More importantly, it contains a look beyond the pavilion to AT&T’s other contributions to the park, which were found at FutureCom in CommuniCore West. Long-gone exhibits such as “The Amazing Microchip” and the “Network Map” are shown, as is the still-spectacular Information Fountain and the folk-art (and song!) that were part of the Age of Information show. It really does get across how funky CommuniCore was back in the day, and underscores the pleasant atmosphere that has been lost in years since.

Another nice treat for EPCOT history buffs is the footage of the WorldKey Information System kiosk that graced the bridge from Future World to World Showcase; this is one of the less-remembered WorldKey outposts so it’s good to have this video. I’m fascinated by the clip of the WorldKey system itself that they show during the film – it is not the WorldKey that I recall. The icons are far more primitive, and the voice is not “Bit” – the character who would later host the WorldKey presentations. Perhaps this is a prototype of the system? WorldKey was tested in various Walt Disney World locations in the years leading up to EPCOT’s opening, and I wonder if this isn’t one of those prototype implementations.

This video is one of several posted by the AT&T Archives; I highly recommend that you check out their YouTube channel for a number of remarkable films and videos from the last century. Some are quite amazing – and hilarious.

This has taken me by surprise, and I’ve been at a loss to really explain it. As I’ve said, it’s an odd time to be a critic, with the company willing to spend once more but making dubious choices in the theming of these multi-million dollar expansions. Even more baffling is Walt Disney World, my personal area of greatest interest, which seems to rise and fall on a daily basis; depending on which subject you’re addressing – attractions, entertainment, foods, transportation – you can waver between optimistic and despondent on an hourly basis.

Big new Fantasyland plans? Yay! Decaying Tomorrowland? Boo! Tasty new burgers at Pecos Bill? Yay! Shortened hours and generic chicken nuggets at Columbia Harbour House? Boo! Classy new Town Square Theater? Yay! The hideous Stitch stage blaring Cotton Eye Joe in Tomorrowland? Boo!

It’s hard to keep track. And it’s hard to really chart the progress of the resort when you have snazzy new rockwork going up in Fantasyland but monorails falling apart outside the gates. What is most baffling is that many of us feel that the absolute nadir of the Magic Kingdom is behind us, and the park has seen an overall rise in quality and maintenance over the last few years. While it is far, far from its historical peak, of course, it’s at least better – better than when Under New Management festered in Adventureland, or the Exposition Hall remained empty, or the 20,000 Leagues lagoon sat stagnant and filled with floating garbage. The Magic Kingdom is better off, and the other parks are certainly no worse off than they were five years ago, so why are so many people worried? And why does the future quality of the resort feel like such a dicey proposition?

At last we have a cogent reasoning for exactly why this happens courtesy of Foxx at Passport to Dreams Old and New, who provides a compelling dissection of just how broken the system is at Walt Disney World in the prologue to her annual “report card” for the Magic Kingdom. The reason Walt Disney World’s efforts seem so scattered and fragmented is – surprise! – the resort’s executive and departmental structure is scattered and fragmented. The system is broken, and it will take a wholesale rethinking of the way things are done in Disney’s largest and most prosperous resort to return it to its former level of service and quality.

It is important for fans to realize just how Walt Disney World is structured so they know who is responsible when things go pear-shaped. In many ways it doesn’t matter who is calling the shots at the top; no matter the agenda of Iger, Staggs, or Rasulo, Walt Disney World will continue to botch the important details because of systemic failures.

Basically, Walt Disney World is set up like a feudal kingdom. Every vice president has their own fiefdom, and heaven forfend they all collaborate to create a better, high-quality experience for the guest. Instead they in-fight, stymie each other, seek to secure and consolidate their own power, and generally try to make themselves look better at the expense of everyone else. The company treasury is parceled out amongst these departments, with some better funded than others, which is why Entertainment can blow tens of millions of dollars on a hideous stage in Tomorrowland that is used for less than six months while other departments can’t perform basic maintenance for critical on-stage show elements. It’s why those goofy games that no one ever plays in the Space Mountain queue cost more than the actual show improvements to the ride itself during its 2009 rehab.

