cjkeating
Well-Known Member
That just makes it even worse.
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Toy Story Land expansion announced for Disney's Hollywood Studios
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Purduevian
Well-Known Member
I'm going to guess everyone will have some "homer" bias if we discuss Pixar pier vs Toy Story land. Honestly I don't really think they should be compared.
Toy story land's theme is that we have been shrunk down to the size of a toy in Andy's back yard
I think Pixar Piers theme is that Luxo the Lamp threw up on a an idealized version of a boardwalk/pier
Both have a rollercoaster, food, Toy Story Mania/Toy Story Midway Mania/ flat ride(s) and food themed to toy story.
Toy story land's theme is that we have been shrunk down to the size of a toy in Andy's back yard
I think Pixar Piers theme is that Luxo the Lamp threw up on a an idealized version of a boardwalk/pier
Both have a rollercoaster, food, Toy Story Mania/Toy Story Midway Mania/ flat ride(s) and food themed to toy story.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
If you're solely talking about the exterior facades, then yeah, I agree. They are still well-themed.
It's really the interiors that have been hurt significantly by turning them into interchangeable stores selling more or less the same merchandise you can buy everywhere else at WDW (Main Street in the Magic Kingdom has this issue as well, but to a lesser extent).
I'm not saying I expect them to sell period appropriate items or anything like that, but there's little sense of place at all inside those shops -- other than leftover remnants from the original design that aren't covered up with whatever displays they've dropped inside.
The elimination of Sid Cahuenga's was probably the biggest loss, though.
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ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
It’s at least 150 feet away. And Tom Holland’s Spidey is never redundant. If it were Tobey, sure.
Henry Mystic
Author of "A Manor of Fact"
Yeah, I'm done with people trashing Pixar Pier. It's a huge aesthetic upgrade over Paradise Pier and looks great in the day and epic at night. The only miss in my mind is Incredicoaster, but the impact the overlay had is negligible. Even the area across the water where Mermaid is (Paradise Park) is beautiful. I was one of those people until literally this week when I went to Pixar Pier for the first time.
HWS also has astronomical wait times due to overcrowding, has generally awful quick-servce food, too few sit-down options, has more touristy crowds, and has short park hours. DCA wins by all of those metrics and doesn't have any of those issues.
Hollywood Studios has way more ugly areas than California Adventure (the area around the hub is criminal) meanwhile at DCA, the only bad area is the end of Hollywoodland. The northern end of Pixar Pier (where it didn't really receive any updates during the overhaul) where Silly Symphony Swings is is okay, but it's no worse than Toy Story Land.
Beyond just Pixar Pier, the combination of Cars Land which is way better executed than Galaxy's Edge even though it's smaller, Grizzly Peak, Buena Vista Street, Pacific Wharf, and Paradise Park, is far more numerous than the nice areas at Hollywood Studios which just has Sunset/Hollywood Boulevard and Galaxy's Edge.
Avengers' Campus is nowhere near what it should've been given the IP, but in a vacuum, it's still a huge upgrade over "A Bug's Land" and I'd say comparable to Grand Avenue at Hollywood Studios given that most of it at HWS is just facades and nothing more.
If we are talking about rides, to me, the lineups are a coin toss. They're equal to one another in my view, but I'd tip it to DCA since the wait times are shorter and it has smaller rides on top of the big ones that you can do while you're waiting for a Lightning Lane return time. Plus, the Avenger's ride is coming up while Hollywood Studios has nothing on the horizon. However, the case could be made for HWS'. My point is that the difference is negligible.
Radiator Springs Racers swaps for Rise of the Resistance, Mission: Breakout (which is honestly more fun than Tot) swaps for Tower of Terror (which is in painful need of an update), Soarin' Over California is easily better than Smuggler's Run, Grizzly River Run is such a good rapids ride and I prefer it to Star Tours, Toy Story Midway Mania! is the same ride experience on both coasts, Incredicoaster instead of Rock n' Rollercoaster, WEB Slingers and Mermaid and Monsters Inc. together instead of Runaway Railway, and DCA has I believe 7 flat rides compared to HWS' 1 that gets huge waits.
