If you mean @MerlinTheGoat, isn't he the only one that has said this? And even he wasn't so positive as to "assure us" of anything. Honestly, the animatronics are the only thing I'm looking forward to. If they don't deliver on that, yikes...
I’m not referring to him only.
Tokyo's Beauty and the Beast ride has a lot of animatronics, too, but that ride still turned out pretty weak.
To be fair, what we've heard is pretty clearly damage control. It would be a whole lot more reassuring if everything Disney actually showed us didn't seem to reinforce our worst fears.
Well with it following the same ride path, I am sure it will be good... It will just be different...
My worst fears were a ride devoid of animatronics and scenery. Those fears, at least, have been allayed.
I thought the complaint was that it had too few (albeit very high-quality) animatronics occupying overlarge empty spaces?
I think the more realistic fear is another Frozen Ever After - one or two AAs in a void, no (or few) fully formed AA scenes. Even I, at my most pessimistic, didn't think the ride would be devoid of AAs.
I think it's been all but confirmed that the ride will feature a considerable number of animatronics—not just some, but an impressive quantity. Of course, that "all but" is important, because the whispers we're hearing may turn out to be wrong, but the rumours are consistent and plentiful enough to be assigned some weight.
This is where I am. Splash was my favourite ride and I was sad to see it go, but I understand why a change of theme was likely inevitable and I prefer to hope the ride is as good as it genuinely could be than to feel like it being bad would be some kind of vindication.
The murals, while not period-appropriate, actually help a bit in this regard, because unlike the posters, they are at least suggestive of a fun experience.
That was my worse fear, and that fear has been largely suppressed.
I guess that might be the case for the average visitor, but as the kind of Disney fan who spends time on forums like this it only heightens my concerns as it just makes this feel more like a project than a themed experience. It reinforces to me the suspicion that they don't really have a good handle on the world of the ride.
As a villains fan, I hear you, though perhaps they'll pleasantly surprise us with whatever they've come up with for the build-up to the drop.
I really hope so.
I share your concern but am making a conscious effort to stay hopeful (I suppose because the alternative is too depressing for me). It helped me better appreciate the murals when I switched the way I looked at them:
At any rate, I'm beginning to view it less as an extension of the theming than as a reference to the ride itself. Sort of like Splash Mountain's own queue artwork, which clearly wasn't in a style appropriate to Reconstruction Georgia or the aesthetics of Frontierland:
Yes, I feel it's healthier to be in the headspace that's hopeful the new ride is good because it is coming one way or the other! I just wish every time something new was revealed it wasn't such an exercise in hoping that this isn't representative of the final experience.
One day, they will start actually showing glimpses of ride scenes and (hopefully) we will feel better. I just can’t get that excited by news that Tiana’s Foods now has $7 cucumber water.
