Beacon Joe has returned from his shanty on the Rivers of America to continue a series started in OCTOBER 2008!  Though much has changed since this article was written, you should read the first part of this series before continuing further….

Yes, I know.  My blog posting frequency or (lack thereof) [...]]]>

Beacon Joe has returned from his shanty on the Rivers of America to continue a series started in OCTOBER 2008!  Though much has changed since this article was written, you should read the first part of this series before continuing further….

Yes, I know.  My blog posting frequency or (lack thereof) is absurd.  Yet I feel that this series about nightlife at Walt Disney World is just as valid as it was when WDW execs decided to shutter Pleasure Island in late 2008.

Much has changed on the Island since last we spoke, most notably the additions of Ragalin Road (very popular) and right next door the monstrous T Rex (completing the bookend volcano look for Marketplace that goes so well with craftsmen architecture).

Good news is, no awful plan has come into place for Pleasure Island yet – we’ve got a giant balloon which seems rather unoffensive, and West Side is changing various third party forces – yet Pleasure Island seems more or less untouched at the moment.

So great!  Let’s continue where we left off, shall we?  In the first article I explained my opinion that the blandness of the Pleasure Island experience most likely lead to its downfall, but it provides an interesting template and supplies a necessary need for the Walt Disney World experience – nightlife! Walt Disney World seems to die off fairly early in the evening, and it’s fairly hard to find something to do into the wee hours of the evening, and I’d love to see that change.  I’d love to see the unique Disney experience extend to adults who want to stay up and maybe enjoy a cocktail or two.

So instead of a sweeping armchair quarterback idea of a new themed nighttime district, I came up with a few essentials to what I think would work (and has already worked) to address this problem.

Back In Walt’s Day…. there was Disneyland

DISNEYLAND!  Disneyland?  Oh yes, there are Date Night at Disneyland and Disneyland After Dark specials I love, which show a hoppin theme park, with Louis Armstrong on the Mark Twain, and…. this….

Okay, so Bobby Rydell might not be the answer anymore, but perhaps keeping the parks open till a decent time might help.  E Ticket nights were popular, as are the current extra magical hours.  But even more intriguing about these specials is….

THE IMPORTANCE OF LIVE ENTERTAINMENT

Live entertainment works at Disneyland, and it hasn’t been working too great, or just as much, at Walt Disney World.  Michael and I were shocked to see how many viable musical ensembles exist in Disneyland, most likely due to the difference in crowd perhaps (more local Annual Passholder folk).  Even so, live entertainment – good, unique live entertainment, has been a Disney staple leading back to its formative days in Anaheim, where some of the first contractors were the Marching Band.

Frankie and the West End Boys covered Smashmouth,  I’m more interested in these guys -

… and here’s a shiny example to show you I’m not all grumps.  YeHaa Bob at the River Roost Lounge at Dixie Landings, or umm Riverside – is a glimpse into what I’m talking about.  A more unique experience than listening to poor covers of Barenaked Ladies.  There’s nothing too unique about that.  To boot, at Disneyland, local or otherwise unknown bands often played and made waves on the national scene – including The Osmonds and No Doubt.   Could there be a venue other than House of Blues for up and comers to play at Walt Disney World?

Story continues below the fold…

AN IMMERSIVE, TRANSPORTATIVE, HIGHLY THEMED EXPERIENCE

The drawing boards at Walt Disney Imagineering have been scattered through the years  of wonderful themed ideas that have fallen by the wayside, and the nightlife sector is no exception.   One good area to look at is the immersive restaurant concept, dating back to Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room.  The entire Tiki Room concept came from the audio animatronic technology Walt was developing for a restaurant featuring birds, but it originally started as a Chinese Restaurant in a ne’er built  section called Chinatown off Main Street featuring Confucius, or should I say “Grandfather Chung”.

A few years later, we see this concept come to life with the vultures at Club 33, which were intended to eavesdrop through microphones embedded in chandeliers and drop into conversations suddenly.

The Blue Bayou at Disneyland, the Phase 1 Magic Kingdom Restaurants (Liberty Tree, Cinderella’s Royal Table) and years later the restaurants at World Showcase provide unique dining experiences that remain incredibly popular with little change to this day.  The Biergarten is a wonderful example of this, entering in to a controlled “nighttime environment,” an outdoor Octoberfest complete with nifty fake moon projection (look for it) and crazed live entertainment.  We also see the faux nighttime effect at the Blue Bayou and San Angel Inn at EPCOT.  These restaurants are always filled to the brim, and it’s because the experience is so different than going to a regular restaurant.

One doesn’t have to look far even today at Walt Disney World to see this working at night.  Fort Wilderness’ Hoop Dee Doo Revue has been continually sold out on the same show since 1974, and the Polynesian Luau also continues to wow visitors, as it has for decades.

The Empress Lilly was once a unique experience like the ones mentioned before, until it was leased to Levy Restaurants to become Fulton’s Crab House.  At one time it held several restaurants and lounges and was considered the crown jewel of Disney dining.

To supplement this pre-Michael Eisner’s arrival,  Dick Nunis and Co. announced a New Orleans Street expansion where the Pleasure Island plot currently resides, with a New Orleans themed hotel (to later become Port Orleans) and a nighttime district extension of the Walt Disney World Village.  I picture this being a smaller, more manageable area compared to the Pleasure Island/West Side sprawl – perhaps less clubby, and more of an extension of what’s now known as Marketplace, but with a little more adult/nighttime flair.  Exquisetly themed, with a hotel option that would have no doubt been as popular if not moreso than the large resort it became. One can only imagine what might have been…

ENOUGH WITH THIRD PARTIES AND KEEPING EYES ON JONESES

The “unique/immersive” point leads me to one of my biggest gripes of the Eisner/Post-Eisner Era – cut it out with third party vendors!  Okay, I’m not saying ALL third-party vendors – what would Walt Disney World be without the Arribas Brothers, and if Don DeFore’s Silver Banjo Barbeque ever came back to Disneyland, I’d be first in line.  However, we’ve somehow gone from seemless blending of these third party folk to having them become the show, as was seen at Downtown Disney’s West Side development, and at the Boardwalk with such bland and non-Disney experiences as the Big River Grille, where you can find food and a micro brew experience just like you can in every town experiencing urban renewal.

Eisner’s looking around and keeping up with the Joneses mentality -  to keep it hip, etc., led to hasty kneejerk planning such as Pleasure Island to combat Church Street Station, West Side to combat Universal’s City Walk, and the Disney-MGM Studios to combat the Universal Studios.  Now we could waste our time debating the unique merits of each (in fact I may argue on all points that Disney’s answer is superior), but the point remains that all were reactionary decisions, and all are analogues to another entertainment option across town.   Couldn’t Disney instead continue to provide the Disney Difference, not riffing with other folks’ plans and instead continuing to deliberately seek their own agenda?

WHAT ABOUT A DIVE?

Give the folks a comfortable place where they can drink and mingle I say.  These days Walt Disney World bars have become homogenized and sterile – a sort of airport bar experience which I do not relish, including a menu of fixed drinks around property.  Not too long ago, you could go to the Contemporary and order a “Monorail Pink”, “Monorail Yellow”, and “Monorail Red,”  drinks specifically designed for the resort where the monorails came directly to the concourse.  Now all the menus look the same, and there’s none of the intimacy, detail, and specific theming Disney is known for.

One of the most appealing concepts of Pleasure Island’s original plan never saw it off the drawing board.  It was a bar called Madison’s Dive, which Jim Hill describes in an article you can read here as:

The nightclub that was originally announced for Disney’s World’s Pleasure Island but ultimately never built. The one that was supposed to have been loaded with all these salty old sailors who would win spin out these amazing yarns. The club that was to have had a sunken bar that featured a window that looked directly out into the depths of Lake Buena Vista. Where — every so often — a real live mermaid would have swum by the window.

Yes, Madison’s Dive would have been filled with some amazing effects, some of which ended up in the Adventurer’s Club.  Alas, it too never saw the light of day, but I could imagine enjoying a place like that quite a bit.   Smaller more intimate night experiences sound like a good idea to me.

SHOULD YOU SPREAD THE LOVE OR KEEP A SPECIFIC NIGHTTIME DISTRICT?

When Walt Disney World opened, nighttime entertainment was spread across property.  It provided for more unique experiences, as you can still see with the Luau, Hoop Dee Doo, electrical water pageant, et al.   Back in the 70s, you could also see Vegas-style entertainment with big names such as Rosemary Clooney and Mel Torme at the Contemporary’s Top of The World.  It seemed Disney used all that was in its arsenal to provide a unique experience to visitors.  As during the day, Disney planners at the time took advantage of the difference in the Florida counterpart to Disneyland, expanding entertainment to the resorts, on the water, and organized throughout property.

As the property expanded under the Eisner regime, it seemed the push to get Pleasure Island off the ground compromised other experiences.  Even with the opening of the Boardwalk in 1996, the big brother status of Pleasure Island seemed to bully Boardwalk into never reaching its potential.  Instead of expanding options around property and continuing to innovate, these execs seemed to feel the need to funnel people to one specific place to make it profitable.   After the more-or-less shuttering of the Transportation and Ticket Center as a viable transportation hub in the mid-nineties, most nighttime busses crawled slowly through Downtown Disney in an effort to force folks to a corner of property they might not normally go to.

