Originally Posted By oc_dean Oh ... and I'm not one bit surprised the December 2015 grand opening isn't going to happen! Oh .. Iger must be fuming. Wasn't that the big publicized date for it to open? They've shown so little artwork up until just recently ... the writing was on the wall ... that it could never open by the end of this year. No way Jose! And I see capacity issues!! As big an apple from an ant's point of view! Doing a comparison of all Tomorrowlands across 6 "mk" parks ... seems WDW's is the biggest and most complete. They may not have a sub ride, or monorail like DL's ... but they have CoP, and the Peoplemover. They don't have a derelict second arcade level, like DL's has. I'll tell ya ... if DL's TL was running on all 8 cylinders (Mission To Mars space reused for a ride, carousel building having something worthy, a PM ride, and 3D movie house with something good) ........... DL's would be the biggest and best of all 'mk' parks Tomorrowlands. Anyone agree or disagree?
Originally Posted By oc_dean >>I bet if they put a Great Moments With Kim Kardashian attraction in TL at SDL it would be a big hit!<< I wonder what the chinese think of Hollywood's love affair with reality tv shows, and the people who are in them, and think they are just as big a star as Tom Hanks, Gary Cooper, Meryl Streep, or Bette Davis. I can't get over the American public cares about that Kim Kardisian Nobody! There are A list stars .. and we've heard the term - B List Stars. My opinion ... Reality tv show people .. rank about the lowest letter in the alphabet! But if the Chinese gawk over Z List stars like some Americans do ... then, yes, Hans ..... Great Moments With Kimmy should have lines longer than Radiator Springs Racers had on it's grand opening day!
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>I'll tell ya ... if DL's TL was running on all 8 cylinders (Mission To Mars space reused for a ride, carousel building having something worthy, a PM ride, and 3D movie house with something good) ........... DL's would be the biggest and best of all 'mk' parks Tomorrowlands. Anyone agree or disagree?<<< I disagree. I have never been to DL Anaheim, but even with the rides you have discribed, it wouldn't be as great as Discoveryland in Paris, at least from an aesthetical point of view.
Originally Posted By oc_dean What's great about DLP's version ... is the unifying aesthetics .. as you say. Absolutely true! Attraction wise ... Upon opening ... what did DLP's have: 1.Visionarium 2.Captain EO 3.Star Tours 4. Astro Orbitor (like all other TL's at opening, a paltry number of attractions) Within a year ... 5. Autopia was hastily put together A bit later than that ... 6. Space Mountain opened .. along with 7. the Nautilus walk through Today .. it's more "complete" than it appeared opening day - 1992, that's for sure. What's missing? A way to connect all the buildings together into "one" the way the Peoplemover ride did in DL's. Didn't have to be the next version of the Peoplemover. Or even a Monorail, but some fun ride circling the land, intertwining with the rides surrounding it. Lets not forget the "skyway" type ride in early concept drawings: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://media.designingdisney.com/sites/default/files/images/skyway/Skyway%20Concept%20Art.jpg">http://media.designingdisney.c...0Art.jpg</a> What's happened in the evolution of 'Tomorrowland' every time it's come time for a new one in the next MK type park ..... transportation rides have been ignored. DLP, HKDL, and now SDL are 'villages' ... with a random collection of buildings with nothing interesting tieing them all together into one "cohesive whole". DL's TL in it's prime is the perfect "model" for the future, in my opinion: Multi-layering: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sap5J8-G-SA/VNMsWHU7sEI/AAAAAAAABxo/H8ZLDXT_0H0/s640/potcwt69B.jpg">http://lh3.googleusercontent.c...t69B.jpg</a> ... and interaction with rides and show buildings: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-H14EN3ndQd0/U8Rou6TUF1I/AAAAAAAABqA/iSFLjyv44d0/s720/TL%2520%252850A%2529.jpg">http://lh4.googleusercontent.c...2529.jpg</a> as the PM did so brilliantly ... with kinetics everywhere you turned your head.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>Doing a comparison of all Tomorrowlands across 6 "mk" parks ... seems WDW's is the biggest and most complete.