Tiana's Bayou Adventure: Disneyland Watch & Discussion

[Brer Oswald]

Interesting. POVs make it seem like the bayou critter band scenes at least establish something of a mood. Whereas the mood of the frog scene is “here’s where we ran out of money/ideas.”

I can’t imagine ever riding the MK version, so I’ll take your word for it. We shall see how the sequences compare on Disneyland’s version.

The bayou critter bands are pitch black darkness with “pockets” of lighting placed on the characters. The problem is that the characters are not staged nearly as well as the characters in Splash were. The dark ride portion opens with…nothing, whereas previously it introduced you to the world of the critters with the singing geese and fish. The first Louis is positioned too closely to the flume. The first critter band is placed too close to the flume (and the over head bridge for that matter) compared to Brer Fox and Brer Bear, making the scene hard to focus on.

The spot where “Time to be turning around” was is now just a void of darkness. And then finally, the long stretch to the sitting Tiana is just awkward. The placement of Louis butt has you focus on him instead of the Mama Odie “portal”. By the time you are ready to focus on Odie, you’re right under the screen, and you’ve probably missed the audio cue where she talks about shrinking you (due to Louis drowning her out) leading to further confusion if you don’t already know the ride’s “plot”.

Just really poor staging all around that did not take into account the pre-existing layout of the showbuilding.

 

[mickEblu]

Which is where the concern of them trying to cram the scenes in WDW into DL's layout come from since it's more small and compact.

Isn’t it widely believed it’s the other way around and designed for DL which is why WDW’s scenes feel bare in certain areas?

 

[Brer Oswald]

Isn’t it widely believed it’s the other way around and designed for DL which is why WDW’s scenes feel bare in certain areas?

I don’t think they put much thought into the design for either (with respect to what the pre-existing layouts were).

 

[mickEblu]

The bayou critter bands are pitch black darkness with “pockets” of lighting placed on the characters. The problem is that the characters are not staged nearly as well as the characters in Splash were. The dark ride portion opens with…nothing, whereas previously it introduced you to the world of the critters with the singing geese and fish. The first Louis is positioned to closely to the flume. The first critter band is placed to close to the flume (and the bridge for that matter) compared to Brer Fox and Brer Bear, making the scene hard to focus on.

The spot where “Time to be turning around” was is now just a void of darkness. And then finally, the long stretch to the sitting Tiana is just awkward. The placement of Louis butt has you focus on him instead of the Mama Odie “portal”. By the time you are ready to focus on Odie, you’re right under the screen, and you’ve probably missed the audio cue where she talks about shrinking you (due to Louis drowning her out) leading to further confusion if you don’t already know the ride’s “plot”.

Just really poor staging all around that did not take into account the pre-existing layout of the showbuilding.

So just spot lights on the critter bands? Perhaps these wet behind the ears imagineers took “staging” literally? Like they thought the characters are performing on a stage like the Country Bears.

I’m sorry I still can’t believe what a bad job they did. Bonkers.

 

[mickEblu]

I don’t think they put much thought into the design for either (with respect to what the pre-existing layouts were).

Doesn’t appear they did. The template was there. How did they fail so miserably?

 

[Adventureland Veranda]

I dare you to find something as charming as these guys on TBA.

View attachment 813241

 

[mickEblu]

View attachment 813312

I stand corrected.

 

[Adventureland Veranda]

I stand corrected.

I don't think they have anywhere to paint the authentic mural at Disneyland. Please don't mention anything about monorail wraps!

 

[Ne'er-Do-Well Cad]

Splash did the looping audio in Disneyland perfectly decades earlier. It worked because, as mentioned, logs fly through the scenes so the more bite sized audio works, vs. Magic Kingdom's where logs slowed down for show scenes where they could do more full dialogue lines.

Example -



Which is where the concern of them trying to cram the scenes in WDW into DL's layout come from since it's more small and compact.

I agree completely. The difference is that Splash’s characters were speaking to each other, so there was nothing strange about floating by them mid-conversation. On Tiana’s, the characters address riders directly, so the “cocktail party” approach won’t work.

