking the "room" being built into the rockwork might be for the re-staged scene where the Indian Shaman tells his stories to the tribe? Or as the guys who guide the Canoes tell you, he's telling "
The story of how the churro came to his people".
It looks like that area will be 'outside' the railroad and roughly the same elevation as the tracks. Considering that anything up there wouldn't be visible from the canoes, the lower deck(s?) of the Twain, or any of the inward-facing railroad carriages, I doubt it is any sort of significant show element
My guess is that it will be the top of a waterfall that is used to hide the river entrance to the Fantasmic! storage area, similar to the Little Mermaid waterfall/storage area on Storybookland (though hopefully more convincing). The new concrete structure will probably be a pump room (pulling double duty as secondary/emergency egress for the storage bunker below), with the new rockwork forming the waterfall. According to ROA's lore the headwaters are under the treehouse on TSI, but this may become the highest point of water on the updated river
