Originally Posted By SIR at X-S Tech jonvn, do you work for WDI? Cause youre ideas totally sound like something they would do to Lincoln
Originally Posted By jonvn "I don't want to see Mr. Lincoln with a pointer, giving powerpoint lectures, speaking with some actor behind a screen, who presumes to get inside the head of the Great Emancipator. Ugh." It's about interactivity and making each show unique, and having the audience be an active member. If you wish to presume it was ok for James Algar to cobble together a cold war era speech for Lincoln to give for 20 years, then there is no reason an actor can't do the same thing given basic guidelines of what to say. As far as having "several scenes," there is no room. You need to put something in place that there is room for, and something that large scale will not work.
Originally Posted By jonvn No, I don't. And no, they aren't. What will go in there, if they do anything at all, would be something based on a cartoon. There is room in the building for either a 3D show of some kind or a shop, or a very small AA show on the order of Food Rocks at WDW. Either that, or a food place. Perhaps they'll remove the entire interior and put in a food court, themed to the new rat movie. Since they removed the coffee house at the entrance, there is no real place to eat around there. You don't have room for a multi-scene show, you aren't going to get a show about anything of historical interest, and if they do something new it will have to tie into some Disney or Pixar animated feature or it will not be put in place. That is their formula, as profoundly poor in imagination and creatiivity as it is. Disney has lost its way in creating things for its parks. They can no longer theme rides to their surroundings and they do nothing unless there is a cartoon tie-in. It's all fantasyland dark ride from here on out. If you like that sort of thing, great. For those of us who would enjoy different sorts of things...oh well.
Originally Posted By BlueOhanaTerror >>> It's about interactivity and making each show unique, and having the audience be an active member. If you wish to presume it was ok for James Algar to cobble together a cold war era speech for Lincoln to give for 20 years, then there is no reason an actor can't do the same thing given basic guidelines of what to say. As far as having "several scenes," there is no room. You need to put something in place that there is room for, and something that large scale will not work.<<< I've been in there, and BACK in there, and I've built rotating sets for this sort of thing, and there's certainly room for a smartly designed set that could accomodate four distinct show scenes. As to the interactivity aspect, yeah, I get it. I just really don't feel it's a good match for this type of approach, with this subject matter, with this particular "character." And in a Disney park, even one of the greatest US Presidents is still a "character." I'm all for more creativity and creating/designing attractions specifically for the parks, NOT based on cutesy existing characters. However, you have to match the material to the medium... and Lincoln giving history lessons... that feels very much like the Barry Braverman approach. And we've had enough of that for a while.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Jon, I'm normally right with you on your thoughts on the parks, but in this case I don't think it would work. What would the poor actor "speaking for" Lincoln say the first time an audience member asked about current events? "Who was better, Clinton or Bush?" How could he answer that? And don't think somebody wouldn't ask, even if you TOLD the audience to limit it to historical questions. And considering there are still people in the south riding around with "Lee surrendered, I didn't" bumper stickers on their cars, what's to prevent some idiot from lambasting "Lincoln" about why he didn't just let the south secede, keep their "traditions" (i.e. slavery), start in on union soldiers defiling their women... it could get ugly. You'd have to have a couple of CM's around as bouncers. And even if the audiences were universally respectful (don't count on that), and asked only relevant questions, that assumes a). more than a handful of audience members would have the smarts and historical knowledge to ask a relevant question that wasn't terribly generic, the audience members who didn't would have a clue what was being talked about, and most important that the CM speaking for Lincoln would have the knowledge required to answer appropriately. You could also have smart-alecks who had googled the night before coming in with "Hey, in the 2nd Lincoln-Douglas debate, when Douglas said X, why did you respond the way you did?" If "Lincoln" fumbled, you could get "Whassa matter? Weren't you THERE?" (snicker, snicker, snicker). There could be idiots trying to "trip up Lincoln." This idea might have worked in the 60's if the technology had been there. I just don't think it would work today, sadly.
Originally Posted By SIR at X-S Tech If Lincoln were supposed to be interactive, why make him animatronic? Why not just put an actor in a suit? The whole living character thing is meant to do things that human beings can't do. Paying for maintenance on an animatronic figure that is being controlled in real time is a waste of resources.
