The Spirited Seventh Heaven ...

[PhotoDave219]

Jim Hill once claimed that for years, the AA Pistoles, Carioca, and Donald figures from the Mickey Mouse Revue have been sitting backstage from their use at the Mickey Mouse revue during its Tokyo run, just waiting to be installed.
According to him, the only reason they haven't been put into the ride is that no one wants to budget the money for the installation/programming.

Can anyone confirm?

Do you have a specific location where these would be?

 

[PhotoDave219]

Good post and a very valid question. Here's my 2 cents:

Lets say StarWarsland gets a similar budget to Avatar. Maybe $700M to $800M. It will probably have 1 E ticket and 2 C/D tickets (hopefully a legit D and a spinner or kids type ride) plus stores/restaurants/entertainment.

That leaves roughly $1B for another E-ticket and 4 additional C/D tickets. For a billion you could have built FLE twice. That land has 2 D tickets plus double dumbo and the BOG restaurant. If you built an E, 2 Ds and 2 spinner type rides I would think it would cost about the same considering you don't need the extensive rock work (unless the E is RSR). Assume maybe a Pixar based E plus a Pixar D dark ride and a few kids rides. The other D could be a frozen dark ride or maybe something else. Instead they could do 2 Pixar Ds plus an Indy clone as the E.

In summary, for $1.7B they should definitely be able to add 8 rides with 2 being E ticket even by Disney's bloated budgets. Will they get that much? That's the $1.7B question. IMHO just adding SW Land isn't enough. They need those other 4 or 5 rides to round out the park.

Here's the million dollar question. Why on earth would they spend $1.7 billion on Hollywood studios?

 

[bhg469]

Here's the million dollar question. Why on earth would they spend $1.7 billion on Hollywood studios?

Other than the fact that the park needs the help but they've proven that they don't need to shell out billions when people are coming no matter what.

 

[WildcatDen]

I'm in the mood. Go ahead.

I wonder how many fanbois purposeively dropped the soap after reading that line?

 

[AEfx]

An announcement about closing, new attraction, reopening date, and all of that sort of stuff that typically would be overhyped twelve times over are a catalyst for a reaction to which Disney has no good answer. Waiting means they can wait until it is too late and in the mean time play dumb.

Let's get practical here, though. Very few average guests are going to be upset about Malestrom going, particularly to bring in the current hot Disney movie (which shows no signs of slowing down, in spite of the peanut gallery comments around parts like these). I like Malestrom, but looking at this from a practical/value standpoint, it's going to please many more folks than it won't. The only reason Malestrom gets the lines it does is because it's the only ride in that entire hemisphere of the park aside from Mexico. There really is nothing controversial about it in general, at all.

Ask Robert Iger that. He has so little faith in Disney product overall that he bought non-studio-generated IPs in the belief that THAT was the way to keep the company strong.

A very correct belief, so good on him for that.

Iger isn't a "parks" guy, no question, but the steps he has taken to save Disney's film business, live action in particular, which has been a struggle all the way back to Walt's day, and ensured that it will endure for many, many years to come.

The whole "non-studio-generated" IPs thing is just silliness. "Studios" don't generate anything, creative folks that work for them do. Using as a benchmark who is on payroll at what studio when something was generated seems really silly.

The purchases of Lucasfilm and Marvel were masterstrokes - not only do they fill a huge void Disney had for live action, they can also be exploited in animated franchises and beyond. They are perfect properties to have under the Disney umbrella. I don't see kids settling down to watch John Carter: The Animated Series.

It's certainly a lot more appropriate to Disney than, say, Touchstone pictures was, with Bette Midler mouthing off four-letter words and Julia Robert's selling herself on the streets of LA. And a lot better material than the Disney Channel stuff the other live-action properties seem to be culled from aside from the massive failures of John Carter, Lone Ranger, and even the tepid response Tron Legacy (which I just saw last night and is actually a darn good film).