<< It's probably the largest in terms of physical space, but there's a lot of unused or poorly utilized space within it. The Galaxy Place Theater is now a backstage parking lot. The Skyway station is now restrooms. The arcade at the exit of Space Mountain hardly has any games left in it. And that says nothing of that huge empty plaza between the PeopleMover tower and Space Mountain (flanked by the Speedway and COP) that has nothing in it; even that lousy Stitch stage back there rarely gets used Although it's not perfect, TDL's TL at least had some energy in it, simply due to how close several major attractions are. With Buzz, Space, Star Tours, Showbase, and Monsters Inc all in a fairly small area (with the Speedway, Rocket Jets, and under-construction Stitch encounter also nearby). No, it doesn't have a transit system connecting everything, but the 2nd story Star Tours exit and Space Mountain entrance do a lot to provide interesting vistas of the land and add life above the pavement
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>But if the Chinese gawk over Z List stars like some Americans do ... << I'm not sure if they do it quite the same as Americans, but there's certainly interest in seeing how the other half lives. With the communist upbringing in China, celebrities don't have quite the same status as in the US, but are still quite popular. From what I recall of my couple weeks there, there wasn't anyone quite on a Kardashian level of fame-for-no-reason, but there were some Paris Hilton-type fabulously-wealthy-family types who made headlines (which isn't to say that the Kardashians don't have more money than brains, but that's not their claim to fame). Still, I can't imagine an attraction like that would be popular enough in any park to justify its existence. Any attraction that relies on a celebrity tie-in becomes dated very quickly (Boudin factory tour, Ellen's Energy Adventure, O Canada, Captain EO), and one that relies purely on their celebrity as the only form of entertainment is sure to become dated even faster. Whether correct or not, I like to think that a relatively small (but vocal) group of people actually care about the Kardashians, and the rest of us are just forced to hear about the updates. I don't think there's enough of them to justify an attraction on their own >>Lets not forget the "skyway" type ride in early concept drawings:<< That's really interesting. I don't know if I've ever seen that before. It sort of looks like one of those purely-conceptual attractions, with the criss-crossing paths and huge ride vehicles, but it certainly would have been neat to see. I think the overhead cables would have tied everything together nicely, and wouldn't have looked out of place with the steampunk vibe
Originally Posted By dagobert Here are new pictures of SDL. The quality isn't very good, because they are screenshots from a video. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.themeparx.com/shanghai-disneyland/?p=5880#post5880">http://www.themeparx.com/shang...post5880</a> It seems SDL will have an attraction based on the river rafting ride system like Kali River Rapids. At least in picture #4 it looks taht way.
Originally Posted By dagobert New SDL construction pictures: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.thethemeparkguy.com/park/shanghai-disneyland/photos/">http://www.thethemeparkguy.com.../photos/</a>
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <I have never been to DL Anaheim> You really need to try to get there soon. While I appreciated a lot of what DLP had, overall the original is still the best.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh I wonder if Adventures by Disney will change their China trip so a person could spend a day at Shanghai Disney at the start and Hong Kong Disney at the end. I would definitely like to take a two week trip to China in the spring of 2017.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>You really need to try to get there soon. While I appreciated a lot of what DLP had, overall the original is still the best. <<< We are currently planning a trip to California in spring 2016. So DL is on our list.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< The official Disney Parks Blog has posted some images from SDL. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://disneyparks.disney.go.c...evealed/">http://disneyparks.disney.go.c...evealed/</a> >>> One thing I noticed is that they refer to SDL's POTC as an "E-Ticket attraction." Some people have argued that there's no notion of an E-ticket attraction now that Disney doesn't use the ticket books in the parks any more. Well, this puts that to bed, doesn't it?
