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Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

They're doing it because the Simpsons joke about "please not Epcot" was completely accurate.

CapnAndy posted:

Is this a win? The articles spin it as a win but it seems like a capitulation to me; DeSantis' hand-picked board of fascists remains in control and seems to have been recognized as legitimate.

No. They ruled recently that it's completely legal for a government official to target whoever they wish in retaliation as long as they had the power to do so to begin with.

Once that was secured, they were not getting any kind of win.

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Bottom Liner
Feb 15, 2006


a specific vein of lasagna
It's a win for Disney because anything the board does now will have to be paid for by counties instead of Disney. Their autonomy came at the cost of paying for everything. They likely don't need control over big developmental and civil projects off property now, so they probably lose very little here.

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH

CapnAndy posted:

Is this a win? The articles spin it as a win but it seems like a capitulation to me; DeSantis' hand-picked board of fascists remains in control and seems to have been recognized as legitimate.

Every ten years they release a Site Plan that lists areas Disney does and does not intend to develop over the coming decade. By agreeing to the 2020 site plan, Disney secures an agreement on how the land is to be used until 2030, by which point DeSantis will be gone.

Basically, Disney will remain a force in Florida longer than DeSantis and his allies will, as we all expected.

Quixotic1
Jul 25, 2007

Federal lawsuit is still in play I believe.

Omne
Jul 12, 2003

Orangedude Forever

Quixotic1 posted:

Federal lawsuit is still in play I believe.

The appeal is on hold while they go through the negotiations to the comprehensive plan.

Craptacular! posted:

Every ten years they release a Site Plan that lists areas Disney does and does not intend to develop over the coming decade. By agreeing to the 2020 site plan, Disney secures an agreement on how the land is to be used until 2030, by which point DeSantis will be gone.

Basically, Disney will remain a force in Florida longer than DeSantis and his allies will, as we all expected.

First, it allows the board to make changes to the 2020 plan (article doesn't specify whether Disney has to agree to the changes). Second....do you really think DeSantis' successor will be any better?

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy

CapnAndy posted:

I've heard the first half of this before, and it baffles me every time. When were they doing this balance, exactly? They opened with a slate of IP rides. They put Disney right there in the name for a reason. The parks exist to promote the IP and the IP exists to drive visitors to the park and it has always been thus.
Not sure if you're trolling tbh. I didn't want to make another longpost rant in here, but I'm not sure how it baffles you when so many of the most famous and beloved Disney attractions are not IP based and many more have come and gone that were also not IP based. Epcot opened with NO IP. Disney-MGM opened with a mix and most of it was not Disney IP. DAK opened with only some IP. While Walt's idea for Disneyland was corporate synergy, the creative heads that ran things from the 70's through the early/mid 00's saw the parks as an equal opportunity to promote their IPs AND create original experience that can only be done through theme parks.

Jungle Cruise
Pirates
Tiki Room
Big Thunder Mountain
Country Bears
Haunted Mansion
Hall of Presidents
Trains/Riverboat rides
Space Mountain/most of the old Tomorrowland rides
All of original Epcot (too much to list) and still: Soarin', Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land, Imagination, Mission: Space, Test Track, all of World Showcase except the three rides.
Tower of Terror (Twilight Zone branding but original story/setting/concept)
Rock 'n' Roller Coaster
Great Movie Ride (not any specific IP)
Dinosaur (movie-tie in came after and is mostly just in name only)
Expedition Everest
Kali River Rapids
Kilimanjaro Safaris

And that is only a few, if I were to list every single attraction that exists or existed in Disney parks that was not an IP tie in, the list would be huge.

The push for everything to be a synergy tie-in is 100% a recent thing of the last 10-15 years since Iger took over, and the marketing team has done a good job getting people forget that it wasn't always like this. A poo poo-ton of people like myself don't really care that much for "Disney" one way or another but love theme parks, and Disney is very good at theme parks. WDW up through the 90's and 00's was not about constant bombardment of Disney synergy. It still isn't, due to experiences from the past that still exist. But they do seem hell-bent on erasing all of that legacy.