Disney is simply a studio going after the best material, getting Lucasfilm and Marvel were extremely smart moves for them, and will be paying the bills for decades to come.

 

[Bairstow]

Do you have a specific location where these would be?

I don't.
I can't remember which Podcast Jim made the claim in, either, though it was probably one of the Disney Dish podcasts having to do with Epcot.

The figures were last publicly seen at a D23 event in Orlando, but that was a couple years ago.

 

[misterID]

Other than the fact that the park needs the help but they've proven that they don't need to shell out billions when people are coming no matter what.

The answer might be more interesting if a UNI third gate actually gets greenlit, and how its executed... I heard the term "radical proposals", but those are just ideas and are tempered with "being years away." People will still pile in for the Mouse, for sure. But there is something to be said for DLR's continued growth, it's newfound and burgeoning hot tourist destination status, and I wouldn't discount the continued popularity of the Asia Parks. And the last I heard, TDL/SEA isn't far off from being a top Disney destination spot behind WDW... and the OLC is determined to replace "a" with "the." I don't know the current numbers, but a few years ago they were steadily closing in. If more parks open for those resorts, on top of how ambitious UNI wants to get... It could get interesting.

 

[AEfx]

I wouldn't call it the love as such. More like a concerted effort by a small group of people who want things to be better. Much like when Gran Fiesta got LEDs added in the party scene. Little additions that make a difference but anyone upstairs wouldn't even know about. Proper corporate love for SSE would come when the ride system and track defects were fixed and the descent was plussed.

That was what my feeling was after going to Disneyland for the first time, particularly in the Fantasyland rides. It doesn't take much to plus them up - they just don't care in Orlando. Considering you can make a fiber optic "starfield" in your kid's bedroom for a couple hundred bucks at this point, for example, the lack of them in our Pan vs. Disneyland's is astounding.

 

[Goofyernmost]

And that IS what happened 4-5 weeks ago when the system went dead at all four parks. Anyone with anything resembling Disney ticket media was allowed entry 'for free' ... because a $2 billion plus program was built with NO BACKUP. Please, someone try and defend this ... I'm in the mood. Go ahead.

I have a serious question about that. I will, up front, admit to a very limited knowledge of computers and, especially, systems such as this and how the guts of it work. My question is what could they use as a back up that wouldn't take just as long to get on-line as fixing the current system and get it running again. And wouldn't a backup system that covers the entire operational system be, really, another complete system? What else would be powerful enough to work and have all transactions duplicated. That would be necessary to have a smooth, seamless take over wouldn't it? It's not like a desktop computer that only requires downloading the backup disc to a new computer and like magic you now have all your e-mails ready to be read.

If the answer is some sort of hand held device, I'm thinking that all it could do would be to record the usage for download later. That would at least save them a few bucks. Without that someone like me with my handy dandy 10 day, non-exp. pass would be a free day when the system is out. That along with the ones mentioned like the three day, etc. Although that adds up to a bunch, it seems like far more of the tickets sold are length of stay passes that will expire after 14 days of the first usage anyway and the day that was not recorded will just age away, wouldn't it? And of those, how many of them would coincidentally be the first day of the visit. Some would already have the clock running on them from days previous.

Those accountants are way to conscience of money to not have figured out, a long time ago, that the cost of a backup against the time to kick it in vs. the time the system is likely to be once again operational vs. how many tickets are actually going to be able to be used, would probably render it a waste of money. All tickets that are held by guests have already been paid for ahead of time. I don't see where Disney stands to lose much more then the stats for that particular day. Whereas, a major hold up of people getting into the parks would mean a loss of money spent once on the inside as well as a PR nightmare. Perhaps all that is necessary to back up a 2B dollar system is a little chewing gum and duct tape.

