THE 1HAPPY HAUNT
Well-Known Member
Just make it a parking lot again.
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Three Rides to Fix DCA
- Thread starter mickEblu
- Start date
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
I pitched an Edutainment Epcot-style California themed attraction to replace LM and Redwood.
And the Original Poster set parameters for this to be a realistic option and Disney leadership has said very clearly that they will not be building an original attraction anytime soon. They said other theme parks would kill for the IPs they own and they'd be foolish not to take advantage of their own property.
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
It's not just you. Soarin' Around The World was made for Shanghai Disneyland and made to please the Communist censors in Beijing. It's notably less fun and somehow less interesting. At least for American audiences.
I have long thought there should be a Soarin' Over America for the Epcot attraction, and a remade and updated Soarin' Over California for DCA. But, that's obviously not an investment in showmanship that Bob Chapek would know how to approve, so we'll need to wait a while.
One thing I'll say, at least the new version has transitions. One thing I hated about the original were the jump cuts. It felt like I was watching one of those IMAX movies they have at museums. The underwater world film is on next.
Soarin always felt like a ride system prototype that was thrown in without any set dressing or polished experience. The mechanics are not hidden. The screen is illuminated Microsoft Blue when you walk in. The loading platform is gray concrete with a safety rail against the screen.
If the Marvel E-Ticket ever happens and is a new version of the ride-system, they should get rid of this embarrassment.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Okay, good point. The transitions, or lack thereof, needs some work from the 2001 original.
But that's just short snippets of two or three seconds of "Look, we're in the clouds!" time during the show. I mean, really, it makes more sense how we jump the 500 miles from San Diego to Lake Tahoe in a few minutes than how we jump the 5,000 miles from the Taj Mahal to the Eiffel Tower in a few minutes.
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TP2000
Well-Known Member
The new Spiderman ride and the 13 year old Midway Mania both in DCA seem to prove your thesis wrong.
They'll never get rid of Soarin' at DCA, even if the Marvel Land E Ticket is just a Marvelized clone of Avatar Flight Of Passage with a twink in a small t-shirt hosting the pre-show. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
The difference is that Spider-Man is a downgrade to Midway Mania. I could see Disney swapping out Spider-Man or plussing it in 10 years if people stop showing up to it.The new Spiderman ride and the 13 year old Midway Mania both in DCA seem to prove your thesis wrong.
They'll never get rid of Soarin' at DCA, even if the Marvel Land E Ticket is just a Marvelized clone of Avatar Flight Of Passage with a twink in a small t-shirt hosting the pre-show. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
That's a very forceful support of circa 2008 Midway Mania. Is the new Spiderman ride (which I haven't been on) that much of a disappointment, in your opinion?
Granted, I wasn't that impressed from what I saw of a 4K YouTube version. The circa 2005 "Techy Open House!" backstory thrown at us in the queue. The preshow hosted by the twink in the small t-shirt. The fake hammers and wrenches hot-glued onto the walls of the preshow and queue to enforce the "You're in an industrial space!" plotline. The supersized CM's in untucked shirts and knee-length shorts because it's "industrial" and lowered standards helps Chapek keep wages lower. The frantic "We need your help!" blabbering dialogue once you get in your vehicle and pull down on the lapbar. The pew-pew thing at video screenz with your own hands instead of holding a gun, cause that's... better? safer? politically correct?
Honestly. Is the new Spiderman ride really that underwhelming?
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
I like the idea of transitions, but I honestly prefer the jump cuts to the transitions they went with in SOTW, which invariably involve CGI and/or things being thrown in your face.
Surely there are more graceful, subtle approaches they could take to transition than "fake elephant throws sand at you" and the others of similar ilk.
I find the transitions to be too repetitive and gimmicky. Between the two, I prefer the jump cuts. Speaking of, when will Soarin Over California come back? I’m guessing early Summer.
What bugs me about Disney in this case is they know that the majority of people prefer Soarin Over California and yet they treat it like a seasonal churro. Why can’t Soarin Around the World be the seasonal treat? This would be like if classic Mansion was around for only 4 months a year like HMH. It’s not like it’s admitting defeat or something. World is playing at what, 3 other Disney parks now? They can view it as being worth the investment. The Original should be playing the majority of the time especially when it’s objectively better.
Mac Tonight
Well-Known Member
I wouldn't mind them cloning The Great Movie Ride and the Sci-Fi Dine In to fix the fledgling Hollywood area.
Sci Fi Dine in would be great! If Hollywoodland doesn’t stick around they could put it in Cars Land… if there’s still any room? That new building they put behind Luigi’s might have killed that idea.