Slinky Dog Dash is legitimately the most overrated ride at any Disney park in the world... how it frequently tops two-hour waits is something else; it's better than Goofy's Sky School but it's a C-ticket at best. Overall, the only ride that gets massive queues at DCA is Radiator Springers Racers, but you can use single-rider for it. Otherwise, Hollywood's queues are completely out of control.
I don't think Hollywood Studios is bad, I thoroughly enjoy it, but it's easily one of the lesser Disney parks in the world even after pumping well over a billion into it, and people acting like California Adventure is worse than it is laughable when it's at the minimum on par. That is my primary point, that they're pretty much equals at worse. However, the guest experience is just better at DCA when you factor in things beyond rides, which as I said, the rides are comparable, but there is a larger quantity of pretty areas at DCA, not that HWS doesn't have them, but that DCA simply has more, better quality and quantity of restaurants, shorter queues, and of course, less of a focus on tourists.
Hollywood just has no depth of its ride line-up as it's just headliners with 90-minute waits, which means you wait in lines WAY more than you do at the other Disney World parks and both Disneyland parks.
Every show is also stuck in the 80s, and Galaxy's Edge as well as the better versions of Runaway Railway and Fantasmic! are all literally 200 feet away from DCA at Disneyland Park.
Plus, I might add, World of Color is legitimately the greatest night show ever made.
California Adventure's issue is it feels like a normal park in Orlando even though it sits across from arguably the best park in the world.
By that comparison, it can't hold its own to Disneyland Park. Otherwise, it's no slouch, and it gets completely unfair criticism from Disney fans that is almost becoming a mockery at this point.
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Centauri Space Station
Well-Known Member
Be done all you want, doesn’t mean everyone has to share that opinion. I think Paradise Pier looked a lot better and made way more sense than random characters thrown everywhere.
Frozen singalong, Muppet, Cars, updated Fantasmic arent from the 80s. Plus OMD is great. Brown derby, 50s primetime and sci fi are some of the best themed Disney restaurants and all have good food. For quick service abc commissary’s revamp really improved it, baseline tap house, woodys lunch box, and docking bay 7 offer great food.
I would agree DHS has ugly areas, especially Animation courtyard and the approach to tsl, plus commissary lane could use help. I’d say DCA has avengers campus, most of Hollywood land, and many ugly areas in Pixar pier
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Henry Mystic
Author of "A Manor of Fact"
Even if all of that is true, DCA still has at least double the amount of good food that you mentioned (especially for quick-service and snacks). Sci-Fi's unique setting is brilliant and is the only thing DCA lacks. Carthay is way better than Brown Derby.
Pixar Pier looks way better than Paradise Pier, regardless of the IP infusion, going to have to hard disagree with that comment.
I was referring to Beauty and the Beast and Indiana Jones, which are indeed over 30 years old and are showing their age. MuppetVision just got swapped with Philharmargic at DCA, so it's not exactly like either park has the upper hand on that front. The Cars show and Frozen singalongs are awful. I'd take the short Spider-Man stuntronic show over any of those.
Again, the number of nice areas is more numerous in DCA than in HWS, with DCA having fewer areas (most notably Hollywoodland) that are in dire need of redevelopment. See the quantity comparison above.
Though that doesn't change the fact that I was primarily criticizing the park's aesthetics, which was the point of my post. DCA destroys Hollywood Studios on that front, and while both have nice areas DCA just has more, and there are other factors like better clientele, a better night show, and of course, lower crowds that your post decided to ignore.
They are comparable parks with neither being weak anymore, but in totality, DCA does have more to offer. Ignoring things like overcrowding issues I think is silly when that is one of the largest impacts on the park experience.
Not trying to sound combative, just the park gets so much hate I feel it needs defending because it is a great park, and is on par with pretty much any Orlando park.
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Centauri Space Station
Well-Known Member
Carthay is a letdown since they removed the duck wings and biscuits. Every time I go to brown derby it’s a fantastic meal. The Cobb salad is to die for. I had an amazing duck dish last time.