Originally Posted By dagobert Great new aerial pictures of SDL: <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2944974/How-s-magic-kingdom-Stunning-shots-Disney-s-theme-park-construction-Shanghai.html">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...hai.html</a>
Originally Posted By dagobert SDL press release about the Garden of the Twelve Friends. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shanghaidisneyresort.com.cn/en/press-room/press-release-shanghai-disney-resort-features-favorite-characters-as-chinese-zodiacs/">http://www.shanghaidisneyresor...zodiacs/</a> And Google has updated Google Earth with new SDL images. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.themeparx.com/shanghai-disneyland/?p=5963#post5963">http://www.themeparx.com/shang...post5963</a>
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I had been wondering for a while which characters they would use. It's interesting to see that some of them are pretty obscure, and it appears to be a different list than the ones that HKDL has used for their annual Chinese New Year celebrations (they use the 3 Little Pigs instead of Hamm, but there may be other differences too). It also seems like they did a pretty good job getting a mix of old and new characters, though I'm a little leery of them using one as new as Maximus, whose staying power may not last I also think it's interesting that of the goat/sheep year, they decided to go with the nameless sheep from the Jolly Holiday sequence in Mary Poppins. They're only onscreen for a couple seconds, and don't really even look like the ones in the concept art. Why not use the sheep from Lambert the Sheepish Lion (or Lambert himself) or Djali from Hunchback of Notre Dame? And it's neat to see the progress. We're definitely getting to the point where the site work is starting to become recognizable, and things are starting to take shape. I'm particularly interested in the Fantasyland boat ride in/around the castle, which appears to be quite long and possibly outdoors. It will be interesting to see what it's like, since it's so different from any existing rides
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I just checked out Jolly Holiday, and I guess I was thinking of the ram (who is onscreen for much of the barnyard sequence), rather than the lambs who have less than 15 seconds of total screen time. The quartet of lambs (not a trio, as Disney described) hop by at 2:14 and one of them also appears again at 2:46 It just seems strange that they would use characters who are so inconsequential and have so very little screen time. It would be like using bank teller #2 from later in the film; they just don't matter in any meaningful way. It seems like an odd choice, since Disney actually has other characters that could have been used instead
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Here's a link to an interesting article about Disney's presence in China, that was originally published in the Huffington Post <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-snyder/disney-ceo-fumbles-entry-to-china_b_6682090.html">http://webcache.googleusercont...090.html</a> Although the story itself isn't especially new information (or especially well written), the follow-up to this article sure is. Apparently Iger read it and was so upset about it that he had Willow use her personal connections to have it taken down. There's something there that he really didn't want to get out, and it seems like his attempt to bury it is making it even more public
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Thinking about this a little more, it seems like an especially bold strategy to build a park with so many character-driven experiences. If locals don't particularly know or care for Tron or the Pirates movies, it seems like an odd choice to build rides for them rather than the more generic Space Mountain or POTC. Having been to non-Disney places themed to characters that I wasn't connected to (most notably WWOHP) I enjoyed my time there, but felt like I was missing out on something. That feeling didn't make me want to learn about the characters, but rather it made me not want to return again even though I had enjoyed my time. It almost felt like when you walk into a room where everybody has just been talking about you; they all know something that you don't and it's not a very welcoming feeling I notice that the additions HKDL has gotten since it opened have been driven by non-character experiences (TSPL being the notable exception); I wonder if a similar logic will prevail in SDL
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Not sure what the point of the article is Disney is doing what Disney does. If Chinese consumers don't buy it then fine. Should Disney have built something outside of what everyone else identifies as Disney or stay out of China altogether? Also, how can you discuss how light HDL is in a financial piece without talking about how the company overspent with DLP? Everyone knows that with HDL Disney tried to be responsible and not expose itself to the kind of financial risk it did in France. "Thinking about this a little more, it seems like an especially bold strategy to build a park with so many character-driven experiences. " Most of Disney's parks have gradually morphed into experiential marketing campaigns promoting Disney's brands and have little connection to the ambitious "dreams" that were DL and WDW when they first opened. SDL completes the transformation by going full steam with the film franchises at every turn. We all knew it was coming; this is the future of Disney theme parks everywhere.
