Originally Posted By The Goddess Mara The text has been made incrementally larger, which helps, but it still jumps around too much. And having an enormous photograph of a tiny aspect of a sign, or some other disjointed image, just doesn't satisfy my Disney curiosity. The current fad in British commerical design is to pull things out of context--deconstruct them--and force the reader to pay more attention rather than make the job of reading the magazine easy. (It's exactly the opposite of what Walt Disney was doing with Disneyland, and you can read "The Architecture of Reassurance" to see what I mean.) Reading LaughingPlace is an exercise in discomfort for the reader.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> These past five ‘wonder’ years would reveal my appreciation for Disney’s California Adventure because it felt personal and there was self involvement in the narratives in place there. And that’s what I couldn’t find here. << I appreciate Lindsay Cave's essay because it merely confirms my belief that DCA turned out to be even more of a dud not just because people like Barry Braverman and Michael Eisner didn't have enough money for -- or didn't give enough money to -- the park's developers, but because their sense of excellence and quality was so peculiar (some would say bad). All I know is if I'm aware that a reviewer claims a Holiday Inn (if not a Motel 6) or a Burger King (if not the "roach coach" food truck in the company parking lot) is better than some place praised by most major guides, magazines or experts (or fans), I'll take that person's critiques from that point onward with a grain of salt. And I won't even deal with whether a reviewer's positive or negative rating of something is reflected accordingly in the sales or public popularity of that which is being judged.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Well, this is quite the thread, isn't it? Unfortunately, this article was posted on LP last week just as I was going out of town on business. I read it on Thursday, but haven't had the time to respond until now (I had to take care of business on some other threads, you know). But now I'm ready to share my thoughts. First of all, I greatly enjoyed reading the article, and I have to say that it was very different than what I expected and caught me totally off guard. It was a very interesting read in several respects. In addition to the article itself, it brings up so many other topics worthy of discussion: The design of TDS, TDS vs DCA, TWDC's attitude toward OLC, factions within WDI, the purpose and target market for Tales, the personal opinions and biases of the article's author and publisher, and many other things. I hope to get to them all in my comments. First things first: let me re-read the artice and then comment on it directly.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 "I think it was a wise business move and an interesting move for the creative team behind Tales to make this a feature article." I'm not sure. It kind of turned me off to the magazine. I'm not that interested in buying Disney tabloid news or opinion pieces. I buy Disney books to learn about the parks/company/whatever. I don't really want a slanted view one way or the other. Why I would buy a magazine that tells me that the author had a "negative" feeling towards a park? I can visit any number of Disney fansites for that kind of thing...I don't want it sitting on my bookshelf. As for the comment about "Brit" design. I don't see that as racist at all...I'm sorry it was taken that way. There are plenty of American publication with poor design choices too, but I wouldn't take offense at them since I didn't create them or they are not aimed at a person's skin color or nationality.
Originally Posted By gurgitoy2 "SuperDry, I'm eager to hear your thoughts." So am I! I always enjoy hearing what you have to say, SuperDry.
Originally Posted By u k fan I did take back my over-reaction to the "racist" comment, but as I said in my other post I find it to be a sweeping statement that is factually incorrect. I would be interested which UK magazines suffer from the same problems as I'm obviously not reading them. I completely understand that a negative article might turn people off, but people have to take the rough with the smooth. If Lindsay had written a piece about how he thought WDSP was the nicest looking park people would be calling him out and that would be on a positive article. He would of course be completely wrong, but you see what I mean. And I'm sorry, I can't agree with you on the poor design choices comment. With each new issue it is becoming increasingly apparent that the design choices have been used to enhance and reinforce the article in question. For example all of the verticle text in issue 7's Tarzan piece, was it trying to be edgy just for the sake of it or was it complimenting the very verticle pictures and helping to illustrate the height and multi-level staging of the show? I would argue the latter. I know for a fact that Lindsay does not try to be hip and clever for the sake of it when it comes to design, although I'm sure he wants to be innovative. Every last letter will have been placed to give maximum effect. Of course, not everyone will like what he does. For example again in issue 7, I would have much prefered to see a full on picture of Clopin's Festival of Foods. Hunchback is my favorite Disney movie and Clopin is my favorite character plus I'll probably never get to Hong Kong so I'd love to see a full on shot. That would be my biggest criticism of the design in issue 7. I thought everything else was well placed and well themed. Looking back through older issues it's obvious that Lindsay has done his best to incorporate reader suggestions, but he still obviously wants to produce work that conforms to his vision for the magazine and that is his right to do so. I still think it was good move to lead with this article!!!