I personally find WOC boring. Mostly water and colors and screens. Plus no seating. I’ll take Fantasmic at DHS everytime. The movie magic night show on the Chinese theatre is awesome as well. I dont think DCA destroys DHS at all. If anything DHS has more CA areas then DCA that it’s lacking. It could use a sunset Blvd, echo lake, grand ave, etc. where I will agree is that DCA does have a completely unique high quality land in Cars.
i agree DHS needs more but 8 flat rides is way too many imo, it would be better if they had a better balance.
DHS is pretty darn beautiful, not perfect by any means but has lots of nice areas.
Centauri Space Station
Well-Known Member
Yes that’s true they are over 30, but that’s not every show like you implied. I will politely disagree on the frozen singalong, it’s a hidden gem. Cars isn’t perfect but the animatronic is really nice and kids enjoy it.
Californian Elitist
Well-Known Member
Never been to DHS, and don’t necessarily want to go, but there’s nothing there that interests me.
All this back and forth is amusing, though.
All this back and forth is amusing, though.
Henry Mystic
Author of "A Manor of Fact"
It's always fun to debate this stuff haha!
If you must take away something at least understand Walt Disney Studios > Tokyo DisneySea.
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Centauri Space Station
Well-Known Member
Lmao!If you must take away something at least understand Walt Disney Studios > Tokyo DisneySea.
SplashJacket
Well-Known Member
I feel there’s a massive disconnect between reality and perception within this discussion.
If you actually visit DHS and DCA, spend a couple days at both, enjoy their night shows, rides, food, atmosphere, I really don’t see any reasonable way DHS can be considered superior.
The feeling of visiting, exploring, and experiencing DCA is immensely different than DHS.
DCA has areas with vastly different thematic appeal, some areas are frantic, others are luscious and green, some are grand in scale and ambition, others are quaint and grounded.
With the context of DCA, anything and everything DHS has to offer is spread between it and Disneyland Park.
Then when we get to Pixar Pier, we need to ask what this land is attempting to do. Cars Land is the park’s show stopping anchor. Grizzly is tranquil and calming. Pixar Pier isn’t trying to anchor the park, it isn’t trying to be calm, it’s meant to be a bit frenetic.
Personally, going to DCA, I anticipated hating Pixar Pier based on everything I heard on here. But that just wasn’t the case. I legitimately loved it. Walking out after a showing of World of Color with the lights glistening across the water reminded me of exiting Epcot’s World Showcase after Illuminations. Not to say they’re the same, because they’re certainly not, but for me, Pixar Pier delivered on that Disney magic.
Also, Pixar Pier maintains the theme that Paradise Pier had, a boardwalk with amusement attractions. The theme is not Pixar. If you look at what properties and characters were included, it’s not what you would expect. The abominable snow monster from Monster’s Inc has a snow-cone stand, which isn’t exactly pushing the Monster’s Inc or Pixar brand. It’s an obscure character. One of the murals (posters?) immediately next to it features the extremely obscure seal from Finding Dory. If I didn’t know Finding Dory was a thing, that mural wouldn’t look out of place in a real shoreside amusement center.
Incredicoaster is interesting, because while, admiringly, I was hardly a fan of the pre-ride video, glaring issues on POVs and discussion forums, like Jack-Jack on a stick, are hardly noticeable/effect the ride experience.
I think the whole hatred of Pixar Pier is similar to Small World’s characters. Personally, when I heard they were adding characters I was not on board, but honestly, I enjoy the ride more with than without them. That’s not a popular opinion among ardent Disney fans, especially not on here, but regardless.
If you were completely unfamiliar with Pixar, the included IPs in Pixar Pier would mean absolutely nothing to you. If you were asked your preference between Pixar Pier and Paradise Pier, based on aesthetics, I’d wager 9 times out of ten, you’d pick Pixar Pier.
The overall made the area more aesthetically pleasing, the modifications fit the desired theme. Visit any boardwalk and you’ll be bombarded by kitschy knockoffs and garbage representations of properties. Recreating this in a Disney park is an odd choice, but regardless, it happened. Paradise Pier was a romanticized idealized version, which was fine, but there’s really nothing definitively Disney about it.
You don’t need Disney execution to develop a romanticized boardwalk. Non-ip based attractions like Epcot could also be replicated by other companies, but Disney’s expertise and resources enabled them to masterfully build the park in the 1980s like no one else could.
