Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt >>So can we agree that WDI does everything well except "the future"?<< "It seems like they have trouble every time they try to make some sort of movie studio too. The one in Florida worked at the beginning but is increasingly becoming a hot mess, the California one seems to have a constant identity crisis, and the one in France is just butt ugly (also with a hint of identity crisis)" I'll take that as a yes.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I really liked Disney's original approach with the MGM Studios. Rather than taking Universal's "Ride the Movies" approach they concentrated on Infotainment and creative approaches to table-service dining. My late wife and I loved it; MGM was our favorite park for several years after it opened. But repeat-ability became a problem for us and I would guess it was for others too. Even extremely well-done infotainment like the Studio Backlot Tour and Animation Tour just lacked the repeat-ability of a Tower of Terror or Midway Mania. The tours, shows and even "rides" were quite lengthy. The original Backlot tour took close to 45 minutes; the Animation tour 20-40 minutes depending on how much time you spent watching the animators work. Even the darkride, The Great Movie Ride, took 22 minutes. It was certainly no 2-1/2 minute romp through Neverland. People tired of long duration attractions with limited repeat-ability. They didn't like spending an entire day experiencing maybe 5 attractions. Add in the queue time and it became difficult to schedule your day to see everything you wanted to see. So Disney totally switched its direction and went with "Ride the Movies", creating something of a mish-mash in the process.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I agree that the original version of the park was a really neat way to approach it. In addition to repeatability problems, they also sort of boxed themselves out of the market when they created so many of their wonderful DVD bonus features through the years. I no longer need to go to a theme park to see how movies are made; I can just pop in my favorite disc, and it will give me all that information including specific examples from that film (rather than some random one that I may or may not have seen). As that information became more prevalent, and easily available with the internet, a lot of the park's uniqueness died off. I think that they would have similar problems if they tried to revert to the original edutainment pavilions at Epcot, though that park certainly seems like it would bear that burden much easier due to its broad focus
Originally Posted By hopemax ^ I call a bit of BS. The most popular thing at the Studios right now is a 30 min show that you have to start queueing up for to claim your seat 45 min ahead of time, after you had to go pick up your return time ticket which you might have spent another 10 min in line for. Really, they repeatedly told us we had to be in line at 11:50 max for the 12:30 show, even after we had a return time, to be guaranteed a seat. For a performance that is nothing more than a very brief appearance of some popular face characters and the song clips from a movie that all the people could have simply loaded on their smart phone instead. What's changed is what "the masses" view as "Disney." It needs to be character driven or some sort of thrill. The concepts of movie making isn't Disney because it's not branding all over the place. Which is why adding Frozen to Norway is so dangerous for those that appreciate the more infotainment elements. Some meat & potatoes and not all cotton candy all the time. Disney is right on the cusp of not being able to do any of that at all anymore because they have made everything so brand driven.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip What show is that? I assume it is something based on Frozen. You can't base the type of experiences people usually like on anything that has to do with Frozen. People are just plain bat-poop crazy when it comes to that film. They will stand in line four hours to have their pictures taken with someone dressed up like a princess. What can you say?
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "What's changed is what "the masses" view as "Disney." It needs to be character driven or some sort of thrill. The concepts of movie making isn't Disney because it's not branding all over the place" Perfectly said.
Originally Posted By leobloom >>So can we agree that WDI does everything well except "the future"?<< MK's New Tomorrowland (and I guess Discoveryland at DLP) were a great solution to the problem of "the future." At MK, the design only starting deteriorating when management found it necessary to throw a bunch of animated characters into the mix (Buzz, Stich, Monsters). Now it's one of the lousiest areas in the park. Admittedly, the half-a**ed redo of Space Mountain didn't help, either.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>What's changed is what "the masses" view as "Disney." It needs to be character driven or some sort of thrill. The concepts of movie making isn't Disney because it's not branding all over the place<< But has this perception changed simply because it has shifted on its own over the years, or is it something that Disney has prorogated and encouraged through the years? I would say the latter, and for the most part it's been to the detriment of the product. If they returned to awe-inducing attractions that can't be matched, I think that they could easily regain that reputation; Everest did a pretty good job of that until the yeti broke, and the non-branded attractions at TDS (Journey, TOT, etc) continue to be highly regarded by the branding-crazy (Duffy!) Japanese audiences
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I think it was partly a result of Disney deciding to release the animated films for video... first for VCR and then on DVD/Blu-Ray. If most kids are anything like my daughter was, she watched them all repeatedly.