Originally Posted By WorldDisney LOL, I was ready to give my onslaught of criticism of the USUAL bias from these two about OLC and how they manage to overlook EVERY fault the Disney Co. seems to make with their parks, but TDS is taken out back and shot because the ***HORROR***, the stuff looks too nice and there is soooo much story, my eyes can't take it anymore!!! Get me back to DCA PRONTO!!! But you guys all did it for me . Yeah, its sad when this site feels the need to cowtow to their negativity because they seem to bring in the business, fine, I still sleep ok, but it's pretty sickening how they present a veeeery miniscule opinion of theirs (and JUDGING by this thread and the last 99.9% of the threads in the last 6 years of this issue) that DCA is somehow better than TDS. Yes, its an OPINION, it's fine and got no beef with that. It's just STRANGE to me and everybody else how they managed to come up with the same POV with TDS while SO MANY of the other parks like DAK, Epcot and even area's of the MK parks have the same 'issues' but yep, overlooked each and everytime. Amazing! But, I said this time and time and time again. I said it so much, I stopped replying now everytime I see Leemac's name. We ALL know the score with this dude and while it's fine to have an OPINION, like we all do, they seem to try and turn their miniscule belief like it's some kind of well stated fact although it's very clear over 99.987657% of everyone else seems to disagree with them each and everytime. Face it, TDS IS a superiour theme park! Is it perfect, NO, but what is past the pyramids and my mother . DCA has been talked about getting overhauled from the first year it opened. What does that tell you??? Exactly where has been the outcry to overhaul TDS?? How much infighting in OLC is there to retheme entire area's, change the entire concept or hell rename the park and start from the beginning? The CURRENT president of DLR didn't seem to have much of a problem with TDS, but certainly does with DCA when he moved over it seems. Again, opinions are fine, but it just shows the vile hatred for this park when the ONLY time a negative article on this website is about a park that I'm sure nearly every Disney theme park fan would all like to see once in their lifetimes as most of the parks (sans DSP I'm guessing ). Strange! But, I guess they wanted a response (everyone would be yawning if it talked about how small and lack of originality HKDL is, but A. Most know that and B. These two would neeeeever write an article about it ) I seen TDS well over a dozen times now and I plan to see it a dozen times more. When people see pictures of TDS, they litterally say the word "WoW" each and everytime. A few of you said that the LP meet when I brought my pictures over. Can you say the same about DCA, lol!! Anyway, yes, Leemac tried to give a good fight, realize he's losing and scamper out the back door as always. That's the ANNOYING thing about it all. If you believe in your opinion, STAND UP to it. It's just telling the world that you know you are wrong (or simply outnumbered ) when you sit and give 3 entire posts of why you are right and never show your face again. Mr. X asked you SEVERAL times if he can ***prove*** to you that one of you made the statement of liking DCA AND DSP better than TDS and once again, poof, kazam, gone . Anyway, it's a quirky article and ALWAYS well written I might add (see, I can be positive ), but you're not fooling anyone......not by a long shot . See ya
Originally Posted By DlandDug It is possible that Lee felt that he had said anything he felt necessary in this thread.
Originally Posted By WorldDisney Fair enough Dug, But he's pulled the vanishing act SOOO many times here it's annoying. Look, I *use* to say this alot, but if it was more than Leemac and his partner Lindsay (seriously, is there ANYONE one else on the boards with this opinion out there, A-N-Y-O-N-E?), then maybe there can be real discussions. But it's just them two for the most part and Lee basically saying, "I know this guy, I know that guy, I have access, TDS is the worst idea on the planet and WDC can do no wrong, I'm outta here now because there are too many of you." Everytime .
Originally Posted By The Goddess Mara Interestingly, I fall in between: I don't think that Tokyo DisneySea is the greatest park in the world, nor do I think Disney's California Adventure is the worst. I think we can all agree (providing you've been there) that Walt Disney Studios Paris is by far the worst theme park Disney has ever built. It has meager attendence and has almost driven the company into bankruptcy. Tokyo Disney Sea is an entirely different story and California Adventure. Yes, one cost three billion and the other cost one billion, but the differences go far deeper than that. California Adventure has many more rides and attractions than DisneySea. It fails as unified theme park, however, but it's still a lot of fun to go there. On the other hand, DisneySea doesn't have enough attractions, but excels to am ASTOUNDING degree as a unified theme park. And it's interesting to me to see how much money Oriental Land Company put into the architectural design and splendor of every detail in the park instead of spending some of that money on more rides. I will end this by saying that the Tokyo Disney Resort is, without question (in my opinion, of course), the finest Disney resort in the world. Combinging the two parks, various hotels, restaurants, and shopping really push it past Anaheim (its closest competition because the original Disneyland is such a wonderful park). In third place will always be Walt Disney World, because it's so inconveniently spread out, horribly humid and hot much of the year, and the Magic Kingdom is dismal comparted to those in Tokyo and Anaheim.