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
I've been wanting that for a long time. We were suppose to get a Cars themed drive in for Carsland but they never followed through.
Suspirian
Well-Known Member
The concept of those combined would be cool too. Imagine a ride through various sci-fi movies that starts in a drive in rather than a movie palace!
Phroobar
Well-Known Member
and you watch the ride vehicles enter the show building from the restaurant ala Pirates.
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
The new one isn't perfect. But I feel like it goes for a Disney immersive experience more than the original. Why bother adding scents and movement if you're going to have jump cuts and remind me constantly that we're watching an Imax movie?
The CGI ruins the experience and CA makes more sense for DCA. But I'd kill for them to turn the attraction into a real E-Ticket rather than a trade show experience.
waltography
Well-Known Member
While we're on the Soarin' tangent, in my eyes, there's only a few things that'd really bring out the full potential of the attraction, and all of them are basically returning it to its original state:
). The original attraction understood very well that the experience of enjoying California's humbling beauty transcended the medium, and I fear that even minimal transitions would still feel too gimmicky/detract from the experience more than the hard cuts do.
- Re-film the California sequence,
- bring back Jerry Goldsmith's original score,
- and bring back the dark screen at the beginning.
). The original attraction understood very well that the experience of enjoying California's humbling beauty transcended the medium, and I fear that even minimal transitions would still feel too gimmicky/detract from the experience more than the hard cuts do.What would elevate the attraction in your eyes? I find that the times Disney has tried to plus Soarin' it's been in disservice to the actual experience (Tokyo and Shanghai are both vastly plussed compared to the stateside Soarin's, but both overdo the build-up in their pre-shows).
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
Put some Disney level effort into the attraction. I don't need a narrative, but Disney excels at storytelling. Even GRR around the bend, which is a D+ Ticket, has a sense of story. Are we hang gliding, flying in planes, what? What experience is Disney trying to simulate with their simulator attraction?
Give us a load station that doesn't feel cold and industrial. Have the the screen/overhead be a star-filled night with trees and earth all around. The sun rises on the screen, and we lift up as the trees fold down. Or go with a room-changing effect like Poseidon's Fury where we load in in one space, but as we transition to the ride, the sets fly out or drop down for a reveal of the open sky (screen.)
Have transitions where we catch an updraft and come down on another locale, or fly through a cloud, or using natural elements to create film wipes. Use the medium to add to our experience rather than distracting from our experience.
Right now, we have a Museum Film "California's Natural Wonders" with some chairs that move slightly. Disney should be proving a more unique experience than a Children's Museum.
No one is fooling themselves that walked in from the sunny outside world into a quiet evening on the bayou. But Disney still made the effort instead of just having a flat loading platform with some murals of pirates.
No one is fooling themselves that we're flying through space without a helmet or closed cabin, but Disney still puts storytelling elements in place so we can have a ride that lets us pretend we are soaring through space.
No one is fooling themselves that our river boat magically went from India to Africa in a bend of the river, but Disney still doesn't use that as an excuse to not have spent a pretty penny on plant life and fake rockwork so that we can live the story of going of a cruise through the jungles of the world.
As for other versions, TDS' version stands far above the others. The queue and building are gorgeous and inspire a sense of wonder. The pre-show is fun and helps sell the ideas present. The loading station has a themed balcony rail that matches the architecture of the queue/showbuilding, and the opening has us following the bird from the preshow who is peppered throughout.
el_super
Well-Known Member
I see both arguments, but I just wanted to add that part of the brilliance of Soarin, originally, was the simple presentation of it. I think it was harder to appreciate when it came out, but that straightforward sense of "this is an attraction," without the need to tell a complicated story, without the need to try to talk down to the audience or force a suspension of belief, was some welcome honesty. It encapsulated the original ethos of DCA: that something could be Disney, while talking to adults at an adult level.
It hearkens back to some of the other Disney presentations, like at the World's Fair, where something like Small World doesn't have to be explained or filled with story or where they tell you up front Lincoln is an animatronic.
Which to a degree is also why I find the CGI so grating: it's trying to make it into something it never was and never existed. It's trying to build fantasy around something that was always meant to be real.
But if you took that attraction from DCA and put it Disney Sea or Shanghai Disneyland, it's a completely different look/feel. Museum films should feel more at home at places like DCA (well at least the old DCA) and EPCOT, where something more substantial to support a fantasy would be required for the other parks.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
These are all great ideas to plus the ride. I like the starry night visual especially.
As the ride stands now its an airport hanger in the middle of a forest. Which makes no sense. The desert theme was uglier but worked.