News Zootopia and Moana Blue Sky concepts for Disney's Animal Kingdom

[bmr1591]

Zootopia in DAK is a bad idea and doesn't fit the park.

But Zootopia in DAK, removing Dinosaur/Dinoland USA in a park desperate for increased capacity (and can't afford to lose existing capacity for any period of time) is just a terrible idea that is so insane to hear that it is even being considered let alone seemingly approved.

Just my plea to any Disney folks reading this forum: if you really must put Zootopia in DAK, please make it a new build and expansion. Leave Dinoland as is (feel free to replace the Dinorama portion with Moana/Oceania though).

If Zootopia must be in AK, put it at Planet Watch and make people take the train to it. Disconnect it from the rest of the park.

 

[ToTBellHop]

If Zootopia must be in AK, put it at Planet Watch and make people take the train to it. Disconnect it from the rest of the park.

The train would leave if a land went back there.

 

[J4546]

I could see them making a raised pathway back there perhaps, it would be cool to make that area more accesible regardless

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

DHS certainly has expansion space, but agree that it is not readily accessible. But I don't think that they "failed to consider" future expansion, just that they didn't make an effort to prepare for it. They just kicked that can down the road.

We know that had specific pads available in Galaxy's Edge for expansion set aside (for the restaurant and for another attraction). And there's still a bunch of backstage area on the west side that can be used for expansion, they would just need to relocate those functions currently housed there (but that was true before the DHS revamp, so it didn't change or worsen at all).

When the time comes, they basically just need to tear down the Animation building including the offices (+whatever they want to do with Mermaid) and connect that area to the RNR courtyard to make the most logical next location for a big expansion.

Separately or additionally, they can remove the IJ theater and the use the Echo Lake area to build into the parking lot. which could be a very large footprint if desired.

That's why there was an "almost totally" in front of the "failed to consider future expansion". There are pads, but significant new attractions or physical expansion will, for the most part, require infrastructural change to an unusual degree, and the work they did in the past decade went no distance towards making that easier.

In some cases they even made it harder by building corners where they shouldn't have that can't be so easily opened up down the road. Genuine expansion at DHS isn't at all impossible, but it faces challenges, and that's really dumb considering expansion is high on the list of what the park needs.

 

[UNCgolf]

The train would leave if a land went back there.

It would have to. People seem to forget how little capacity that train has to transport people back and forth; it's not viable to get people to/from any kind of big draw.

 

[MisterPenguin]

You can have both the train and a walking path. It's not either/or.

 

[UNCgolf]

You can have both the train and a walking path. It's not either/or.

Sure you can, but that would be kind of pointless, especially since the existence of the train would make development, construction, etc. harder as they'd have to work/plan around the train tracks -- I think it's pretty unlikely Disney would want to keep the train if they built a new land up there.

It would also be a relatively long walking path if it was all the way up at Rafiki's current location, so they'd probably want shops, QS, or something else along the way so people weren't just trekking through empty space. The train would be a hindrance to that too.

Not that they couldn't work around it (obviously they could), but I don't think they'd consider it worth the hassle.

 

[JohnD]

I don't even think MK is a good fit for Zootopia... It has none of the fairytale elements that the rest of the park has, and it fits with none of the existing lands... DHS is about the only park it would fit in....and I don't fine the source material particularly compelling. Why do we need this at all? If we have to clne rides from Asian theme parks, I would much rather have Mystic Manor, Journey to the center of the Earth, Sinbad's Storybook Voyage, Mermaid Lagoon, Big Grizzley Mountain, Roaring Rapids, Roger Rabbit's CarToon Spin, Aquatopia, and then from Disneyland, Radiator Springs Racers. We don't need Zootopia with all of those better choices to work with...

So it doesn't belong in any of the parks. Let's see:

• MK: No fairytale elements associated with it
• EP: IP. Enough said
• AK: Park is about natural environments that include animals, not people portrayed by fictional animals
• HS: Not about movies (but then again that ship has sailed. IPs for SW and TS are already there)

 

[novanoto]

If they do go this Oceania direction, am I the only one who would love the Shanghai Pirates ride system interposed to Moana? To me, it almost makes too much sense! Capacity, novel ride system to the US parks, popular IP. Checks all the boxes.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

If they do go this Oceania direction, am I the only one who would love the Shanghai Pirates ride system interposed to Moana? To me, it almost makes too much sense! Capacity, novel ride system to the US parks, popular IP. Checks all the boxes.

I completely agree. It would make more sense than a log flume-style ride anyway, given the type of boat she pilots in the film. And then the "water" could lift you up and down like in the movie.

 

[Advisable Joseph]

Funding has already been allocated for the Dinoland re-development project. It is Zootopia. Moana is actually secondary. Not sure where all the other stuff is coming from, but I figured it was time I stopped by to chime in.

A brand new Moana ride will take longer to build from scratch than a re-theme of an existing ride. I guarantee you that anyone you call a “trusted insider” would generally agree with me.

