The Spirited Seventh Heaven ...

[AEfx]

What part is the tall tale -- seems to me like JH getting tossed from a park due to an unauthorized tour is pretty widely known. The part about LM getting away with it because he has a state travel agent license?

That sounds like a fan boy sourced "Amidala didn't die of a broken heart" kind of 'scuse.

Makes you wonder why they are not building a cash hoard like AAPL or CSCO since it would be useful for acquisitions or downturns in the business cycle.

Odd very odd indeed.

Hasn't Apple been doing a great deal of buy backs themselves?

I know very little about that type of gambling, but I feel like they have been getting the same type of criticism.

AAPL and CSCO, CAT and a bunch of other don't feel that way, All you need is one bad event (Ebola outbreak anyone?) and the commercial paper market will freeze instantly just like 2008 and Lehman Bros..

Just imagine the nightmare scenario a patient is quarantined for Ebola at WDW. The place will be a ghost town overnight and all the cash generated at the WDW ATM disappears overnight at which point TWDC is in a world of hurt because as I recall they only have 1-2 billion in cash on hand and that's not going to sustain operations very long in light of the 13 BILLION profit WDW produces for TWDC.

Well, there's another possible thought: The company could be trying (slowly. Very slowly) to get back to 50.1% in house.

That's what a stock buyback signals to me. Same with Apple. I won't be surprised if Apple went private again - it's happened before.

 

[ford91exploder]

Check out what Disney is testing out for future animatronics, possibly for Avatar land.

The problem with pneumatic systems is the seals in the actuators as they wear rapidly - while cheap they do require frequent maintenance.

If you have a car with a liftgate which now goes up slowly or not at all you have the same issue the seals have worn letting the compressed gas escape, Pneumatics are very popular in industry because they are cheap and rebuildable but the actuator generally has a defined service life before the millwright needs to swap them out for a new or refurbished one.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

The article linked to in the air powered arm video by the way is a really interesting read-
http://www.disneyresearch.com/publication/fluid-soft-actuator/

Looks a little more elaborate than I suspected and they may have most of the obstacles I had in mind already sorted out (another earlier video demonstrating the technology indicates that they've considered weight differentials and are either looking into it or have already addressed any potential weight obstacles).

But as ford said above me while it's potentially cheap to maintain, it still needs a lot of babysitting apparantly, something i'd expect Disney would be willing to do 20 years ago but now less so. It is again cheap to maintain from a parts perspective (which would likely please the bean counters), but you still have to pay for constant manpower...

 

[Tigger1988]

Interesting little tidbit from NYCC today, DJ Elliot known for working the various WDW dance parties was the official DJ of the con.

 

[GoofGoof]

That sounds like a fan boy sourced "Amidala didn't die of a broken heart" kind of 'scuse.



Hasn't Apple been doing a great deal of buy backs themselves?

I know very little about that type of gambling, but I feel like they have been getting the same type of criticism.





That's what a stock buyback signals to me. Same with Apple. I won't be surprised if Apple went private again - it's happened before.

I think the TXU (power company in Dallas) leveraged buyout was the largest in history and I want to say it was just over $40B. Apple has a market cap somewhere over $600B. It would take quite a large pile of cash or a major amount of debt to pull that off. I don't think it would be possible unless the stock drops dramatically.

 

[AEfx]

Of course I'd blame Ridley Scott for Prometheus because apparently Lindelof didn't even bother turning in a script for that one ... you can't blame him!

Right, I mean ... you saw the movie ... there was no script ...

If there was, it was written by a seven year old. They lost me at the beginning when someone who is supposedly a xenobiologist does the "here kitty kitty" thing with the threatening creature - though perhaps I missed something and it was an allusion to Steve Irwin.

Exactly. And I was a Lost LOVER. I wasn't thrilled with the ending, but I certainly didn't hate it and felt it made sense with the narrative they had developed.

I feel similarly about Lost - funny, I haven't watched anything in a few years and I pulled out some Blu-rays and now I'm starting over and watching the show (Game of Thrones withdrawal, LOL). Man, I don't think such a gorgeously photographed show has ever been on television.

That said - my issue with the last season was that the flash-sideways were an utter waste of 16 out of 18 episodes of the final season. It was a neat concept, but it was the concept for a finale, or a reunion film/series, not for the entire last season. That's why I felt a bit cheated - that and the annoyance with the fact folks who think that the last scene somehow was the resolution to the entire thing and excuses the overall lack of resolution - and not just as the explanation of the insular final season.

