UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Yes, because they were actually being used as such back then, so it made sense. I'd argue it was too much of the park's focus, USH has a better split today and thus feels fleshed out and not a half-day park, but regardless.
See my comment about the studio areas of Universal Studios Hollywood making sense as soundstages whereas the actual park-dedicated space outside the Tram Tour SHOULD be themed to something that's NOT cheap to implement (ex. Potter). Just because it's a film studio doesn't mean you should just enter a soundstage for Forbidden Journey. That's cheap, I'm sorry we just disagree there, and until Toy Story Mania became a part of Toy Story Land that happened at HWS. But if you are going onto a film studio area and see animators draw or during a studio tram tour? Yeah, that makes sense.
The soundstages were never beautiful areas but as a park's theme it did work so long as it was balanced with good areas too, just like USH does today, but it hasn't worked in almost 20 years, and MGM was never an elite park, so comparing HWS today to DCA today, DCA is a better themed and more beautiful park. Though to be fair, DCA today would also be more beautiful than MGM opening day as well, but perhaps not as thematically consistent as MGM was.
DCA is most definitely also a better park than MGM was then overall. MGM was ALWAYS designed to be a half-day park, I mean it had 3 rides on opening day. USH has what's presently a vastly superior tram tour than MGM ever did and it has a similar quality ride line-up to HWS today.
I guarantee someone will try to be quick-witted with some aspect of my post that distracts from my main point so I'm not going to continue to respond, but the bottom line is, I think DCA is a better-looking park than HWS given the amount of cheaply themed areas HWS has over DCA.
However, today, if you take issue with Hollywoodland, then I'm sorry, you need to take issue with HWS' plethora of awfully themed areas because there are significantly more Hollywoodland-style areas at HWS than DCA has.
I don't really disagree with any of this as it pertains to the current version of DHS (I think Toy Story Land is probably the worst thing at WDW). I'm only pushing back on insinuations that the original version of the park was bad/poorly themed. It was a half-day park (as you said) but it was a great half-day. The current version is still half-day (at least for me) but is disjointed and nowhere near as fun as the original version (especially once Tower of Terror was open); it just has a bigger attraction lineup. They basically replaced cohesive theming and unique experiences with attractions, and I preferred the former (especially since I don't even like most of the new attractions). That said, the change was kind of forced once the working studio plan collapsed.
I don't know if I'd agree that current DCA is a better overall park than Disney-MGM was post-Tower of Terror, but I also think they're kind of hard to compare, a bit like Animal Kingdom is currently hard to compare to other parks. I don't think that's applicable to DHS now, though.
What Hollywood Studios was decades ago is not what Hollywood Studios is now. It’s a theme park and nothing else. Having the park be a relic of something cool is not an excuse for it’s current state.
Communicore/Innoventions may have been great once upon a time, but it hasn’t been in decades.
Hollywood Studios is not a studio. Hollywood Studios does not feel like a studio. Hollywood Studios is not a romanticized studio. There’s nothing authentic about the “sound stages” or their presentation. Currently, every inch of Hollywood Studios with a sound stage is a stain on the park.
The old HS is completely dead. If they weren’t cheap, they would’ve replaced it long ago, yet here we are.
See above. I'm not arguing DHS vs. DCA, or even anything about current DHS at all (basically all of the old Hollywood/LA theming still works well but the rest of what's left from the early years doesn't really make sense).