Tom Sawyer Island

NickMaio

NickMaio

Well-Known Member
Walt Disney1955 said:
Traditionally when they make these sorts of announcements the idea is that they go through with it. Splash Mountain closing was something no one was asking for and it was and still is wildly unpopular and they put a less charming and much inferior ride in there. The horn of the boat is the same sort of noise that you associate with the horn on the train going around the railroad. It is supposed to take you back to an different era, one that none of us were alive for, and that is sort of the point. Modern Disney never gets it.


I am afraid to ask, but I did anyway. As if Magic Kingdom can get less inferior than Disneyland as it is, this will make it worse. But I would at least hope Disneyland keeps theirs.



I love Tom Sawyer's Island. We do it. Also do the Liberty Belle Riverboat. Find me something unique like that anywhere else. It is part of the backdrop of Frontierland. Honestly, has Disney never learned how they re-imagine things and make it worse? Tiki Birds for example? How long before they finally went back to the original show? In this case ripping out the island and replacing the Riverboat and adding a Carsland is pretty permanent. What on earth does a talking car have to do with the old Frontier? And I say this loving the way they did Carsland at DCA.
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IP is the only future.
I don't know why......
Give people a mix of IP and original ideas.
 
John park hopper

John park hopper

Well-Known Member
Club Cooloholic said:
The riverboats, the island, the river itself all helped create an evocative land. Rides are great but you need atmosphere. What makes the Harry Potter land so great to visit is NOT the rides, it's the world and atmosphere they built.

I swear Disney is trying to turn MK into another Six Flags with this kind of move.
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Trying --they are succeeding
 
D

DisneyHead123

Well-Known Member
Club Cooloholic said:
The riverboats, the island, the river itself all helped create an evocative land. Rides are great but you need atmosphere. What makes the Harry Potter land so great to visit is NOT the rides, it's the world and atmosphere they built.

I swear Disney is trying to turn MK into another Six Flags with this kind of move.
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Yeah, thinking back on what utilidors said about WDW creating a product - I think the overarching product of the parks is a carefully curated subjective experience. And there are many facets to that. Nostalgia. The warm sense of being “taken care of” (back in the days when they offered all kinds of perks and thought of every detail.) Moods evoked in ways that feel spontaneous to park goers but were probably carefully considered by designers. I’m sure there are lots of other aspects as well.

It does feel like that thoughtful creation may be going by the wayside by people who just don’t think in those terms.
 
U

utilidors

New Member
DisneyHead123 said:
Yeah, thinking back on what utilidors said about WDW creating a product - I think the overarching product of the parks is a carefully curated subjective experience. And there are many facets to that. Nostalgia. The warm sense of being “taken care of” (back in the days when they offered all kinds of perks and thought of every detail.) Moods evoked in ways that feel spontaneous to park goers but were probably carefully considered by designers. I’m sure there are lots of other aspects as well.

It does feel like that thoughtful creation may be going by the wayside by people who just don’t think in those terms.
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Thank you. I fully agree.

Never underestimate the power of emotional attachment, especially when nostalgia is the product.

I alluded to the example of New Coke. It's one of many cases where no matter how "superior" an improvement is to a beloved product, it just can't overcome the destruction caused by the perceived loss of emotional attachment to the product. There are other recent examples of this -- Pizza Hut bringing back their old logo and dining room experience, Miller Lite reverting to 1980s branding --- heck, even Disney learned this lesson first hand in the same theme park with Enchanted Tiki Room Under New Management reverting back to the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Nobody is saying that the Cars attraction would not be a technical improvement over "what is" (e.g., Tom Sawyer rafts). I see some people naming off technical improvements such as better capacity, higher throughput, more "linear induction motors"., etc. Of course this is all true.

The issue is whether all of that outweighs the destruction of the fond nostalgic attachment to what the physical presence of RoA adds to the land/atmosphere of Frontierland, even if you rarely ever go to Tom Sawyer island. Because (again), the value is greater than the sum of the parts.

