Toy Story Land expansion announced for Disney's Hollywood Studios

Brian Swan

Well-Known Member
Will there be a restaurant?
I mean.. Pizza planet is gone, right?
Will it be moved or what?
Assuming they care about the "theme concept" of "Andy's back yard, and the fact that were supposedly shrunk to the size of the toys, and recreation of a "human-sized" Pizza Planet just wouldn't fit. I believe that there WILL be a QS back there (and it may well serve pizza), but no idea of what the theme may be.
 

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Assuming they care about the "theme concept" of "Andy's back yard, and the fact that were supposedly shrunk to the size of the toys, and recreation of a "human-sized" Pizza Planet just wouldn't fit. I believe that there WILL be a QS back there (and it may well serve pizza), but no idea of what the theme may be.
It's the Pizza Planet Play Set. Now it fits!
 

Mike S

Well-Known Member
It's the Pizza Planet Play Set. Now it fits!
SYNERGY!!!!!
001.jpg
 

brb1006

Well-Known Member
The more I look at the pedestrian underpass between Toy Story Land and Star Wars, the more it looks like it will double as a backstage access road. With the park's current design, the backstage area behind The Great Movie Ride (including service areas for ABC Commissary, SciFi Dine-In, Writer's Stop, and Studio Catering Company) is essentially an island, without direct access to other backstage areas

For the new design, it seems like this backstage area will grow, and will include service areas for additional stores and restaurants. Given this, I think they would see value in adding vehicular access, so they can restock during the day and perform other back-of-house duties without using the guest walkways

There is a similar transition in Tokyo DisneySEA, between Mysterious Island and Mermaid Lagoon (in large part because tunnels are impractical with the waterway surrounding the park), also serving the central areas of the park. From Mysterious Island, guests walk through a narrow canyon with a waterfall, then pass through a cave/tunnel and emerge seamlessly into Mermaid Lagoon. Here's an aerial photo that shows the backstage road:
the-volcano-houses-the-journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth-ride-big.jpg


And a view of the Mermaid Lagoon side. The portal itself is on the far left side of the photo, and the road is hidden behind the wall with the aqueduct-type arches:
DisneySea-20.jpg


Photos of the Mysterious Island side are tough to find, but I did find a walkthrough video showing what the transition looks like (during a blizzard, naturally). That area begins around 24:55


Obviously the architectural styling would need to change to match the respective lands in WDW, but this seems to be the concept they're using. And if it's good enough for TDS...

I love seeing Tokyo Disney Resort and Disneyland Paris in real snow for some reason.
 

Sped2424

Well-Known Member
Read a great post on TPI which is making me look at this project in a different light. I'm now trying to look at this project as placemaking, ala Springfield and the expansion of Super silly Fun land at USH, which Universal were pretty much widely complemented on. The headliner is already there and this is just creating an area around it to make it more relevant. This thinking sort of makes it easier to accept in my mind; the extent of which will become apparent depending on how much else we get. The acreage of the initially announced project was far too big for a land of this calibre.
But even with this line of thought it fails ESPECIALLY if we are comparing it to what Springfield did for the Simpsons ride. Which was create a cohesive area around it with dedicated themeing here all that initial themeing has been cut to its barest form. There is no excusing it. Is there a nice new coaster sure but the other details that made this land even passable all get thrown out in favor of a very dull area.
 

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
I'm going to try to sum up the last year or so in Disney forums (Not just this one):

"Hey Disney! Why aren't you keeping up with the times with technology?!"
(Disney finally adds wifi to the resorts, MM+, etc.)
"But we didn't ask (demand) that! Now you're wasting money!!"
...
"Stop sitting around and getting stagnant! Build something!"
(Disney begins building, a lot)
"But, but, but only half of that stuff is what I wanted and you're doing it wrong! The other half is useless and now you're wasting more money!"
...
"Why don't they listen to me?! I could run that billion dollar company myself and do a much better job!"


Disney is going to do Disney. Simple as that. They don't care what the minority has to say about how they run the business. They only care about the bottom line and unless people were to rise as one and stop going to the parks and giving our money to them then they will continue to do what they want to do and not what guests want them to do. Is this the Disney we knew as children? No. Will it ever be that Disney again? No. Disney is going to change in ways that many on Disney forums will not like. We just have to deal with it. This Toy Story Land is likely going to be less than what we as forum members are going to see as worthy. However, I still think it is going to be loads better than any of the other comparable lands in other parks, and the average non-forum Disney guest will love the area.
Many have said that it is wrong, yet, there are so many examples of things that Walt did that everyone thought was crazy. Disneyland being one of the biggest. He didn't always reach out and ask what the pulse of the nation was, he did what he thought he wanted and felt that others would think so too. He was right many times, but, he also had some pretty gigantic failures along the way that almost ruined the company more then once. If we are all going to quote history so much, lets make sure we know what the history actually was.

I'm aware that none of the current management is blessed with the intuition that he had most of the time, but, to say that everything was done just as everyone wanted is no more accurate then saying the they should be listening to a few fans now.
 

Sped2424

Well-Known Member
Will there be a restaurant?
I mean.. Pizza planet is gone, right?
Will it be moved or what?
Looks like a quick service location and yeah the original pizza planet is being converted into a muppets eatery. I would hope this would be a new immersive quick service location themed to the pizza planet from the film in order to tie it into being next to the alien spinner. But something tells me that's not the case.
 