CapnAndy posted:

(As for fitting thematically, Moana fits just fine with EPCOT's environmentalism theme?)
It "fits" solely because of some signs that attempt to derive meaning behind "wave your hands and make the water do stuff". Aesthetically it doesn't fit at all and would be more appropriate in DAK or even Typhoon Lagoon. It's like if they plopped Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in that spot and put some placards with facts about gemstones in the queue. Don't get me wrong, it's really pretty, especially at night.

SweetMercifulCrap! fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Mar 27, 2024

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

There is a 110% chance they only built the original stuff because they had already used all of their IPs at the time.

They even turned most of those into movies.

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy

Aphrodite posted:

There is a 110% chance they only built the original stuff because they had already used all of their IPs at the time.

They even turned most of those into movies.

"This scenario with no basis in anything at all that I just pulled out of my rear end disproves your point"

Like, even in 1971 they had enough IP to make every attraction in Magic Kingdom IP based, and they didn't. Maybe think about this for more than half a second?

CapnAndy
Feb 27, 2004

Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.

Aphrodite posted:

There is a 110% chance they only built the original stuff because they had already used all of their IPs at the time.

They even turned most of those into movies.
There's also a large percentage of "this sort of thing was very popular at the time and basically an IP unto itself" (Pirates, Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Country Bears, even Hall of Presidents for bicentennial mania).

SweetMercifulCrap! posted:

"This scenario with no basis in anything at all that I just pulled out of my rear end disproves your point"

Like, even in 1971 they had enough IP to make every attraction in Magic Kingdom IP based, and they didn't. Maybe think about this for more than half a second?
...because they were cloning Disneyland.

And I still don't know when this golden age of non-IP rides being developed was. Late 80s-mid 90s has the biggest cluster I could find. Is it that?

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy

CapnAndy posted:

There's also a large percentage of "this sort of thing was very popular at the time and basically an IP unto itself" (Pirates, Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Country Bears, even Hall of Presidents for bicentennial mania).
Art and entertainment is often built around concepts and genres that already existed, yes. Magic Kingdom and Disneyland's overarching theme is "Americana and the fictional genres that are popular from it." Suggesting that "come see our creative take on a ghost story" is the same as "come ride the cliff notes of Frozen" is basically the same thing is a stretch.

CapnAndy posted:

And I still don't know when this golden age of non-IP rides being developed was. Late 80s-mid 90s has the biggest cluster I could find. Is it that?

I said there was a balance of IP and original, not that it was all original. And, 70's through 00's, like I said in my post. The last original new non IP attraction at WDW was Expedition Everest in 2006.

And before someone tries to say "well obviously people didn't like those things"... WDW didn't become the most popular resort in the world because people somehow actually were dissatisfied with their experience until 10 years ago.

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy
ANYWAYS the point I was trying to make is that Joe Rohde is good and him being involved again makes me happy because it means we could see more Flight of Passage-caliber attractions and less Ratatouilles and Frozen Ever Afters. There, that's me stating that I like IP when it is done right.

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

CapnAndy posted:

There's also a large percentage of "this sort of thing was very popular at the time and basically an IP unto itself" (Pirates, Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room, Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Country Bears, even Hall of Presidents for bicentennial mania).

...because they were cloning Disneyland.

And I still don't know when this golden age of non-IP rides being developed was. Late 80s-mid 90s has the biggest cluster I could find. Is it that?

I don't think there ever was much of a "golden age" so much as I think some disney fan folks (me included) would like there to be some park-first (not necessarily exclusive) dark ride stuff, or what have you. It's been a long, long time since we got one. And there is the issue of the dilution of the original themeing of the non-MK WDW theme parks, too. I realize tons of people don't care, but it does make me a bit sad to see some Moana water thing at Epcot instead of something else.

Coasterphreak
May 29, 2007
I like cookies.
I offer the flip side: Disney has bought into a crapload of really popular IP in the last 20 years and are still capitalizing on it, because they have to compete with a certain boy wizard for audience.

Proper theme park rides cost a poo poo load to design and build, why take the risk on something unproven with audiences when there’s so much stuff in the catalog they can stick in a big air conditioned box?

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy
People will flock to a good attraction regardless of IP, and IP alone has proven to not bring in crowds if the attraction is bad (see: Fast & Furious - Universal's most popular in-house IP). You could remove the Guardians from Cosmic Rewind and wouldn't lose any popularity. Nobody rides it for them, they ride it because it's a really fun and well executed coaster. Or like, nobody has ever once looked at Big Thunder Mountain and said "I don't know if I care to ride that - there's no characters I'm familiar with involved."