I'm sure the new attraction will/would be beautiful, but it changes Frontierland from being anchored with the gentle background and warm ambiance of Rivers of America to something with measurably more concrete and an in-the-face thrilling attraction whizzing by every few seconds. (it may be a bit of an exaggeration, but that description might also be appropriate for the park under the freeway viaduct of my major metropolitan city).

I love Epcot, even certain aspects of New Epcot, but nobody (in good faith) would ever say that a bench in front of Test Track is the most charming section of the park.
 
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DisneyHead123

Well-Known Member
utilidors said:
Thank you. I fully agree.

Never underestimate the power of emotional attachment, especially when nostalgia is the product.

I alluded to the example of New Coke. It's one of many cases where no matter how "superior" an improvement is to a beloved product, it just can't overcome the destruction caused by the perceived loss of emotional attachment to the product. There are other recent examples of this -- Pizza Hut bringing back their old logo and dining room experience, Miller Lite reverting to 1980s branding --- heck, even Disney learned this lesson first hand in the same theme park with Enchanted Tiki Room Under New Management reverting back to the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Nobody is saying that the Cars attraction would not be a technical improvement over "what is" (e.g., Tom Sawyer rafts). I see some people naming off technical improvements such as better capacity, higher throughput, more "linear induction motors"., etc. Of course this is all true.

The issue is whether all of that outweighs the destruction of the fond nostalgic attachment to what the physical presence of RoA adds to the land/atmosphere of Frontierland, even if you rarely ever go to Tom Sawyer island. Because (again), the value is greater than the sum of the parts.

I'm sure the new attraction will/would be beautiful, but it changes Frontierland from being anchored with the gentle background and warm ambiance of Rivers of America to something with measurably more concrete and an in-the-face thrilling attraction whizzing by every few seconds. (it may be a bit of an exaggeration, but that description might also be appropriate for the park under the freeway viaduct of my major metropolitan city).

I love Epcot, even certain aspects of New Epcot, but nobody (in good faith) would ever say that a bench in front of Test Track is the most charming section of the park.
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I agree with your thoughts on nostalgia, although I think that leads to the question - why do some things result in nostalgic attachment and some become boring or even aversive with repetition over time? For example, it didn't matter how many good experiences people had in their 1970s living rooms with wood paneling and fuzzy carpets, most of them swapped out that style by the 90s. So what is that mysterious X factor that creates a special feeling of attachment?

I did a bit of Googling on nostalgia and found this quote I like (first half only because the second gets a bit metaphysical) by a woman named Svetlana Boym - "Modern nostalgia is a mourning for the impossibility of mythical return, for the loss of an enchanted world with clear borders and values..." I like that because what is MK if not a brief opportunity to have a sort of homecoming to that "enchanted world"? "The America than never was and always will be" sort of blended with classic archetypal imagery (I found it interesting that after visiting Disney, my son will ask me to wear dresses so that I will "look like a princess". In his daily life he sees a variety of women in lots of different roles, and they are rarely wearing dresses - it's not like the princessy look is something I taught him or in any way emphasize. He probably saw a handful of princesses in passing at Disney, at the parade or castle show. But that just instantly clicked in this kind of archetypal way, I think. I think archetypes can be quite powerful.)

Bringing it back to Cars - I do think it would be very difficult to make Cars work in that paradigm. I think at best it's heavily themed to nature and the cars are fairly inconspicuous. Maybe a Route 66 kind of theme could work although that's from a much later era than most of the Americana in MK. I don't know that it would be impossible but I do think it would be very difficult. I'm still not convinced they actually go with Cars as the final IP, honestly. I could see them deciding to go with New Orleans Square for part of that land, Villains for part of it, and maybe one additional thing by the Liberty Square area.
 
Walt Disney1955

Walt Disney1955

Well-Known Member
bwr827 said:
I’ve never tried the boat or the island. In December, assuming construction hasn’t started yet, I’m going to give them a go.

I don’t remember anything particularly peaceful or especially beautiful about that area from past visits. I’ll try to take extra note of those aspects.

So far, I’m just excited about seeing what they’ll build there. But maybe I’ll be persuaded to feel sad about it too.
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Check it out at night especially. And just sitting down and seeing the park from the Island is the definition of peaceful. It is a different way to check out Haunted Mansion.
 