Originally Posted By SIR at X-S Tech That should have read "Paying for maintenance on an animatronic HUMAN figure that is being controlled in real time is a waste of resources."
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Put a human character where an Audio-Animatronic character once was, and by gosh, we'll have come full circle. The idea of AA figures was so you wouldn't need live actors. That's what I don't like about the Monsters, Inc. character at the end of that ride -- sure, it's an AA figure, but someone is behind the scenes doing the talking or something. Call me 'old school' but I prefer the Animatronics in 'Pirates' and 'Haunted Mansion' and 'Carousel of Progress' and 'Spaceship Earth.' They're marvelous enough as they are. And President Lincoln doing a Powerpoint presentation? No thanks. That 'Crush' interactive thing is a one-time only for me -- it has absolutely no repeatability for me, so a Lincoln answering historical questions? Talk about a snoozefest.
Originally Posted By BlueOhanaTerror >>>That should have read "Paying for maintenance on an animatronic HUMAN figure that is being controlled in real time is a waste of resources."<<< A very astute observation, SIR. Even with the proposed (and built) real-time, interactive animatronic Walt had proposed for Club 33 - they didn't go with a human. What fun would that be? Now, if that "Human" were an ogre, a troll under a bridge, a giant on his balcony, that would be interesting. Hmm. They should do that for Harry Potter land.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA 'Does the audience have any more questions for President Lincoln.' zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz
Originally Posted By knoxvelour I wouldn't mind replacing Lincoln with another person from American history. Mark Twain comes right to mind. Or maybe a recreation of a Wil Rogers performance. Though we're all overlooking the obvious for livening up the Lincoln show...just add an AA John Wilkes Booth
Originally Posted By SFH Lincoln and Kennedy... sponsored by Bayer Asprin... for those splitting headeaches! SFH
Originally Posted By BrigmanMT 2 I dig the inventors idea. A good fit could be a full 1900 Main St. USA Worlds Fair. The scene in the American Adventure with Susan B. Anthony, Alexander Grahm Bell, and Andrew Carnegie comes to mind. Vaudeville has already been done with the Country Bears, but the aforementioned lack of a restaurant in the front of the park made me think of this. The small attendance would no longer seem small if the seats were large booths and box seats with waiters scurrying about. I dont think the 1900-era appropriate humor would fly today, but something along these lines could be successful. Let the attraction serve as a welcome center for the park, the content must fill the house, Minimalize structural changes and expense, and provide something that expands the depth and story of Main Street.
Originally Posted By SIR at X-S Tech and who says interactivity is so great? Personally I'm sick of it. I love to go into an attraction and just veg out- observe and ruminate sure, but ask questions or shoot guns? No thanks. The only thing that keeps me shooting on Buzz lightyear is my worry that someone will see that I have little or now points, but I'm quickly getting over that. If someone told me that Lincoln was now interactive, I'd probably see it once and never again. I go to Disney attractions for the beauty of the visuals- for the blacklight glow of Neverland, and the Marc Davis sketch come to 3D life of the Country Bears, for the beautifull sculpted Rockwork and the squashy stretchy animation. I notice that the interactive attractions are either low on these factors or they are just so distracting that I don't notice them. Gimme old Mr Lincoln with Buddy Baker score and Sam McKim paintings over 10minutes of Darkness and 3D sound anyday.
Originally Posted By ChurroMonster I'm really kind of surprised that so many people took Jon's ideas so literally. Then again, considering the audience, maybe I'm not so surprised.
Originally Posted By BlueOhanaTerror >>>I'm really kind of surprised that so many people took Jon's ideas so literally. Then again, considering the audience, maybe I'm not so surprised.<<< When ideas are presented in that level of detail and procedure, people are going to take them at face value. Your insult of those who took exception to those ideas, on the other hand, was neither warranted or unintentional.
Originally Posted By SIR at X-S Tech I'm not addressing Jon's ideas so much as the overall movement towards interactive vs. passive attractions.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA I'm also not a big fan of the interactivity of attractions -- most times it feels forced. I like the old school passive attractions like Pirates, Mansion, Adv thru Innerspace, Spaceship Earth et al