"But those are coasters which are easy crowd pleasers. What about dark rides?" = See: Mystic Manor in Hong Kong Disneyland for a recent example.

I also need to reiterate this again: Disney. Is. Not. Playing. "Catch up". To. Universal. They still won't be even with Epic Universe opening. On a typical day, the Magic Kingdom alone sees more guests than the entirety of Universal Orlando.

The main reason for the endless IP push is Iger is all about synergy synergy synergy. Though Potter did blow the doors open on single-IP ultra immersive lands, which I think of as both a good and bad thing. They're impressive, but it also means we get lands with one major and one minor attraction (or sometimes only one attraction) and a bunch of shops and dining because now shopping and dining is considered an attraction too.

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy

Fluffy Bunnies posted:

I don't think there ever was much of a "golden age" so much as I think some disney fan folks (me included) would like there to be some park-first (not necessarily exclusive) dark ride stuff, or what have you. It's been a long, long time since we got one. And there is the issue of the dilution of the original themeing of the non-MK WDW theme parks, too. I realize tons of people don't care, but it does make me a bit sad to see some Moana water thing at Epcot instead of something else.

I, and for what its worth, most of the folks over at wdwmagic, feel that the "golden age" for WDW was the late 80's through early 00's. This is when WDW saw the most growth and expansion, when really massive E-ticket attraction projects started to really take off, and when they seemed to be exercising the most creative freedom.

Grundulum
Feb 28, 2006

SweetMercifulCrap! posted:

I, and for what its worth, most of the folks over at wdwmagic, feel that the "golden age" for WDW was the late 80's through early 00's. This is when WDW saw the most growth and expansion, when really massive E-ticket attraction projects started to really take off, and when they seemed to be exercising the most creative freedom.

Do you think that might be correlated with the typical age of SA and wdwmagic users, who would have been kids/young adults during the period you described?

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy

Grundulum posted:

Do you think that might be correlated with the typical age of SA and wdwmagic users, who would have been kids/young adults during the period you described?

Possibly, but the things I stated are demonstrably true. In just 9 years (1989-1998), WDW more than doubled in size, for instance. By creative freedom I of course mean "allowed to do things beyond the scope of synergy."

CapnAndy
Feb 27, 2004

Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.
poo poo is more expensive than it was 35 years ago, and more complicated, and you've got 35 years worth of newer, better rides to compete with, and most importantly, Hogsmeade was a paradigm shift and pretending it wasn't as hard as you can doesn't actually change that.

Also if you think that for one instant of its entire existence, the theme park division of the Disney corporation did not exist to make the overall profits of the Disney corporation go up, in as many divisions as possible, I truly do not know what to tell you. Synergy is, was, and always will be its sole purpose.

Jose Valasquez
Apr 8, 2005

Moana fits in Epcot because it's the best park and the best movie

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy

CapnAndy posted:

poo poo is more expensive than it was 35 years ago, and more complicated, and you've got 35 years worth of newer, better rides to compete with, and most importantly, Hogsmeade was a paradigm shift and pretending it wasn't as hard as you can doesn't actually change that.
I didn't pretend it wasn't and it was absolutely what pushed Pandora, Cars Land, Toy Story Land, and Galaxy's Edge into existence. I was just saying that I personally have things I like and dislike about that. I was also just attempting to dispel the notion that Disney has been playing "catch up" to Universal since Hogsmeade premiered. Universal has only ever been able to scrape away at Disney's bottom line and they get a little bit bigger piece of the pie now vs. before Potter. They were number 2, they are number 2, and they will stay number 2 for the foreseeable future.

CapnAndy posted:

Also if you think that for one instant of its entire existence, the theme park division of the Disney corporation did not exist to make the overall profits of the Disney corporation go up, in as many divisions as possible, I truly do not know what to tell you. Synergy is, was, and always will be its sole purpose.