Originally Posted By TDR_Fan <<California Adventure has many more rides and attractions than DisneySea>> Does it? From this list, it certainly doesn't seem so. And DisneySea has much more E-tickets that are much more impressive than any of the E-tickets at California Adventure (except maybe Soarin' and Tower of Terror). Counting real attractions (and not scheduled shows), California Adventure has 26 attractions with the majority of them being cheap carnival rides. DisneySea has 26 attractions too, but much of them of high quality and detail.
Originally Posted By TDR_Fan There's still no denying that DCA does not have more attractions than TDS, which is what you stated.
Originally Posted By TDR_Fan <<With a bias like yours, it's not even worth discussing.>> And I suppose you think TDLFAN is biased as well 8-? I know quality when I see it and have nothing against DCA or any other Disney park. I'm a big fan of the original Disneyland and for a while, Disneyland and DCA remained very high on my list, with Disneyland on the very top. After visiting Tokyo, my views have changed. Whether or not I'm biased or not depends on how you perceive my posts. Sure I may over-commend the Tokyo parks, but I feel they deserve it.
Originally Posted By SuperDry What I found interesting in the article started with the very first sentence: “I have always felt adrift in my take on TDS, lauded & applauded since day one with a stunning attendance to boot, I have often wondered why I simply feel lost at sea.†This sentence is very representative of the entire article: it starts and finishes with the author’s personal opinion on the park, and in the middle says nothing but good things (in this case, specifically that other people like it and that it’s successful from an attendance point of view). The entire article played out in this fashion. Typically with an opinion piece, you’d expect the author to quote various sources and facts in support of his opinion, but these are notably absent from this article. We don’t even see simple things that have been mentioned on LP before, such as a common guest complaint being that there are too few E tickets, or the number of discount tickets sold. In fact, Lindsay says “Themeing: Top notch; Attractions: E-Tickets; Entertainment: First class; add to that a ton of different restaurants and oodles of unique merchandise and the cards were stacking favorably†just before he says “Yet I didn’t get it.†Since this is a very unnatural and unusual way to write an opinion piece, I have to assume that it was done deliberately. Other people have mentioned in this thread that they found it unusual and disappointing to have a negative article posted on LP and in Tales – perhaps this was the way to make it happen within the editorial context of Tales. There literally seems to be not a single negative thing about TDS mentioned, not even the smallest factoid, other than the author’s opinion.
Originally Posted By SuperDry The author mentions the “curious up-and-down-space†that is the park. I find his choice of words curious, as it implies a bit more than just interesting or unusual – something along the lines of odd. Perhaps no better is this manifested than in Mysterious Island. The main level of the entire port is on the second level, perhaps some 20 feet above ground/water level. This is perhaps the most unique port or land in a Disney park. It’s just stunning to look at and just be in. And speaking of looking, what’s interesting is that although what’s at your level as a guest is pretty to look at, the eye’s attention is really drawn up and down: up to see the top of the caldera, the erupting volcano, a set piece of a drilling vehicle, and two glimpses of the rapidly-moving JTTCOE ride vehicles. Looking down, you see the water below, with the Transit Steamer Line passing ever so often, blowing its distinctive whistle. You also see the Nautilus submarine at its dock, engines idling, just about to depart. The gift shop, main restaurant, food carts, restrooms, and two attraction entrances are on the main (second) level, but there’s an outdoor counter service restaurant down below next to the Nautilus, and both attractions’ queues take you to other levels within the port before boarding the ride vehicles. It’s very much a three dimensional, multi-level experience. All of the other ports make use of two levels to one degree or another, and as one of the Kirks pointed out in the quotes in the article, this allowed them to very creatively solve some of the design issues with the park. So, I think the ups and downs in the park are very much a plus for it, and it seems that when people bring up this issue as a negative (even if only slightly so as was done in Lost At Sea) it’s always seemed to me that it was people that had an overall dislike for TDS and were just reaching for things to criticize.