Tiana's Bayou Adventure: Disneyland Watch & Discussion

[mickEblu]

What the heck are you talking about

Lol. I was going to ask the same thing

 

[RobWDW1971]

Disney is currently learning a very valuable lesson - that it is fine to have a DEI group who sends out daily meaningless company-wide emails celebrating every conceivable ethnic, orientation, and aggrieved group which are destined to be instantly deleted or automatically sent to the spam folder (“Celebrating Indigenous Swedish Fishermen Month!”).

However, it’s another thing entirely to have a group whose sole “skill” is to be diverse and demand more diversity (How much more? More!) to actually influence your feature, animation, and theme park divisions’ creative decisions.

This will be “the Bobs’” unfortunate legacy, eroding decades of brand loyalty and goodwill for momentary Silver Lake cred by people that have never and will never buy your product.

Whether it is Tiana’s Food Co-Op Adventure, Strange World, or the movie that opens in 108 days that cannot be named, the lessons are expensive and embarrassing.

Just sad to witness.

 

[_caleb]

Disney is currently learning a very valuable lesson - that it is fine to have a DEI group who sends out daily meaningless company-wide emails celebrating every conceivable ethnic, orientation, and aggrieved group which are destined to be instantly deleted or automatically sent to the spam folder (“Celebrating Indigenous Swedish Fishermen Month!”).

However, it’s another thing entirely to have a group whose sole “skill” is to be diverse and demand more diversity (How much more? More!) to actually influence your feature, animation, and theme park divisions’ creative decisions.

This will be “the Bobs’” unfortunate legacy, eroding decades of brand loyalty and goodwill for momentary Silver Lake cred by people that have never and will never buy your product.

Whether it is Tiana’s Food Co-Op Adventure, Strange World, or the movie that opens in 108 days that cannot be named, the lessons are expensive and embarrassing.

Just sad to witness.

What the heck are you talking about

 

[LittleBuford]

Let's say Disney were to contract an indigenous musician from a far-off place to create the soundtrack for the new live-action remake of a beloved animated film. Say they were to ask this artist to create songs that represent her home culture. They assign talented studio musicians from within the company to assist the musician in her work.

Now, because the artist is from a different culture, she may go about the creation of her music in a very different way than many music aficionados around here might be used to. She might use different instruments and techniques, or common instruments in different ways to achieve a sound that reflects her culture. While she's working on the project, she may talk about her music in her own language and in ways that are rooted in how her home culture creates and experiences music.

Imagine if Disney fans decided the soundtrack wasn't worth a listen (and the film not worth watching) simply because she didn't talk about her work the same way Randy Newman talked about his. Wouldn't it be strange if people judged the soundtrack (without having heard it) based on the cultural influences she cites as her inspiration? Or if music fans dismissed the musician outright because of who she is, where she's from, or because they'd already decided they don't like music from different cultures?

I understand the larger point you’re making and agree that it applies to much of the snide dismissiveness that has surrounded the retheme since its announcement. However, I also think it’s important to acknowledge that some of the criticisms that have been voiced aren’t coming from a place of (pre-)judgement, small-mindedness, or cultural insensitivity.

 

[Rich T]

Disney is currently learning a very valuable lesson - that it is fine to have a DEI group who sends out daily meaningless company-wide emails celebrating every conceivable ethnic, orientation, and aggrieved group which are destined to be instantly deleted or automatically sent to the spam folder (“Celebrating Indigenous Swedish Fishermen Month!”).

However, it’s another thing entirely to have a group whose sole “skill” is to be diverse and demand more diversity (How much more? More!) to actually influence your feature, animation, and theme park divisions’ creative decisions.

This will be “the Bobs’” unfortunate legacy, eroding decades of brand loyalty and goodwill for momentary Silver Lake cred by people that have never and will never buy your product.

Whether it is Tiana’s Food Co-Op Adventure, Strange World, or the movie that opens in 108 days that cannot be named, the lessons are expensive and embarrassing.

Just sad to witness.

Leave Strange World out of this. It’s a good sci-fi adventure that Disney appeared to abandon. It had script issues, but I’d rather see ten more solid, trying-something-new animated films from Disney than one more cookie-cutter musical.

 

[_caleb]

I understand the larger point you’re making and agree that it applies to much of the snide dismissiveness that has surrounded the retheme since its announcement. However, I also think it’s important to acknowledge that some of the criticisms that have been voiced aren’t coming from a place of (pre-)judgement, small-mindedness, or cultural insensitivity.