I am in no way denying that the main purpose of the parks has always been to make a lot of money for the company. But, the approach has changed from:

delivering the highest quality experience possible to ensure guests spend lots of money and want to keep returning. Understanding that theme parks are a unique form of entertainment that can stand on their own merits. This will in turn make them associate the Disney brand with quality.

to:

Nickel and dime the guest as much as possible and ensure every aspect of their visit reinforces all aspects of the Disney brand. The parks are extensions of marketing first.

For instance, most of the shops in Magic Kingdom operated as loss leaders and sold unique items that aided in the theme of their respective lands. The company understood that, while these shops may not directly generate money, they increase the perceived value and quality of park. Today almost all of them are just filled with generic Disney merchandise.

Popero
Apr 17, 2001

.406/.553/.735
My daughter wants to go on the thing with Elsa, and that means I want to go on the thing with Elsa.

Cais
Jul 10, 2006
unicycler
https://youtu.be/-WYJfbVMeA4

Preview for Land of Berk just got dropped this morning.

Water ride looks like the best part.

alg
Mar 14, 2007

A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

idk man, everyone saying Disney has to get their poo poo together for Epic Universe, that looks, totally forgettable to me. Just about the only thing there that I am interested in is Nintendo World, which could easily be a one and done thing based on how small it is

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Popero posted:

My daughter wants to go on the thing with Elsa, and that means I want to go on the thing with Elsa.

Have you explained to her how a bunch of 35+ childless people say she's wrong?

TheBigBudgetSequel
Nov 25, 2008

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.
"Hello children, no one actually likes Frozen. Get it together." will go over so great in the middle of a hot crowded theme park with a small child lmao

CapnAndy posted:

And I still don't know when this golden age of non-IP rides being developed was. Late 80s-mid 90s has the biggest cluster I could find. Is it that?


Epcot was entirely non-IP when it opened, and stayed that way ridewise for a good long while. I think Nemo was the first IP ride in the park, which opened in 2007. Of course now they put IP where they can in that park but 1982 to 2007 is a pretty big time frame for non-IP attractions. (It's easy to think of Figment as an IP because he's been around forever and is so popular, but I wouldn't count him as one)

MGM/Hollywood Studios is a park designed for IP so the closest you'll get to non-IP Is Great Movie Ride which is chock full of IPs.

AK really only had Dinosaur and Tough to be a Bug when it opened, and Dinosaur was at the time a very loose IP ride. (it later added stuff in Camp Minnie Mickey and Planet Watch, but when it opened it was a fairly original park)

MK is a good mix but it would be nice to see them add something non-IP to the park again.

TheBigBudgetSequel fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Mar 28, 2024

Zero One
Dec 30, 2004

HAIL TO THE VICTORS!
Festival of the Lion King and Pocahontas were both opening day attractions.

CapnAndy
Feb 27, 2004

Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.

SweetMercifulCrap! posted:

But, the approach has changed from:

delivering the highest quality experience possible to ensure guests spend lots of money and want to keep returning. Understanding that theme parks are a unique form of entertainment that can stand on their own merits. This will in turn make them associate the Disney brand with quality.

to:

Nickel and dime the guest as much as possible and ensure every aspect of their visit reinforces all aspects of the Disney brand. The parks are extensions of marketing first.

For instance, most of the shops in Magic Kingdom operated as loss leaders and sold unique items that aided in the theme of their respective lands. The company understood that, while these shops may not directly generate money, they increase the perceived value and quality of park. Today almost all of them are just filled with generic Disney merchandise.
Honestly, I agree with you on that -- Disney does seem to have somehow lost the concept that the parks are physical spaces and being in them is a special experience. And I've complained about the absolutely dire state of the merchandise for exactly that reason; I still can't get over that the Cosmic Rewind gift store sells precisely no Cosmic Rewind merchandise, just costumes and prop Infinity Gauntlets. (But lol at the idea that concessions in any theme park anywhere ever lost money.)

alg posted:

idk man, everyone saying Disney has to get their poo poo together for Epic Universe, that looks, totally forgettable to me. Just about the only thing there that I am interested in is Nintendo World, which could easily be a one and done thing based on how small it is
Rather than any specifics, I think it's more that Universal is building poo poo and Disney is not. Universal is signalling that they're not going to comfortably coast along in a distant second any more and putting their money where their mouth is; even if they're not catching up yet, if they keep moving and Disney keeps holding still...

