The more I think about this attraction, the more I realize just what a failure it is on almost every front. It's a catastrophic failure for WDI, and it should have every Disney fan extremely concerned about the quality of the future attractions.
I realize not everyone will agree with me on every part of this, but bear with me. I am not just being a TBA hater.
The Concept/Storyline - Most people thought TBA was going to tell the story of PatF overlaid on Splash Mountain's bones. By and large, the general sentiment on these boards (but not my sentiment) was excitement and curiosity to see what modern Imagineering could do with this storyline. I, being my Disgruntled Self, was bemoaning the loss of Splash Mountain still, but even I can admit that the idea of seeing a full-size Dr. Facilier animatronic would be terrifying in the good kind of Carnotaurus-terrifying way. Most everyone thought this is what we were going to get. Instead, we began to have details shared about the plot of the attraction. It takes place after the movie. Ok, so it's the exciting adventure that happens next? Dr. Facilier somehow returns? A different voodoo villain takes his place, perhaps? No. Tiana has expanded her business and is preparing a party. Something goes awry in the party prep. Huzzah. There's your storyline for one of the tentpole attractions of the Magic Kingdom/Disneyland. Sure, there are lots of extra details like Tiana's father's WWI service and the still, silent kleptomaniacal armadillo, but what do these actually contribute to the overall storyline of the attraction? Very little. And the armadillo actively annoys me (sorry, I'll try to keep this impersonal from now on).
Exterior - This was divisive, to be sure. The initial concept art indicated we'd be getting a boat on top of the mountain, but the mountain ended up with a buzzcut instead. Some like the faux foliage that has been added, but to me, it reminds me of the pipes and wacky colors (including the inexplicable black stripe) added to a luxurious Hollywood Hotel over in DCA. In other words, it's pasted on top of something else. Don Carson, an Imagineer on the MK version of Splash Mountain, told me that the attraction has good bones and could physically support the retheme; so they painted the rocks a different color, pasted fake grass and flowers on top of what was already there, lit everything up purple, and called it a day.
Animatronics - When the first video of the animatronics dropped, so did my jaw. I LOVE animatronics, so to see so many high-quality animatronics being added into a retheme that required scrapping so many animatronics, my hopes were high (yes, even my own disgruntled nature was set aside for a time). But then I saw them in context. Waving around, talking to us, surrounded by limited-motion figures that artificially inflate the AA number...and then failing to actually function consistently. Also, why is Louis the Alligator's skin made of such obvious fabric? He looks furry, and sometimes the way it folds up when he bends makes him look more like a teddy bear than an alligator.
Reliability - What did they do to this ride? I know Splash Mountain was not the pinnacle of attraction reliability, but my gosh, TBA makes it seem like it was. When was the last time a new attraction had this much downtime during its first year of operation? Test Track 1.0? What went wrong? I want to read the tell-all book about this in 40 years, because it's mind-boggling to me.
Anyway, this was a bit long, but I just want to restate what I said at the start: WDI has serious issues if this is the best they can do, and I'm very concerned about the quality of the quantity we are getting in the coming years. Could be a very dark time...dare I say, a disgruntling time...