Paradise Pier wasn’t huge in scale, its scale is certainly larger than TSL in WDW (which, to me, mentally, is just an extension of TSMM), but it could easily be replicated.
Pixar Pier, to me, successfully pulls off the romanticization, and its IPs only bolster the land. I think it’s one of the rare cases where more IP really does mean “more Disney” *shudders,* but the Pixar IP is not overbearing. It’s not subtle, by any means, but it doesn’t visually dominate the space. Where you do see it, it comes across as cute. The winnable prizes are certainly adorable, and the whole area just makes me happy.
Not every land needs to be Mysterious Island in DisneySea. Not every ride needs to be a masterpiece.
It would be hard to argue Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout is more technically impressive or better themed than the Tower of Terror that preceded it, but it would also be hard to argue ToT was more fun.
Joe Rhode had a really good post on it, but making everything “fun” is not a good thing. Targeting fun and nothing else is not a good thing. You can have fun at home playing with a literal trash bag or playing with water in the sink (mileage may vary), but for a quality experience—like the one Disney attempts to deliver—more than fun is needed to produce a lasting impact.
That said, pure “fun” rides like Guardians of the Galaxy do have a place in theme parks. If every ride was like Guardians, that wouldn’t be good, but variety is the name of the game.
To me, the counter programming to Pixar Pier in the rest of the park stacks up infinitely better than the counter programming to TSL. What area in DHS provides the tranquility lacking in TSL? DCA’s Grizzly area is extremely calming and quiet and balances the lack of calm in Pixar Pier (aside: Ferris wheel is very relaxing).
Pixar Pier also provides an invaluable sense of space lacking in DCA. Cars Land does a great job in providing a sense of space as well, but regardless, walking through Pixar Pier provides vista after vista of intrigue, or both the Ferris Wheel and other direction with varied angles and distance. In contrast, TSL is purely linear and largely lacks a weenie. Sunset Blvd is purely linear as well, with the sight line only changing in distance, it’s not a fault for Sunset Blvd, but just an example characterizing what Pixar Pier adds to the park. Being able to walk through the land with multiple degrees of freedom cements its status cognitively as a real and dynamic place. It makes the footprint feel much larger than it really is (a famous pitfall of TSL is its extremely small feel despite its huge footprint due to underutilized space).
Pixar Pier does far more for a guest’s day at DCA and experience than TSL will ever dream of doing. I would take Pixar Pier every time over TSL and it’s not even close.
If you actually visit DHS and DCA, spend a couple days at both, enjoy their night shows, rides, food, atmosphere, I really don’t see any reasonable way DHS can be considered superior.
The feeling of visiting, exploring, and experiencing DCA is immensely different than DHS.
DCA has areas with vastly different thematic appeal, some areas are frantic, others are luscious and green, some are grand in scale and ambition, others are quaint and grounded.
With the context of DCA, anything and everything DHS has to offer is spread between it and Disneyland Park.
- Mediocre looping coaster (Incredicoaster and Rockin’)
- Fantasmic
- Star Tours
- Galaxy’s Edge
- MMRR
- TSMM
- Alien Saucers and Mater (same ride system)
- Replace SDD with your coaster of choice
- ToT with Guardians
Then when we get to Pixar Pier, we need to ask what this land is attempting to do. Cars Land is the park’s show stopping anchor. Grizzly is tranquil and calming. Pixar Pier isn’t trying to anchor the park, it isn’t trying to be calm, it’s meant to be a bit frenetic.
Personally, going to DCA, I anticipated hating Pixar Pier based on everything I heard on here. But that just wasn’t the case. I legitimately loved it. Walking out after a showing of World of Color with the lights glistening across the water reminded me of exiting Epcot’s World Showcase after Illuminations. Not to say they’re the same, because they’re certainly not, but for me, Pixar Pier delivered on that Disney magic.
Also, Pixar Pier maintains the theme that Paradise Pier had, a boardwalk with amusement attractions. The theme is not Pixar. If you look at what properties and characters were included, it’s not what you would expect. The abominable snow monster from Monster’s Inc has a snow-cone stand, which isn’t exactly pushing the Monster’s Inc or Pixar brand. It’s an obscure character. One of the murals (posters?) immediately next to it features the extremely obscure seal from Finding Dory. If I didn’t know Finding Dory was a thing, that mural wouldn’t look out of place in a real shoreside amusement center.