It’s because there’s no one in control. There’s no one with the power or the authorial vision to whip these squabbling principalities into line and make them all function as one for the betterment of the entire resort. There’s no one with the brass to spend money on non-revenue elements like the monorail, which don’t bring in cash but make the resort worth visiting. And there’s no one to stick out their neck and make a decision on where the entire ship of state needs to go next. Instead it’s hit-and-miss advances and declines, with victories eked out where some enterprising soul can trick the system into working and stagnation elsewhere as the inertia of mediocrity grinds everything to a halt. The system is rigged to prevent things from happening. It’s rigged to keep those folks who work hard for little pay and no recognition from making real and lasting change; the folks at the top have no idea what’s happening on the ground, and there are a million levels of bureaucracy set up to stifle innovation and improvement.

I compared Walt Disney World to a feudal kingdom, and we have a name for the era during which Europe was ruled by a similar setup – the dark ages. With all the infighting amongst the petty lords, not a whole lot got done at the time, and this might give you a clue as to why management in Orlando can’t figure out a replacement for Pleasure Island, or why simple positive changes can’t be made in the parks on a regular basis.

It does seem slightly insane to proclaim a broken system when I’m the first to argue that the Magic Kingdom has improved in recent years, but as I said while some things have progressed others have regressed, and it’s important for people to know why we’re subjected to hula-hooping on Main Street and Cotton Eye Joe in Tomorrowland. Why the same company who is spending millions on a new Tomorrowland allows a rotting transportation system and a Future World at Epcot that looks like… well, it looks bad.

There are a million different chefs in the kitchen, and some of them are great chefs, some of them are lousy hacks, and some of them are just there to stir the pot until they get a better gig. What Walt Disney World needs is a clear vision, and it would help if the corporate folks in California took a little interest in sorting out these structural problems before they leave the resort to its own devices.

But read Foxx’s post – it makes a lot more sense than this heap of metaphors. I’ve told Foxx we need more of this type of analysis; while Disneyland has had Al Lutz monitoring its every internal move for the last fifteen years, Walt Disney World has no such watchdog with a working knowledge of its own internal dynamics and goings-on. This has been much to our collective detriment, as the Florida resort’s politics and operations differ so greatly from the setup in Anaheim, and unless you’ve seen the system at work it’s hard to understand how it really works. Academically, I knew all the things that Foxx mentions in her article, but I don’t have the working knowledge to be able to find all the connections and to “see the Matrix” – to be able to trace the thread of how some arcane departmental setup leads to specific instances of shabby show.

Knowing how the system works is critical if we’re going to fix it, or even if we simply want to assess who to blame or praise when things go wrong or right. Foxx’s piece is a great place to start. The great news is that talented and enterprising people still exist at Walt Disney World who “get it”, and who share the values that made the resort great. The trick is how to set up a system that empowers them, and that is the message we must get across at both the fan and corporate levels.

This is apparent as far back as the public’s first glimpse of the Florida Project, with Walt’s “EPCOT film” from 1966. The large map of property, which Walt famously stands in front of during the film, depicts a Bay Lake that has been artificially expanded so that it reaches all the way to where EPCOT Center now stands. Had this plan come to fruition, it could possibly have covered the area now occupied by Fort Wilderness, Port Orleans and Dixie Landings.

Over the years, other plans were hatched to enlarge and link the small natural bodies of water on property. At one point, what is now the Sassagoula River was to be widened so as to link a series of recreational areas north of the Lake Buena Vista village; even EPCOT Center’s World Showcase Lagoon was once designed to extend beyond the current row of pavilions into a larger lagoon beyond.

So while it’s fascinating, it’s not completely jarring to take a look at early plans for the Disney project…

To find obscure, forgotten zoning details like this:

The “lagoon” labeled here is what is now the Seven Seas Lagoon; you can also see the site of the Polynesian resort hotel. Of the two sites labeled “future hotel site”, the rightmost was once earmarked for the Venetian resort and the square site to the left, where the Grand Floridian resort sits today, was intended for the planned Asian resort.

