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Taken from SaveDisney.com
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Meanwhile, Over in France...
While the Disney debate rages in the U.S., France offers visible proof of how far Disney has fallen
By Jim Douglas
Marne-la-Vallee is cold. Just twenty minutes outside of Paris on the train, the open fields of the French countryside in the winter are not hospitable. Nonetheless, thousands of people flock here daily - and see for themselves what a chaotic state Disney is in as they enter (or avoid) the Walt Disney Studios theme park next to Disneyland Paris.
Since it opened last year, I had read reports of the park's less-than-stellar reception, its low attendance and its lack of attractions, but I had reason to doubt them. After all, the Walt Disney Studios is located just two minutes by foot from the front gates of Disneyland Paris, which may be the most lavish and beautiful theme park in the world.
On a recent March afternoon, as a cold rain fell and a sharp wind whistled through the sky, I spent an afternoon at the Walt Disney Studios. As someone who worked at The Walt Disney Company for nearly 10 years and once believed passionately that Disney Imagineers were the best creative minds in the world, I was crestfallen:
The Walt Disney Studios in Paris may be the single worst theme park I have ever experienced.
Within four hours, my small group of friends was ready to leave, and we had plenty of company. We left with heavy hearts, walking toward the exit with a multitude of other guests who were openly complain about their miserable experience, the broken-down rides and the lack of anything to do.
It didn't seem possible, but the Walt Disney Studios makes Disney's California Adventure look elaborate. Creatively, it is a new low point for The Walt Disney Company; financially, it is a disaster, having failed to add to incremental attendance at the Euro Disney Resort and threatening to bring the complex closer to true failure (as in shutting its gates) than it ever has been.
And all of it due to the fact that today's Walt Disney Company emphasizes bottom-line thinking and rewards its executives for failure. There is no more visible example of how far Disney has fallen than this theme park.
Guests to Walt Disney Studios enter the tiny park through "Stage 1," a fanciful-looking "soundstage" that acts as a sort of Main Street U.S.A.: Everyone has to come through here, and it is far too small, which means that even on a slow day crowds in Stage 1 are overwhelming. The park's only visual flair is in here, in a row of stores and restaurants that look like an old-style Hollywood street. It's cute - until you realize that Imagineers simply lifted the Hollywood and Dine soundstage almost directly from California Adventure.
Through the opposite doors is the park itself, and the first thing visitors see is the familiar "Partners" statue of Walt and Mickey - with Walt ironically pointing directly toward the exit, as if telling guests to turn around and go back the way they came. They'd do well to heed his advice. To the left is the information booth, where guests see quite explicitly how little their 59 Euro admission price (about $70) will get them: There are only 10 attractions in the entire park - and "Stage 1" is considered one of them!
Most visitors start their day with "Cinemagique," which is like the Great Movie Ride at Disney-MGM Studios without the Audio-Animatronic figures or the ride-through element. In short: It's a movie. Cute, but nothing special.
Across the street from Cinemagique is "Armageddon." It was closed the day we visited. Six cast members were huddled outside to tell guests to look elsewhere. When they were asked how long the attraction might be closed, they said, simply, "Who knows?" A ringing endorsement of Disney management from its own employees.
Not too far away is the Disney Channel Television Studio. It's supposed to be a walk-through of a "working" TV studio. It's a commercial for Disney Channel Europe, and a far too blatant one at that. Guests were complaining loudly about the stupidity of this "attraction," whose only merit is being able to watch a few technicians stare at a bank of monitors while a perky French teen tells you about all of the shows you can see on Disney Channel. For kids, it's a blatant come-on; for adults, it's an affront to intelligence.
On the far side of the TV studios is Cyber Space Mountain, lifted from the now-defunct (except in Florida) DisneyQuest concept. Kids can't get on it. Most adults get sick just looking at it. The cast member in charge of it barely knew how to operate it.
Then there's Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. From afar, it looks like they might have gotten this one right (even if it has nothing to do with movies or TV): there seems to be a large section of track hurling out of the building and a gigantic CD next to the attraction. Walk a little closer, though, and the truth becomes apparent - it's all, in effect, a giant cardboard cutout. It looks like a tacky roadside amusement park. Inside, the elaborate theming of the Disney-MGM attraction has vanished. The "pre-show" is just a few seconds of Aerosmith making some hard-to-decipher remarks, with no effort made at setting a tone. The ride itself is fun, but the most the Imagineers could do here was add a few neon lights along the coaster track.
Remember, less than a half-mile away from this stripped-down indoor coaster is Disneyland Paris's "Space Mountain: From the Earth to the Moon," where the trains hurtle through giant asteroids and everything is intricately detailed. Rock 'n' Roller Coaster serves only to show that Disney has gone in entirely the wrong direction in the past 10 years.
The Backstage Tour is lifted from Disney-MGM Studios - except that in Florida, there was once the semblance of a real studio, whereas in France it's all for show. No movie has ever been shot here. There's also Animagique, a stage show for kids that held no appeal to my group of four adults; likewise, the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, a cheap boardwalk kiddie ride.
That leaves only "Action! Moteurs!" It's a stunt show that generates big audiences - mostly because there's nothing else in the park worth seeing. It's so elaborate that it only performs twice a day, and when it does the rest of the park is virtually empty. (We had a wait of less than one minute for Rock 'n' Roller Coaster during the show.) Apparently, Disney is opening a version of "Action! Moteurs!" at Disney-MGM Studios, though it is anyone's guess why. Granted, it was bitterly cold when we saw the show, but that only partially explains why, after 30 minutes of watching fake "moviemaking" (Disney acts as if no one has ever watched a making-of documentary on a DVD and pretends that moviemaking is a bunch of people clapping clapboards) about a third of the audience had gotten up to leave.
Which is what we did after "Action! Moteurs" - not just the show, but the park itself. Being there was too painful, especially when, from the stunt-show bleachers, you can see Sleeping Beauty Castle and Phantom Manor beckoning you to visit a "real" theme park.
We had been in the park for four hours and had seen everything. We left angry at our experience and feeling cheated at having paid so much money for so little. The two Europeans in our group confessed they had never been particularly fond of Disney prior to our visit - and after Walt Disney Studios, they were even less friendly toward the company. The way they explained it, this theme park proved their theory that Disney was only out to get as much money as possible and no longer was interested in telling stories.
They weren't alone. As I left, I asked a couple of strangers why they were leaving so early. Their answer: "There's nothing to do."
During my employment at Disney, we used to say that Disney spared no expense in the things it did because if it cut corners, people would notice and ultimately the Disney name would lose its appeal. That was before the business executives started invading. They were the ones who approved the budget for Walt Disney Studios, who oversaw its construction, who have systematically stripped the creative aspect out of Walt Disney Imagineering.
When these executives first started to come to Disney, we used to give them daylong orientations where we would try to explain the company's philosophies to them. We told them that cheapening the company's products would drain its appeal. In 2001, they told many of us that they wanted us to leave the company ("voluntarily," they said). Perhaps they just didn't want to listen to what we were saying.
Sadly, those long-held philosophies about what happens if you don't give the customer real value are coming true. No place illustrates that more vividly - or more sadly - than Walt Disney Studios Paris.
Taken from SaveDisney.com
Suddenly WDW seems like heaven when reminded of WDSP!!!
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