Incredicoaster is interesting, because while, admiringly, I was hardly a fan of the pre-ride video, glaring issues on POVs and discussion forums, like Jack-Jack on a stick, are hardly noticeable/effect the ride experience.
I think the whole hatred of Pixar Pier is similar to Small World’s characters. Personally, when I heard they were adding characters I was not on board, but honestly, I enjoy the ride more with than without them. That’s not a popular opinion among ardent Disney fans, especially not on here, but regardless.
If you were completely unfamiliar with Pixar, the included IPs in Pixar Pier would mean absolutely nothing to you. If you were asked your preference between Pixar Pier and Paradise Pier, based on aesthetics, I’d wager 9 times out of ten, you’d pick Pixar Pier.
The overall made the area more aesthetically pleasing, the modifications fit the desired theme. Visit any boardwalk and you’ll be bombarded by kitschy knockoffs and garbage representations of properties. Recreating this in a Disney park is an odd choice, but regardless, it happened. Paradise Pier was a romanticized idealized version, which was fine, but there’s really nothing definitively Disney about it.
You don’t need Disney execution to develop a romanticized boardwalk. Non-ip based attractions like Epcot could also be replicated by other companies, but Disney’s expertise and resources enabled them to masterfully build the park in the 1980s like no one else could.
Paradise Pier wasn’t huge in scale, its scale is certainly larger than TSL in WDW (which, to me, mentally, is just an extension of TSMM), but it could easily be replicated.
Pixar Pier, to me, successfully pulls off the romanticization, and its IPs only bolster the land. I think it’s one of the rare cases where more IP really does mean “more Disney” *shudders,* but the Pixar IP is not overbearing. It’s not subtle, by any means, but it doesn’t visually dominate the space. Where you do see it, it comes across as cute. The winnable prizes are certainly adorable, and the whole area just makes me happy.
Not every land needs to be Mysterious Island in DisneySea. Not every ride needs to be a masterpiece.
It would be hard to argue Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout is more technically impressive or better themed than the Tower of Terror that preceded it, but it would also be hard to argue ToT was more fun.
Joe Rhode had a really good post on it, but making everything “fun” is not a good thing. Targeting fun and nothing else is not a good thing. You can have fun at home playing with a literal trash bag or playing with water in the sink (mileage may vary), but for a quality experience—like the one Disney attempts to deliver—more than fun is needed to produce a lasting impact.
That said, pure “fun” rides like Guardians of the Galaxy do have a place in theme parks. If every ride was like Guardians, that wouldn’t be good, but variety is the name of the game.
To me, the counter programming to Pixar Pier in the rest of the park stacks up infinitely better than the counter programming to TSL. What area in DHS provides the tranquility lacking in TSL? DCA’s Grizzly area is extremely calming and quiet and balances the lack of calm in Pixar Pier (aside: Ferris wheel is very relaxing).
Pixar Pier also provides an invaluable sense of space lacking in DCA. Cars Land does a great job in providing a sense of space as well, but regardless, walking through Pixar Pier provides vista after vista of intrigue, or both the Ferris Wheel and other direction with varied angles and distance. In contrast, TSL is purely linear and largely lacks a weenie. Sunset Blvd is purely linear as well, with the sight line only changing in distance, it’s not a fault for Sunset Blvd, but just an example characterizing what Pixar Pier adds to the park. Being able to walk through the land with multiple degrees of freedom cements its status cognitively as a real and dynamic place. It makes the footprint feel much larger than it really is (a famous pitfall of TSL is its extremely small feel despite its huge footprint due to underutilized space).
Pixar Pier does far more for a guest’s day at DCA and experience than TSL will ever dream of doing. I would take Pixar Pier every time over TSL and it’s not even close.
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Henry Mystic
Author of "A Manor of Fact"
Really bad areas at HWS vs. really bad areas at DCA. Not trying to argue either of the rest of the parks are perfect but they're at least satisfactory. HWS is also just a hodge-podge mess of stuff. At least DCA has different feeling areas whether its a desert, oceanfront, or a national park. There is zero flow between the back and front of the parks at DHS.