Thank you for saying this, because I totally agree. There are very valid reasons to dislike the retheme, and I think everyone is entitled to their opinion. I also think it’s ok if people just don’t care for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure!

 

[TP2000]

Disney is currently learning a very valuable lesson - that it is fine to have a DEI group who sends out daily meaningless company-wide emails celebrating every conceivable ethnic, orientation, and aggrieved group which are destined to be instantly deleted or automatically sent to the spam folder (“Celebrating Indigenous Swedish Fishermen Month!”).

I won't feel represented until you add a few things to that group... "Celebrating Indigenous Swedish Fishermen Who Are Gay Confirmed Bachelors Who Play Bad Tennis But Can Win Disneyland Bar Trivia While On Their Second Martini And Also Organize Corporate Coups That Dethrone Eisner Via Their Dial-Up Modem In The Den Circa 2004".

If you can create a group called that, I will finally feel represented! Until then, I think you're a bigot.

However, it’s another thing entirely to have a group whose sole “skill” is to be diverse and demand more diversity (How much more? More!) to actually influence your feature, animation, and theme park divisions’ creative decisions.

This will be “the Bobs’” unfortunate legacy, eroding decades of brand loyalty and goodwill for momentary Silver Lake cred by people that have never and will never buy your product.

Getting serious, this is also my fear: That Burbank executives now think the Silver Lake brunch crowd of childless adults is their core audience.
It's not, and it never will be. They are lucky that those folks are even a tiny, niche audience for however long it remains fashionable to them.

Their core audience is still out in the pitiful suburbs, where it's always been, where unfashionable people with unfashionable thoughts live and work and save up money to take their unfashionable kids to a Disney theme park or a Disney movie. Without a Mimosa in sight.

Whether it is Tiana’s Food Co-Op Adventure, Strange World, or the movie that opens in 108 days that cannot be named, the lessons are expensive and embarrassing.

Just sad to witness.

Agreed. But it's also fascinating. I can laugh more now because I sold all my DIS stock almost two years ago.

But big picture, it's not funny for the Walt Disney Company.

 

[zipadee999]

Just a rumor so take this whole thing like a grain of salt.

Supposedly the reason that the DL version doesn’t have a date and seems to be quietly operating and being maintained is because Ken Potrock deep down doesn’t want to do it. When Chapek was in charge, there was supposedly a point where the entire project was almost cancelled, because Ken and half of the board made extremely compelling arguments and Chapek was just about on board. The WDW president, who has been pro-retheme the entire time, apparently even considered cancelling it once Chapek was on board. Supposedly both parks would have still gotten Tiana rides so they could use the props already produced, but WDW would have built a ground up dark ride and DL would have done a Mr Toad retheme. Once Iger came back, who’s the most pro-retheme of them all, he started pushing and forcing the project harder than ever. The WDW president jumped on board immediately, but Ken decided to fight with Iger on it. Ken has half of the board backing him to save the DL version, but Iger is very adamant. Supposedly Iger threatened to fire Ken if he didn’t go through with it, so Ken decided to drag his feet on the Indy refurb so they physically couldn’t take splash down for capacity reasons. Apparently he’s using the extra time bought by extending the Indy refurb for he and the board to duke it out with Iger. Apparently the whole situation’s a mess right now. This story has been going around since about yesterday, and supposedly is from a high-ranking cast member who wishes not to be named to secure their job. A few YouTube channels have started to report it. This person said that under Chapek it got so far that they were in the initial stages of crafting a social media post calling the project off and announcing a different Tiana ride instead.

Again, take this as a grain of salt, no idea if it’s true or not, but it sure is interesting!

 

[MisterPenguin]

supposedly is from a high-ranking cast member

You'd have to be more than just a high-ranking cast member to know the back and forth of Board members. Might as well be a bus driver.

 

[Brer Oswald]

Just a rumor so take this whole thing like a grain of salt.

