Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
It actually seemed like a pretty fair review, with positives and criticsm.
But it seems the only argument now is that the people who like it are liars and fakes?
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News Tiana's Bayou Adventure - latest details and construction progress
- Thread starter wdwmagic
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It actually seemed like a pretty fair review, with positives and criticsm.
But it seems the only argument now is that the people who like it are liars and fakes?
TheCoasterNerd
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
I live in Virginia. I have no affiliation with TWDC, never been paid by them, never given preferential treatment I didn't pay for out of pocket, the only association I have is having individual sources within the company. If it means anything, I agree with all of Scott's sentiments. I LOVE Tiana's. It's gorgeous IMO as well as having awesome music and fantastic animatronics and personally will be riding at least twice on my Magic Kingdom day in just over a month.
easyrowrdw
Well-Known Member
I feel like we're taking things way too seriously at this point.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
We're at the point where discussion feels impossible, because people who think it's a decent attraction but a downgrade from Splash (or think it's outright terrible, although I don't quite get that opinion) are dismissed and told their opinion is solely due to nostalgia, confirmation bias, etc., and people who think it's as good or better than Splash are dismissed as paid shills.
Any opinion is just dismissed out of hand by people who don't agree with it, regardless of what the opinion actually is.
Disney Analyst
Well-Known Member
We need to find our ways a bit more towards common ground.
dreamfinding
Well-Known Member
Nah, he is one of the good ones.
If his mostly positive view is because of some form of compensation from Disney, then the negative reviews from you and others here brings up a question: What is Universal paying you all to dump on it?
Basil of Baker Street
Well-Known Member
Here's the thing. There really isn't a Co-Op business. It's just a make believe business that is in the attraction. A part of the story. I will do better next time.
Basil of Baker Street
Well-Known Member
As I just explained. The shares in the coop are make believe as is the business. They're not real. Scott gets nothing!
Scott is a real journalist and runs a Disney-fan Twitter account on the side because he's just a fan. He doesn't make money from any clicks (that I know of).
As a real journalist, he has access to call up Disney PR with questions that usually get answered. That's why he seems he's an insider, when he's actually more of a 'confirmer.' I'm sure he gets the Disney pressers that big media outlets and maybe the travel agents get.
While he has attended some Disney press events, he's not at every cupcake debut.
SilentWindODoom
Well-Known Member
Phew. I... was... worried where the comparison was going to go. Did not expect Mission Breakout. There's already been more than enough extreme comparisons for everyone during this whole thing.
D'awww! Congrats, Drew! You made the big time!
Glad to see more confirmation of the "empty spaces" being full of effects and sonic touches.
The complaints that the story isn't explained or set up in any way.
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
I think the argument is that the posting of influencers and Disney-invited guests should be taken with a grain of salt (no pun intended) as creating hype is the main purpose of their job. They have a personal investment to begin with, as well as being swept up in the inclination of people to be generally more positive when given special treatment like early access or meet and greets with people of note. It is against human nature to be overly critical towards someone who has done you a favor.
Basil of Baker Street
Well-Known Member
I give up
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
Influencers, sure. Scott isn’t really one. He writes about Disney and theme park things for Nexstar, IIRC. If your qualification for dismissing people is “invited to any press event ever or granted early access to something”, then I have to imagine you have a similar distrust of practically all book, film, gadget, etc. reviews as well. There’s a difference between people who depend on Disney’s good graces for their income and those who write about Disney stuff as a matter of course in their day jobs.
Professortango1
Well-Known Member
For other artforms we have established critics who are versed in the artform they are critiquing. For theme park attractions, we haven't really seen that emerge as of yet, which makes sense since it's about 50-some years older than the film industry and has a much different/more limited audience. I work in magic and there magic reviewers who receive free versions of products and effects to review and while they can be great resources to understanding more nuances than traditional ad copy, I also know that I will very rarely see a reviewer advise someone to avoid a product and to check in on forums comprised of folks who are not receiving special treatment for more honest looks.
We saw similar feedback regarding Starcrusier where invited guests and influencers were generally a lot more positive than guests who paid to be a general guest.