Sometimes, photos speak a lot louder than words.
Sometimes, photos speak a lot louder than words.
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Centauri Space Station
Well-Known Member
Id personally remove star tours and the rnrc area at DHS and add avengers and several areas of pixar pier at DCA. But fair points. Id argue DHS transports you to Hollywood circa the 30s-40s, another planet, the 50s in a few restaurants etc.
SplashJacket
Well-Known Member
I would personally add the entire echo lake, Star tours, and Indiana Jones into the “ugly” category.
He didn’t include Star Tours or RNRC, it’s the area around Star Tours and then the lightning McQueen racing academy building and courtyard.
Obviously, there’s personal preference, especially with Avengers Campus, but I’d argue none of it is actually ugly. Sure, the direction they chose may not have been the most ambitious, but I also don’t think the area is actually ugly.
Personally, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy land visually (I did) or webslingers (but I found the preshow highly amusing and the ride to be very fun). I’d argue they did a better job with webslingers than the land visually, but I thoughly enjoyed the food and theme at Pym, and the land as a whole worked a lot more than I thought.
The biggest thing to me, Avengers Campus is actually themed. I understand not liking the theme, preferring another direction, or simply thinking the execution was botched.
On the other hand, Hollywood Studios (and other studios parks like Universal Studios Orlando) have many unthemed areas. I don’t buy into the “sound stage theming.” It’s a warehouse. You’re not fooling anyone. At Universal Studios Hollywood, I am far more forgiving due to the authenticity, but building a big warehouse and calling it themed by painting a number on the side is a bunch of bologna.
There are many areas in DHS that don’t belong in a theme park because they’re wholly unthemed. If DHS created a romanticized Hollywood lot from the golden age of cinema, like Sunset Blvd does for general Hollywood, I would have no issue, but DHS’s theming gaps don’t transport you to anywhere except out of any possible immersion.
Personally, I think the entrance to Walt Disney Studios Paris works very well. Same with the Great Movie Ride, because they’re romanticized. The test of Walt Disney Studios, not so much.
Parts of Hollywood Blvd in DCA suffer the same problem as DHS, but it’s much more confined to a singular area and will likely be resolved in the relatively near future. Paradise Pier has some gaps, but overall, it pulls off the romanticized pier successfully.
Toy Story Land is fine for what it is, but I believe the franchise has potential for so much more. It’s enjoyable at night, but I’d take Paradise Pier any day of the week, which isn’t exactly fair since Paradise Pier’s scope and scale is so much larger.
They weren't attempting to fool anyone. Some of those sound stages were actual sound stages for actual productions. Others were themed to pretend to be a sound stage so that they could run an attraction pretending to put on a production in which they either taught the audience about film-making or got them involved. There was no attempt to 'fool anyone.'
But once DHS was no longer actively in involved in film-making -- and attractions *about* film-making were not that attractive to guests (compared to rides) -- DHS switched from being a theme park based on a studio-tour about making movies, to a theme park in which you 'entered the film.'
But, there were still huge sound stages throughout the park. So, they kept the public-facing areas (with the exception of SWL and TSL) as themed to LA/Hollywood, which in real life has sound stages.
Totally works for me.
When WDW built TSL and SWL, they didn't add big box sound studios. In fact, they decorated the sound studio housing TSMM to hide it.
iamgroot61
Active Member
- In the Parks
- No
I still need to learn the lay of the land at WDW to make a fair comparison, but totally agree with you that Avengers Campus is an epic fail. Vast "under-treatment" of this incredibly valuable franchise. The Web-Slingers ride is a glorified TSMM and the "land" is laid out terribly with no shade, little seating. Just yuck.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
The only success was Mission: Breakout but it was already there. The addition of the actual “land” felt rather weak.
At least DCA doesn’t have the coma-inducing Flight Force.
Avengers Campus is lame but Web-Slingers is great any has basically nothing in common with TSMM other than being in a ride vehicle playing a game. It’s a more fun, more accurate version of Ninjago or Cupfusion, both of which are considered the premier attractions at their respective parks.