I joined this board in 2004. That would be an awfully long game to play, no?
Let me spell it out for you. They’re going out of their way to show how inclusive the backstory is. On a log flume ride. And it’s coming off very disingenuous to a good number of people on this board. Me included. The wrong people seem to be in charge. And it’s not about politics. I have people very close to me that are celebrating this month, and I love them very much.
But the fact that they’re pointing to these sorts of ridiculous plot points in the ride isn’t just unnecessary, it’s worrying. There’s no reason for it. It seems obvious they’re going over the top to justify why this whole change is happening, and it’s eye rolling. I don’t recall, before splash opened, their need to tell us about the brer frog projection in the que to tell us about how great this attraction was going to be. They’re trying far too hard.
Don’t question me because you don’t recognize my name. I’ve been here for a very long time. There’s not much point in trying to talk you into seeing the other side, so I’m not wasting my time. What would be the point? That’s rhetorical.
I felt like it was pretty clear that I was referring to our interaction in the past
several hours, and not your
entire 20 year posting history . . . I've also been here since 2004, and while I think my post history in aggregate does somewhat speak for itself I also don't expect everybody to be
familiar with it. I recognize your name, but I don't
know you, and I certainly haven't kept track of your thoughts over 2 decades. There's value in stating the opinion you're standing by in the pertinent thread rather than expecting people to piece it together from across scattered posts if for no other reason than allowing outside parties to know what on earth any of us are talking about, but especially when the
inside parties like us have shared only a handful of posts with each other. Add that this thread in particular grows pages by the day and it's even harder to keep up. That to say, I appreciate you taking the time to get clear, though I don't love your tone.
The "ridiculous" things you're referring to aren't
plot points, which is basically what most of
my point is - reading back the Q&A where World War 1 was brought up it was expressly stated that they're questioning how they can
hint at that history in the Queue. If you think it's ridiculous for that subject to even to be on the table at that level then that's fine, though I wouldn't say I quite agree personally. These characters are inspired by real people in a real city and I don't mind them touching on the real history they could have been intertwined with. I think there *could* be room for this sort of thing, but like most things it'll come down to execution, which we simply haven't seen yet.
But yes, some other posters here have absolutely taken that piece of information out of context and suggested that show scenes might be built around it. The specific post I first responded to precisely said
"The part about WW1 feels like satire. How could that possibly be conveyed on a 10 minute log ride?". Another later said
"So maybe one of the show scenes is Tiana and her mother discussing her father's experience as a WWI vet? While a random person plays the saxophone in their living room?" So I definitely wasn't referring to
you at all when I suggested that kind of misinterpretation was silly, but I also wasn't making things up. There are people getting their knickers in a twist over something that's not even happening, which at this point is very nearly the hallmark of the Tiana's Bayou Adventure threads.
I got several comments on my response suggesting this would probably be a newspaper clipping that could be summed up as "Why even bring that up in your press event?" To which I'd remind everybody that this was a Q&A. In context, the WW1 bit came up in response to a question about the ride time - to paraphrase (for brevity - heh), the question was essentially "How long will TBA be?" and the answer was "The same length as Splash, but we're really expanding on these character's stories in the queue to make the 'journey' last longer". And then they dropped some tidbits about what would be in the queue. So it's not like they flew directly to the Disney Parks Blog crowing about their genius "plot point" completely uninitiated, they just answered somebody's question in real time. It wasn't a prefab Press Release, it was much more off the cuff than that.
Here's the link to the Q&A so no one need dig for it:
https://www.laughingplace.com/w/articles/2023/06/01/q-and-a-tianas-bayou-adventure-imagineers/
Again, YMMV about whether the involvement of a minor protagonist in WW1 should even be in the conversation for this attraction at
all, and that's your right. But the context in which the topic was raised is being misrepresented to create an impression that the Imagineers are pouring tons of energy into this at the expense of the actual ride, which just isn't actually realistic or accurate to how this info came to light. I feel the need to speak up about that because that's so,
so habitual in these threads about TBA, where every new piece of info comes with 8 free pages of fanfiction. It's fully possible to hang some expository newspaper articles or similar in the ride's queue and still build a great log flume - something Splash Mountain literally did.
We'll have to see if TBA does it without going overboard - and listen, I'll be mad if they don't! I want this to be great and won't pretend if they screw it up. But the histronics around every factoid both drown out the incoming info and create misinformation about what's actually being done, which leads to people sharing votes of no confidence in the creators of a ride that won't even be open for another year. It's nearly impossible to get clear on what's actually happening if only because so many people (not saying you, just people) are refusing to engage with what's actually being said. The level of bias is off the charts, and unsurprisingly it damages the discourse.
drummagazine.com