I'm not familiar with Scott of his body of work, so I can't comment on his specifically.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
These are fundamentally different things. Starcruiser had its own price of admission, and people invited for free were indeed less capable of doing a true cost-benefit analysis because it cost them nothing (which many noted in their reviews). Tiana is part of regular admission. There’s no extra layer that significantly separates the experience of an invited, publication-employed reviewer from that of a standard guest.
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
Disney’s Splash Mountain Set to Reopen With Princess Tiana Theme
Brooks Barnes, Todd Anderson
Black Disney Princess Ride Replaces Splash Mountain and Its Racist History
The ride was closed last year because of its connection to a racist film. Disney overhauled it to focus on Tiana, Disney’s first Black princess, drawing praise and backlash.
Disney’s new ride, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, will open to the public at Walt Disney World on June 28.
In the summer of 2020, as a reckoning on racial justice swept the country, Disney said it would rip out Splash Mountain, a wildly popular flume ride with a racist back story.
Some people cheered, saying the move was long overdue: After 31 years at Disneyland in California and 28 at Walt Disney World in Florida, the attraction — with its animal minstrels from “Song of the South,” the radioactive 1946 movie — had to go.
But Disney also faced blowback. Last year, when Splash Mountain finally closed, someone started a makeshift memorial near its entrance — the kind that pops up at scenes of horrific crimes. Distraught fans spirited away jars of the water. More than 100,000 fans signed a petition calling on Disney to reverse its “absurd” decision.
Now, Disney is rolling out Splash Mountain’s replacement, which is based on “The Princess and the Frog,” the 2009 animated musical that introduced Disney’s first Black princess. The lighthearted new ride, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, will open to the public on June 28 at Disney World, with a similar version expected to arrive at Disneyland by the end of the year.
The ride is the first marquee attraction in Disney theme park history to be based on a Black character.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure uses the same ride tracks as Splash Mountain.
It’s a historic moment for Disney: After 69 years in the theme park business, the company will have a marquee attraction based on a Black character. Disney has spent at least $150 million on the bicoastal project, analysts estimate. (A Disney spokesman declined to comment on the cost.)
“For young Black children, it is, of course, a wonderful and amazing way to show representation,” Anika Noni Rose, who voices Tiana in the film and recorded new lines for the ride, said when the project was announced. “For children who don’t look like Tiana, it is a way to open their eyes.”
Disney has remade rides before, often to howls from devotees, but this particular overhaul is especially delicate. In recent years, Disney has found itself enmeshed in nationwide debates over diversity and inclusion initiatives, with prominent Republican politicians and conservative media pundits pointing to Disney as an example of corporate political correctness run amok.
The pressure has started to die down, in part because Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is no longer running for president and attacking “Woke Disney” at campaign stops. Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, has also repeatedly said he has moved Disney away from “agenda-driven” content.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure could drag Disney back onto the cultural battlefield. Or it could provide more evidence that the debate has moved on.
“Our parks are treasured, and our fans care deeply about how they evolve and change — just as we do,” Josh D’Amaro, Disney’s theme park chairman, said in an interview. “One thing fans always tell me is ‘If you change it, promise to make it even better.’ And I think we’ve delivered on that promise with Tiana.”
In the ride, Tiana and her trumpet-playing alligator pal, Louis, are looking to form a band.
Image
Out of Disney’s entire character roster, Tiana ranks No. 2 in popularity among Black women.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure uses the same ride tracks as Splash Mountain, and riders still travel in vehicles made to look like hollowed-out logs. But everything else has been redesigned. Instead of a suspenseful story involving Br’er Rabbit’s getting tossed into a briar patch, the new attraction focuses on a Mardi Gras party: Tiana and her pal Louis, a trumpet-playing alligator, are searching for critters to form a band.
Halfway through, the jolly Mama Odie, a voodoo queen in “The Princess and the Frog” and now a “bayou fairy godmother,” casts a spell, supposedly shrinking riders to the size of fireflies.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure also has a pointed new catchphrase: “Everybody’s welcome.”
As he rode Tiana’s Bayou Adventure with a reporter during a test-opening phase, Ted Robledo, the attraction’s executive creative director, pointed out numerous inclusive touches — decorative items in Spanish and French, reflecting the multicultural history of New Orleans; a diversity of music (jazz, zydeco, blues) playing on the sound system.