Instead of bus bamboozling, how about developing a product people will know about and want to go out of their way to see?  I don’t really have an answer or fully developed opinion to this point, I don’t know if a giant nightclub district could ever be successful enough to compete fiscally with other products Disney offers – I do however believe that the Pleasure Island product itself could have been stronger, more unique, showcasing more Adventurer’s Club-like experiences instead of a pure street party appeal.  Also I know that there should be nighttime experiences spread further across property – in the parks, at most resorts, and other places such as Boardwalk.

FOLKS NEED TO DANCE SOMEWHERE

Finally, the importance of cutting a rug must be addressed.  Though not as imperative to social functions as it once was, according to my tally the only place you can dance around WDW now is in the little kid splash fountains in the theme parks and Atlantic Dance.  This is unacceptable.   Again looking back at Disneyland, the Plaza Pavilion once thrived as a dance venue, and working many a Grad Nite I can attest to the somewhat disturbing need for dance folks feel.   I will say this – it may behoove Disney to aim small, miss small on this point.  The Blessing of Size once again has come in to make WDW planners build giant sheds for folks to dance in – and though I love Atlantic Dance in theory – it’s just too big and most likely scares folks away with its largesse.   All the clubs in Pleasure Island were huge (save 8 Trax and the Jazz Co,)  and just might have been too big to be profitable.

I would love to see Pioneer Hall’s leger.   The place is fairly tiny, the show has been the same for almost 40 years, yet they continue to charge so much money and keep up the popularity.  Why?  It’s intimate, it’s different, it’s themed, it’s worth all the money to see Disney working right.   Where would you rather spend an evening – in the Wild West, or at a seedy dance club called Motion that feels a lot like a warehouse-turned-western saloon-turned-sketchy nightclub?

I know what I’d pick, and I believe I know what’s the smarter investment for decades to come…

It’s been a while since I last did one of these. The delay was, in part, because not only is this particular topic very near and dear to my heart, but [...]]]> It took some time, but this is a biggie. Survey says…

#2 – Rethink EPCOT. Completely.

Smell that? That’s the smell of potential!

It’s been a while since I last did one of these. The delay was, in part, because not only is this particular topic very near and dear to my heart, but it’s also one for which there are no easy solutions. It’s also a situation for which I actually have a number of very specific ideas and suggestions, and I didn’t want this to devolve into just another fanboy blue-sky sandbox exercise. The fact remains, though, that the problems that face EPCOT Center, that have hampered its development, and the things I’d like to see done there in the future take up the largest amount of pondering on Disney parks that I do on a regular basis. So with the disclaimer that I’m aware that I’m far too invested in this subject for my own good, here are my thoughts on EPCOT.

My obsession with EPCOT has a lot to do with timing. My first trip to Walt Disney World happened at the age of five, and we arrived in Orlando only a few short weeks after EPCOT had opened. From that point on, EPCOT was my favorite of the Disney parks. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve probably heard me base at least some of my rants against the “received wisdom” of Disney marketing in the fact that, as a child, many of my friends and I were far more “enchanted” with EPCOT than with the Magic Kingdom. When I hear latter-day Disney propagandists admit that kids just hated EPCOT before it got “exciting”, my bile starts to curdle.

My seminal Disney experiences occurred concurrently with EPCOT’s golden age, and I feel that I fell right into the “sweet spot” temporally to be completely won over by the park. Had I been a Disney fan of an earlier age, I might have grown up with Walt’s original idea of EPCOT-as-city in my head and been crushed by what was, to be honest, a massive but well-intentioned cop-out by later management. One of the interesting revelations I’ve had from digging deeper into Disney history is the realization that a lot of the public was really let down by the announcement of EPCOT Center as a theme park – people seem to have been really anticipating a city of the future and they spent a lot of time in the early 1970s pushing Disney managers for details about when it would be built. While years of corporate spin has tried to present EPCOT Center as “Walt’s greatest and final dream”, that’s just simply untrue. For many Disney fans at the time who knew the truth, this must have been a hard pill to swallow. But seeing as the only EPCOT I’ve ever known was EPCOT Center, I was able to be blown away by it without any preconceptions whatsoever.

The flip side of this is had I become a Disney fan later, I would have only come to know EPCOT during its long downward slide under the Eisner regime. Depending on where I came in, I wouldn’t have known the original Spaceship Earth, or Horizons, or World of Motion, or Journey into Imagination… I wouldn’t have known the thematic consistency of early EPCOT Center, a concept reflected in even the iconography of the pavilions themselves. I also wouldn’t have known that heady sense of excitement about things to come that was incorporated in all of EPCOT’s promotional material from that time. There were no more exciting words then than “Coming Soon” – Equatorial Africa, Spain, Israel; or Horizons and The Living Seas, to be soon followed by “Space” and “Life & Health”. A great deal of EPCOT’s potential in my mind comes from those original unrealized concepts that promised amazing and mind-blowing things to come.

Promises, promises – Circa 1983

The story of why EPCOT started off with such a unified vision but never reached its full flower has been touched on here before. Growing up, I had always wondered with irritation why Disney just didn’t get it all done at the start – why we had to wait for those extra pavilions, or the Germany pavilion’s boat ride, or the expansion of the Japan pavilion. The truth is that EPCOT barely – just barely! – opened on time as it was. The story of EPCOT’s breathless 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week rush to opening day is a harrowing one. Some key elements of the park did, in fact, open late. Many others were delayed in an attempt to concentrate resources on key attractions for opening day. We’ve mentioned a few of these delayed attractions – the rides for Mexico, Germany and Italy were all shelved at one point due to time constraints, with the Mexican boat ride only being reinstated when it became apparent that the park would need its ride capacity on opening day. The shortened construction cycle led to El Rio Del Tiempo being only half of its original planned size. Many other attractions remained delayed for a “Phase II” that never came.

Lost in Phase II purgatory: the Venezuela pavilion

One key myth perpetrated by revisionist Disney publicists is that EPCOT was somehow unsuccessful upon opening or poorly received by the public. This can be seen even in officially sanctioned media like the Travel Channel “Modern Marvels” episode about Walt Disney World. The fact of the matter is that EPCOT was a smash success, with record crowds far exceeding Disney’s own estimates. Press coverage from the time is almost uniformly positive, with the most oft-repeated criticism being that guests wanted more – more rides, more restaurants, more shops, more shows. The park was so swamped with guests that its amenities proved inadequate, and long lines only became worse when compounded with the technical issues that arise in any new theme park of such an advanced nature. EPCOT was slammed with an unprecedented wave of visitors, all who wanted more; thankfully, Disney had plans for just that.

Upon its opening, Disney continued work on the few Phase I attractions that had yet to open – key among these being the Journey Into Imagination ride – while immediately beginning work on the park’s Phase II. Loans were secured to underwrite tens of millions of dollars in new attractions and additions. Horizons was well on its way to its 1983 opening, and construction began on The Living Seas as soon as United Technologies signed as a sponsor in summer of 1983. That same year, the Kingdom of Morocco would open its pavilion in World Showcase – the first of many intended Showcase pavilions for Phase II. Additional restaurants were added to Communicore, France and China, and a second restaurant was planned but never built in Italy. The sponsorship search continued for Space and Life & Health, and Disney heavily promoted upcoming pavilions for Equatorial Africa, Spain, Israel, Venezuela, Denmark, and Scandinavia. So what happened?

It’s easy to mistake the abandonment of EPCOT’s Phase II as another instance of management failing to follow though on their promises, but that’s not the case here. The groundwork for Phase II was in place, but in 1984 there was a sweeping change in management that brought Michael Eisner and Frank Wells to Disney. Eisner’s primary concern, by far, was the motion picture and television divisions of the company. Eisner wanted to be a media mogul, and while his concerns about the under-performance of Disney films at the box office were well-founded, his massive shift in the company’s direction came at the expense of the theme parks. Eisner admitted the parks would continue to expand, but at “pre-EPCOT” levels. That first year, Disney wrote off more than $40 million worth of canceled theme park projects at the behest of the new management team.

I often see people who claim insider knowledge from that era state that Eisner “hated” EPCOT. It’s said that Eisner, who didn’t grow up attending theme parks and seemed to look down on them, saw EPCOT as an expensive blunder. I have no idea if any of that is true, but it’s clear by his actions after arriving at Disney that, at the very least, Eisner did not understand EPCOT whatsoever. Attempts to drive up attendance at the park without major further investment gave the appearance that Disney was grasping at straws, and this would only become more apparent as time passed.

A circus?? Surely this must be THE FUTURE!! (Photo: Jeff Lange)

EPCOT’s drift into chaos began almost immediately; it can easily be seen in 1987’s Daredevil Circus Spectacular. The expansions that did arrive after Eisner’s arrival were legacy projects; The Living Seas had broken ground in 1983, 1988’s Norway pavilion was a descendant of the pre-Eisner plans for a Scandinavia pavilion, and even 1989’s Wonders of Life was an adaptation of the “Life & Health” pavilion that had been under design since the mid-1970s.

So deep was Eisner’s ambivalence towards EPCOT that, for a time in those early years, Disney considered selling off EPCOT in part or in whole to another company. In what would be a scheme to raise a lot of quick money for – what else – expanding film production in California, Disney would sell EPCOT or its individual pavilions and then either lease them back or manage and operate them under contracts similar to the arrangement by which Disney operates Tokyo Disneyland. While this scheme to raise a quick billion dollars never came to fruition, the fact that Disney management was willing to seriously and publicly discuss the potential divestment of EPCOT shows the lack of regard the park was given at the time.