 

[flynnibus]

I have a serious question about that. I will, up front, admit to a very limited knowledge of computers and, especially, systems such as this and how the guts of it work. My question is what could they use as a back up that wouldn't take just as long to get on-line as fixing the current system and get it running again. And wouldn't a backup system that covers the entire operational system be, really, another complete system?

Short answer - no - if you built it right from the start. Even if you don't, you may find you want a suitable 'reduced feature set' that you can rely on at all times, etc.

The point is do you consider resilency and fault tolerance a requirement and how do you go about addressing it. Sometimes in a design you simply don't do something at all, because you know it can't be made fault tolerant easily. Or you shape your entire concept by the idea that this needs to be resilient to start with.

If it didn't matter, if it was too expensive, too complex, etc all can go a million different directions depending on needs and desires.

But its clear they didn't make fault tolerance at this level a requirement for production use.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Short answer - no - if you built it right from the start. Even if you don't, you may find you want a suitable 'reduced feature set' that you can rely on at all times, etc.

The point is do you consider resilency and fault tolerance a requirement and how do you go about addressing it. Sometimes in a design you simply don't do something at all, because you know it can't be made fault tolerant easily. Or you shape your entire concept by the idea that this needs to be resilient to start with.

If it didn't matter, if it was too expensive, too complex, etc all can go a million different directions depending on needs and desires.

But its clear they didn't make fault tolerance at this level a requirement for production use.

So then, if I'm reading you correctly, they didn't feel a fault tolerance was necessary or that it couldn't be done easily enough to warrant the effort vs. the cost? Are they wrong? And if so, why?

 

[flynnibus]

So then, if I'm reading you correctly, they didn't feel a fault tolerance was necessary or that it couldn't be done easily enough to warrant the effort vs. the cost? Are they wrong? And if so, why?

There is no way to answer that. The outcomes include choices - not stand-alone facts.

 

[Rteetz]

1. What is Star Wars Studio? Have I missed something?

2. After visiting DCA 2.0 just a few days ago, while it is still fresh in my head, let me say that it is a big improvement, but it can't stop there. It still needs a lot of work. For example, Bugs Land feels so out of place. The Hollywood section and Red Car Trolley was a big surprise and came out better than expected. When you consider how much money was put into the redo and compare that to the original cost adjusted for inflation, you begin to appreciate how much "bang" DCA got for its buck. I'm not at all condoning the cheapness of DCA 1.0 but it did get a lot for its bare minimum dollar.

Disney created a division of sorts in imagineering just for Star Wars. I forget the name of the imagineer that was heading the project but it was announced a while ago. Star Wars studios was the name of that.

 

[lazyboy97o]

How many people on a given day are just showing up with expired tickets? How many locals with expired tickets are following Twitter waiting for word of an outage?

 

[arko]

I have a serious question about that. I will, up front, admit to a very limited knowledge of computers and, especially, systems such as this and how the guts of it work. My question is what could they use as a back up that wouldn't take just as long to get on-line as fixing the current system and get it running again. And wouldn't a backup system that covers the entire operational system be, really, another complete system? What else would be powerful enough to work and have all transactions duplicated. That would be necessary to have a smooth, seamless take over wouldn't it? It's not like a desktop computer that only requires downloading the backup disc to a new computer and like magic you now have all your e-mails ready to be read.

If the answer is some sort of hand held device, I'm thinking that all it could do would be to record the usage for download later. That would at least save them a few bucks. Without that someone like me with my handy dandy 10 day, non-exp. pass would be a free day when the system is out. That along with the ones mentioned like the three day, etc. Although that adds up to a bunch, it seems like far more of the tickets sold are length of stay passes that will expire after 14 days of the first usage anyway and the day that was not recorded will just age away, wouldn't it? And of those, how many of them would coincidentally be the first day of the visit. Some would already have the clock running on them from days previous.