What’s of interest is the area behind the Asian site, labeled as “future lagoon extension.” It’s odd to think that the Seven Seas Lagoon could have theoretically been extended to wrap around the Asian resort, north of what is now the Grand Floridian’s parking lots and covering what is now the site of the Floridian’s convention center. Of course there are many zoning and land-use provisions hidden in the depths of the Reedy Creek Improvement District’s many master plans from years past, and I’ve never seen any suggestion that Disney had seriously considered extending the lagoon.

Until now, that is.

This model of the Vacation Kingdom comes from January of 1968 and represents one of the earliest models that I can recall ever seeing of Walt Disney World in a form similar to how it was finally realized. In the first publicly-revealed version of Disney World’s theme park area, the resort hotels were located in front of the Magic Kingdom and there was no lagoon in between. This model, which actually predates the blueprint discussed earlier, shows a theme park area featuring a lagoon and a number of resort hotels. The difference is that unlike in the blueprints, the hotel configuration seen on the model is completely different from any with which we were previously familiar. Let’s take a look.

First, here’s a familiar face to get our bearings. The Contemporary hotel is located much where we expect it to be, although its environs have been altered. Located between Bay Lake and the still-unnamed lagoon, the Contemporary is connected by monorail (the yellow tape) and roadway – although the famous “water bridge” has yet to appear and the road southward merely crosses a conventional causeway.

The core of the hotel itself looks much like it would continue to be depicted during the construction process. The octagonal dock seen here would continue to appear on Imagineering models, although the extensive garden wings shown winding around the building would soon vanish.

Three wings, no circus-tent convention center, no Bay Lake Tower.

The next resort is also a familiar name, but with a different face.

This is the Polynesian hotel, as originally conceived. Unlike the current “longhouse” design, this resort was originally envisioned as a high-rise hotel very indicative of the era in which it was created. This concept would last another year or so, before evolving into the hotel we know today.

As you can see, a much larger area would have been carved out of the lagoon to provide water-facing views and marina space. Multiple docks would have allowed access to a variety of watercraft and – who knows? – maybe that top floor would have featured a themed venue just as swanky as the Contemporary’s Top of the World! You can bet your bottom dollar that, at the very least, there would have been glass-walled elevators in abundance.

The last resort on this model which can be identified is in an unexpected place; the Venetian hotel, which would eventually occupy the “future hotel site” on the aforementioned blueprint, appears here where I’ve never seen it before.

The Venetian is shown here to the right, on a site facing Bay Lake which would be given a year later to the Persian theme hotel. The design shown here seems familiar, though, and changed very little when it is moved to the Seven Seas Lagoon.

The Venetian, themed to northern Italy, was composed of a central building with outlying wings, a marina, and two campanile “belltowers”.

The biggest surprise of this model, however are two resort hotels that we’ve never seen before. These two anonymous hotels would be replaced over the next year or so with the Asian and Persian hotels, but they appear here and their themes remain, for now, a mystery.

The two mystery hotels both face the Seven Seas Lagoon. One, shown here in the foreground, is located on the expansion site where the Venetian would eventually be moved in 1969. The other is sited on a spit of land somewhere between where the Grand Floridian exists today and the Magic Kingdom.

The first hotel, which I’ve taken to referring to as “Fontainebleau Jr.”, is very reminiscent of other luxury hotels of its era. It’s semicircular tower overlooks a circular pool and arcade, and several outbuildings provide added guest rooms. Note that it is also on the monorail line.

The second mystery hotel also features a “modern” design but might actually be a precursor to the Asian hotel which would replace it on the master plan.

Note the odd shape of the central tower, as well as the somewhat traditional-looking pyramidal roof on the marina structure and the outbuildings. The size of the cabanas, and something about the slope of their roofs, make me think that this was an early attempt to give a vaguely oriental flair to a standard luxury hotel. This is pure speculation on my part, but it would explain the somewhat unconventional structure of the hotel tower.

This, too, is on the monorail line.