There followed a period of stagnation, interrupted only when the Future World sponsors’ contracts needed to be renewed in the early 1990s. The Land and Spaceship Earth received overhauls; while Spaceship Earth got a new narration and an incongruous new ending, The Land had two of its smaller attractions replaced. The film Symbiosis was replaced with Circle of Life, the first of many attempts to insert characters into the park’s attractions. The wonderful and catchy Kitchen Kabaret was also closed; its replacement, Food Rocks, was so cheaply executed that I once thought it would certainly be the all-time nadir of Disney attractions. I was wrong.

The cohesive sense of design that once tied Future World together really fell apart in the mid-1990s. Communicore, which once served to tie the concepts of the individual pavilions together and serve as an outreach resource to guests, was replaced with the crass trade show displays of Innoventions. These exhibits were crammed into the Communicore buildings, closing off sightlines and guest traffic flows, removing the natural light and open vistas that had characterized the buildings, and taking no advantage of the buildings’ pre-existing design. The public areas of Future World slowly filled with odd bric-a-brac that only created clutter and visual contradictions.

In the future, sightlines will no longer exist (From EPCOT Central; read their fantastic rundown of the many, many unsightly visual intrusions that must be scourged from EPCOT)

The attractions themselves changed, removing many of the futuristic concepts they once embraced and abandoning the iconography that once linked all the pavilions together. The Universe of Energy became Ellen’s Energy Adventure, becoming less informative and relying more on the use of familiar celebrities and humor – a tactic also employed in the then-new Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. The World of Motion closed for several years as Imagineers replaced it with Test Track; the result was an uninspiring mild thrill ride/car commercial with critical reliability and technical issues. Horizons closed, opened, and closed again; it was finally allowed to fall apart in plain sight of guests before its eventual demolition. World Showcase remained untouched since 1988. Then things really went off the rails.

Journey Into Your Imagination. A name that will send shudders down the spine of any EPCOT fan. The completely unnecessary closure of an EPCOT classic – and the single EPCOT fantasy dark ride in the true Disney tradition – led to this abomination, and the public response was so universally negative that Disney was actually forced to close it again a few years later. Horizons was torn down and replaced with Mission: Space, an expensive simulator ride which made many guests ill and resulted in a few deaths (all from pre-existing conditions, but still bad for publicity). So troubled was Mission: Space, that Disney was programming other attractions to print out free Fastpasses for the ride just a couple of years after its opening.

Recent additions show no rhyme or reason, or adherence to any unified concept for the park. Soarin’, the only successful attraction from California Adventure, was imported to The Land despite any real reason for it to be there. The entirety of The Living Seas has been re-themed to center on animated characters from Finding Nemo; while its dark ride segment is appealing, it merely retells the story of the film without adding any insight about the actual seas and their inhabitants. The same criticism could be aimed at Mexico’s Gran Fiesta Tour, a character-based ride overlay that missed the potential provided by the fantastic Three Caballeros by focusing on yet another “character hunt” instead of having anything to say or show about Mexico itself. A recent overhaul of Spaceship Earth, while laudable for its needed technological upgrades, has been criticized for “dumbing down” the attraction’s narrative and for its still-unfinished ending.

So, the park remains a hodgepodge; many layers of mismatched design from different periods collide in guests’ senses, and the lack of meaningful new additions becomes more glaring when you realize that there are no announced projects in the pipeline for at least the next several years. At the very least, though, this gives Imagineers and fans a chance to pause, examine the situation, and ask – what should happen to EPCOT?

John Hench was one of the Imagineers who worked heavily on the creation of EPCOT Center in the 1970s and 1980s, and from his writings one gains the impression that he was among the most scholarly of Walt’s original team. Hench seems, in his interviews, to be a very thoughtful person who was concerned not only with what works in themed design, but why it works and what that says about us as a species. One of the better-known ideas that Hench often spoke of involves the roots of Mickey Mouse’s popularity; Hench believed that the circles that underlie Mickey’s design tapped into an inherent human predilection towards that form. Humans, or so Hench thought, had an evolutionarily conditioned positive response to roundness; roundness meant safety and nurturing, while sharp angles meant danger. Hench saw Mickey’s triumph in public popularity over his angular rival Felix the Cat as a microcosm of this effect.

Mostly, though, Hench hated contradictions. The success of Disneyland, in his eyes, stemmed from its lack of contradictions. Every area of Disneyland grew out of a pure notion of a specific time and place that resonated deeply with the collective unconscious. In Disneyland’s Main Street, Hench said, they took everything iconic from mid-American small towns of that era and stripped it of contradictions, especially the contradictions that had crept in since the time it’s meant to depict. There never was a real small town like that, but there’s an element of truth in it that strikes a chord with visitors and is somehow true to all those Main Streets without being really at all accurate.

This must be the first goal of any EPCOT renewal – the elimination of contradictions, be they visual, thematic, or content-based. EPCOT must once more be seen as a whole, not an unrelated smattering of parts without relation to each other or to the whole. The pavilions must share similar goals, if not necessarily similar approaches; a shared and stated purpose would give this park a clear identity for the first time in decades.

These contradictions now run throughout the park, on a number of scales. They can be as small as selling pirate merchandise or Crocs from push-carts in the Innoventions breezeways or featuring Aladdin in the Morocco pavilion to something as large as the fact that Soarin’ has no relation to the rest of The Land. The cacophonous buildup of years of poor choices (a Coca Cola carwash in front of Test Track?) lies in layers over the park, and must be stripped away completely.

This does not, necessarily, mean a complete reset to EPCOT Center, Day One. While obviously I’m more a fan of the original EPCOT than its current incarnation, that doesn’t mean we haven’t learned anything in the last twenty-seven years or that the original park was perfect. For one thing, as I’ve mentioned, it was under-built to handle the initial rush of guests. Another element that received some criticism even at the time was the influence and effect on the pavilions by their corporate sponsors. Disney needed corporate participation to fund the park; the necessity of pleasing the sponsors was critical to EPCOT’s existence and often influenced the narratives of the pavilions. Where in GM’s World of Motion ride was the push for mass transit or alternatives to the internal combustion engine? Exxon’s Universe of Energy, though spectacular, has been biased in favor of fossil fuels in both its versions, and tends to gloss over any real potential for alternate forms of energy production. The Land was originally intended to focus on ecology and the world’s biomes, until sponsor Kraft signed on and shifted the pavilion’s message to nutrition and food production.

Exxon’s Energy Exchange made it clear where their bread was buttered (Disneypix.com)

In most of these examples, the problem came from a lack of meaningful exploration of cutting-edge ideas or alternatives that would mean real change for the future. By showing a future full of shiny, high-tech automobiles, World of Motion essentially punted on the idea of meaningful advances in the way we travel and just showed us a more glossy and streamlined version of our current modes of transportation. With the exception of Horizons and, to an extent, The Living Seas, truly groundbreaking ideas were not prominently embraced in the actual attractions, and if they existed at all they were often relegated to post-show areas or exhibits in Communicore.

The most glaring element missing from the original Future World attractions, as much as I loved them, was a slight deficit in humanism and a lack of global perspective. EPCOT grew out of the mid-century World’s Fair tradition, in which technology was viewed as a solution in itself to humanity’s problems. Personally, I grew up immersed in this mindset and still find it engaging. What the last several decades has taught us, though, is that technology in and of itself will not solve our problems for us, but must be promoted and applied wisely, efficiently, and equally if it’s to benefit everyone. EPCOT emerged from a very suburban worldview, where having a push-button kitchen wizard that cooks your rump roast with RADAR means real progress. What this picture misses is the fact that if someone on the other side of the world doesn’t have access or the means for RADAR, roasts, or even kitchens, those distant problems might eventually find their way to your doorstep. This global outlook was not completely absent from early EPCOT, of course; the technologies discussed in The Land might eventually prove critical for ending famine and providing economic growth in arid or resource-poor areas, and Horizons was centered on human adaptation to future lifestyles. But this idea of interconnectedness should be present in all Future World pavilions, as it will eventually be necessary to achieve the futuristic view that the park was built to embrace.

It’s this vision of the future – and what it means for people worldwide – that has often been lost in the years since EPCOT’s debut. As the years passed, many said that the Future World pavilions had become outdated and, like even the best futurism, this was often true. The critical failure in these arguments, though, is that the elements that had become outdated were mostly superficial; a dated-looking polyester jumpsuit or outmoded color scheme are trivialities and easily changed. The fact that’s often missed is that the ideas and problems addressed in the pavilions are just as relevant, if not more so, now as in 1982.

One thing that struck me repeatedly during last year’s presidential race was how often the critical issues being discussed had a direct connection to something that had once been addressed in EPCOT’s pavilions. Energy policy, transportation and its infrastructure, the environment and ecology, and universal access to information technology were all at the fore. Topics that were on the back burner of public discussion when EPCOT opened are often headline news these days; computers are no longer slightly mystical items reserved for the academic elite, and the public is now versed in subjects like the need for alternative energy, the problem of pollution and global warming, and the search for new modes of transportation.

In this regard, EPCOT is now actually behind the curve. Look at Universe of Energy – so much has been done in recent years to explore new possibilities for energy production and to understand the hazards of continuing our current path; we’ve seen An Inconvenient Truth become the highest-grossing documentary ever, and fuel cells and passive solar become fairly familiar terms. While I find Ellen’s Energy Adventure amusing and fairly entertaining, it’s also backward-looking. With everything that’s changed in the world since its 1996 debut, the Energy pavilion once more needs to embrace and evangelize cutting edge technologies that guests might one day be able to use on a daily basis to reduce our dependence on a carbon-based economy.