Sped2424

Well-Known Member
The thing that really bothers me with tsl and especially the slinky coaster concept video (besides lack of theming) is that it appears as if we can easily see the cm parking garage. What are they going to do about that or do they really care? Also this concept art was shown again at the presentation yesterday yet the overall concept video and art of the land show no feature resembling this, not sure what's up with that.
Toy-Story-Land_Full_25055.jpg
They showed this bit of art for the initial presentation and even then this segment was not in the version they presented. I am just going to mark it up as a fluff piece to give some form of content.
Toy-Story-Land-Slinky-Dog-Roller-Coaster-Ride.jpg
 

djkidkaz

Well-Known Member
Many have said that it is wrong, yet, there are so many examples of things that Walt did that everyone thought was crazy. Disneyland being one of the biggest. He didn't always reach out and ask what the pulse of the nation was, he did what he thought he wanted and felt that others would think so too. He was right many times, but, he also had some pretty gigantic failures along the way that almost ruined the company more then once. If we are all going to quote history so much, lets make sure we know what the history actually was.

I'm aware that none of the current management is blessed with the intuition that he had most of the time, but, to say that everything was done just as everyone wanted is no more accurate then saying the they should be listening to a few fans now.

People also need to realize that no one cares about this company like Walt did. The further you get away from him running it as well as his people being around the more it is just a business. The Disney company was Walts passions come to life, now the Disney company is a brand that a CEO wears as a status symbol of their success. Walt was dreaming and creating things like Epcot because he personally wanted to solve problems in society and cities. The Disney company doesn't care about that anymore and being publicly traded now doesn't allow them to take those risks like Walt once did. I try to put myself in the mindset of CEO for Disney and I think my passion for the parks would shine through but there are also plenty of other avenues I would not have interest in like ESPN, the video games and even the movies to some extent. Bob Iger is just like anyone else, maybe the parks are the thing he's least interested in or understands. That doesn't mean he can't invest in them but I would understand where he might look and start trimming costs if he isn't personally passionate about the parks. Should personal opinion come into play when your CEO? Probably not, but I'm sure it happens.

There will never be a solution to the disagreements on these boards.
 

Mike S

Well-Known Member
People also need to realize that no one cares about this company like Walt did. The further you get away from him running it as well as his people being around the more it is just a business. The Disney company was Walts passions come to life, now the Disney company is a brand that a CEO wears as a status symbol of their success. Walt was dreaming and creating things like Epcot because he personally wanted to solve problems in society and cities. The Disney company doesn't care about that anymore and being publicly traded now doesn't allow them to take those risks like Walt once did. I try to put myself in the mindset of CEO for Disney and I think my passion for the parks would shine through but there are also plenty of other avenues I would not have interest in like ESPN, the video games and even the movies to some extent. Bob Iger is just like anyone else, maybe the parks are the thing he's least interested in or understands. That doesn't mean he can't invest in them but I would understand where he might look and start trimming costs if he isn't personally passionate about the parks. Should personal opinion come into play when your CEO? Probably not, but I'm sure it happens.

There will never be a solution to the disagreements on these boards.
A quick search of when Disney went public gave me this.
Disney Trades on the OTC in 1946.Walt Disney Productions incorporated in 1938. The company issued its 6% Cumulative Convertible Preferred to the public in 1940; its common began trading OTC in 1946; and the company listed on the NYSE on November 12, 1957.
It's no excuse.
 

djkidkaz

Well-Known Member
A quick search of when Disney went public gave me this.

It's no excuse.

Yeah but it's a completely different time in our culture. Discovery was still encouraged.

And again I just don't think Disney wants to take on that role any longer. Is it wrong of them to change course? Take Epcot for example, even with all of Walts amazing team still around these guys couldn't figure out how to make it work. I don't fault Disney for not wanting to tackle problems of city living, I just don't see that as their role in society any longer.
 

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
People also need to realize that no one cares about this company like Walt did. The further you get away from him running it as well as his people being around the more it is just a business. The Disney company was Walts passions come to life, now the Disney company is a brand that a CEO wears as a status symbol of their success. Walt was dreaming and creating things like Epcot because he personally wanted to solve problems in society and cities. The Disney company doesn't care about that anymore and being publicly traded now doesn't allow them to take those risks like Walt once did. I try to put myself in the mindset of CEO for Disney and I think my passion for the parks would shine through but there are also plenty of other avenues I would not have interest in like ESPN, the video games and even the movies to some extent. Bob Iger is just like anyone else, maybe the parks are the thing he's least interested in or understands. That doesn't mean he can't invest in them but I would understand where he might look and start trimming costs if he isn't personally passionate about the parks. Should personal opinion come into play when your CEO? Probably not, but I'm sure it happens.

There will never be a solution to the disagreements on these boards.
The CEO of a conglomerate isn't supposed to micromanage everything. In the past 20 years four men have been the top dog for Disney's theme parks. Only two of them had any prior theme park experience, Paul Pressler and Jay Rasulo. That alone should speak volumes on Disney's attitude regarding themed entertainment.

Yeah but it's a completely different time in our culture. Discovery was still encouraged
Plenty of companies have shareholders who look past losses for the bigger future. Disney just doesn't inspire that sort of confidence.
 

FigmentForver96

Well-Known Member
Something I am curious about are the Rex and Jessie figures found in the art. I know in the original release they said that some of the characters were going to "interact" with the ride. I was under the impression they had removed them during the cutbacks, but it appears Jessie and Rex still appear in the new video?
 

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