“That’s a nod to the Indigenous people in the region,” Mr. Robledo said, referring to a Choctaw stickball racket in a diorama near the ride’s entrance.
“It had kind of run its course,” Ted Robledo, the executive creative director of the new ride, said of Splash Mountain.
The ride’s catchphrase is “Everybody’s welcome.”
“We’re always looking at ways to cast a wider net,” Mr. Robledo said. “With the old property, for a variety of reasons, it wasn’t that relevant anymore. It had kind of run its course.”
“The Princess and the Frog,” about a working-class woman who becomes royalty, was a box office disappointment. Tiana, however, has become crucial to Disney. In consumer polls conducted by the company, she ranks No. 2 in popularity — out of Disney’s entire character roster — among Black women. (Characters from “The Lion King” are No. 1.)
Disney has high hopes for merchandise tied to the new attraction, which expands the movie’s story. (There are two gift shops near its exit.) An animated Tiana series is coming to Disney+ and will continue part of the story set up by the ride.
Jazz, zydeco and blues music plays on the sound system during the ride.
There are numerous touches, including culinary, that nod to the characters’ New Orleans roots.
“Tiana is a modern princess who resonates with everyone,” Mr. D’Amaro said. “She wasn’t born into royalty, but her story of perseverance and pride is timeless. This enduring quality is crucial for our parks’ attractions, as they need to entertain across generations.”
Mr. D’Amaro likened complaints about Splash Mountain’s removal to a prior situation at the Disneyland Resort. In 2017, Disney closed the popular Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a hotel with malfunctioning elevators, and remade it around Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Fans booed — until they had a chance to ride the replacement.
“It was a controversial decision at the time, but by introducing a modern story with different emotions, we created an entirely new experience,” Mr. D’Amaro said, noting that visitor ratings of the remade Tower of Terror soared.
Of Tiana, one Disney executive said, “Her story of perseverance and pride is timeless.”
One devoted fan of Splash Mountain said the new ride was “just as great.”
This month, Disney posted a nine-minute video tour of the new Tiana attraction on the internet. As of Monday, it had been viewed 625,000 times, with 10,000 people giving it a thumbs up and 38,000 a thumbs down. The ride “seems to lack dramatical tension and stakes,” Jim Shull, a retired Disney parks designer, wrote on X, based on the video. A smattering of Splash Mountain die-hards nicknamed the new ride Tiana’s Bayou Blunder.
The reaction has been much more positive from those who have ridden the attraction, which is in a soft-opening period.
“I loved it,” Victoria Wade, a social media influencer from Baltimore, said on X on Thursday. “I love how this whole attraction adds more to the continuation of Tiana’s story.” She called the ride’s 48 animatronic figures “absolutely incredible.”
Drew Smith, 21, a self-described Disney “super fan” from Windermere, Fla., talked his way onto the ride during a testing phase. “Splash Mountain was my absolute favorite attraction since I was a little kid, and I’m extremely happy to say that the new ride is just as great,” he said in an interview. “Don’t believe the haters!”
All of the Disney spokespeople in this article talk about how authentic and inclusive the new ride is. And how Tiana is popular among black women.
Nowhere do they talk about trying to make this ride more fun and entertaining than Splash Mountain.
Fun... that pesky reason people go to Walt Disney World.
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
Indeed. I guess it's fun to laugh and mock online, but I never quite understand why so many people act indignant or incredulous when paid Disney employees act like paid Disney employees.
Figments Friend
Well-Known Member
Figments Friend
Well-Known Member
Quote from The NY Times article -
“We’re always looking at ways to cast a wider net,” Mr. Robledo said.
“With the old property, for a variety of reasons, it wasn’t that relevant anymore.
It had kind of run its course.”
What the fluff…..
This comment above just burns me …
There was nothing that was ‘not revelant’ or showing any signs of having ‘run its course’ with the former Attraction.
( Fire breathing dragon mode, tonight….)
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“We’re always looking at ways to cast a wider net,” Mr. Robledo said.
“With the old property, for a variety of reasons, it wasn’t that relevant anymore.
It had kind of run its course.”
What the fluff…..
This comment above just burns me …
There was nothing that was ‘not revelant’ or showing any signs of having ‘run its course’ with the former Attraction.
( Fire breathing dragon mode, tonight….)
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