Disney must do this with each pavilion. While they seem to just cast about desperately for a character or gimmick to put into each attraction, they really just need to look at the fields of study the pavilions were intended to address and look at how relevant they’ve become in the real world. Energy’s importance has been discussed. Transportation has become a critical issue for both personal and mass transit, and the way these problems are dealt with both inside and between cities. The Land already has its greenhouses, which are fantastic, to address the need for more efficient methods of food production in areas where water is scarce – including the American west – and the necessity of finding creative ways to reduce our needs for harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The Seas are also a vital topic of interest; key areas include pollution and the role of the seas in global warming, the best ways to exploit the seas’ resources without exhausting them, and the sheer possibilities and excitement afforded by exploration in this uncharted realm.

Space is a subject with vast, awe-inspiring potential that Mission: Space fails to exploit. The current attraction would serve, perhaps, as an adequate preshow to a fully-conceived space-based attraction that could truly convey the excitement of space exploration and the possibilities it holds for advances in various life sciences, materials science, and resource exploitation.

Now you’re talking: A rendering for a previously proposed Space pavilion from the 1990s

An even more relevant issue is now completely ignored in the park; the closure of Wonders of Life now looks patently absurd, as health issues have come to the forefront of public debate. Issues such as healthy lifestyles and preventative healthcare are a necessary part of the future that EPCOT was built to portray. EPCOT was intended to tackle these issues in an engaging and public way; Disney can continue to retreat from this idea and just provide an odd assortment of vaguely “discovery” themed attractions, or they can do the hard work and pull it all back into focus.

The trick, of course, is how to present these critical ideas and themes without becoming preachy, dry, or unentertaining. It’s an incredibly difficult proposition, of course, but it’s possible; Walt himself always believed the best way to inform was through entertainment, and that’s been proven time and time again. Look, again, at Horizons – it presented many glimpses at the technologies that will influence our future without becoming didactic or boring. Each attraction need not provide a full education on its specific subject matter, but it should give a sense of the possibilities ahead and allow guests an entry into the material that could spark further interest.

So far, I’ve focused mostly on the Future World pavilions. This is because the ideas promoted by that part of EPCOT are so much more abstract and difficult than those illustrated in World Showcase. Future World is also far easier to get wrong, as a failure of any of its parts or in achieving some sense of cohesiveness can happen easily if Imagineers take their eye off the ball. World Showcase, in comparison, is pretty easy to get right.

It also helps that the Showcase, for the most part, has actually improved over the years. This is merely my observation, but I feel that elements such as the food and entertainment have become slightly more authentic as the cultural horizons of average Americans have widened due to greater exposure to different nationalities. It seems as if these elements have become more varied in the pavilions as well; it seems that there’s always some performance happening in World Showcase at any time.

This doesn’t mean that Showcase is without need for improvement. Obviously, as any fan would tell you, it needs to be expanded. There is a thirty year backlog of unbuilt pavilions, with the last addition coming a full twenty years ago. More than that, though, there needs to be a renewed focus on the cultures of the individual nations beyond mere shops and restaurants, or especially character greeting experiences. Rides and films are always welcome, of course, but they should actually reveal something about the countries themselves rather than serving as venues for character-based promotions or cheap thrills. Aside from these more expensive options, other types of cultural features should be considered. The small museum galleries in Norway, China and Japan are always interesting diversions, but should be expanded or refreshed more often. This idea could be expanded to other pavilions as well. But beyond static displays or ride attractions, there’s room to explore new concepts. I’ve always pictured something like an incense-filled room in Morocco, with a storyteller spinning yarns from the nation’s past while in-theater effects enhance the tales. Films are great too, but must be kept fresh – the Norwegian film is about fifteen years overdue for a reshoot.

There are many fixes that could be made to EPCOT piecemeal, but I think the best way to do it is to build a dedicated team of Imagineers who understand the big ideas behind the park, and let them craft a single coherent refreshed design for the park. I also think that there should be a designated creative lead on the park; this person must be both aware of EPCOT’s history and enthused about its future. The “all at once” concept worked well in 1982, and it’s necessary now to strip the park of those contradictions we mentioned before. A team of Imagineers who see EPCOT’s potential, rather than seeing as some corny, stodgy snoozefest to be made fun of, could craft a message for Future World and insure a consistent level of thought and design throughout World Showcase. They could tie the ideas of the park together, remove the current feeling of isolated and unrelated experiences, and give the park the thesis it needs.

The Prologue and the Promise

OK, let’s get one thing crystal clear upfront: I know that this one is never, ever going to happen. I know it, you know it and the American people know it – no matter how much the parks would benefit [...]]]> Remember when I was doing this list thing?

#4 – Detoonification

Make. It. Stop.

OK, let’s get one thing crystal clear upfront: I know that this one is never, ever going to happen. I know it, you know it and the American people know it – no matter how much the parks would benefit and no matter how it would be true to Disney’s legacy, they’re never going to reverse the lamentable “toonification” trend of recent years. But they should.

When Michael Eisner came to Disney in 1984, there were no attractions based on animated characters in any of the Disney parks aside from those in Fantasyland. There had been attractions based on live action properties – the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse and Davy Crockett Canoes spring to mind – but the focus of the non-fantasy based lands was putting guests into real-life adventures from the past, present and future.

Disneyland’s Rainbow Ridge – No Woody’s Roundup in sight

It’s hard to believe that it’s been twenty-five years since that day, but in that time the marketing people took over the shop and the focus of new attractions shifted from what best suited their surroundings to what was trendy at the time of construction. While the net total of attractions in Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom hasn’t increased measurably in those years, the two domestic Disney parks are now home to:

- Tarzan, Iago, Zazu and Aladdin in Adventureland

- Shows based on Toy Story in Frontierland, as well as the placement of non-toon pirates on Disneyland’s Tom Sawyer Island

- Winnie the Pooh in Disneyland’s Critter Country

- Buzz Lightyear, Finding Nemo, Stitch (x2) and Monsters, Inc. in Tomorrowland

EPCOT Center, once home to only its original characters like Dreamfinder and Figment, now features Finding Nemo, The Lion King, The Three Caballeros, Kim Possible and, uh, Martin Short. What’s worse is that in several of these instances – especially Nemo and Caballeros – the focus is solely on the characters and not the theme of the pavilion or attraction that they inhabit. What do you learn about the seas from Nemo, or about Mexico from Donald? The Circle of Life film, which is kind of goofy at times, at least manages to remain relevant to its purpose.

Donald stands in front of the… Actually, they never tell us where or what it is

This points out how important execution is when attempting a character overlay. I really, really love the film The Three Caballeros and was initially excited about the concept of the Mexico refurbishment. But they managed to not really tell us about Mexico at all with the new attraction, and the ride captures none of the trippy, freewheeling feel of the film. It’s just loud and short.

Back to the Magic Kingdoms, though. The innovative thing about Disneyland in 1955 was that it provided all those post-war suburban families with immersive adventures in heavily themed settings. The world was a lot smaller then than today, and a trip through the jungles of Adventureland introduced millions to new and exotic concepts, no matter how homogenized and idealized they actually were. Disney’s attempts at futurism, both on his TV show and in Tomorrowland, made the Space Race accessible to the masses and helped guide a generation into a new technological era.

These adventures in fictionalized but realistic settings are what draw people to the parks to this day. The average American tourist might never travel to Africa, but they can get a taste of its aesthetic in Harambe. They might never go to Europe, and certainly something like the Germany pavilion is nothing like the actual modern country, but it at least provides a cultural touchstone for people that is outside of their everyday experience. Visiting EPCOT isn’t a substitute for actually traveling abroad, but it’s cheaper and it provides a nice jumping off point for a more informed worldview. How many guests have thought more about the actual Morocco after visiting EPCOT than they ever would otherwise?

“Beautiful! You know what would make it better? Aladdin! What? He’s from Arabia, not Morocco? The rubes will never know – put him in there anyway!”

There’s nothing wrong with giving guests what they want, and I’m sure that they do want characters in some capacity. But isn’t it more interesting and ambitious to give them something they don’t even know to demand? I guarantee that if Disney had taken a million guest surveys in 1966, not a single guest would have thought to ask for Pirates of the Caribbean or the Haunted Mansion. Thank heavens Walt didn’t need to do surveys to know a good idea.

Personally, I want to go to the Tiki Room to be whisked away to a fantastical Polynesian jungle, not to get screamed at by celebrity-voiced animated birds that have no connection to their surroundings. Things like that completely yank guests out of whatever illusion the themed environment attempts to create.

The Disney park roster is far more diverse these days than it was in 1984. The parks embrace a wide variety of environments and themes, which allow the Imagineers to create attractions outside those realms of Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. A park as thematically broad as the Hollywood Studios, for example, provides plenty of leeway for experimentation. And while Disney should, in fact, always push innovation, it doesn’t mean that they should neglect the expansive yet specific mandates that Walt himself laid down for the cardinal realms of Disneyland:

Here is adventure, here is romance, here is mystery. Tropical rivers, flowing silently into the unknown, the unbelievable splendor of exotic flowers, the eerie sounds of the jungle, with eyes that are always watching… this is Adventureland.

Here we experience the story of our country’s past… the colorful drama of frontier America in the exciting days of the covered wagon and the stage coach, the advent of the railroad and the romantic riverboat. Frontierland is a tribute to the faith, courage and ingenuity of the pioneers who blazed the trails across America.

Here is the world of imagination, hopes and dreams. In this timeless land of enchantment, the age of chivalry, magic, and make-believe are reborn, and fairy tales come true. Fantasyland is dedicated to the young at heart, to those who believe that when you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.

