News Villains Land Announced for Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom

[UNCgolf]

I'm a huge HTTYD fan so I'm all for the land, even beyond the IP there remains two timeless concepts: dragons and vikings. Kids will always love dragons, and kids will always think Vikings are awesome. Like Pandora, which has the hook of an alien world, HTTYD can work without the IP attached, it has a good hook, which is living amongst dragons and vikings.

As Gen Z (the audience that grew up with these films) starts to exert more buying power, I can see why Uni sprung for this IP to get a whole land versus Shrek or Kung Fu Panda.

The only questionable part of EU is a fourth HP land which can age to be a critical mistake as the owner of the IP goes hogwild.

Maybe, but I'm less convinced -- I don't think the land looks very impressive as someone who doesn't have any connection to the IP; it looks kind of generic and the rides aren't interesting.

I'm sure people that love the IP will love it, but that's a relatively small number of people compared to HP and Nintendo. It'll be interesting to see the reaction from people who don't care about the IP. I don't think it will be a complete failure or anything, but I feel like they might regret the choice down the road.

 

[UNCgolf]

Luigi's Mansion interactive shooter, and Creature from the Black Lagoon indoor boat ride cross of two massive misses. Lets hope the smoke leads to fire and these rumors start flying out too haha.

Considering the Creature from the Black Lagoon is in the main Monsters attraction, I kind of doubt they build a separate ride.

 

[Haymarket2008]

Shanghai Pirates ride system with an emphasis on Chernabog is frankly all I need.

 

[Schmidt]

Yeah, I still like the right side more.
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Awesome list for both companies! We wouldn’t be seeing additions like this without Uni and Dis pushing each other. Love it. I want all of it!

 

[Stripes]

Awesome list for both companies! We wouldn’t be seeing additions like this without Uni and Dis pushing each other. Love it. I want all of it!

Absolutely! The great news is we don’t have to choose one or the other! We get both!

 

[HauntedPirate]

Yeah, I still like the right side more.
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Incomplete additions on the left. A bit disingenuous to include things on the right that haven't seen a shovel's worth of dirt move and won't for at least another year. If you're going for even and unbiased, that is.

 

[Stripes]

Incomplete additions on the left. A bit disingenuous to include things on the right that haven't seen a shovel's worth of dirt move and won't for at least another year. If you're going for even and unbiased, that is.

I considered all major attractions. If you want to include all attractions, there’ll be a lot more to add on the right too.

I think even and unbiased would be to include all announced attractions, considering the companies are going through different investment periods.

 

[Andrew C]

I considered all major attractions. If you want to include all attractions, there’ll be a lot more to add on the right too.

I think even and unbiased would be to include all announced attractions, considering the companies are going through different investment periods.

Could include price too. Bang for your buck. Park experience. Etc. pointless exercise really.

 

[Mike S]

Volcano Bay and the hotel expansion!

But - I meant the full breadth of everything they have done. The good and the bad. Not cherry picking the 4-5 good moves Universal made and ignoring the 10 bad ones. Or vice versa.

I think IOA is a better park than it was ten years ago and I think USF distinctly isn't. But we also need to talk about the elephant in the room that IOA has no entertainment now, questionable food, questionable operating standards, zero night entertainment, literally a dead attraction-less land and two other lands people are speculating are also on a short list to be replaced. We're also missing two coasters. So when you start to parse it out a little bit more, we forget where the needle was and now is.

I'm very impressed with Epic... but I'm on my own perhaps wishing all that investment had instead first gone towards fixing the existing resort and we had a new park in 2030 or so.

Well the way you worded that post made it sound like you didn’t like anything post Diagon so I apologize if that wasn’t your intent.

It also looks extremely kinetic, to a wildly impressive degree.

I think the one thing I would’ve given it is a C ticket dark ride, because I do think Epic as a whole needs more indoor attractions (Islands does too for that matter) and a nice smaller scale people eating dark ride is one of the holes it has in its initial lineup imo.

Well one of the first expansions post opening is supposedly Luigi’s Mansion so there you go.

 

[Schmidt]

Well the way you worded that post made it sound like you didn’t like anything post Diagon so I apologize if that wasn’t your intent.

Well one of the first expansions post opening is supposedly Luigi’s Mansion so there you go.

I don’t buy the Epic expansion just yet.
They have LOTS of problems to fix at their other parks first. Not a fact but my opinion.

 

[Fox&Hound]

I mean technically we DO have a DreamWorks land in Studios that basically gave Uni the excuse to give HTTYD a full land....


