Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
Isn't a rumor that they're going to stick the spoonbills from "Dig a Little Deeper" in the "briar patch" tunnel where the logs make a splash? Those animatronics are gonna get wet a lot, I'm guessing.
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Tiana's Bayou Adventure: Disneyland Watch & Discussion
- Thread starter Californian Elitist
- Start date
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
One would hope they'd be smarter than that, but I haven't really been keeping tabs on the rumored changes.
DavidDL
Well-Known Member
When I used to work Splash Mountain, I'd always refer to it as a "nightmare of concrete, water and electrical sensors". They don't mix and maintaining them is hard. We see it over the years with attractions like Jurassic Park/World, Splash, etc. Could they be maintained? Sure, if their respective companies were willing to keep them closed long enough and invest the needed funds to keep things in tip-top show-shape.
But inevitably, the combination of how popular these attractions are (Guest demand to have them open) combined with all the complications of how they're built seem to lead to what we've seen with Splash in recent years. Just enough maintenance to keep it open and running but not enough to have it truly sparkle.
I really hope the Imagineers take this into consideration during the overlay. I would be fine with good looking, basic-animation figurines in abundance, that are consistently show ready over complex figures struggling to be maintained. It's just more realistic and frankly I think it's understandable given the type of attraction we're talking about here. You can't put your expensive computer next to a pool, constantly have kids jumping in and out of said pool, and expect for something to not happen with your computer, eventually.
Let's hope the folks at Disney use what they've learned over the years. There's a reason the Yeti in Everest is still broken (hard to access because they weren't thinking ahead) and why the figures in Splash kept going down. Give us figures that are easy to access and maintain (at the cost of dynamics, if need be) but also pleasant and plentiful enough to enjoy the show scenes.
But inevitably, the combination of how popular these attractions are (Guest demand to have them open) combined with all the complications of how they're built seem to lead to what we've seen with Splash in recent years. Just enough maintenance to keep it open and running but not enough to have it truly sparkle.
I really hope the Imagineers take this into consideration during the overlay. I would be fine with good looking, basic-animation figurines in abundance, that are consistently show ready over complex figures struggling to be maintained. It's just more realistic and frankly I think it's understandable given the type of attraction we're talking about here. You can't put your expensive computer next to a pool, constantly have kids jumping in and out of said pool, and expect for something to not happen with your computer, eventually.
Let's hope the folks at Disney use what they've learned over the years. There's a reason the Yeti in Everest is still broken (hard to access because they weren't thinking ahead) and why the figures in Splash kept going down. Give us figures that are easy to access and maintain (at the cost of dynamics, if need be) but also pleasant and plentiful enough to enjoy the show scenes.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
Soooo... like the ones in the Little Mermaid ride? That doesn't really fill me with confidence...
Inspired Figment
Well-Known Member
I’ll be honest.. at the very least, the Scuttle, Ariel & Flounder in the opening scene, and the Ursula AAs in that were fairly good IMO.. but you can definitely argue a good number of the figures weren’t implemented as well as they could’ve.. but you could make that argument about the ride experience itself. The version Tony Baxter had initially planned was a lot better from an attraction experience perspective.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
The Scuttle, Ursula, Flounder, and Sebastian animatronics look good. Ariel's kind of creepy-looking (especially in the "Part of Your World" sequence). But the figures of the fish in the "Under the Sea" sequence are laughably bad. Like, on par with the animatronics in the Monsters Inc ride. It's glaringly obvious that the Imagineers ran out of budget halfway through.
Inspired Figment
Well-Known Member
Yeah, definitley.. there’s for sure some inconsistency in regards to the quality of the AAs throughout the show. Though, I can argue.. depending on what they need to accomplish visually, sometimes over complexity in the figure’s movements isn’t necessary.
Heck, even the Splash Mountain figures weren’t exactly the most complex either.. particularly the Br’er characters. They usually convey strong emotional expression in their sculpts, but didn’t have too many movements. Other than really the “Movin’ Along’ Br’er Rabbit, Br’er Fox in the Br’er Bear caught in a vegetable patch trap scene, along with the scene where Br’er Rabbit gets caught in the honey trap with Br’er Fox peaking out from the bushes.
