News Tiana's Bayou Adventure - latest details and construction progress

zakattack99

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Rumors say that Burbank and it's DEI is pressuring Tokyo HARD to take this thing. For some reason, Burbank REALLY wan'ts "Splash Mountain" 100% cancelled.

I suspect that they don't want this new attraction to be forced to live in the shadow of a working (and popular) "Splash Mountain" in Tokyo. The comparrisons between the two will never stop and it will go on for decades. This is debate is bad for Orlando and Anaheim.
I have heard this rumor as well. I have also heard that OLC was finally starting to relent and come to the table to discuss what this change would look like. Idk how they don’t walk away after seeing this today. OLC has all the ammo they need now to hold their ground for a long time between the attraction and reaction idk how OLC moves forward with any changes.
 

Midwest Elitist

Well-Known Member
I have heard this rumor as well. I have also heard that OLC was finally starting to relent and come to the table to discuss what this change would look like. Idk how they don’t walk away after seeing this today. OLC has all the ammo they need now to hold their ground for a long time between the attraction and reaction idk how OLC moves forward with any changes.
This video probably saved Tokyo. It demonstrates that Imagineering stateside his lost all it's focus and can't be trusted to replace TDLs #1 ride.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Can someone explain this “shrinking part” for me. So the story is to find musicians for the party and they find all these critters to be part of the band and Tiana wants you to find more so she has Mama Odie shrink you to go into some log thing and find two frogs (all I saw) and then apparently that was enough so she makes you big again and has you go down a waterfall to get their quicker. Am I missing anything?
I think Louis hears the frogs in the log (that's why he's half in it). And so, to get to the frog band, Odie shrinks us down to recruit them for the party.
 

Brer Panther

Well-Known Member
However, I was still willing to give it a chance to try and was somewhat of a "soft defender" of the ride early on as I had heard some positive things about it that intrigued me. This does not live up to the moderate expectations I had.
That friend of yours who claimed this would be great? I'm now even more suspicious of his claims that the Disneyland version will retain all the America Sings animatronics. None of their Magic Kingdom counterparts survived the retheme we got.
I think this will be well-received by the general public. If you throw them a bone of their favorite songs from whatever IP you've shoved in where it doesn't belong, they'll be bopping along the whole way and sing its praises to Research at the end.
I'm sure there's gonna be people claiming this is better than Splash Mountain because it's INCLUSIVE and NOT RACIST.
so take my opinion with a grain of salt
I'm so tempted to make a salt mine joke.
And Mermaid doesn’t have cheap looking sets either.
Yeah, it's the animatronics in the Little Mermaid ride that look cheap.
I really hate the way these two women have been vilified by those critical of the retheme.
I saved all my hatred for Bob Iger, for what it's worth.
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The vultures being replaced by a screen with that hideous CGI Mama Odie on it is, quite possibly, the most appalling thing I've seen all day.
Where are the spoonbills or other critters??
Yeah, where the heck ARE the spoonbills?
 

AdventureHasAName

Well-Known Member
Rumors say that Burbank and it's DEI is pressuring Tokyo HARD to take this thing. For some reason, Burbank REALLY wan'ts "Splash Mountain" 100% cancelled.

I suspect that they don't want this new attraction to be forced to live in the shadow of a working (and popular) "Splash Mountain" in Tokyo. The comparrisons between the two will never stop and it will go on for decades. This is debate is bad for Orlando and Anaheim.
Even if Disney agreed to do the complete renovation for free, what incentive would OLC have to have a super-popular attraction shut down for a year while it was being re-constructed? And Disney would never agree to doing it for free.
 

PizzaPlanet

Well-Known Member
It still feels like the foundation is there for something great if they wanted to admit defeat try again. With some more money they could redo the story and dialogue, add some more characters to the empty spaces, and even add shadows of Dr. Facilier to the laughing place and lift hill (isn’t it mostly screens anyway?). But I think the chances of that are slim to none.
 

Professortango1

Well-Known Member
Is it possible that WDI can only function one way?

As in they need to come up with the concepts/ride systems and then pitch them?

What I’m getting at is if they are given something existing and told “we need to change this to X…”. They’re done. It doesn’t work well
I think assignments can work as well. Convert Splash to a Tiana attraction is doable enough where many were positive about the idea beforehand. Even with the mandate that they want to avoid Facilier and make it a sequel could still yield positive results.

But a plotline to a major E-ticket being...gathering musicians? And then to not even have the musicians found in unique and interesting ways, but to be already jamming out?

The music also really perplexes me as I am but a humble fan and lay person yet I easily understood the underscore growing into musical numbers aspect of the original design and yet these has pre-established tracks simply dropped in where they fit best. Did they not have the money to record a new ride score? Or have any of the new characters singing?

A random gator sang to me to take him along on my journey previously. Possums serenaded me from above. A rabbit family and possum family held each other close and told their children the horrors that awaited Brer Rabbit. Two vultures taunted us before our fall. And we still had plenty of silent fun characters like a Racoon with Harmonica and Porcupine playing a turtle shell and a full chorus of gospel animals celebrating Brer Rabbit's victory and lesson learned.

Now....we have Tiana, Louis, and Mama Odie talking to us. That's it. 3 characters who have unique voices, and most of the time those unique voices are spouting generic dialogue instead of singing or saying something interesting.

As someone else pointed out, the whole thing lacks urgency. Splash's design asks very basic questions...what do the drops mean.

The first one was the drop into the world of Brer Rabbit, now its a drop into the world of Tiana. Except we already saw her and Louis outside.

The second drop was dropping into a different tone and world, seeing Brer Rabbit being mischievous and suffering for it. Now, we are changing into small selves to find more musicians. So what we did in the first part of the ride, but doing it again without any change to the emotion or structure of our adventure.

Which leads us to lift and third drop. The climax of the attraction. The original had this be the result of Brer Rabbit's attitude in the previous scene. He was in trouble. WE are in trouble. We are heading up high and Brer Rabbit is tricking Brer Fox to toss him from this height into a break of sharp thorns. Now, Odie has decided we were small long enough and I'm not sure if the lift hill is supposed to be us getting bigger at a slow pace and then we see her and we take a short cut down a cliff. Why? Are we late? There hasn't been urgency so far. And the drop ends with a passive cool-down section, so there's no urgency after the drop.

The lack of answers to what the drops do for our story seems to lay at the feet of imagineers. They didn't understand how the 3-act story fit into this ride with 3 drops.
 

CSJORDAN

Member
Such a shame

My mom and I both watched the POV (I watched twice, her once). It looks visually fine, and the music is good.

But, the rest is a mess. The story is not cohesive (whatever story is there). There is no conflict or buildup to the main event (the drop).

Biggest issue for us though, is that this is not a fitting ride for the PATF film. It deserved so much better: has one of the best villains to translate to an attraction, many interesting characters, and scenes that would visually translate well to a ride. Unfortunately, they did none of this.
 

Coaster Lover

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
No
Really makes you appreciate how perfectly set-up the drop was in the original ride... the fun and frivolous laughing place transitioning into the warning (using the same song in a minor tone), then the ominous vultures, the "don't throw me into the briar patch" reverse psychology, then the jubilant escape with the zip-a-dee-do-da music... it really was a brilliant sequence...
 

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