Spoiler

It was stated from the beginning the Island was not purgatory, and even post-finale the producers have emphasized that everything that happened on the Island was "real" - yet there is a massive misconception that somehow now the entire thing was - which ABC did not help with the insert of the beach over the end credits, which were not intended to be narrative.

That said, I've always assumed it was part of the middle of the series deal to end it that they didn't provide a lot of the answers - though at the time they swore up and down it wasn't true, this was the "end" - ABC will certainly be reviving Lost at some point. There are so many characters and possibilities that even if Fox or Lilly don't come back, there are plenty who would. Even Lindeloff came out a week or so back and said he fully expects it to happen - if we aren't back on the Island by the end of the decade, I'll be shocked.

 

[AEfx]

The film is done, as far as I know, or at least filming. But it is meant as an opening day attraction for SDL, and I doubt VERY strongly that the CCP is going to allow Disney to pluck another opening day exclusive and open it in Florida first like they did with HKDL's Mickey's PhilharMagic.

There's also FL specific issues of upgrading projectors and whether or not the 3rd theater gets added.

So, yeah, this film is years away from debuting here.

Do they really care about "exclusivity"? That has always felt like a lifestyler whine-point, as the percentage of visitors to a domestic theme park that will ever venture to an international Disney park is so infinitesimal as to be statistically akin to being struck by lightning while playing Hokey Pokey.

The second part was my assumption - they want to introduce the film when they get around to increasing capacity/tech at the theater.

You know what gets under my skin (trivial or not)? The fact that Crystal Palace recently got an LED lighting package (which admittedly looks quite nice), and there are already a ton of the lights either burned out or switched off (LED's should not be dying this quickly unless they were intentionally disabled to "pinch pennies")... Sad thing is that the facades look pretty fantastic before the lights come on.

That makes no sense. LED's, even under high usage, are rated to last a decade or more. That's why I have been surprised they haven't rolled them out resort wide. They also save quite a bit of money, using far less electricity than even those halogen abominations. I know this is TDO we are talking about, and since they are more expensive up front I'm sure that plays into it - but with the reduced maintenance costs and much longer life they make such sense. I've moved my entire home to them - they are spectacular.

Random but it irks me and we were discussing lighting. I'm also a little disappointed at how the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is lit at night. I kind of expected them to do something with sparkling gems outside of the mountain for night given what the early concept art was hinting at.

That's the type of simple yet cool thing that is accessible enough technology (like the fiber optics that add so much to Pan at DLR) that can be dome simply and cheaply by anyone in their own home - that I just don't get why Disney doesn't plus. The cost is so low and the effect so, well, effective.

 

[AEfx]

I think the TXU (power company in Dallas) leveraged buyout was the largest in history and I want to say it was just over $40B. Apple has a market cap somewhere over $600B. It would take quite a large pile of cash or a major amount of debt to pull that off. I don't think it would be possible unless the stock drops dramatically.

Haha, see, I told you I knew nothing about it.

Interesting - thanks for the info! One of the nice things about this site, like /., is that you can usually find someone(s) who are oddly well-informed on just about any topic that comes up.

 

[Lee]

We Disney Bioshock now

I'm in.

 

[GoofGoof]

Haha, see, I told you I knew nothing about it.

Interesting - thanks for the info! One of the nice things about this site, like /., is that you can usually find someone(s) who are oddly well-informed on just about any topic that comes up.

I was intimately familiar with the TXU buyout when it happened. The private equity hedge funds made a huge bet on natural gas and electricity prices going up and they lost. It went real bad in the end. They borrowed $40B to finance the deal but the company fell on hard times and couldn't make their debt payments. They finally went bankrupt this year. The goal was to eventually either sell the company or IPO it again once the market swung up again.

I think there was some talk of bringing TWDC private again back in the early 80s before Eisner took over when the stock price was low.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

@AEfx

LED's can apparently fail prematurely if they're built with poor quality heatsinks or capacitors so i've heard. This may or may not be true of the ones on the Crystal Palace, but even given that possibility i'm still kind of at a loss as to why they're failing THIS quickly. I don't even think they're a year old, someone first noticed them just a couple of months ago (they can't be too old)-
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/led-lights.885761/

Even a somewhat poorly manufactured LED light should probably be lasting far longer than a couple of months i'd imagine (should still outlive an incandescent by a massive amount of time). Unless they're turning some of them off intentionally (if this is even possible to do on such a random selective basis) then i'm stumped. I guess it's possible that it's not the lights that are failing but the wiring underneath. I don't know, but either way it looks very weird and i'm not satisfied with it. I just watched some old home movies of mine from the early 90's a couple of months ago, had some footage from Main Street at night and I was taken aback to see almost no lights out on the buildings (incandescents no less, there was maybe a rare one or two in a strand of hundreds, and even then the maintenance crews kept right on the ball about replacing them and being proactive about it).