To be clear, it’s not a clone of Shanghai, it’s a re-theme of Dinosaur.

Anyway…

I think my reputation stands for itself, aside from still being bewildered on who pushed through Princess and the Frog (which I still believe to be a huge mistake) to re-theme Splash Mountain in Florida, my track record is solid.

For those of you that still have doubts, just listen into the earnings call from the other day. You have top brass in the company speaking proudly about how re-theming an existing attraction creates almost as much impact building something new from scratch. They want attractions that are being utilized to their full capacity. That’s the goal there. Dinosaur, as much as we may love it or not, isn’t getting enough people coming to the park to keep it at full capacity all the time, nor does it get good guest satisfaction scores. Couple that with the fact that it’s basically themed to a dead IP, it just is too obvious to not be on the chopping block. All of Dinoland suffers because the main attraction isn’t good anymore.
....

One last thing… the primary driver of this project is the replacement of Dinoland itself. Dinosaur being themed to Zootopia has been thought of on this project since the beginning, sadly. (Competing against an Indiana Jones overlay, but that was decided to not be helpful enough to create more family attractions for the park, which operations is demanding from any park expansion) The Moana attraction, although more grand in scale in my opinion, was secondary. (though now with a likely larger budget, stolen from Epcot’s redo no doubt) This does not mean that one particular attraction will open first. I actually expect the entire land to close at once, with the only remaining open path being available to get to the Nemo show and the bridge to Asia. The scope and scale of this project is massive and I’m not sure it could be accomplished piecemeal as some are suggesting.

Thought is was worth revisiting these comments.

A corollary to Dinosaur not operating at capacity is that taking it offline may not have as bad of an effect on the rest of the park as you might think.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Given the "revised concept" for DHS, Studios really would be the best park for this (if they have to build something Zootopia). But it would basically have to be its own new land, since there's nothing in DHS to which you could attach it organically. One of the big blunders of the DHS redo was that it almost totally failed to consider future expansion possibilities, both conceptually and in terms of physical space.

You know if they put it in MK it would end up in Tomorrowland, which would just be wrong.

yeah, DHS, which now is more about putting you in the setting of the films or of a time period of Hollywood vs about making movies

putting you *in* Zootopia makes a lot of sense ... so no way it happens

 

[mattpeto]

Thought is was worth revisiting these comments.

A corollary to Dinosaur not operating at capacity is that taking it offline may not have as bad of an effect on the rest of the park as you might think.

Your entire post killed my leading theory. I guess retheming Dinosaur could happen first...

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

Your entire post killed my leading theory. I guess retheming Dinosaur could happen first...

@wdwmagic indicated in another thread that they can change their minds on a dime. Certain things that were certain before may not be, and other things may have taken precedence. I think it's a crapshoot at this point. There are SO MANY "leaks" and "rumors" out there that who knows what is real. But we will tomorrow.

 

[Brer Panther]

Does Moana even warrant an entire land based around it? I mean, is her island really a Hogwarts-level location that everyone wants to explore?

 

[WaltWiz1901]

Five Disney Dollars says that they park the riders in front of a screen for the majority of the ride.

May be too soon to judge based off of only a few pictures, concept art, and video clips here and there, but from what I'm seeing I sincerely doubt that Hot Pursuit will be another Ratatouille Adventure (or Runaway Railway). If anything, said few pictures, concept art, and video clips are giving me a glimmer of hope that it will be more like Mystic Manor and Tokyo's trackless Fantasyland dark rides (Hunny Hunt and Enchanted Tale)

Does Moana even warrant an entire land based around it? I mean, is her island really a Hogwarts-level location that everyone wants to explore?

Brian Krosnick seems to think so.

 

[JustInTime]

Ive heard reports Bob was seen touring Dinoland today. Has this been confirmed?

 

[Brer Oswald]

Sure you can, but that would be kind of pointless, especially since the existence of the train would make development, construction, etc. harder as they'd have to work/plan around the train tracks -- I think it's pretty unlikely Disney would want to keep the train if they built a new land up there.

It would also be a relatively long walking path if it was all the way up at Rafiki's current location, so they'd probably want shops, QS, or something else along the way so people weren't just trekking through empty space. The train would be a hindrance to that too.

Not that they couldn't work around it (obviously they could), but I don't think they'd consider it worth the hassle.

I think it would be more viable to create a train “ride” with a completely different track layout.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Where, specifically were Imagineers spotted recently? That could inform our suppositions on what gets built first.

We can all agree that the beloved TriceraTop Spin should stay open as long as possible.

 

[doctornick]

Where, specifically were Imagineers spotted recently? That could inform our suppositions on what gets built first.

I’m all for building Moana on the Dinorama plot while building Zootopia at the same time… somewhere else. Get everything open ASAP and ideally keep Dinoland USA open and running.

That said, what I really don’t get is why they don’t add a third attraction to Pandora.