 

[chadwpalm]

If they put the current audio on a loop and ditch the motion sensors, won’t it look like every Tiana AA is talking to nobody before we get to her? WDI shot themselves in the foot with that approach; it’s not clear to me how they can easily fix it (since it’s not just asinine, it actually is not functional).

I agree completely. The difference is that Splash’s characters were speaking to each other, so there was nothing strange about floating by them mid-conversation. On Tiana’s, the characters address riders directly, so the “cocktail party” approach won’t work.

This is why attraction reskins are bad ideas to begin with. When you design an attraction from the ground up, you can decide if you want an active or passive participant approach and then choose the ride-system accordingly.

RotR, MMRR, RSR all work fine as active participant attractions because the ride-systems allow for timing things properly. On the other hand, boat rides and omnimovers tend to be better choices for passive cocktail party type attractions because people are continually passing through at any moment (sometimes stacked together) so timing isn't critical.

You hit the nail on the head about backing themselves into a corner. They took an existing ride-system which lends better to passive type environments and tried to shoehorn in an active participation type attraction and it just doesn't work. Your mention of the long silence between logs proves that......but even more than that, you get the technical issues of when the logs back up the animatronics don't have time to reset and go glitchy.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

The spot where “Time to be turning around”

For me, this is now the entrance to the line for TBA.

 

[Ne'er-Do-Well Cad]

Lol good point. It wouldn’t work for any solo AAs. Those could stay programmed to talk to us with hopefully better dialogue. But would work for any AA in the vicinity of other figures which I believe are most of them?

Sure, the "cocktail party" approach would work for scenes with multiple characters. I was thinking of the solo Tiana AAs that face the riders; not sure what to do with those.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Sure, the "cocktail party" approach would work for scenes with multiple characters. I was thinking of the solo Tiana AAs that face the riders; not sure what to do with those.

Have you ever been on the haunted mansion or pirates?

 

[Ne'er-Do-Well Cad]

Your mention of the long silence between logs proves that......but even more than that, you get the technical issues of when the logs back up the animatronics don't have time to reset and go glitchy.

I'm not an Imagineer and I know hindsight is 20/20, but this potential issue (logs backing up) should have dissuaded WDI from ever taking the "audience = active participant" approach. Logs backed up frequently on Splash; I don't know how they thought they could mitigate it.

 

[Ne'er-Do-Well Cad]

Have you ever been on the haunted mansion or pirates?

Never. Those rides are old and unpopular.

 

[Ne'er-Do-Well Cad]

The bayou critter bands are pitch black darkness with “pockets” of lighting placed on the characters. The problem is that the characters are not staged nearly as well as the characters in Splash were. The dark ride portion opens with…nothing, whereas previously it introduced you to the world of the critters with the singing geese and fish. The first Louis is positioned too closely to the flume. The first critter band is placed too close to the flume (and the over head bridge for that matter) compared to Brer Fox and Brer Bear, making the scene hard to focus on.

The spot where “Time to be turning around” was is now just a void of darkness. And then finally, the long stretch to the sitting Tiana is just awkward. The placement of Louis butt has you focus on him instead of the Mama Odie “portal”. By the time you are ready to focus on Odie, you’re right under the screen, and you’ve probably missed the audio cue where she talks about shrinking you (due to Louis drowning her out) leading to further confusion if you don’t already know the ride’s “plot”.

Just really poor staging all around that did not take into account the pre-existing layout of the showbuilding.

Your description makes it sound even worse than it looks on the POVs. Oh man.

 

[Roger_the_pianist]

But honestly...has there ever been a more elaborate Princess ride? Maybe Frozen Ever After and the Asian parks BATB and Frozen come close, but for Princesses to be such a huge franchise and not have very elaborate attractions, this is a big thing.

 

[Disney Analyst]

 

[Disney Irish]

Maybe they'll start playing the queue music relatively soon.

 

[mickEblu]

But honestly...has there ever been a more elaborate Princess ride? Maybe Frozen Ever After and the Asian parks BATB and Frozen come close, but for Princesses to be such a huge franchise and not have very elaborate attractions, this is a big thing.

A big giant turd of a thing