What year? in the early to late 90s. Oh yeah they did. Varying degrees after that but mostly the bad upkeep the entire resort has had issues with.
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News Tiana's Bayou Adventure - latest details and construction progress
- Thread starter wdwmagic
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What year? in the early to late 90s. Oh yeah they did. Varying degrees after that but mostly the bad upkeep the entire resort has had issues with.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
That’s true for most of the classics, pirates, mansion, etc. many AA’s are pretty limited.
Even hall of presidents, only Lincoln, Washington, and the current President ever do much.
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
That didn’t really matter with as fast as you go on Disneylands Splash Mountain. Regardless, I’d rather have 100 mediocre AAs than 10 excellent AAs and 20 mediocre AAs. They add a lot of depth. The new finale will most likely be the most disappointing. To lose Zip-a-dee-do-dah, a bunch of AAs and that excellent staging with the riverboat. I don’t envy the imagineers. It’s an impossible task. Hopefully there’s some nice murals in there.
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MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
Disney's claims about Splash having "over 100" animatronics aren't true. They counted a lot of static or single axis props such as the spinning behives to arrive at that amount. And none of those props should qualify for such a term. The Tiki Room birds have far more motion by comparison, and those birds are also a pretty good baseline for the sort of motion i'd say classifies as an AA. The actual amount of real animatronics used in Disneyland's version of Splash was somewhere in the 70s. With WDW having between 55-60. That's still a lot, and far more than anything they've built since Sinbad (or Splash itself stateside). But that's the standard they'll have to meet for Tiana.
I don't have an exact number for how many animatronics Tiana will have. We know it will have "dozens" (plural) from Disney's own statement, which admittedly isn't necessarily helpful given their dishonesty about what they claimed qualifies as an AA from Splash's roster. However, I do indeed believe that it will have at least close to or even perhaps greater than 50. It was told to me back in 2022 that it will have a lot, the source indicating a comparable amount to Splash. That said, this is oldish information and they also said they were reusing the America Sings figures at Disneyland. A claim that Splash Archive has contested for what it's worth. My source has been correct about most of what they've said so far, while Archive got ahold of legitimate renders of the ride scenes (albeit very incomplete ones that were still being used to test out different character configurations).
A member here called cupofchai claimed there would be "over four dozen new AA's". I asked for clarification on that matter due to many people often conflating static or simple moving props with AA's. They said there would ALSO be a lot of simpler moving figures throughout as well (same as Splash), but that the over four dozen they meant were indeed legitimate animatronics. This person also broke the news that the riverboat was being removed and replaced with a Tiana's Palace structure. Before Splash Archive's renders were leaked. The two pieces of art I posted earlier of the interior includes quite a lot of figures (one actually has a larger quantity than Splash in that particular scene), so I do believe there's going to be a significant amount in the ride.
The biggest concern I have at the moment are Splash Archive's claims that the finale will have a significantly reduced amount of animatronics. I'm remaining skeptical of this claim given the clearly incomplete nature of the renders they got ahold of, and that there seems to be quite a lot of empty platforms that seem tailor-made to include AA's. But we'll see. Even if the rest of the scenes have a lot of figures, having only so few figures in the finale would be ride-ruiner for me.
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Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Technology and cost were the main reasons why most of them were not very sophisticated, however the Imagineers knew that you went by these scenes to fast it wasn't necessary to have more that a few key movements. The sheer volume of them and the scale of the sets is what made them so impressive, even today.
Not to mention the kinetic energy and staging.
I don't count on us having anything as cool as a rocking paddlewheel boat in a finale or the large-scale overhead sets with animated and lit details. Fish jumping through nets, small background details and foreground details.
I look to Mermaid to see the modern sensibility on that kind of scene and it is not nearly as good.
Firework projection finale of mermaid really comes to mind. It is not like Disney often does better AAs. Maybe more rubbery fluent, but that does not make more motion nor make well staged foreground and kinetic environments automatic.
Seeing Elsa is kind of cool and she is fluent, but the three headed troll was better staged rising up over your boat as the fiber optic swirl of a maelstrom.
Brer Oswald
Well-Known Member
Most of them had at least a dozen or so points of articulation (as is the case for the Pirates animatronics), which I think is more than enough for a boat ride that moves at a decent pace.
The Navi Shaman on River Journey may have 100 or so complex movements, but there’s really no time to appreciate it on the ride.
By overspending on more complex animatronics (as is rumoured for Tiana) it is reasonable to assume there will be a lot less of them, and the ride will feel emptier as a result.
TheMaxRebo
Well-Known Member
Rise has 60+ animatronics so they can still do it ... Hopefully they do it here as well
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
That’s what I was thinking of as well. The plastic water coming out of plastic fish is the cheapest looking thing I’ve seen Disney do. Even mr. Toad with the cutouts still manages to have fish spitting real water into a fountain!
And those stationary starfish glued to the wall…
Yeah but that troll didn’t send you through a narrow hall of video screens with large snowflakes on them!!!
Brer Oswald
Well-Known Member
That 60+ figure includes the 40 Stormtroopers in the large room, most of which just have slight head movements, some of which don’t even have that.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
mickEblu
Well-Known Member
Do the Stormtrooper mannequins in the Hangar really count though?
Brer Oswald
Well-Known Member
If you count the AT-ATs that’s probably right. If not, I’m pretty sure it’s only four. Two Kylos, a Finn, and a Hux?
Edit: 5 cause there’s that Ackbar-like character at the end too.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Are the storm troopers in the AT-AT video or real? I couldn’t remember so I counted them.
I was also giving the probe droid cause the little guy works as hard as he can.
Brer Oswald
Well-Known Member
All of the Storm Troopers in the ride portion are screens. It’s rather impressive screen usage I must admit, as it is hard to tell.
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
This. Though I wondered if that was a sarcastic comment.
Nope, the stormtroopers that DO move have a single axis of motion in either the neck an/or the arms to raise/lower the guns. Most of them though seem to be entirely static mannequins and don't even have ANY motion as far as i'm aware. But for the few that do move, even the dolls in Small World have more motion. Heck, a number of the ancient limited motion figures in Peter Pan's Flight have more motion as well.
The troopers in the AT-AT window are video projections. The probe droid only swivels its head.
aladdin2007
Well-Known Member
I was starting to warm up to the idea of the attraction minus the inclusion muck and horrible backstory but this just sunk it to a new low. what the...........
Dang, breaks my heart even more.
That mural on the mill and other things removed and altered from the exterior in this construction hit very close to the Maelstrom opening being covered up and ruining the best theme park kinetic energy teases of all time.
I think the construction is showing that some Imagineers need to push back a little bit or be happy working for not the prestige of Imagineering, because there are better creative choices going on elsewhere.
I don't like blaming Imagineers individually, but as a whole. Some need to bite back and say when things are bad.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I get not liking the new artwork; I don’t really care for it either. But the way it’s sent the thread into a wild spin is a bit surprising to me. A lot more weight is being given to a single flat painting than to the photos of interior scenery that were shared a few weeks ago and generally well received.