Supposedly the reason that the DL version doesn’t have a date and seems to be quietly operating and being maintained is because Ken Potrock deep down doesn’t want to do it. When Chapek was in charge, there was supposedly a point where the entire project was almost cancelled, because Ken and half of the board made extremely compelling arguments and Chapek was just about on board. The WDW president, who has been pro-retheme the entire time, apparently even considered cancelling it once Chapek was on board. Supposedly both parks would have still gotten Tiana rides so they could use the props already produced, but WDW would have built a ground up dark ride and DL would have done a Mr Toad retheme. Once Iger came back, who’s the most pro-retheme of them all, he started pushing and forcing the project harder than ever. The WDW president jumped on board immediately, but Ken decided to fight with Iger on it. Ken has half of the board backing him to save the DL version, but Iger is very adamant. Supposedly Iger threatened to fire Ken if he didn’t go through with it, so Ken decided to drag his feet on the Indy refurb so they physically couldn’t take splash down for capacity reasons. Apparently he’s using the extra time bought by extending the Indy refurb for he and the board to duke it out with Iger. Apparently the whole situation’s a mess right now. This story has been going around since about yesterday, and supposedly is from a high-ranking cast member who wishes not to be named to secure their job. A few YouTube channels have started to report it. This person said that under Chapek it got so far that they were in the initial stages of crafting a social media post calling the project off and announcing a different Tiana ride instead.

Again, take this as a grain of salt, no idea if it’s true or not, but it sure is interesting!

The only part of this I believe is Iger being the most pro retheme of them all. We’ve known that he’s had a vendetta against this property for awhile.

 

[zipadee999]

You'd have to be more than just a high-ranking cast member to know the back and forth of Board members. Might as well be a bus driver.

Well in all fairness it’s just the DL board, not the board of the entire company.

 

[LittleBuford]

WDW would have built a ground up dark ride and DL would have done a Mr Toad retheme.

This is the part that sounds fishiest to me. Fun as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is, it hardly lends itself as a ride system to the kind of project Disney had committed itself to with the announced retheme. It would have been viewed as a serious downgrade for Tiana.

 

[Brer Oswald]

This is the part that sounds fishiest to me. Fun as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is, it hardly lends itself as a ride system to the kind of project Disney had committed itself to with the announced retheme. It would have been viewed as a serious downgrade for Tiana.

It would also be difficult to modify the ride given how the building is shared and entwined with the Alice ride.

They would be more likely to use the Fantasyland Theatre plot.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Well in all fairness it’s just the DL board, not the board of the entire company.

Who's on the Disneyland Board?

 

[Professortango1]

This is the part that sounds fishiest to me. Fun as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is, it hardly lends itself as a ride system to the kind of project Disney had committed itself to with the announced retheme. It would have been viewed as a serious downgrade for Tiana.

Probably would have put in a different ride system as they did with Pooh at WDW. Something a bit slower moving and possibly with motion in the vehicles as we floated down the bayou.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Just a rumor so take this whole thing like a grain of salt.

Supposedly the reason that the DL version doesn’t have a date and seems to be quietly operating and being maintained is because Ken Potrock deep down doesn’t want to do it. When Chapek was in charge, there was supposedly a point where the entire project was almost cancelled, because Ken and half of the board made extremely compelling arguments and Chapek was just about on board. The WDW president, who has been pro-retheme the entire time, apparently even considered cancelling it once Chapek was on board. Supposedly both parks would have still gotten Tiana rides so they could use the props already produced, but WDW would have built a ground up dark ride and DL would have done a Mr Toad retheme. Once Iger came back, who’s the most pro-retheme of them all, he started pushing and forcing the project harder than ever. The WDW president jumped on board immediately, but Ken decided to fight with Iger on it. Ken has half of the board backing him to save the DL version, but Iger is very adamant. Supposedly Iger threatened to fire Ken if he didn’t go through with it, so Ken decided to drag his feet on the Indy refurb so they physically couldn’t take splash down for capacity reasons. Apparently he’s using the extra time bought by extending the Indy refurb for he and the board to duke it out with Iger. Apparently the whole situation’s a mess right now. This story has been going around since about yesterday, and supposedly is from a high-ranking cast member who wishes not to be named to secure their job. A few YouTube channels have started to report it. This person said that under Chapek it got so far that they were in the initial stages of crafting a social media post calling the project off and announcing a different Tiana ride instead.

Again, take this as a grain of salt, no idea if it’s true or not, but it sure is interesting!

Yeah no. I don’t buy any of this. Just more people trying to create a story about how it’s not really ever going to close. Just like people tried with the MK version.

Most times the simplest answer is the truth.

 

[Consumer]

Just a rumor so take this whole thing like a grain of salt.