Tomorrowland… a vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying man’s achievements… a step into the future with predictions of constructive things to come. Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure and ideals… the challenge of outer space, and the hope of a peaceful and unified world.

No burping cartoon aliens in there that I could find.

Just for fun, let’s torture an analogy. Let’s say that somewhere, just off-campus near Progress City University, there’s an infamous [...]]]> The next item in our list of what I’d like to see taken care of this year in the Disney parks:

#6 – Disney’s Hollywood Studios… Oh, boy…

What once was, can be again…

Just for fun, let’s torture an analogy. Let’s say that somewhere, just off-campus near Progress City University, there’s an infamous sorority house. These undergrads haven’t gotten the memo that hazing has been forbidden by the administration, and for initiation they make the various Disney resorts stand up on the table and have their “problem areas” circled with red marker. Before they lose their charter, they have a go at Walt Disney World and this is the result:

Oh, Disney-MGM Studios / Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where should I start? Unlike the Animal Kingdom, which is a well-realized concept, lovingly crafted yet incomplete, the Studios is a rampaging Frankenstein’s monster of low expectations, abandoned ambitions and half-finished plans. All of the four Florida parks need serious work and additions, but only the Studios needs a sizable portion to be razed and rebuilt wholecloth.

What’s ironic is that I used to be quite a fan of the Studios. I’ve loved film in general, and the culture of the 1930s and 40s specifically, since I was a kid. The Studios seemed a natural for my tastes. Much of it still is – Hollywood Boulevard remains beautiful, despite the accursed Hat (more on that later). The Sunset Boulevard expansion only increased the scope and theming of the area, and added a couple of much-needed attractions to the park. But once one reaches the replica of Graumann’s Chinese (again, setting the hat aside), the park falls apart. There a number of reasons for this, but the main reason the Studios is such a mess nowadays is that it was once a very different theme park with very different purpose.

In the beginning: EPCOT Center’s unbuilt Great Moments at the Movies

Much of the Studios’ genesis remains debatable, but most fans know the oft-repeated story that its origin came in large part from a concept developed for EPCOT Center. What was to become The Great Movie Ride was conceived first as an attraction for Future World, to be placed in a pavilion between Journey into Imagination and The Land. According to legend, new CEO Michael Eisner saw the designs on a tour of Imagineering and decided that the concept should be expanded into an entirely new park. And so, the Studios were born.

Cynics might point out that the rest of the park Eisner dreamed up bore a striking resemblance to plans for a Universal Studios tour long intended for Orlando – plans that Eisner had seen during his previous stint as president of Paramount. Squeamish about entering the Orlando market on their own, Universal had approached Paramount in the early 1980s about partnering on their new gate in Florida. Eisner was thus privy to all of Universal’s plans for Orlando, and although he rejected the partnership offer as head of Paramount, when he left that studio for Disney he quickly proposed the idea of a studio attraction to combat Universal’s impending presence in Florida. Universal executives were furious – and litigious – but Eisner went ahead with construction of the Disney-MGM Studios and, despite Universal’s long head start in planning, managed to get Disney’s park opened a year ahead of its rival’s.

The park was built so quickly because it was far smaller and simpler than Disney’s other parks. The Studios was not intended as a full day attraction like the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT Center – Eisner was playing it very safe with his first major project as CEO. But when the massive crowds that arrived to see the new Disney park overwhelmed the handful of opening day attractions, it became apparent that the park desperately needed expansion, and soon.

Thus began two decades of fits and starts, of announced and canceled projects, and of Rube Goldberg-like expansion. While I’ll save most of my historical lecturing for the Studios’ 20th anniversary in May, it’s important to see how the problems faced by past expansions shaped the park as it is today. The layout of the Studios is so strange that guests unfamiliar with the park’s past must be baffled by its randomness.

The most daunting problem faced by the Studios is its location. Hemmed in by World Drive on the west and Buena Vista Drive to the north, there’s not much room for expansion. Past blue-sky theories have involved expanding over World Drive to adjoining property, but one assumes that would be an action of last resort. As it stands, the existing areas of the park are so chaotic that there’s plenty of room to expand by razing obsolete buildings and infrastructure and starting over.

The confusing layout and unnecessary backstage areas stem from the Studios original mission – to be both a movie-based theme park and an actual working studio. Orlando had its eye set on becoming “Hollywood East” with tax incentives and lax labor laws meant to lure production to Disney and Universal’s soundstages. When Disney-MGM opened, more than half the park was closed off to guest traffic, and guests were unable to view any of these areas without taking the Studio Tour. The arch to the right of the Chinese Theater was intended to be the gateway to the “real” studio, and aside from the entrances to the Backlot Tour and the Animation Tour, everything beyond that gate was closed to guest access. On the other side of the park, everything south of the Indiana Jones arena was inaccessible.

Turning back time: The area shaded green represents the guest areas and show buildings of the Disney-MGM Studios in 1989 (including Star Tours, which opened soon afterward); the blue area approximates the original backstage and production areas of the park

As production waned, the “theme park” side of the park began to encroach on the “studios” side. The walking part of the backstage tour was slowly whittled down to the point that what’s left – the water tank show – serves merely as preshow for the tram tour. The tram tour has also seen massive cutbacks, and now serves mainly as a way to get guests to the worn-out Catastrophe Canyon.

The production areas slowly have become guest areas, with Mickey Avenue opening up to guests and a series of temporary attractions filling some of the former soundstages. This is the area that’s becoming “Pixar Place”, with Toy Story Mania occupying one former soundstage and the upcoming Monsters, Inc. coaster filling another.

The park today: Guest areas and show buildings in green (includes Catastrophe Canyon); backstage areas in blue

This is where the problems begin. The park’s layout made sense when half of it was a working studio and not meant for guest access. The theme park areas – Hollywood Boulevard and Echo Lake – were laid out and themed like traditional Disney attractions. The backstage areas were not intended for guests and thus do not adhere to the design traditions necessary for adequate guest flow. Essentially, as they expanded, Disney had to “fake it” – creating traffic corridors where there were none before, and trying to link areas of the park together that were never intended to commingle.

Unfortunately, a large part of this transition came towards the end of Eisner’s tenure, when any real spending was out of question. What Disney should have done at this time was to remove the soundstages and various support facilities and start over, laying out new areas along proper practices of park design. Instead, we essentially get rides crammed in to unthemed warehouses, with no access to the space needed for later expansion in more remote backstage areas. There are no visual “weenies”, no overarching theme, and no sense of place in these areas – it’s just a hodgepodge. Without massive demolition and rebuilding it will remain that way. Even if WDI goes in and drops E-tickets in all those old facilities, what we’ll wind up with are rows of parallel streets with rides in contiguous, identical rectangular buildings. Not too inspiring.

Where’s that bulldozer? The backstage former production area in orange – the grid layout is not conducive to good theme park design, and should be removed to allow for expansion. For reference, what’s left of the tram tour is highlighted in yellow, Mickey Avenue/Pixar Place is in red, Toy Story Mania’s former soundstage is in green and the area earmarked for the Monsters, Inc. coaster is in blue.

These are issues Disney is going to have to face soon if they plan on any expansion in the Studios. The eventual disposition of all the former backstage areas need to be decided, and they have to determine what’s going to happen with the vestiges of that era. It’s commonly accepted in fan circles that the tram tour isn’t long for the world, as it occupies the biggest patch of easily re-purposed land in the park. It seems that the tram and Catastrophe Canyon will go the way of the dodo as soon as management opens the purse-strings and lavishes some attention on the Studios, which depending on your way of thinking may or may not be within our lifetimes. Even if Burbank were to suddenly get generous, expansion in this area will have to wait for other projects that are closer to a greenlight, such as Star Tours 2.0 and the planned Monsters, Inc. coaster.

The other legacy attraction that needs addressing is the Animation Tour. This attraction was actually expanded over the years, and eventually altered to incorporate the swanky new building created for Florida’s burgeoning feature animation department. Then, Eisner shut down the successful Florida animation unit and the tour’s reason for being vanished. The attraction is now a sad shell of its former self, with no real animators to speak to guests and the show film changed from the amusing yet informative Return to Neverland to a pointless puff piece from California Adventure’s animation exhibit. The tour has no flow anymore and no real draw, aside from some character meet and greets. Disney animation deserves a spot in this park, and the content and scope of the tour needs to be re-thought. Disney also needs to decide whether they’re going to have an animation unit in Florida again, and if not they need to make better use of the space they’re now wasting on backstage office buildings.

One of the rumors that made the rounds when Disney changed the park’s name to “Hollywood Studios” was that the park would be re-conceived as consisting of a series of themed “studios”. These would be analogous to the “lands” of the Magic Kingdom, and would center around the different properties the shows and attractions were based on. Thus, one would get “Lucas Studios” and “Muppet Studios”, “Pixar Place” and so on. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but I think it’s a far superior way to structure the park than exists now, and provided the layout of the park could be restructured in a more logical fashion I think that this plan would be an excellent and thematically consistent way to envision the park going forward.

So, assuming they take my advice and fix all these critical infrastructure issues, what else does the park need? Well, new attractions. And a thorough refreshing of old attractions. They need to decide if they’re still going to attempt to address elements of filmmaking process – otherwise, vestigial elements like the tram tour and Sounds Dangerous need to be replaced with something relevant to the park’s purpose. I don’t think the production aspect need be eliminated entirely, but Sounds Dangerous still needs to go no matter what.