Those accountants are way to conscience of money to not have figured out, a long time ago, that the cost of a backup against the time to kick it in vs. the time the system is likely to be once again operational vs. how many tickets are actually going to be able to be used, would probably render it a waste of money. All tickets that are held by guests have already been paid for ahead of time. I don't see where Disney stands to lose much more then the stats for that particular day. Whereas, a major hold up of people getting into the parks would mean a loss of money spent once on the inside as well as a PR nightmare. Perhaps all that is necessary to back up a 2B dollar system is a little chewing gum and duct tape.

That question doesn't have a clear cut answer, because it depends on what went down and when. One would assume that the applications that support MM+ were built to be in whats called a Highly Available state with load balancing built in. This means that the application and database are spread over multiple machines either physical or virtual. This simply means that if one server goes down the others keep going and take up the load, and that all traffic is load balanced across the hopefully many app servers accepting connections from both the web and the MM+ mobile apps. This is usually done at the network layer in front of the app servers. Even with this kind of setup you have to choose just how highly available you want to be. These servers are generally located in purpose built datacenters with redundant internet connections and generator power to ensure the system keeps going despite loss of power or loss of some internet paths. The costs rise as you build out your ability to stay up and running, and in some cases this is where costs are cut. Instead of always on redundant paths you might have standby paths that needs intervention to be brought online. Also in the worst case scenario and all connectiions are cut to your datacenter , do you mirror your apps elsewhere so that traffic just gets sent to the backup location.Having all this is expensive and it must be maintained properly to provide seamless failover. Given I don't know exactly what happened to the app servers during the outage its hard to say where the failure was.

 

[misterID]

How many people on a given day are just showing up with expired tickets? How many locals with expired tickets are following Twitter waiting for word of an outage?

I don't think that was the point, though. And you wouldn't have to wait, just notice the opportunity.

 

[Goofyernmost]

There is no way to answer that. The outcomes include choices - not stand-alone facts.

I can see that, but, wouldn't choices be based on a combination of stand alone facts, perceptions and, to a certain extent advice based on those facts? In other words... is it not possible that the decision was based on the bigger picture determined by many possible scenarios?

 

[flynnibus]

I can see that, but, wouldn't choices be based on a combination of stand alone facts, perceptions and, to a certain extent advice based on those facts? In other words... is it not possible that the decision was based on the bigger picture determined by many possible scenarios?

Decisions are based on what you value. The outcome is dependent on what order you tackled things too. The tradeoffs they may have had to analyze are literally endless because we have no insight into the sequence of things or priorities presented. Was it an oversight, or choice? Impossible to say from where we sit.

All we know is it wasn't addressed and there are consequences. If those were acceptable, lesser of evils, a suprise... who knows.

To your earlier question..

Yes technically you could make up a solution that had backup
You could also design a solution that was much simplier than my first solution if you had designed it that way from the start
You could also simplify if you can decide some things are less critical than others, etc

It's a worthless 'what if' without any hard requirements.

 

[arko]

I can see that, but, wouldn't choices be based on a combination of stand alone facts, perceptions and, to a certain extent advice based on those facts? In other words... is it not possible that the decision was based on the bigger picture determined by many possible scenarios?

You would many be amazed how many IT projects get short changed when it comes to disaster recovery, because in many cases number crunchers cannot understand why they are paying for hardware that isn't doing anything at the moment and is there for just in case. And then you would also be equally amazed at how quickly those things get paid for the first time it fails and there is business impact.

 

[CDavid]

How many people on a given day are just showing up with expired tickets? How many locals with expired tickets are following Twitter waiting for word of an outage?

Anecdotal, but I've seen it happen. Woman and two kids in line in front of us last summer at the guest services window by the Animal Kingdom ticket booths; Her kids tickets were showing 'expired'. Apparently the father had taken just the kids into the Studios just to see a show one evening on a non-park day, thus using a days admission.

Given the relatively low cost of adding days to tickets, not much of a loss had they been let in as an honest mistake. So while such things happen, can't imagine it is very common.