Originally Posted By hopemax Probably some of both. People have always had preconceptions of what type of movies Disney made, or who the theme parks would appeal to. And while Disney always seems to wish to broaden the market to whom Disney appeals, they have been doing a bang up job reinforcing instead of destroying preconceptions. The result is appealing to fewer types of people not more. Direction ultimately comes from Management, so it tells you all you need to know about the mindset of the people running the place.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "But has this perception changed simply because it has shifted on its own over the years, or is it something that Disney has prorogated and encouraged through the years?" It's both. As RT and Hopemax point out Disney has evolved into a tremendous content driven business over the past 20 years or so, therefore it makes sense that management has steered the castle parks into extensions of Disney branding. I don't care for the practice, but it is what it is.
Originally Posted By oc_dean >>I think part of the problem with "the future" is that they concentrated on what might be possible rather than what people actually wanted. << People don't know what they want. Did people know they wanted a pirate adventure in a boat in 1967? If Walt gave people what they thought they want ... they would have given people more woody rollercoasters. You know .. like Nara Dreamland did. And where's that park today? Oh that's right ... it's shuttered! As for space travel, and other "futuristic" things ... I don't think 'demand' has anything to do with it. * Economics - yes * Time it actually takes to develop technologies - yes ~Demand - I don't think so.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn The colors of EPCOT in the 1980's <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.burningsettlerscabin.com/?tag=epcot">http://www.burningsettlerscabi...ag=epcot</a>
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA mrkthompsn -- thanks for sharing the site re: the colors of 80s EPCOT Center. Interesting to see that clash of colors.
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn I remember seeing them for the first time in 82. Seemed very "earthy" in contrast to Disney colors of MK.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<As for space travel, and other "futuristic" things ... I don't think 'demand' has anything to do with it. * Economics - yes * Time it actually takes to develop technologies - yes ~Demand - I don't think so.>> I'm not so sure. Most of the space stuff going on right now is supported by having someone pay for a service. You have countries paying Russia for a ride to the Space Station and back. Private companies paying other private companies to shoot their satellites into orbit. Individuals plunking down deposits with Virgin Galactic for a flight to sub-orbital space. There is very little public funding of pure space research.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip The future is hard to predict because it doesn't happen all at once. It happens in a series of small steps. Even if the first step can be predicted, subsequent steps are hard to predict. They depend on both public response and future development made possible. In the mid 70's no one knew people would want i-Phones. There were a few guys out there who thought people might want personal computers. They were introduced and demand was there. They were made more powerful and then easier to use. The internet was developed and eventually web browsers. That led to laptops, notebooks, note pads and smart phones. It was a series of baby steps. All determined and supported by people wanting what was produced in the prior step. That makes it tough to predict.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I find the notion that anyone would try to predict the future of tech in a serious tone at a theme park so midcentury and kind of ridiculous. A part of me wants Disney to make the attempt, but I know it's mostly motivated by nostalgia. They lack the skills to do it convincingly and apparently there is no real drive within the company to make it happen anyway, so they should just get on with it and go full tilt with a sci-fi narrative for TL.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros That's really interesting to think about the color palette of the park; that's something I'd never really considered before, but a real defining characteristic. Of WDW's current parks, I think the Studios has the most easily-recognizable colors; I often see things out in the world that remind me of the park DCA 1.0 also had a very distinctive set of colors, with a lot of teal in it. Those colors became dated pretty quickly, but it certainly stood out. I'm not sure that the park today has the same instant recognizability For what it's worth, I think that the orange/blue colors of the paper bag look terrible in the design, where they overlap and are in close proximity, but they look pretty nice in the color block below it. It's interesting to see how different I feel about the same colors in each configuration I'll definitely need to try and be conscious of a parkwide color scheme in the future. Off the top of my head, most of the parks seem like they're a big mish-match, but there are definitely some prevailing color themes out there
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA I agree that Disney, be it for financial reasons or whatever, has given up on Tomorrowland. So why not give it up? Just make it a ScienceFictionland or whatever it needs to be to make sense.