I’m going to sound like a broken record on this one, but the park needs more dark rides. As of now, it has only two (if you count Toy Story Mania). The only animatronic spectacle of the sort that guests tend to associate with Disney is The Great Movie Ride. Give us more – the history of the park is littered with interesting concepts that remain unbuilt. Again, I’ll talk more about this in May but there’s no reason why, with the realms of film, TV, radio and theatre at their fingertips, WDI can’t create a slew of amazing and amusing experiences.

From the Neverworld files – Mickey’s Movieland

The park also needs more of those small atmospheric touches that make the other parks so unique. It would be a cinch to bring California Adventure’s planned Red Line Trolley to Sunset and Hollywood Boulevard. Who knows – maybe they can find a way to make a studio tram ride that circles the park like the Magic Kingdom’s railroad. Live entertainment should also be expanded – this is the park that’s traditionally known for its epic live shows and those should become a feature of the park rather than something that gets cut first when times are tight.

All in all, the park needs logic. It needs a reason to exist, and a purpose for its now seemingly random attractions. Most of all, it needs a master plan that will determine which of the former production areas are available for future expansion, and will prevent major attractions being built in the short-term that would make long-term expansion difficult.

The romance of old Hollywood is ingrained in the global collective consciousness, and there’s no reason why a park like this can’t be a crown jewel for Disney. The entrance of the park, with its ambient music and wonderful theming, should only be the start of an amazing experience instead of its pinnacle. The Studios’ layout and divided sense of personality suited its purpose and made sense in 1989, but it doesn’t anymore. The park’s goals have changed, and it’s time to make a suitable investment in bringing it up to the standards of its peers.

No. Just no.

One last note – the Hat. Rarely are there things that so unite fandom, that are so universally reviled, as the Hat. You’ll hear any number of rumors as to its purpose, but I continue to be unable to fathom what they were thinking when they built the Hat. Out of scale and completely incongruous with its surroundings, the Hat blocks the carefully designed sightlines down Hollywood Boulevard and the once-spectacular view of the Chinese Theater. It serves no purpose, only sheltering a pin stand, and a rather feeble pin stand at that. It’s hard to believe that it’s plagued the park for nearly a decade, and one can only fervently hope that it will eventually follow the path of its once-feared-permanent brethren, the Hand. The Hat makes me deeply angry. Why not put the Hat as an entrance to a rebuilt Animation tour? Just get it out from in front the Chinese Theater. Seriously. What were they thinking? Ok, breathe…

Seriously. Ditch the hat.

And build a Rocketeer ride. Seriously.

That is all.

Again, I know. Putting something like this on a [...]]]> The next item in our (seemingly never-endless) list of what I’d like to see taken care of this year at WDW? Survey says…

#7 – Finish the Animal Kingdom!

The image that launched a thousand blog posts – the original conceptual rendering for Animal Kingdom

Again, I know. Putting something like this on a list has a depth of insight akin to saying that I should probably eat some lunch tomorrow. Still, it’s my list so this is how we’re going to roll.

The Animal Kingdom is a very strange creature, so to speak. It’s different from the other Disney parks in many ways, some of which are confusing and occasionally off-putting to fans. Yet most of these differences exist by choice, as the park was intentionally designed to embrace a somewhat different ideology than its predecessors. For some, it’s their favorite park. Others find it a disappointment. But both sides can agree on one thing – it’s definitely unfinished.

The problem with analyzing Animal Kingdom is that one must realize which flaws stem from its design (these are few) and which resulted from the constant budget cuts that plagued its creation (these are many). The first Disney park built after Eisner’s creative breakdown, the park that opened in 1998 was significantly pared down from what had been originally announced. After all the ballyhoo and hype, guests found a large and beautiful park with precious little to do – only two actual ride-based attractions were ready on opening day. This disappointment made a strong negative impression on many fans – myself included – and the bad buzz helped contribute to years of severe attendance problems. The perception of the Animal Kingdom as a half-day park (if that) has changed over the years, especially with the addition of Expedition Everest in 2006, and the park’s popularity has grown. It also doesn’t hurt that several other projects have debuted since that make Animal Kingdom look much better in comparison.

The Tree of Life – always impressive

But it’s not just the epic failure of California Adventure and Disney Studios Paris that have rehabilitated the image of Animal Kingdom; there’s a lot to admire about the fourth Orlando park. As in most cases, the park’s shortcomings rest on the shoulders of the accountants in Burbank rather than the talented creative staff responsible for its design. If received wisdom is to be believed, the park’s greatest blemishes – the underwhelming Camp Minnie-Mickey and the horrific carnyfest that was added on to Dinoland – were mandated by corporate against the wishes of the park’s creative team. What funding WDI managed to obtain for the park was well spent; the facilities that do exist, aside from those mentioned above, are extremely scenic and full of minute detail. Most importantly, thanks to Imagineer Joe Rohde, who served as the park’s creative guru, the park has a unified and clear vision and purpose for being. That’s something that’s missing from many of the more recent parks, and something that I’ve hoped to see more of in the other three Florida parks at least. Unlike the lesser parks mentioned before, what’s been built at Animal Kingdom is actually worthy of the Disney name; once they fill in the blanks, the current disjointed layout will be resolved and the park will be more than a half-day experience.

The obvious place to start, and certain to be the locus of any fan discussion of Animal Kingdom expansion, is the site formerly intended for the “Beastly Kingdom”.

The Beastly Kingdom

I won’t bother rehashing the entire story here, as it’s been told often elsewhere, but we need to bring it up because the Beastly Kingdom is bound to be the most pined-for yet unbuilt park area since Tony Baxter’s Discovery Bay. Intended to complete the park’s conceptual trinity of animals living, extinct and mythical, the often-delayed land would have featured an inverted rollercoaster through a burned-out castle where guests would encounter a life-sized animatronic dragon. Visitors would find their way through a hedgerow maze to meet a unicorn, and there would be a family-friendly boat ride through scenes from the film Fantasia.

Fantasia Gardens

Instead, Eisner diverted the funding for the area and had the parks’ entertainment division quickly slap together Camp Minnie-Mickey to fill the space with some zero-budget character greeting areas and the Festival of the Lion King show, which consisted of repurposed parade floats from Disneyland. Fans have spent the years since looking for any hopeful sign of the concept’s re-emergence, with rumors waxing and waning leaving only disappointment in their wake. In the meantime, Universal’s Islands of Adventures opened, featuring a coaster that eerily resembled design concepts for the Dragon’s Tower. It seems that now, even if the Beastly concept returns at some future date, it will be far different from the plans announced in the 1990s.

So what form will this expansion take? Rumors within the last year insist that once again the wheels of progress are turning and that something is in the works for the former Beastly site. Some point to the closure last October of the Pocahontas and her Forest Friends show as evidence that Disney is starting to clear the way for construction. Reliable sources reported late last year that site prep would indeed begin in 2009, but recent economic events make this possibility frustratingly speculative.

A possible alternative?

The latest and more frequently reported gossip is that the new expansion will, in some form, involve a take on Tokyo DisneySea’s Mysterious Island area. This will most likely result in some variation of that park’s Journey to the Center of the Earth attraction, with that ride’s giant lava monster animatronic possibly replaced by another creature. Other rumors add some version of DisneySea’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea dark ride to the mix. Whether this area will actually be called “Mysterious Island”, whether it will retain the full Vernian theming of that area, and whether Animal Kingdom will sprout a second mountain with a recreation of Tokyo’s Mount Prometheus – these aspects are all unknown. But one would hope that the great success that Expedition Everest brought the park has shown the executives that new attractions actually attract people – so that’s why they call them that! – and that maybe there’s something behind the idea that visitors aren’t going to show up unless you actually have something for them to do when they arrive. So let’s look where these hoped-for attractions will go:

The Beastly Kingdom expansion area. Camp Minnie-Mickey occupies the blue highlighted area, and the rest of the land once intended for Beastly Kingdom is in green. For orientation purposes, the yellow area is the Tree of Life and the orange area is the entrance plaza.

In the image above, we see the area once intended for Beastly Kingdom, and now partially occupied by Camp Minnie-Mickey. One can easily see the amount of empty space available for expansion, and how small the current character-themed area is. The small Pocahontas theater is now empty, and the prevailing assumption is if expansion should occur in this area, the Festival of the Lion King would be moved to Africa where it is thematically more appropriate. Whether the expansion here should prove Beastly or Mysterious, it needs to be done well and as soon as possible. Only when the realm of fantastical creatures is added to the park will its original vision be complete. But after that, what’s next?

Eisner’s disappointing legacy – the original Tiger Rapids Run site, with the smaller Kali River Rapids attraction in green. Everest is in the lower right-hand corner.

Another likely area of expansion will be this plot, shaded in blue, that was to be the original footprint of Asia’s rapids ride. The original concept for Tiger Rapids Run was that aside from being merely a thrill ride, the twelve-person rafts would take guests down a winding Asian river past live tigers and other creatures. It would be an aquatic version of the Kilimajaro Safari, with exciting show scenes and a whitewater finale. The ever-present budget cuts of the era pared the ride down to its current size, shaded in green, and the resulting Kali River Rapids is the short and unimpressive result.

Before the budget cuts: Double-raft vehicles drift through the elaborate wildlife areas of Asia

The upside is that much of this area is clear and available for expansion, and it’s railroad-adjacent site would give that seemingly random attraction some added purpose. The land would also link up with the Conservation Station site, incorporating that area more sensibly with the park’s layout. It would also soak up more of the park’s crowds, and additional routes to Africa and other areas of the park would alleviate some of the brutal congestion that affects the park’s main pedestrian corridor.