Inspired Figment
Well-Known Member
Really I think Splash Mountain’s strongpoint has always been the actual stories at hand along with the songs & the way they’re setup, transition & fit within the action that happens with the ride system.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
We shouldn't expect anything like that in the Princess and the Frog Ride, should we? Crack Addict Goofy's Train Ride and the Little Mermaid ride don't exactly fill me with confidence. Nor does the rumored "Louis needs to find his trumpet" storyline.
DavidDL
Well-Known Member
Whatever meets the requirement of figure(s) that can be maintained consistently and keep the show looking nice. Of course in a perfect world, I'd love to see super advanced, highly animated figures throughout the attraction but in an aging, soaked structure like Splash, I just don't see it happening. So I'm willing to compromise if need be.
Certainly I'd like things to be a step above Mermaid, but even that attraction has some nice ones, as others have pointed out. One must also take into consideration that Mermaid is an indoor, dry, slow moving dark ride. That makes the static figures used throughout the attraction way more offensive to the eye. Splash is much different in terms of speed and action once you get down that first drop. If you pack the scenes with enough detail and movement, I think figures even at or a step above Mermaid's level could pull it off if that's what they need to do in order to keep things looking good.
Some key, heavily animated characters at major points would be nice but I'm not gonna expect every one of them to meet that level during the attraction, I think I'd be setting myself up for disappointment. Heck, even now, during the climax of Splash, as we ascend the final lift, we're met with little more than some audio, a projection box and an incredibly basic (nearly static) Brer Rabbit.
It can work, they just need to do it right. I'd love for them to shoot above and beyond and build something that works consistently but with the current track record of overly ambitious effects causing so many problems, they should probably take a step back when using Splash's aging infrastructure.
Brer Panther
Well-Known Member
Splash Mountain's aging infrastructure is a pretty big reason as to WHY this isn't such a good idea. There's a number of things that could go wrong with this retheme.
George Lucas on a Bench
Well-Known Member
It just doesn't translate into a good ride. There might have been a way to do it, but the ride they built certainly wasn't it. I've always championed the fast-paced rudimentary dark rides they built even when they did the redo of DL FL in the 80s. They didn't simply recreate scenes from the movies for you to glide through, they made it more entertaining with spookhouse elements, flying on Peter Pan and let's face it, Mr. Toad isn't anything like the movie.
DavidDL
Well-Known Member
Could go either way as far as I'm concerned. If they use this time to actually plus up the building and prevent future show breakdowns using the problems they've had before as a guide, it could end up giving us not only something worthwhile, but something that will actually remain looking worthwhile in the long run.
At this point we'll just have to cross our fingers, wait and see. I'm obviously hoping for the best but still ready for the worst, should it come about.
EPCOTCenterLover
Well-Known Member
The more Tokyo's castle park changes and becomes unique from its original DL/WDW hybrid, the more beautiful it gets!
truecoat
Well-Known Member
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
It's not illegal but it's certainly frowned upon culturally.
That's why even in official TDR releases you'll see a number of people blurred out in, say, crowd shots of park guests watching resort entertainment.
It's good to see, at any rate, that even if the ride doesn't live up to expectations, the actual area looks very nice.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
True but it’s a slippery slope that leads to lackluster rides. They keep thinking of attractions as a package deal with the land. Almost like we have to judge the whole experience as opposed to just the attraction by itself. I’d rather they keep the mindset that the attraction and lands are separate entities that merely compliment each other.
PiratesMansion
Well-Known Member
I'd say this is an industry-wide problem right now.
Hogsmeade was probably the last example of a land where both the land and the key attraction were both successes.
Certainly Disney, Universal, and even some of the regional parks have struggled to build new areas where the rides and the area are both done well over the past decade. More often than not, at least one of them has been lacking as of late.
Whipped this up in about 45 minutes today. I have to say it does kinda work on Disneyland'sride