And the sooner the Grand Floridian gets a major lighting overhaul (with LEDs) the better. Last week that I checked, only Narcoossees was lit up, the rest of the hotel was dark (not a light to be seen). It WAS admittedly still partially daylight out, so I guess it's possible they simply hadn't switched the rest of the lights on yet. Though they had already switched on Main Street and Narcoossees as I said (Martin also said in a trip report that GF is looking terrible due to the lighting). I couldn't even tell if the rest of the resort just hadn't been lit up yet or if there were simply THAT many lights out.

I'm a huge fan of LEDs and fully support their growing popularity, they can now be made to approximate traditional incandescent light output and color temperature. Though I do question the point of Disney using them if theirs don't even last any longer than older lightbulbs...

 

[lazyboy97o]

Do they really care about "exclusivity"? That has always felt like a lifestyler whine-point, as the percentage of visitors to a domestic theme park that will ever venture to an international Disney park is so infinitesimal as to be statistically akin to being struck by lightning while playing Hokey Pokey.

All three of the new lands at Hong Kong Disneyland have exclusivity agreements. The issue isn't so much a concern with people going elsewhere (it is to Government of Hong Kong) but Walt Disney Imagineering overcharging as a means of financing additions to the Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World and to a lesser extent Disneyland Paris.

 

[Lee]

speaking of films , you have to check out" Gone Girl"
rosamund pike, my gosh was she great in this.

she is a like young grace kelly,couldnt take my eyes off her.

Yep
Great book, great film, great performance.

Affleck wasn't bad in it....but he was the bomb in Phantoms.

 

[AEfx]

All thre of the new lands at Hong Kong Disneyland have exclusivity agreements. The issue isn't so much a concern with people going elsewhere (it is to Government of Hong Kong) but Walt Disney Imagineering overcharging as a means of financing additions to the Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World and to a lesser extent Disneyland Paris.

That makes sense. I haven't been following HKDL very closely - very interesting.

 

[AEfx]

Yep
Great book, great film, great performance.

Affleck wasn't bad in it....but he was the bomb in Phantoms.

Oh, Phantoms - memories of Ben Affleck when he had bad teeth and was rapidly losing his hairline, before Disney paid for his Armageddon make-over.

 

[Omnispace]

Syd Mead must be involved.

 

[Smiddimizer]

First thing I thought of seeing the shot in the field with the "city" in the background was the Prologue and the Promise.

Film has lots of potential but I thought the trailer was pretty dull. Not sure if I should get excited with Lindelof involved.

You should watch an interview with him. Really quick, funny guy. Doesn't at all strike me as a hack the way he does some. I'm not at all interested in his HBO show out now, but some of his earlier work on Lost (with Carlton Cuse--yes there's actually someone else you can blame for train-wrecking S6!) is some of the best damn television out there (we have to go back!!)

 

[lazyboy97o]

That makes sense. I haven't been following HKDL very closely - very interesting.

Their case is a bit unique. Concerns that Shanghai Disneyland would steal guests have been present since negotiations began in the late 1990s. Getting exclusive lands was a way to ensure that Disney actually spent money on creating something after the Government felt they were cheated on the opening day park and its immediate expansions. The Oriental Land Company has tired of paying more while Disney drones on about standards that the Oriental Land Company has long exceeded and Disney long abandoned. The Communist Party is just brimming with shrewd observers who know Disney's prior tactics but also their desperation.

 

[bhg469]

Yep
Great book, great film, great performance.

Affleck wasn't bad in it....but he was the bomb in Phantoms.

Word, phantoms like a mo fo

 

[Captain Neo]

They need to demolish the Tomorrowland's in Anaheim and Orlando and rebuild them like Shanghai's. SDL's TL (and the TL movie concept art) is exactly what a modern 21st century TL should look like. The American parks are laughably outdated and a hodge podge mix of random ideas and old imagineer vanity projects.