Supposedly the reason that the DL version doesn’t have a date and seems to be quietly operating and being maintained is because Ken Potrock deep down doesn’t want to do it. When Chapek was in charge, there was supposedly a point where the entire project was almost cancelled, because Ken and half of the board made extremely compelling arguments and Chapek was just about on board. The WDW president, who has been pro-retheme the entire time, apparently even considered cancelling it once Chapek was on board. Supposedly both parks would have still gotten Tiana rides so they could use the props already produced, but WDW would have built a ground up dark ride and DL would have done a Mr Toad retheme. Once Iger came back, who’s the most pro-retheme of them all, he started pushing and forcing the project harder than ever. The WDW president jumped on board immediately, but Ken decided to fight with Iger on it. Ken has half of the board backing him to save the DL version, but Iger is very adamant. Supposedly Iger threatened to fire Ken if he didn’t go through with it, so Ken decided to drag his feet on the Indy refurb so they physically couldn’t take splash down for capacity reasons. Apparently he’s using the extra time bought by extending the Indy refurb for he and the board to duke it out with Iger. Apparently the whole situation’s a mess right now. This story has been going around since about yesterday, and supposedly is from a high-ranking cast member who wishes not to be named to secure their job. A few YouTube channels have started to report it. This person said that under Chapek it got so far that they were in the initial stages of crafting a social media post calling the project off and announcing a different Tiana ride instead.

Again, take this as a grain of salt, no idea if it’s true or not, but it sure is interesting!

It's entirely possible. Splash Mountain is still going to close, however.

This is the part that sounds fishiest to me. Fun as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride is, it hardly lends itself as a ride system to the kind of project Disney had committed itself to with the announced retheme. It would have been viewed as a serious downgrade for Tiana.

Why would Tiana not simply replace Winnie the Pooh in such a scenario?

 

[CaptinEO]

Just a rumor so take this whole thing like a grain of salt.

Supposedly the reason that the DL version doesn’t have a date and seems to be quietly operating and being maintained is because Ken Potrock deep down doesn’t want to do it. When Chapek was in charge, there was supposedly a point where the entire project was almost cancelled, because Ken and half of the board made extremely compelling arguments and Chapek was just about on board. The WDW president, who has been pro-retheme the entire time, apparently even considered cancelling it once Chapek was on board. Supposedly both parks would have still gotten Tiana rides so they could use the props already produced, but WDW would have built a ground up dark ride and DL would have done a Mr Toad retheme. Once Iger came back, who’s the most pro-retheme of them all, he started pushing and forcing the project harder than ever. The WDW president jumped on board immediately, but Ken decided to fight with Iger on it. Ken has half of the board backing him to save the DL version, but Iger is very adamant. Supposedly Iger threatened to fire Ken if he didn’t go through with it, so Ken decided to drag his feet on the Indy refurb so they physically couldn’t take splash down for capacity reasons. Apparently he’s using the extra time bought by extending the Indy refurb for he and the board to duke it out with Iger. Apparently the whole situation’s a mess right now. This story has been going around since about yesterday, and supposedly is from a high-ranking cast member who wishes not to be named to secure their job. A few YouTube channels have started to report it. This person said that under Chapek it got so far that they were in the initial stages of crafting a social media post calling the project off and announcing a different Tiana ride instead.

Again, take this as a grain of salt, no idea if it’s true or not, but it sure is interesting!

If this happened, a disciple of Iger deliberately refusing orders, they would just be fired.

I can see pushback from them but this whole Indiana Jones refurb thing to "trick Iger" or whatever just seems like a fanboys wet dream of how they think a corporate job works.

 

[Disney Analyst]

If this happened, a disciple of Iger deliberately refusing orders, they would just be fired.

I can see pushback from them but this whole Indiana Jones refurb thing to "trick Iger" or whatever just seems like a fanboys wet dream of how they think a corporate job works.

Let's look at the logic.

• Disneyland has Holiday overlays, which results in rides shutting down in January to switch back. Haunted Mansion is still down.
• Disneyland has a major attraction, that desperately needed a refurb. Indy should have closed months and months ago. Indy is finally down.
• A 100 year celebration needs to be launched. This is now launched. Press have come and gone.
• A new attraction needs to open, as well as an entire land being reworked around it. Part one is done, part two coming in March.

It just makes sense to hold onto Splash until things settle, most attractions are back up, and then get going on the changeover.

 

[EagleScout610]

Let's look at the logic.

• Disneyland has Holiday overlays, which results in rides shutting down in January to switch back. Haunted Mansion is still down.
• Disneyland has a major attraction, that desperately needed a refurb. Indy should have closed months and months ago. Indy is finally down.
• A 100 year celebration needs to be launched. This is now launched. Press have come and gone.
• A new attraction needs to open, as well as an entire land being reworked around it. Part one is done, part two coming in March.

It just makes sense to hold onto Splash until things settle, most attractions are back up, and then get going on the changeover.

This is the only reason Disneyland still has theirs while Florida shut theirs down already.