I was told very early on (not long after D23 2022) that the ride would have a very impressive number of AA's. Uncharacterstic for anything they've built in a very very long time. They were the first person who mentioned this. I was never given an exact amount, but it was said that it would not disappoint people who appreciated that aspect of Splash.
I was concerned when Splash Archive came onto the scene and seemed to throw some cold water onto things. But when I saw the renders he got ahold of, I suspected he may have been working off of incomplete information given all of the blatant empty spaces that don't seem to exist for any reason other than to house AA's. Though for the record, Archive has remained adament on their prior claims of these being representative of the final roster of figures. So if he ends up being correct, then i'll owe him an apology.
All that said, again my source now claims they've seen finalized mockups and the ride is very well populated. Especially the finale which again was described as having "easily as many" AA's as Splash. So i'm feeling some relief at the moment. It will be a very easy claim to debunk, and it shouldn't be too awfully long before we get to see ourselves.
It's one of those things that we'll probably never know for sure, given that Disney isn't ever going to make a public comment.
My source claimed they know with 100% certainty that Iger has never visited the ride and made no comments on it. And again, given their already negative opinion of Iger, I don't think they'd make such a claim without good reason and evidence. Whether the evidence they were given is true or not, no clue.
I myself err on the side of doubting the tour story. Iger is well known to not be someone who visits the parks to tour in progress projects like these. If he paid any attention to the project at all, it's likely just to watch a CGI mockup or storybook in the comfort of his office. The idea of his opinions being leaked publicly by one of the people in his entourage is also pretty far fetched to me. It would be insanely easy to trace who heard said comment and leaked it, and heads would roll.
I don't know who the true origin of the Iger tour claim is. But my source believes it's someone with a malicious agenda against the project and perhaps WDI as a whole. Apparently Brayden in particular has made himself a lot of enemies at WDI over spreading a number of lies. TBA included. He has seemingly yet to retract that "only 17 AA's" bit he propagated. Not saying that you're getting your own info from Brayden. Just figured i'd mention this so other people know not to put any stock in his commentary.
I get the sense that Archive was making assumptions based on what the renders he got ahold of seemed to show, or rather didn't show. I do think the renders are probably legitimate, but to me they clearly look extremely incomplete. Far moreso than even those virtual ride throughs Disney has released of some of their other attractions like 7DMT and Tokyos' BATB ride. He also initially claimed there would only be 6 figures in the finale (which is still in the original tweet), but changed that to 9 after I noted that the render was missing three characters confirmed to appear in the ride.
If he actually received explicit confirmation from someone working on the ride for his claims, then that's another matter. And we'll see what ends up being true, again i'll apologize to him and anyone else if it turns out i'm wrong. But having seen his renders myself, there are way too many suspiciously placed empty platforms for me to assume no other characters are going to be included. Along with again the different screenshots showing different combinations of the characters (or no characters at all in one of them).
Again I'm not trying to step on any toes here. Ultimately only the final product will prove whose sources ended up being correct. Just sharing what was said on my end. I do hope for the sake of all of us that the claims I was told about the AA population are true.