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Another thing I found interesting is that although the author acknowledges that the park has been “lauded & applauded†and has “stunning attendance†and offers a very different take on it personally, he never really comes out and offers a plausible explanation as to why this might be. Since he used the terms just quoted, I can only conclude that the author realizes that he has a minority opinion (perhaps an extreme minority), and it would seem that he’d address this issue in an opinion piece, especially one that’s otherwise very even-handed. And that brings me to another point. I had read the first few pages of posts on this thread before reading the article, so I was set up for a hatchet piece. There’s a certain style of opinion piece where the author’s purpose is to express a negative opinion and in doing so throws every negative factoid except the kitchen sink into the article, and usually also twists and spins everything that’s neutral toward the negative in order to support his opinion. This isn’t just a writing technique – this is often what’s going on in people’s head. Based on the reaction to the article, this is what I was expecting going into the article. It was rather refreshing to see that that’s not at all what it was. So much so, that I almost have to wonder if I’m somehow reading a different article than what some others on this thread have read. Regarding the issue of TDS vs DCA, in #27, leemac wrote “That wasn't the point of the article. It wasn't a comparison piece. It was an op-ed about a park that is flawed in the writer's mind.†The people here on LP have the benefit of knowing about Lindsay’s opinions on DCA beyond what appears in this article. Actually, Tales readers do as well if they remember his previous article that could be said to have lauded & applauded that park. Going into the article, I was not going to mention the DCA issue, as I thought it would be a bit of a cheap shot to discredit his opinions of TDS based on what he thinks about DCA. But then in the article he says “whilst heavily involved with my interests in DCA I began to ponder why I couldn’t get my head around what at Tokyo DisneySea was influencing such apathy.†So I think that makes DCA fair game in this discussion. I’m going to stay out of the WDSP debate, both on park opinions and who did or did not say what in the past, since it was never mentioned in the article. But I think the author’s opinions on DCA are relevant to the topic at hand. Much as with TDS, Lindsay never directly acknowledges that there’s such a disconnect between his personal opinions and that of a large majority of guests, let alone offer a possible explanation for it.
Originally Posted By SuperDry The talk about the initial TDR second gate proposals was interesting: the first two proposals that got shot down were a Studios park and a DAK-style park. "No studios, and no zoo" was the response. I'm so thankful that OLC made those choices. A Studios park just seems so textbook to me, used as a choice of what to build when you don't have any other ideas (Universal is a different matter, as the original and quintessential studio park). As an aside, I'm also glad that even though it's loosely a "sea" based park, that there are no aquariums. This, along with a studio park, seems to be a well-worn idea when building something for tourists. How many cities have built an aquarium to solve their tourism problems? And could you have an aquarium without it being at least partly "preachy" as to how we need to take care of the ocean? (not that we shouldn't, mind you). There's nothing preachy about TDS. And note that rumor has it that this aspect of the safari at DAK regarding poaching is reportedly being removed soon. The comparisons between the TDS ports and TDL lands were interesting. I had not thought about that before, except that when I first saw Port Discovery, I had thought "Oh, this is TDS's Tomorrowland." But as for the other ports, I just accepted them for what they were without thinking about it too much. But as a bit of personal background, that's the way I tend to view movies as well. I tend to just sit there and watch it, without thinking about it too much, while the person next to me might comment "That was SO predictable!" And even if the analogs between the ports and the lands did stand out, I don’t think I would consider that a negative – if anything, I would think it would be a positive, as that would make TDS benefit from a time-proven model.
Originally Posted By SuperDry From the article: <<< “If you don’t have an intellectual property to base this stuff on - no matter how cool the idea is it just doesn’t have the same effect or resonance.†- Tim Kirk" >>> What an interesting quote. I found the whole discussion of intellectual property fascinating. Well, specifically how decisions need to be made as to how much to use, and where and how to use it. Looking at the two other second gates (I’m going to ignore WDSP for the moment, since I believe that it wasn’t a serious attempt by WDI to build a full-fledged second gate and that it was built for other reasons), which would be EPCOT and DCA, they were noticeably devoid of Disney IP when they opened. I can’t think of any district in DCA that’s based on a Disney character, or even an opening-day attraction that was. But at TDS, four of the seven major lands seemed to have a strong basis in Disney IP, either through an anchor attraction or overall design. It’s interesting that this was a top-down design consideration, not bottom-up. That is, it’s not as if they came up with ideas for the various ports, and as they were considering which shows and attractions to put here and there, thought of what IP would be appropriate. Rather, they apparently took a very macro view and considered directly to what degree they wanted to use IP in the new park. Now that it’s been pointed out, it’s obvious that that would be something to be done when designing a new Disney park, but it had never occurred to me before.