There’s one more mystery resort element on this model, and it sits on the south shore of the never-dredged lagoon expansion. You can see it in the far left-hand corner of this image:

This distant area is frustratingly vague, even in closeup – you can’t make out any features aside from the boat dock and the fact that it is on the monorail line. My guess – and it is a guess – is that this is either the first location of the Walt Disney World campground or the first location of the golf clubhouse and facilities. If I had to wager, I’d guess it’s a campground, which means that the Vacation Kingdom’s camping area would have to move twice before taking up residence on the south shore of Bay Lake.

A campground? Or something more?

So that’s the Walt Disney Resort, as conceived in early 1968. It’s a world of endless recreational opportunities, but let’s not forget what’s sitting across that vast lagoon…

It is, of course, the Magic Kingdom.

A Magic Kingdom that is, perhaps unsurprisingly, as alien as it is familiar.

There are many major differences. Note the large, winding waterways both to the left of Frontierland and to the right of Tomorrowland. Space Mountain is the original, larger, quadrilateral design seen during the 1960s and known as “Space Port”, and the black line of the Skyway can be seen extending from one of the Space Mountain spires, making a ninety-degree turn, and passing over Fantasyland.

Note the large show building one would see directly ahead after passing through Cinderella Castle, and check out that enormous show building guests would actually pass under upon entrance into Tomorrowland.

A prominent feature of this model is the legendary unbuilt attraction in Frontierland called Thunder Mesa, home of the Western River Expedition. Occupying a huge show building on the west side of the park, it was to be located where Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain currently sit. You can see the Walt Disney World Railroad, denoted by the red tape, passing through the Frontierland station and entering the mountain.

The hulking mass of Thunder Mesa would loom over the area, facing the Rivers of America on the right, and the mysterious river area to the left. Look out, though – the steamboat is driving in the wrong direction!

Looking across Adventureland and Liberty Square towards Frontierland and Thunder Mesa

Other large changes can be found on the eastern side of the park, where the model depicts a Tomorrowland far different from that we know today, much less the one that would open in 1971.

Obviously, Space Port is quite different from Space Mountain, but looking closer one can see many other alterations.

The yellow tape, representing the monorail line, enters the park and passes between Space Port and the show building which straddles the entrance to Tomorrowland. It travels northeast where you see the station which would have allowed guests to exit the monorail inside the park itself. Passing over an Autopia area, this monorail line would leave the park before looping around to service the Venetian and Contemporary hotels.

This model, from 1969, shows a more dimensional and detailed version of this track as well as the odd-looking Space Port:

Back in 1968, you can see how the Magic Kingdom’s version of Autopia was once planned to be much more elaborate – as well as water-laced. There’s another one of those mysterious water ride areas to the east of the Autopia, and along the red tape which designates the path of the Walt Disney World Railroad you can see a planned Tomorrowland railroad station. This was never built, but twenty years after this model was built a station was finally erected in that spot to service the new Mickey’s Birthdayland.

So that’s a glimpse at Walt Disney World in its earliest recognizable days. Within a year, the design would have evolved into this:

In this 1969 rendering, you can see that the additional lagoon has been abandoned and the resorts have taken their traditional locations. The Polynesian remains the funky, 1960s tower, but is correctly sited, and the Asian hotel sits on the square piece of land which would – again, 20 years later – play host to the Grand Floridian Beach Resort. Note that the campground has also come along for the ride, at the very bottom of the rendering where the Wilderness Lodge sits today.

Here’s a rough attempt to show how that original model matches up with the reality of today…

What a difference forty years and a few hundred million dollars make…

A lot has changed since then. Management is different at the top, and in many places at the bottom as well. Eisner’s replacement, Bob Iger, seems much more willing to spend on projects that he finds worthwhile and he mended a number of bridges to the creative community that had been burned. John Lasseter of Pixar was brought in as a creative consultant to Imagineering, which many – including myself – thought simply had to be a good idea. Most importantly, money is being invested in the parks; a billion dollars has been poured into an effort to make California Adventure habitable, a long-needed overhaul of Florida’s Fantasyland is underway, and other projects wait in the wings – projects like the Avatar-themed area of Animal Kingdom that surprised everyone when it was announced earlier this year.