Walt Disney1955

Walt Disney1955

Well-Known Member
Chef Mickey said:
They have no original ideas with this regime. Their only idea is to steal an old idea and pander to the current social nonsense.
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It is funny because it makes you appreciate Walt and all of his ideas. It makes you realize that nearly 60 years after his death he is still better than every single imagineer that has come after him - combined - when it comes up with original ideas. And that either makes Walt look good or the current crop of WDW idea men look bad - or both. Because Walt's park was one where people flocked to, the one today is one where another park is gaining ground every day.
 
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DisneyHead123

Well-Known Member
Walt Disney1955 said:
It is funny because it makes you appreciate Walt and all of his ideas. It makes you realize that nearly 60 years after his death he is still better than every single imagineer that has come after him - combined - when it comes up with original ideas. And that either makes Walt look good or the current crop of WDW idea men look bad - or both. Because Walt's park was one where people flocked to, the one today is one where another park is gaining ground every day.
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I don’t know that I’d compare Imagineers in terms of who is the best, because they all sort of specialize in different things. To me, Walt’s specialty was “lantern consciousness”, which is a very precious thing. And the associated states - wonder, joy, abandon, awe.

There are several Walt quotes about seeing the world with a child’s eyes vs. an adult mindset. I think he is very salient in the world right now, where so many of us forget how to just have fun, be playful, be something other than quasi neurotically focused on day to day tasks, anxieties, and minor dramas.

It’s hard to 100% specify how Disney built a sense of those things into his parks. But it does feel like a Cars ride over the riverboat just - isn’t it. I’m not a designer, I couldn’t tell you what goes into designing something with a sense of wonder and joy. But, I think it’s a “you know it when you see it” kind of thing. And Cars over Rivers just doesn’t seem like it would evoke that.
 
J

JMcMahonEsq

Well-Known Member
Club Cooloholic said:
One other aspect of Cars Land replacing the river and TSI is that I am sick of dealing with construction projects. This one will be unavoidable, after seeing what happened with Epcot, this payoff is not really worth it IMO.
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So you don't want any change, ever, to WDW or any of the parks? You just want it locked as is, never to change, never to build anything new, or modernize anything?
 
harryk

harryk

Well-Known Member
Walt said that the Florida project would allow for additions and expansion since so much land had been acquired. You would never know that -- in that the park has not expanded into new real estate but just had existing attractions modified or removed to add something different. ex: Mr. Toad and Snow White becoming a Pooh and Princess meet and greet. Yes, they added a castle for the Beast - but really....it is a dining hall. Something to bring in $$ not to be an attraction. I'm sure someone will add to this....eventually.
 
Master Yoda

Master Yoda

Pro Star Wars geek.
Premium Member
harryk said:
Walt said that the Florida project would allow for additions and expansion since so much land had been acquired. You would never know that -- in that the park has not expanded into new real estate but just had existing attractions modified or removed to add something different. ex: Mr. Toad and Snow White becoming a Pooh and Princess meet and greet. Yes, they added a castle for the Beast - but really....it is a dining hall. Something to bring in $$ not to be an attraction. I'm sure someone will add to this....eventually.
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The FL expansion was yet another replacement. Granted it was a net positive as we got a couple of attractions, a meet-and-greet, and a couple of restaurants but it was built on the long-shuttered 20k attraction. When it comes to MK, about the only real full-on addition in recent memory that did not involve giving up an existing attraction was Tron.
 
Club Cooloholic

Club Cooloholic

Well-Known Member
JMcMahonEsq said:
Well you stated your sick of construction. If you have an issue with being sick of construction, it means nothing gets done. In order for there to be change, to be new things there needs to be construction that you have to deal with.
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You can retheme a ride and it doesn't interfere much with the experience in the rest of the park, like with Splash, or you can build a ride that shuts down the railroad for a few years like Tron. This Carsland is hitting the heart of Frontierland, and yes it will not be a fun experience to be around as a park visitor. You can add new things in other ways.
I didn't notice all the construction at Universal when they put in an entire new park with a slew of rides, because none of that effected the experience at the existing parks.
 

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