I disagree with that part. I don't think "the reason" is just a single reason of political correct good will. I think that getting rid of the controversy is a bonus they hope to achieve and have people go easy on them if the new attraction does not deliver on the same design accomplishments. It would relate more to the pattern of what we saw with Disney's similar undertakings with patterns of attraction rethemes at EPCOT.
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Tiana's Bayou Adventure: Disneyland Watch & Discussion
- Thread starter Californian Elitist
- Start date
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
Yep. Disney is influenced by one thing, money.
They drafted up the concept a year ago while they were having a huge Splash Mountain Merchandise campaign and had specialty ZipLoc bags handed out when you went in line.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
If I recall @TP2000 talked to a Disney employee last summer and was told the concept was created as a potential idea for having more merchandise sales and instragrammable food options.
There was only a few pieces of concept art made. When the petitions to replace Splash with Tiana gained news coverage Disney fully embraced the concept and made an announcement way too early, the concept wasn't even in any design phase yet.
There was only a few pieces of concept art made. When the petitions to replace Splash with Tiana gained news coverage Disney fully embraced the concept and made an announcement way too early, the concept wasn't even in any design phase yet.
el_super
Well-Known Member
Maybe I misread, but I thought you were trying to draw the conclusion that the ride didn't need to be replaced/the controversy wasn't strong enough to warrant replacement, based on the ride's popularity. I'm trying to point out that similar rides exist, without those characters, and they are still popular. That leads me to think that the inclusion of those specific characters from Song of the South are not all that important to the ride's overall success, which we can test and validate when they are removed from the attraction.
In short, you are assuming that, as people are still riding the attraction, that is defacto approval for the depiction of those characters within said attraction. But there is no way to adequately assign what amount of the popularity of the attraction is based on the characters, and whether those that even like those characters fully understand the consequence of their inclusion.
Consequential to some, but to a whole lot, not really so. That's why it was removed.
If you're going to make the argument that Splash has to be replaced because it can't sell merchandise, you've basically admitted that there is a problem with the IP.
It sells Merch, but it can always sell more with minimal effort and no more operating cost than now.(possibly less)
The same reason Disney was ready to jump on Big Thunder if Lone Ranger was a hit. It was not and the project was scrapped.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
That was never the intention when they built Splash Mountain. If Disney were really supporting and commercializing the film, they'd have released it on DVD multiple times and sold merchandise of the film's live action characters.
Hasn't hurt Dumbo the Flying Elephant. Or Peter Pan's Flight. Or Mickey's Philharmagic, which has elements from Fantasia in it. Or The Magic Carpets of Aladdin or the multiple Little Mermaid and Lion King rides, even though I've heard people claim those films are racist. It doesn't seem to have hurt the retheme, either, despite the fact that there are folks who think The Princess and the Frog is racist.
Heck, the fact that Mickey and Goofy have starred in shorts with racist stuff in them hasn't hurt Mickey's Runaway Railway, or the entirety of Mickey's Toontown. This whole mess got started because Song of the South is an easy target.
I'm not defending Song of the South, but this isn't about Song of the South. This is about Splash Mountain.
There are various reasons, but I believe its connection to SotS is the main one. And they’re replacing it with Tiana at that? Yeah.
Disney has been trying to distance themselves from Song Of the South since the 90s, and are now seizing their chance to completely disown it. Plain and simple. Yes they tried to rescue it with building Splash but once the controversy kicked back up they said forget it and went back to "Let's pretend it doesn't exist"
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It’s about Song of the South.
Disney has never hidden behind the list of films you mention here. That’s probably the biggest factor that sets SotS apart from the others.
Disney continues to make it very obvious that they want nothing to do with it.
Disney has essentially dug themselves into a hole with Song Of the South. Years and years of pretending it's some hideous monster that can never see the light of day has prevented them from releasing it without facing "DiSney REleaSeS ExTREmleY Racist MovIe" backlash.
Correct. Absolutely. It was a big mistake to halt official releases of the film in the U.S. Now if they try and do something with the movie, it’s probably going to be met with even more intense backlash from some of the public and would most likely be a PR nightmare.
ElvisMickey
Well-Known Member
I don't know if it was brought up in this thread or not and I'm admittedly not reading through the whole thing, but I'm sure that many of you are aware that Disney went and preemptively changed Snow White's Scary Adventures to Snow White's Enchanted Wish at Disneyland and also changed several scenes in the ride, then got backlash from the very people they were trying to appease due to the "final scene". If you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up. The point is, people who live in their mom's basement who can't even afford to go to Disney and make a stink online will never be happy. They're miserable individuals. Disney needs to worry about people in their parks and unless they're getting serious backlash from their actual guests, they should chill out when it comes to changing things that their regulars have enjoyed for years.
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el_super
Well-Known Member
Sure... and why do you think that is?
I feel like you're getting caught up in this circular logic trap: If Disney had supported the movie more, the characters would be more popular, and if the characters were more popular, the ride would sell more merchandise, and if the ride sold more merchandise, Disney would be more supportive of the movie.
But you are failing to acknowledge why Disney couldn't support the movie in the first place.
el_super
Well-Known Member
LOL, it's the people who CAN afford to go to Disneyland that complain the most about it.
Just because he does not mention it does not mean he does not know. We know why, we just see it as a concept of creating the (Splash) Mountain out of the Molehill if you will.
ElvisMickey
Well-Known Member
I saw SOTS for the first time in ‘86. I also have a pretty recent DVD copy of the movie. Admittedly, the movie isn’t that great and Bobby Driscoll is annoying as hell in it. However, I’m not a fan of canceling history so Disney should most definitely stand behind this movie. We can’t change history by ignoring it.
ElvisMickey
Well-Known Member
I don’t know…the Twitter mob looks pretty rough
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
The controversy did not kick back up until Frederick Chambers posted his idea for a retheme in 2020... THIRTY-ONE YEARS AFTER THE RIDE OPENED. If the ride featuring characters from the animated segments of Song of the South (which are often singled out as being the film's only redeeming factor) was such a bad thing, it wouldn't have taken us thirty-one years to notice it.
The ride and the movie are separate things, and Dumbo, Fantasia, and Peter Pan having racist stuff in 'em has always seen about as well-known as Song of the South is. Removing Splash Mountain out of fear that someone is offended by the movie it was based on but allowing attractions based on other movies that someone is offended by is hypocritical.
Again, I am not defending Song of the South. I am not saying that the film is not racist. I'm not saying that the film should be supported more so that the characters become more popular. I just don't think it should matter what the attraction's source material is like so long as the attraction itself is not racist.
The funny thing is, I bet most of you went on Splash Mountain at least once and liked it before this mess got started.
ElvisMickey
Well-Known Member
I know people get all crazy when other folks ask, “What would Walt do?” But Disney is Disney because of what Walt would do. And he wouldn’t be a fan of cancel culture. He’d put his cigarette butt out in your eyeball…