So, all is well… right?

A certain element of fandom will not brook any criticism of the Disney organization, no matter how badly show standards fall. Even during the darkest days, when the company was trying to foist things like Walt Disney Studios in Paris off as a “theme park”, there were those who bristled at the fact that anyone would point out that the Disney parks output suddenly seemed to range from mediocre to embarrassing. Those who felt that Disney should do better than California Adventure, or that EPCOT deserved a Space pavilion more space-worthy than Mission: Space, repeated a litany of simple pleas to Disney management: Please start spending money like you used to. Please give us some lavishly-themed attractions like you used to. Please start budgeting attractions for more detail, theme and atmosphere. Stop being so damnably cheap and loosen those pursestrings!

And, so it would seem, that started to happen. As the aforementioned projects began to roll out, it was clear we were entering a new era. The new areas announced for California Adventure were indeed lavishly themed and decorated, and certainly not done on the cheap. The Fantasyland renovation was actually re-jiggered after its original announcement to make it more elaborate, and while we know next to nothing about “Avatar City”, we know that James Cameron does nothing small.

Big projects. Seemingly adequate spending. Lots of detail, lots of theme, lots of atmosphere.

So why are so many – including myself – still left feeling completely unenthused about these developments? How to frame the argument that, even though what you thought was wrong with the company’s offerings has been resolved, you still feel these projects are desperately unexciting and creatively bankrupt?

Honestly, I found it hard to talk about at first because one starts to simply feel like an ingrate. We wanted spending – and they’re spending. Carsland at California Adventure is going to be big, elaborate, and expensive. Construction photographs shows massive, lusciously detailed rockwork and meticulously crafted environments. The designers at Imagineering are definitely “bringing it.” But that doesn’t shake the fact that it is an entire massive section of the park devoted to Cars. That’s like giving someone a solid gold set of bagpipes. I mean, wow, it obviously signifies a great effort on your part, but what the hell am I supposed to do with it?

It’s a hard needle to thread, critically. Basically the argument one is trying to make is that Disney is doing the wrong thing (building Carsland) for the right reasons (wanting to spend money to make California Adventure less of a joke). It’s kind of the reverse of Eisner’s early years, where he was doing the right thing (investing in parks) for the wrong reason (to become the grandest mogul of all, have the grandest hat at the hat parade, and crush all who lay in his path). You find yourself saying “Yes, nice hustle there. I can tell you’ve worked really hard on this and it looks great. But it’s an affront to what the company should be doing and I really kind of hate it.”

Let’s look at these projects one by one. First, there’s the Fantasyland remodel in the Magic Kingdom, which I really have no beef with. It’s looked consistently better ever since it was first announced, and even if it didn’t have anything I would ever ride, it’s at least making that section of the park nice to look at for the first time in almost twenty years. That’s a net improvement in and of itself.

Of course the real problem with Fantasyland comes when you compare it to its Disneyland counterpart; having spent a lot of time in the Anaheim park recently it’s hard not to be jealous of the sheer number of offerings in its Fantasyland. In a fraction of the space we have in Florida, Disneyland manages to cram in a slate of attractions that the Magic Kingdom will not approach even after this ‘expansion’. Wonderful dark rides based on Pinocchio, Mr. Toad and Alice in Wonderland, the charming castle walkthrough, and the exquisite Storybookland canal boats are all noticeably absent in Florida. A shame, as the Magic Kingdom’s larger scope and potential for grand vistas would allow them to breathe.

What’s more, it’s hard to imagine that after the money and effort is spent sprucing up the area that management will take a second pass to add in some of the missing attractions, or even new attractions built along similar lines, like the long-planned Fantasia Gardens boat ride. There are so many other areas of the park – notably Tomorrowland – that are currently below spec, that it would be exceedingly unlikely to get a “phase two” to up the Fantasyland attraction roster. Remember – these new attractions are only replacing capacity that the park lost during the 1990s closures. If you think of Mermaid as a replacement for 20,000 Leagues, and the Snow White coaster as a replacement for the Snow White dark ride, we’re pretty much breaking even on that front.

