DisneyDad Scene 7 Reviews
So to begin, thank you all for the tremendous work, time and effort put into the 7 projects this season. There were a lot of fun ideas pitched and proposed and several projects from the challenges that I found to be unique, at least from my time here, to forum at large. Again, well done to you all. On to the finale!
I'm going to try my reviews a little different this week for the final project. Just based on the size and scope, and work, I could ramble for days. I want to try and keep it as organized as possible so i'll break it up into section with observations about different aspects of the park, the challenge, etc. First up. Pixar Studios!
Disneyland Greece
Location
Greece was a very interesting choice to place a new park. I didn't see any particular reasoning for the choice but I could see good and bad with it. It would be a very different environ and locale then any other Disney park. You also have centuries of history around you, and I liked that you took some of those local influences and worked them into portions of the park like Kingdom of Fantasy and the Fantasmic show (sounded very enjoyable by the way). I imagine you could find some to tap into the Mediterranean cruise market as well. It would be a little concerning that the Greek government and economy is still not the best though their credit rating has improved slightly this year. I also wonder about the potential for tapping into consistent visitors. Greece has a population about a 1/6 the size of France, and while you're still reeling in tourists to this beautiful country, that does give me some pause. Of course being close to Eastern Europe may open more access potentially to populous Istanbul which is a 3-4 hour flight away.
Park backstory
I loved the theme of your park, Unlocking your dreams and Imagination. While I was a big fan of just about every project during the GMR, Dream Mountain was one that I thought was very creative, especially how you took that prompt in a new direction not expected. An inspired choice to use as the basis for your park. The initial blurb was a nice mission statement type piece and your extra little write up with the Imagination Pavilion tying in Greece fit well. Would have loved to see a little more about dream/imagination snuck into each of your land intros like you did with it and the Pixar land. That would have really helped fit it all together even more. Nice use of the entertainment with the show, parade, etc. continuing the theme.
Artwork
Really appreciated the effort and production of both the park layout and land layouts. Knowing you all, i'm sure you would have wanted to produce some finely finished art based on some of your production this season. I will say though I like the early concept looking style. It has a cool look to it and with a park about dreams and imagination, gives an early look at what's being imagined for this park, so it works. All of the labels, etc were super helpful
Presentation/Marketing
A perfect time and project to pull out the website useage. Everything on the site was laid out nicely and easily read. Three of the headers got placed under the home tab apart from the others but I'm assuming that was just a label space thing, so no big deal. I can tell a good bit of effort in piecing that altogether so very nice job. The only thing I could not locate was any info about Surrealist Street. Would be interested to see how you'd market this park to community at large (commercials, ads, posters, etc.)
Lands/Attractions
A lot to absorb here. First of all, nice job fitting all 6 of your projects into the park and your choice of the Poly flowed perfectly with Adventure Archipelago. You guys really went all out with your attractions not solely on cloning rides from the Disney universe. One thing I loved is how you went back and brought to life some of your unused attractions from earlier in the season. I always enjoy team brainstorming with the back and forth and decision making and seeing sometimes what doesn't make the cut. Very cool that your attractions like The Incredibles and the Mariannas Trench that you almost went with in earlier challenges, were brought to life for the finale. Each of the lands and attractions you provided has merit, though I wonder if there's almost too much park?. This is a pretty extensive offering of attractions, etc. Are you planning this in phases? Even then, i'm almost still a little worried it might be a little too big for the Greek location. There are a great number of really cool offerings here, ones any WDW fan would envy.
Write up
Very solid write up throughout the presentation. There was the occasional minor grammatical error but with as much as you needed to put into this, I won't red ink you too bad.
There was just enough there for some of the new attractions for me to get the gist. It's only a minor thing, but some of your projects from the season that were used did have reference to WDW parks instead of the new Disneyland Greece.
Conclusion
I know i'm leaving some things out, even with all of that, but wanted to touch on as many of the items as I could, as I think I owe it to both teams to recognize the work they put in. I really enjoyed this park. I think the idea is a solid one and there is a great deal of potential with your attraction lineup. I had some concerns about location, size and some of the backstory and marketing elements, but I could see this being a really beautiful park. You have many great design & show elements with the land backdrops chosen that guests really can let their imaginations run wild. Thank you again Pixar Studios for an outstanding final project and season.
Up next...
Marvel Studios