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

The wall to the right (when facing) the registers is all ride merch, which is really more than you can say for any other recent ride.

CapnAndy
Feb 27, 2004

Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.
They had literally none when I was there, which genuinely pissed me off because it was an awesome ride and I came off it wanting merch. If they've gotten some since then, that's great.

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy
Yeah it's weird, ride-specific merchandise is increasingly rare at WDW, which is a shame because that's the merch I like the most.

Aphrodite posted:

Have you explained to her how a bunch of 35+ childless people say she's wrong?
You guys are all here discussing this stuff in depth because you like it too, don't pull the whole "acshully you know the parks are just for KIDS, right??" because they're not just for kids and never were. Otherwise, every ride would be a quick half-assed effort like the Frozen ride.

alg posted:

idk man, everyone saying Disney has to get their poo poo together for Epic Universe, that looks, totally forgettable to me. Just about the only thing there that I am interested in is Nintendo World, which could easily be a one and done thing based on how small it is

This one is primarily a kid-oriented land and possibly the least anticipated which is probably why they released it first. I'm not sure how I feel about it. It at least has four attractions and a show, so its nice to see that they're not taking the "1-2 attraction new land" approach.

Roadie
Jun 30, 2013
If the HTTYD show includes the full-size dragon puppets from the Beijing version I expect it will be a hit, "kids" area or not.

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

It is possible to like Frozen Ever After and still miss Maelstrom, for what it's worth.

Also the France pavilion extension feels like it has a lot of wasted space and that confuses me. And the crepe window is bad.

SweetMercifulCrap!
Jan 28, 2012
Lipstick Apathy

Fluffy Bunnies posted:

It is possible to like Frozen Ever After and still miss Maelstrom, for what it's worth.

Also the France pavilion extension feels like it has a lot of wasted space and that confuses me. And the crepe window is bad.

Oh I wasn’t trying to say like Maelstrom was great and Frozen is bad. Frozen is technically a better ride, but I kind of liked Maelstrom’s jankiness. It was also the level of ride quality that its draw dictated whereas Frozen is a huge draw placed on a ride not meant for it.

With the France extension you’re going into space that was formerly backstage so you’re on the backside of the existing buildings. That’s why the only other additions aside from Ratatouille are the small standalone bathrooms and crepe restaurant buildings on the opposite side.

As far as crepes go, the crepe stand at Disney Springs is a lot better.

Nanigans
Aug 31, 2005

~Waku Waku~
The actual sit down restaurant part of the crepes place is good. The galettes especially.

Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

agreed on disney springs, agreed on the sit-down area, but man.

that crepe window.

blegh.

also did the pizza window ever re-open, it feels like it closed and never did?

Cais
Jul 10, 2006
unicycler
Yeah maelstrom was awful but in that perfect “so bad it’s good” area. Like three cabelleros currently sits.

Frozen is a better ride in basically every way except the way it has an actual wait.

CapnAndy
Feb 27, 2004

Some teeth long for ripping, gleaming wet from black dog gums. So you keep your eyes closed at the end. You don't want to see such a mouth up close. before the bite, before its oblivion in the goring of your soft parts, the speckled lips will curl back in a whinny of excitement. You just know it.
I miss Maelstrom because nostalgia, and it was also such a hidden gem; nobody even knew there was a ride in Norway at all because why would there be?

Also Frozen is a straight middle of the road dark ride and the franchise deserves better than getting some animatronics grafted onto an already-existing track.

WeaponX
Jul 28, 2008



Fluffy Bunnies posted:

It is possible to like Frozen Ever After and still miss Maelstrom, for what it's worth.

Yeah I enjoyed Frozen, especially with a kid that really wanted to see the characters, even though I deeply miss Maelstrom. The projection mapping thing they do with the animatronics really works with a character design like Olaf. The wait was horrendous tho.

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Fluffy Bunnies
Jan 10, 2009

CapnAndy posted:

I miss Maelstrom because nostalgia, and it was also such a hidden gem; nobody even knew there was a ride in Norway at all because why would there be?

Also Frozen is a straight middle of the road dark ride and the franchise deserves better than getting some animatronics grafted onto an already-existing track.

time to repurpose the matterhorn

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