But that’s not really condemning the Fantasyland remodel for what’s there, but rather for what’s lacking. A failure of ambition at the top, perhaps, but what will be built looks great; at least we’re not left with some monstrosity that will never be removed, and it does leave the door open for expansion in the future.

California Adventure is not so lucky; alongside the truly lovely aspects of its renewal, such as Buena Vista Street and the Paradise Gardens area, it’s getting Carsland – a steel and concrete monstrosity that, due to its scope, expense, and “pet project” status for grand poobah John Lasseter, will never be removed.

Ah, but you say – Carsland looks great. It’s so detailed and elaborate and expensive. And maybe, you even say, I love Cars. But here’s a really critical question: What in heaven’s name does Carsland have to do at all with California? The park is, if I recall, California Adventure. So…?

Yes, California has a car culture. Yes, people in California drive cars. And yes, a lot of them work at Pixar and obsess over their vintage autos which were paid for by the billions of dollars worth of merchandising revenue raked in by their Cars franchise (and, of course, the money they save not having to pay for cereal). But Cars did not take place in California. Radiator Springs, the town recreated in the unimaginatively named “Carsland”, was not located in California.

Why does this matter? Well, because the park is called “California Adventure” for one reason. It’s also debatable whether, in a theme park allegedly dedicated to the real people and wonders of a real state, it’s wise to use the single largest space left for expansion for an entire land based on a single film franchise, about a load of cartoon cars that live in New Mexico or something. Did they run out of California stuff to talk about? I hope so, because with all the real estate Carsland eats up you’d better hope you have it covered already in Hollywood Backlot, the Grizzly forest, and the weirdly east-coast-seeming amusement pier. Also, there’s a Little Mermaid ride in San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts. So, you know, California.

Carsland indicates a general creative laziness that seems to be washing through the company’s efforts. We’re well aware of CEO Bob Iger’s obsession with the idea of “franchise”, and this seems to have become a crutch for the company’s imagination; instead of creating new realms filled with new experiences, we just get retreads from movies. This is doubly troubling since instead of putting guests into environments where they can create their own adventures, as in the original Disneyland, they’re instead relegated to re-living the stories of others – just re-enacting the things they just watched on Disney Blu-ray ™. This kind of mindset would never have brought us Jungle Cruise, or Pirates of the Caribbean, or the Haunted Mansion or Tiki Room or… you get the idea. Even if it’s a multi-million dollar experience, it’s still re-heated leftovers.

It’s also worth noting that Pixar has become past master and patient zero for the irritating and limiting “franchise as land” concept. The first land I can think of that was dedicated to a single property was California Adventure’s “a bug’s land”, and since then we’ve been saddled with Carsland and two separate Toy Story Playlands – one in Paris and one in Hong Kong. Both are awful. (As an aside, I can track the specific moment I completely lost faith in Pixar impresario John Lasseter. It was in the featurette, included on the Toy Story 3 DVD, wherein he breathlessly hypes the excitement and wonder soon to appear in the then-under-development Toy Story Playland. How wonderful it would be, he promised! No, dude. It’s really, really terrible.)

Building an entire land based on a single property limits you. It limits you creatively and logistically and sets you up for a situation, decades later, when your parks start to look awkwardly and embarrassingly stale. Did you ever go to one of those second-tier amusement parks when you were a kid, and they had the Flintstones, or the Smurfs, or Snoopy walking around many, many years after their prime? And it felt kind of sad? Cars may prove to be timeless, even though I kind of doubt it, but Disney is ensuring that a huge section of their California park will be locked to that specific movie for years to come. Better hope those direct-to-video sequels hit.

Which brings us to Avatar City. When, out of nowhere, Disney announced in September 2011 that it had partnered with filmmaker James Cameron to bring an Avatar-based land to Animal Kingdom in Florida, it came as a surprise to pretty much everyone. Including, as a matter of fact, Disney’s own Imagineers, who were taken as off-guard as anyone.