More room for expansion – Dinoland in yellow and Everest in blue, with the expansion site in green

The final likely area for future expansion is shown above, adjacent to Expedition Everest and north of Dinoland. I’ve no idea what is intended for this spot, but it has a prime location along the Asia-Dinoland corridor.

So, there are many possible sites for expansion – what should Disney build? Fans might immediately reel off the list of already-conceived but unbuilt attractions, like the Excavator wooden coaster intended for Dinoland. If Mysterious Island does indeed replace Beastly Kingdom, I think that the original myth-derived concept could easily be expanded to serve as the creative basis for an entirely separate gate for the future, perhaps combined with ideas from Rohde’s proposed “Mythia” expansion for Disneyland. Disney has expressed at least vague interest in the past of adding areas themed to Australia, South America and North America, so one assumes that they at least have an idea of where they’d like to install these new lands. Sadly, management jumped the gun and already imported Soarin’ Over California to Florida; I always thought the attraction would, with a new ride film, work nicely as part of an Australian area where the enormous and unsightly show building could conveniently be cloaked to look like Ayers Rock.

The fabled Excavator sits in the rear of this Dinoland rendering

What this park needs most immediately is capacity; new rides to soak up guests and keep them in the park for longer than a few hours. It also needs indoor attractions because Animal Kingdom, whether by design or necessity, can be miserably, oppressively hot. Yet the balmiest of Disney’s parks also features the least opportunities to be inside – only one of its seven rides take place indoors. Aside from the list of E-tickets fans could reel off, the park really needs some solid C- and D-ticket attractions. These are the rides that complete the unique fabric of the “old growth” Disney parks – it’s attractions like the Peoplemover, Peter Pan’s Flight or The Enchanted Tiki Room that make Disney special. Animal Kingdom also needs at least a couple of the epic E-tickets like Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spaceship Earth or Journey into Imagination that people expect at a Disney park.

None of this should obstruct the main goals of the Animal Kingdom, or remove its focus from live animals. But there does need to be a mix of attractions, so guests have something to do on those days when the animals are feeling sleepy or it’s just too rainy or hot to enjoy the outdoor elements of the park. Areas of the park devoted to fantasy and prehistoric creatures should provide plenty of opportunities for these more traditional attractions – I recall rumors once for a more family-friendly dinosaur-themed dark ride that, while probably purely speculative, would in fact be a great idea for a starting place.

I’ve no doubt that the Imagineers are more than up to the task, or that Rohde and company don’t already have a backlog of ideas they’d like to work on. So it’s up to our friends in Burbank to provide a little stimulus of their own and release some funds for expansion. The park is more than ten years old now, so it’s time to at least fill in the empty spaces that should have been complete on opening day.

Final Note: Alain Littaye’s excellent Disney and More blog has recently posted a great assemblage of concept art from Animal Kingdom here and here. Check it out!

A note to those who control the fate of the now-shuttered Pleasure Island – STOP! PATIENCE!

Now I love the nightlife.  I like to boogie.  In fact I was once a stalwart attendee to Pleasure Island on Cast Member Thursdays (and in 2000 Millenium Mondays), but I [...]]]>

A note to those who control the fate of the now-shuttered Pleasure Island – STOP! PATIENCE!

Now I love the nightlife.  I like to boogie.  In fact I was once a stalwart attendee to Pleasure Island on Cast Member Thursdays (and in 2000 Millenium Mondays), but I wish the Mouse House and WDI would take their time in getting the once popular nightclub district right.

One of the favorite Disney specials of Tangaroa and I is “Disneyland After Dark,” included in the Walt Disney Treasures collection “Disneyland, USA.”  In it, Walt ushers us around his “favorite time in the park,”  where we see Louis Armstrong performing on the Mark Twain, Annette in Tomorrowland at the Bandstand, dancers and firewalkers in Adventureland….. you get the point.

In the mid-70s when the “Vacation Kingdom” of Walt Disney World was in its stride, nighttime entertainment could be found at each of the major resorts on property:  at Luau Cove at the Polynesian, the Top of the World dinner show at the Contemporary – and my favorite, the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue at Pioneer Hall in Fort Wilderness.

For those of you who know the tale of Pleasure Island, you know that Church Street Station created quite the stir in the 80s, and Eisner and Co moved swiftly to create a nightclub district to keep the night owls on property, and even take away some of the local luster that Church Street had developed.

And I think that was a great idea!  I do get frustrated when looking for after dark activities on property and having everything shutter on family time.  I’d like to shake a leg, have a pint, and enjoy continuing on in the Disney magic.

The problem with Pleasure Island (with noted exception of the Adventurer’s Club and Comedy Warehouse) is that even if they had a somewhat innovative concept at first, they quickly lost their luster in carrying the Disney magic to the bar.  At the time of the closing of Pleasure Island, even more innovative clubs and restaurants such as XZFR Rockin’ Rollerdrome (later becoming Rock n’ Roll Beach Club – once home to a Michael Jackson skate party) and the Fireworks Factory had been toned down or changed into bland nightclubs – blandest of all being Motion, where I would often catch an ABC star who shall remain nameless molesting college kids with glow sticks in their mouths.

Everything at Downtown Disney took a crushing blow when West Side was built and the whole complex was changed in name to Downtown Disney – in another kneejerk reaction to Universal, Disney recklessly built giant architectural disasters all in a row full of third party businesses to combat the upcoming Universal Citywalk – which is equally if not more lame.

Disney’s Boardwalk (which I always thought was built in an awful spot), at first seemed to offer more themeatic promise, but quickly disappointed with more third party restaurants, and an attempt at a dueling piano bar that comes across as a warehouse version of Rum Runners (a piano bar I can go to here in North Carolina, but choose not to).

Pleasure Island was concieved with a wonderful story that Jim Hill profiles in another wonderful article here.  In it was a more ambitious Adventurer’s Club, a great seaside bar called Madison’s Dive which I would have LOVED, and a seemingly more in-depth themed experience.   This is all I’m asking for. The world has caught up to the Downtown Disneys of the world, I can go to a mall here and go to all the same stores -  the strolling mall revolution has made West Sides all over the country with Rainforest Cafes and Virgin Megastores and the like.  Whatever happened to the Disney Difference?

There’s no reason in my mind why Disney could not create a night district (complete with dancing and carousing) that could be more innovative, more themeatic, more escapist just like the rest of their resort.

So instead of building a link between two malls (Marketplace and West Side), take some time and use the space wisely!  There are several ideas floating around Disney history (to be profiled in Part II) that can be used as jumping off points, plenty of synergistic possibilities as well.   Again, as stressed in this earlier article – I think it’s imperative for Disney to not try and be “hip” or “cool,” but instead assert itself with confidence, not bowing to trends — or the god-awful Frankie and the West End Boys (sorry faithful fans).

Stay tuned for Part II, where I’ll float some suggestions from Disney History that may prove as stepping stones for a new Walt Disney World Nighttime District.

We’ve mentioned already several of the rumors regarding the next few years as Disney ramps up for the Magic Kingdom’s 40th anniversary in 2011. If planning continues along current lines, and management steps up with sufficient funding, the park will finally receive a series of refurbishments that will begin to restore [...]]]>

Magic Kingdom

We’ve mentioned already several of the rumors regarding the next few years as Disney ramps up for the Magic Kingdom’s 40th anniversary in 2011. If planning continues along current lines, and management steps up with sufficient funding, the park will finally receive a series of refurbishments that will begin to restore it to its long-lost lustre.

First on our slate are the projects that have been confirmed by Disney – refurbishments of the Country Bear Jamboree and the Hall of Presidents. The Jamboree will go dark this fall for a month in order to upgrade the animatronics and give the entire show a well-deserved technical polish. The Hall of Presidents closure, which also begins this fall, will extend well into next year and result in more sweeping changes. While still unconfirmed by Disney, multiple online and personal sources agree that the rehab will not only result in the addition of a new animatronic Commander-in-Chief but also the installation of an entirely new show. The new show won’t feature a speaking role for the current president, but might possibly add a speech from another prominent founding father.

The next tier of projects are those that I feel will definitely appear in the parks barring any disastrous economic situation or major shift in management. These attractions have been confirmed by multiple sources and are generally agreed to be “in the pipeline.” While we know that even solid plans can change, I would wager that we eventually see these projects come to light.

The first of the projects pending announcement is a rehab of the Carousel of Progress. Much like the looming upgrades to the two previously mentioned shows, this rehab would bring new animatronics to the venerable Carousel theatre as well as providing a much-needed modernization of the final scene (no more laserdiscs for you, Grandpa!).

Next door to the Carousel, an extended and long-in-the-making refurbishment will be coming to Space Mountain. After a series of structural issues several years ago, Disneyland’s version of Space Mountain underwent a complete track rebuild. The new track, while retaining the original ride’s layout, provided a much smoother and safer ride experience while allowing the addition of new cars with ride-synced musical tracks. It’s long been known that WDI was working to bring these same changes to Florida, but lethargic and tight-fisted Magic Kingdom management have stymied the plans so far. Still, it appears that the rehab will actually happen next year, with a closing date of January 9, 2009, being bandied about by informed sources. Work has already begun in part – Martin Smith has posted pictures showing that marks have been spray-painted onto the track to tell demolition crews where to cut. The scope and length of the rehab still depend on management, who would rather have a short rehab period than a suitable refurbishment, and we might wind up with only rebuilt lift hills instead of an entirely restored attraction.

Across the park in Adventureland, look for The Enchanted Tiki Room – Under New Management to go the way of the dodo. As we’ve mentioned, it’s extremely likely that a new show will be installed here featuring Lilo and Stitch. Some of the concerns I had voiced here were in part answered by a post on WDWMagic.

