Another thing I forgot to mention in one of my previous posts (about this weird obsession with the land having to be OT)...WE ALL KNEW THIS WAS A NEW PLANET for at least a year or so.
I barely heard anyone saying “mistake”, “needs to be OT”, “needs area music” when all of this was announced. Everyone was excited over the prospects. Then TDA messed up the marketing, opened early to get a double bounce of people with the B attraction only, and suddenly, because it wasn’t packed to the gills (which we are all happy about since we can, ya know, ENJOY IT), it becomes the “IT THING” to do and create this false narrative about being a failure and here’s why & “look how smart I am by pointing it out”.
EVERY THEME PARK IN ORLANDO has had down attendance this summer. Call it the perfect storm of price hikes, concerns about the economy, coupled with fear of insane crowds for SWGE and not having the major E ticket open. Disney may have expected more and planned for more but they are still making $$$$ hand over fist.
I conveniently don’t see articles about the insane down time of Hagrid and it being less than 10 minute waits plenty of days. Cause ya know, it’s easier and more fun to take pot shots at the big dog and it’s big dog franchise.
We all blame management/Chapek for their short sighted vision and ‘profit today at the expense of the long term’, YET everyone tries to paint this idea that something that isn’t gobbsmacked with people is a disaster after 3 weeks.
In 6-12 months when ROTR is humming along and they add some live entertainment to the land, you won’t hear anyone proclaiming “my bad I overreacted”
False narrative? It’s just a fact that reviews all across the internet are meh or negative. It’s just a fact. It’s not a false narrative just because YOU want it to be a false narrative. The land is broken. And the people know it. Even casual theme park visitors know it.
I can’t wait for ROTR to open and for entertainment to be finally injected into the land as promised. I can’t wait! I cannot wait for Disney to identify their mistakes and fix them, putting their unattractive ego aside.
But it’s not there right now. And it probably won’t be for a while.
The reason I’m so vocal is because I’m embarrassed at how excited and trusting I was of Disney and Co.
This was supposed to be their capstone project. After decades of practice, this was going to be a showcase of every trick they learned, the highest form of theme entertainment to rival Harry Potter and even their own imagineered lands and attractions. A land so complex, detailed and welcoming that it belonged in the very park that began themed entertainment 64 years ago.
I remember shushing people when the commercial came on during the thanksgiving parade, telling people in any theme park conversation about this amazing thing Disney was inventing, and then flying to be there when the milestone opened the first day.
But once I walked through the tunnel, my heart didn’t beat as fast as I dreamt it would. I didn’t have any emotional reaction. It was eerily quiet, colorless, and spiritless. It was Batuu on a normal day, a day where adventure was galaxies away. Real life is not exciting. A theme park land needs to pump in adventure, artificially. That’s the designer’s job.
Cast Members tried, but as someone who works on Broadway with arguably the highest skilled actors in the world, it was like nails on a chalkboard hearing Susie on her college program semester struggle to tell me about the wishing tree outside Savi’s, before informing me that no, I can not tie my wish to the tree.
Bright suns, man.
So besides me being directly vocal when at the land my first visit, I’m going to be vocal here. Because maybe the smug imagineers and darling bean counters will hear that people don’t like THEIR convoluted version of Star Wars, and should swiftly create a Star Wars adventure that is meaningful, full to the brim with wit and charm, and as epic as the films.
I just cannot believe that Galaxy’s Edge got that stupid datapad app were you can read what is inside a dumb crate, when in the Magic Kingdom there is a literal treasure hunt with magic tricks, moving parts, and environment altering scenes. Come. On.