A deal hammered out at the highest echelons, assumedly in response to the wild success of Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Disney’s alliance with Cameron is intended to snag a “major” intellectual property to compete with the boy wizard and get some warm bodies into Animal Kingdom. Disney estimates they’ve lost as much as an entire guest day to Universal thanks to the success of Potter, and apparently they think reeling in the highest-grossing film of all time will help stem the tide.

My response is this – who do you know that is an Avatar fan? Not people who enjoyed the film, or thought it was cool, or really liked it; who do you know who is a fan? For what it’s worth, how many of you remember a single character’s name from the film? I saw it two or three times with different groups of friends and I remember “Marine dude”, “Angry old Marine dude”, and “Sigourney Weaver.”

For what it’s worth, I actually enjoyed Avatar on the IMAX screen. Sure it had a wildly generic script, paper-thin characters, and a strange lack of humor, but as spectacle it was incredibly effective. Cameron does spectacle better than anyone else, although he seems to have retreated into his technology much like George Lucas and forgotten what made his early successes great. Films like Aliens and Terminator weren’t profound, but they were fun; Aliens was chock-full of stock, stereotyped characters, but they were fun and memorable. And you remember their names: Ripley, Hicks, Newt, Bishop, Vasquez, Apone, Hudson, and…. Paul Reiser. I’m pretty sure Paul Reiser played himself in that one.

But this isn’t a movie review and to tell you the truth I don’t think Avatar’s shortcomings as a film matter in this context. People were quick to bring up the film’s narrative and character flaws when the project was announced, but those aren’t elements that really matter in the realm of theme parks. One major problem that has plagued new-era Disney attractions is a dependence on character and narrative at the expense of letting the guests have their own experience. It’s what I was speaking about with Carsland; that film had a (derivative) narrative and (annoying) characters but they were distinct and memorable, and basing a land on that relegates you to merely living those adventures over and over again. Avatar’s great strength was in worldbuilding; I’m not sure I’d be interested in watching it on a standard definition television, but on the IMAX screen it was immersive and functioned in many ways as a themed environment. The film didn’t gross nearly three billion dollars because people were eating up the snappy dialogue, and there was no breakout Han Solo character – they were going because they wanted to spend time on Pandora. And that’s what an Avatar land could provide – a chance to experience the film’s elaborate environments and lavish production design without having to wonder why Crusty Military Guy’s mecha suit has an oversized gag prop knife.

So, the Avatar project would create an intriguing environment, with an assumedly top-dollar budget, in a park that desperately needs something. And with its themes of nature and fantastic creatures, it’s at least more theme-appropriate for its park than Carsland is. So why the ambivalence? I still have yet to satisfactorily summarize the reaction I had upon this news; it’s less a verbal reaction than a very specific and indescribable face. Perhaps the closest lingual equivalent would be, “Whuh?” It’s just bewildering to me. Why this? Even though I know the underlying executive logic, I keep asking – why this?

Somewhat to my surprise, my reaction seemed to be well above the median for positivity among online Disney fans. I was just baffled and unenthused, others are downright hostile. For some reason – I have no idea why – I seem to occasionally have a reputation for being critical of Disney’s decision making. But reading the online communities after the Avatar announcement, I felt positively Pollyannish.

First there were the people that just hated Avatar, or hate Cameron. There were those who thought it an inappropriate film to be represented in a Disney park. There were those who thought it an inappropriate film to be represented in Animal Kingdom. Almost everyone seemed to like the two better-known Animal Kingdom expansion ideas – Beastly Kingdom and Mysterious Island – and many seemed none too pleased about these concepts being usurped by a licensed property from another corporation entirely.

This is perhaps a key point of contention in many peoples’ opposition to this concept – why does Disney feel they have to reach outside the company to find a suitable concept for their parks? We know Iger’s habit of buying outside intellectual property, whether it be Pixar or Marvel, but while that’s not entirely a bad thing it also shows a fundamental lack of trust from management that their own company can produce something new and worthwhile. Which, if so, what does it say about management that they cannot run the company in a way that successfully produces new and popular product?