I am VERY happy EU didn't spring for a composite DW land or a lesser DW IP (Trolls). The only series DW has that can POSSIBLY support a whole land is Shrek and MAYBE Kung Fu Panda.

Dragons was chosen due to it resonating with an audience DW wants (those who recently became adults), it having... well dragons, and having an iconic locale with distinguishable aesthetics that differentiate itself from other lands. There's no other land in Universal or Disney that will look like Berk, Shrek would resemble Fantasyland and KFP would also have a unique aesthetic but would be too close to Real-World architecture. Dragons has those iconic statues at the entrance of the land, houses cobbled on top of houses, the dragon woodwork, the only issue I can see at a glance for the land is that there is no Flight of Passage equivalent for it, and that's the biggest miss throughout the whole park.

I hope down the line Dragons gets the flight simulator it desperately deserves and ties the whole land together, because if they maintain those flying dragons post opening, this could be the ultimate sleeper hit, not just for EU, but for this current investment wave of FL theme parks.


I'm biased because I love this series, I can acknowledge that, but I believe this was the most important land to get right in EU and will blow people away once it's open.

I agree. I think I am most excited for how to train your Dragon land and I think it’s going to be the sleeper hit of the park. I completely agree.

As beloved as Mario and DK are as IP I think a lot of people who have not been paying attention ar egoing to be very disappointed by the Mario kart ride, and how cramped that Mario area feels. And Yoshi is a complete waste of a ride.

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

Yeah, I still like the right side more.
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That you had to add attractions maybe 7 years away to balance a lineup of rides coming in 7 months says everything about which list you’ll actually take from now until 2030

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I see the natural response to uni releasing something cool is pumping bobs tires for mostly crap?

Carry on

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

That you had to add attractions maybe 7 years away to balance a lineup of rides coming in 7 months says everything about which list you’ll actually take from now until 2030

I mean come on man. 2 of the rides on Universals side is literally chopping up pieces of an existing ride and calling it 2 new rides. And yeah, obviously the park with new attractions coming out is going to have more rides coming out in the next 7 months, however, the last few years for Universal have been super light except for their major hits. I mean...we're comparing Flight of Passage and Rise to hits like... Jimmy Fallon.

 

[Stripes]

That you had to add attractions maybe 7 years away to balance a lineup of rides coming in 7 months says everything about which list you’ll actually take from now until 2030

And yet for how many years have people been saying “Epic Universe is coming!!”

It’s more like May 2025 through 2028. I’ll bet every single one of the attractions on this list is open by the end of 2029. And that‘s fine by me. Every single year I’ll have something new to look forward to which means another excuse to book another trip

2.5 years flies by at the pace life is moving nowadays.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Universal is adding a lot of cool things, I'm happy with competition but honestly, there's a lot of the park that doesn't really impress me. Mario seems like a huge missed opportunity minus DK area. Ministry of Magic is... yeah.
Dark Universe looks amazing + HTTYD is pretty cool looking even if slightly generic but I get what they were going for.

I see the natural response to uni releasing something cool is pumping bobs tires for mostly crap?

Carry on

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Universal is adding a lot of cool things, I'm happy with competition but honestly, there's a lot of the park that doesn't really impress me. Mario seems like a huge missed opportunity minus DK area. Ministry of Magic is... yeah.
Dark Universe looks amazing + HTTYD is pretty cool looking even if slightly generic but I get what they were going for.

The real takeaway is it’s all new. Even if you’re not a uni fan…

Most of what’s gone on down the road has been repurposing for maintenance purposes as the crowds went up and they now double or triple charge for it.

It is what it is

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

The real takeaway is it’s all new. Even if you’re not a uni fan…

Most of what’s gone on down the road has been repurposing for maintenance purposes as the crowds went up and they now double or triple charge for it.

It is what it is

It is all new, and thats a great thing! But honestly, I'd rather have an amazing ride replace something very mediocre than a completely new mediocre thing.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It is all new, and thats a great thing! But honestly, I'd rather have an amazing ride replace something very mediocre than a completely new mediocre thing.

That doesn’t help with your day in the park though…actually it’s made it worse.

Shiny things though…I get you

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

That doesn’t help with your day in the park though…actually it’s made it worse.

Shiny things though…I get you

Not for me personally yet, I've enjoyed everything I've seen + had time for everything I wanted to get to. I know I'm probably in the minority but I can only speak based on my IRL experiences.