“Our version would be far more connected to our previous versions with songs from the original (and jokes at the expense of Iago and Zazu) as well as some Elvis added in there. The show would be a little longer, with a little less telling of what is happening and more singing. And yes, the Tiki Tiki Tiki Room song will start the show off as always.”

The final attraction that seems a lock for the Magic Kingdom is a new Fantasyland dark ride based on The Little Mermaid. The ride, originally intended for EuroDisney and then slated for the Magic Kingdom in the 1990′s, has been redesigned from the ground up for installation at California Adventure by 2011. Knowing Disney parks chief Jay Rasulo’s love of cloning attractions, fans quickly began to suspect that the new E-ticket would be bound for Florida’s Magic Kingdom as well. The story has gained credibility, and major rumor sites agree that The Little Mermaid is on its way to Orlando for the resort’s 40th anniversary.

Rendering of California Adventure’s planned Little Mermaid attraction

The last tier of rumors are those for which there is very little evidence. Of these, the most definite but also most nebulous concerns an upcoming rehab of Tomorrowland. Designed to right the wrongs of 1994′s unfinished remodel, the overhaul of Tomorrowland would bring the entire land under a unifying theme that would not end at Rockettower Plaza. We’ve mentioned rehabs for Space Mountain and the Carousel of Progress, but also look for something new to replace Stitch’s Great Escape when its namesake heads for Adventureland. I haven’t managed to find out what will happen to Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor, but it is my fervent and completely baseless hope that it would at the very least be moved to Hollywood Studios if not shuttered entirely. The new theme of the land remains unknown, but I sincerely hope that many messageboard mavens are incorrect in their assumption it will be based around Pixar’s WALL-E. I loved the film, but think that it has obvious and distinct incongruities with the supposed mission of Tomorrowland. Unlike many, I don’t have a problem with a somewhat fantastical look at the future, but WALL-E is no more suitable a model for Tomorrowland than Mad Max or Planet of the Apes.

Last on our list of possibilities for the Kingdom is a rehab of Fantasyland to bring it more in line with its more visually appealing Anaheim cousin. To accompany the Little Mermaid dark ride, Honor at Blue Sky Disney has suggested that plans are afoot for a rollercoaster-based attraction themed to the mine cars from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. He also predicts a new attraction based on Beauty and the Beast, although he doesn’t say if this will resemble the BATB show originally designed for EuroDisney.

EPCOT Center

Following a series of additions and changes, Disney has yet to confirm any upcoming attractions for EPCOT. One project, though, is continuing under the radar and without official mention. When Spaceship Earth re-opened late last year it was greeted with a wave of criticism for its lackluster touch-screen finale. The spectacular upgrades to the ride’s first half were often forgotten amongst complaints about the somewhat simplistic narration and anticlimactic descent. Disney and ride sponsor Siemens are well aware of the criticisms and the ride has undergone constant tweaking ever since. Without time to install a new finale before the ride was forced to open for 2007′s holiday season, Imagineering crews have been working third shift to slowly prepare the descent area for new and more engrossing show scenes that will finally give the attraction the finale it deserves.

EPCOT thankfully has several attractions that, although unannounced, seem certain to get the greenlight. The most obvious of these is a new film for Soarin’, which has been rumored since well before the attraction even debuted in Florida. LaughingPlace recently confirmed that the process of obtaining permits for the filming had begun.

Last year’s rumors about something being planned for the Japanese Showcase have burbled up again, emerging in some discussion on WDWMagic. While the old Mt. Fuji concept is definitely out, something has taken its place and it has to do with bullet trains. Old EPCOT fans might recall a concept from the mid-1970′s for the Japan pavilion which included a simulated trip aboard a bullet train, during which the train cars would be surrounded by a CircleVision travelogue of Japan. While this original concept is obviously far from what WDI is currently planning, I have strong reason to believe the new attraction at least has roots in this old design.

Concept for Japan pavilion bullet train attraction, circa 1974

The most anticipated of the upcoming EPCOT attractions is the fourth – and hopefully final – refurbishment of Journey into Imagination. Still trying to atone for the disaster of 1999′s Journey into YOUR Imagination, Imagineers have been putting together an elaborate plan to restore the pavilion to glory. While rumors of this restoration have been around for several years, it seems that we might finally see some movement on the project. As Martin Smith explained on WDWMagic, the process has been long for a reason:

Imag needs a rehab. Budget is a joke. WDI hold back. Imag still needs a rehab. Budget is a joke. Seas needs a rehab too. Seas budget is a joke. Seas borrows Imags refurb budget to supplement its own. Seas needs it. Seas is a success. Dark ride is a winner. Imag sees Seas (!) is a winner. Budget grows for Imag. WDI plus plans on the back of Seas and Mexico dark rides. WDI & Kodak know they need to get Imag v4 right. Imag budget grows some more. Ideas are moved around to make Imag ride v4 the best possible. Things finally fall into place.

While the final scope of the restoration has yet to be decided, it appears that the current designs range at least from “good” to “great” – Disney is putting some effort into this rehab and hopefully the Imagination pavilion will once more be a prime destination in Future World.

Easy pal – help is on the way

Beyond this, the future of EPCOT resides in the realm of speculation. It’s widely recognized that a replacement for Honey, I Shrunk the Audience is needed but plans for that are tied in with the mysteries surrounding the future of the Imagination pavilion as a whole. The former Wonders of Life pavilion has been gutted of its attractions, save for the Body Wars simulators that are still used for spare parts and – allegedly – as a testbed for Star Tours 2 testing. Yet this large, empty space is begging to be filled – it just remains to be seen what WDI will come up with to use it.

Hollywood Studios

The most sweeping changes over the next few years will likely come to this park as the Imagineers try to give it a coherent theme and look, while fleshing out its roster of attractions. As of now the only confirmed project for the Studios is the American Idol Experience which will open next year. Jim Hill recently reported that the opening date of the attraction had been pushed back into the Spring from its scheduled January debut.

Concept for the upcoming American Idol Experience

For those unenthused about American Idol, there is a roster of attractions that will follow on its heels. A prominent axis of expansion will be Pixar Place, which will first see a new rollercoaster based on Monsters, Inc. Reported widely, including at Blue Sky Disney and Jim Hill Media, the attraction will occupy a replica of the Monsters, Inc. headquarters located in its own “mini-land” of Monstropolis. This addition to the end of Pixar Place might possibly include another, smaller attraction. The Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground adjacent to Pixar Place will be rethemed to a bug’s life. The Pixar Place expansions will result in the eventual closing of the Studio Tram Tour (by 2010, says Blue Sky Disney), and eventually Pixar Place will extend across the backlot all the way to World Drive. This expansion, whether a replica of California Adventure’s Carsland (please, no) or another idea entirely, will necessitate the demolition of Catastrophe Canyon.

The other most likely new candidate for Hollywood Studios is Star Tours 2 which, having been hinted at for at least a decade, now seems to be actually gathering real momentum.

There are other, vaguer possibilities for the Studios as well. The eventual scope of Pixar Place’s expansion is unknown, and there still exist real possibilities for another Indiana Jones-themed attraction near the Stunt Show and Star Tours. In addition, Blue Sky Disney has mentioned an upcoming update of the Great Movie Ride and, intriguingly, the possibility of a new E-Ticket “based on a very big film to combat Universal’s opening of Harry Potter.”

Animal Kingdom

Of the four parks, Animal Kingdom is the greatest cipher despite needing the most new attractions. Nothing has been announced concerning future additions, yet only recently did they close the Pocahontas animal show in Camp Minnie-Mickey. Still, it’s known that the park needs greater capacity and there’s still a great deal of unrealized potential in its concept.

Will Mount Prometheus rise at Animal Kingdom?

The most definite idea for Animal Kingdom alluded to recently by those in the know is an expansion based on stories and themes from the works of Jules Verne. This would occupy the niche of “fantastic creatures” once intended for the Beastly Kingdom expansion. Sources are vague, and I would suppose WDI’s plans are very fluid, but common hints allude to two attractions from Tokyo DisneySea’s Mysterious Island area – Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. While it would certainly be a kick to see Mount Prometheus rising from the Florida swamps, part of me would seriously lament the final death-blow to the Beastly Kingdom concept. It’s well known that a great deal of that land’s aesthetic was copied by former Imagineers for Islands of Adventure’s Lost Continent area, but as that segment of the Universal park is now being re-themed to the tales of Harry Potter it would be a great time to see the Dragon’s Tower rise as intended at Animal Kingdom.

Rendering for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at Tokyo DisneySea

The only other credible rumor for Animal Kingdom involves the moving of the Festival of the Lion King show from Camp Minnie-Mickey to Africa, as necessitated by the transformation of Camp Minnie-Mickey to a new themed area.

The Fifth Gate

This is where things get dicey. We’ve talked before about what was then rumored to be called “Disney’s Night Kingdom”, a premium-priced adventure experience. I still tend to think this will be more of a premium-priced add-on to Animal Kingdom rather than an official “fifth gate”, but it’s clear the concept persists.

Since the original story dropped, it appears that the concept has been significantly scaled down. Currently called either “Disney’s Animal Trek” (according to Blue Sky Disney) or “Disney’s Jungle Trek” (according to Jim Hill Media), the experience will now operate during the day and will offer less exclusive amenities while retaining the exclusive price tag. I’ve no idea what’s really up with this project, but it’s clear there’s some “there” there, regardless of its eventual scope.

Next stop, Anaheim…