This lack of confidence can be seen throughout the modern Disney organization, from an animation studio that can’t commit to a production schedule to theme parks that have to buy other companies’ ideas to draw visitors. The entire reason so many fans have rebelled against the franchise mania – Cars here, Toy Story there – is it illustrates an underlying insecurity at Disney that they won’t be able to get people in the gate without a movie property they can slap up there to assure people. This condemns Imagineering to a spiraling circle of mediocrity, and ensures that they are not allowed to produce something that wows or surprises us like Pirates, or Mansion, or Western River Expedition.

Perhaps this is why the EPCOT Center of 1982 is so beloved? Because it took risks, and was unafraid to be its own thing? Disney attempted to create new stories, and in doing so invented Dreamfinder and Figment – two of the most beloved theme park characters ever. Sure a lot of the tools and technologies used in EPCOT were tried-and-true, but there was a concerted effort to bring people something new.

For what it’s worth, that was also the case for a great deal of Animal Kingdom. The park’s flaws are well-documented and manifold, and the elements derived from theme parks and zoos are clear, but it did try to mix things up, and present people an experience unique in Disney’s oeuvre. And maybe that’s why Avatar seems to clash so greatly. The major themed areas of Animal Kingdom are their own unique thing, not dependent on any franchise or brand, and it feels the possibilities there are endless. If you add in an Avatar area, complete with trademark and copyright markers everywhere, it clashes with the whole. It feels out of place. And it makes that specific part of the park uniquely limited in its range of possibilities.

Of course, what actually will wind up happening is as much your guess as it is mine. No one inside the company even knew about this until September, so it isn’t as if a slew of ideas have been percolating around for ages. Many seem to doubt that there’s actually been any art or specific proposals yet; it seems as if we’re pretty much at the “Hey, let’s do something Avatar” phase. It’s hard to imagine what form this expansion could even take – Animal Kingdom already has a giant tree; does Disney plan on building a huge military contractors’ base in the middle of their peaceful “nahtazu”? Will you go from a scenic African safari to firing a chaingun at blue dragons in a splintering forest?

Again – if it happens, it’ll probably be fancy. It’ll probably be expensive. And it’ll probably look great. But like so many of the things that corporate management and the feckless Imagineering bureaucracy have cooked up in recent years, is it the right thing to do?

These aren’t mistakes that can be swept away as easily as an off-the-shelf spinner ride. And no matter how much lipstick you slather on a pig – even if it’s a billion-dollar pig – it’s still a pig. Which would still make more sense in California Adventure than Carsland.

Am I an ingrate? Maybe. But maybe Disney will learn that the Beatles were right after all – money can’t buy you love.

Anyway, I regrettably waited more than a year after my amazing two-ply revelation before sharing it with you, and considering the absolutely insane nature of the display I assumed that it simply had to have been long-gone by this point. After all, if you assume something is a deranged display cobbled together by the evening maintenance staff on a dare, you wouldn’t think it would last long. You wouldn’t think.

So imagine my shock, when after my story people began to send word that – almost two years later – the toilet paper tree was still there.

No, seriously.

NO SERIOUSLY THIS IS STILL A THING

The Twitter machine soon lit up with photos and messages sent directly from the Toilet Paper Tree itself; it has since become a meeting-place of sorts for enlightened locals and vacationers alike. And it’s seen even more traffic recently as holiday park-goers flock to the Studios to see the Osborne Family Lights, the decorations surrounding the Tree’s jewelry store window underlining the fact that someone – perhaps many people – absolutely had to have noticed that this was in their park as they decorated.

Isn’t it fancy now, though?

Look at the festoons!!

Apparently it’s no prank, folks. At least not officially. Walt Disney Imagineering can now count itself as the organization that both created Horizons and the Toilet Paper Tree. Wonder if there’s concept art? Maybe it’ll make it into the next edition of their coffee table book.

One more thing – since people are absolutely brilliant, someone was awesome enough to set up the Toilet Paper Tree as a check-in location on the social media application Foursquare. If you use Foursquare on your mobile device, be sure to check in at the Toilet Paper Tree the next time you’re in the park! There’s a heated battle to see who will be mayor of the Toilet Paper Tree, so don’t forget to check in.

Oh Studios, you do make me laugh. At you, not with you.