The Reality Rule

Last week when the five-year-old Cars Land-in-Florida rumor was resurrected by the Great Internet Speculatron, I got to thinking about the nature of reality.

I realize that sentence may raise some questions, like what does Cars Land have to do with the nature of reality? Also, what kind of chemicals are in the water where I am? So let me explain. For the last few years those of us who care about such things had resigned ourselves to the fact that there would be no Cars Land in Florida anytime soon, if ever, and that Disney’s Hollywood Studios would remain pretty much the same for the foreseeable future.

And then somebody on a message board who is generally believed to have inside information said that Disney was bringing Cars Land to Hollywood Studios. Some people loved the idea and some hated it, but for both groups Cars Land at the Studios was real. They were already picturing themselves walking down the Streets of America and seeing off in the distance a Radiator Springs Racers sign and those angled rocks from where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn.

^{The only difference is that the Cars Land rocks are more orange}

And as things began to cool down with more rumors that maybe John Lasseter was against the idea and the realization that Disney’s thick-headed Orlando executives would rather surgically remove their own spleens than spend money on anything that’s not a DVC resort, plus the simple fact that even if Cars Land was approved it’d be several years before it opened, the orangey-colored rocks and Route 66 trappings began to fade from our mental picture of the end of the Streets of America. The Lights, Motors, Action stadium stood there again, just as it always had in reality.

This whole thing reminds me of the early years of EPCOT Center, and the excitement surrounding the World Showcase's most prominent "coming attraction", the Equatorial Africa pavilion. The definitive EPCOT Center tome, Richard Beard’s Walt Disney’s EPCOT: Creating The New World of Tomorrow, devoted a whole chapter to it, with a fairly detailed breakdown of the shows and experiences the pavilion would offer. Equatorial Africa was prominently featured as a coming EPCOT attraction in the park’s early years. Alex Haley even appeared on the EPCOT Center opening-day TV special in 1982 to talk about it, and his segment ended with him and Danny Kaye promising to visit the new pavilion together.

My point is that for a couple years there in the early 1980s, the Equatorial Africa pavilion was real. Buildings had been designed, shows had been written, concept art had been widely released, and there was a big sign on the expansion plot between China and Germany promising that Equatorial Africa was coming soon. How many people stopped and imagined that, on their next trip to Florida, the African pavilion would occupy that empty space?  And you can be sure that if today’s Internet had existed then, there would have been long debates about the new pavilion: whether it had too many attractions or not enough attractions or whether there should be a Mount Kilimanjaro coaster or flume ride to give the area some thrills. But all of those announcements, promises, imaginings and pieces of concept art were rendered moot when Equatorial Africa was cancelled and we were forced to face the fact that it was never real at all.

Over the years, Disney has announced a lot more projects that never advanced past the concept art stage: things like WESTCot, Port Disney, and Disney’s America. Other projects were drastically scaled down: only half the original Animal Kingdom concept actually got built, and the sweeping Project Gemini that would have remade EPCOT’s Future World ended up consisting solely of Soarin’. Perhaps you think this would make Disney fans adopt a “wait and see” attitude about any new rumors or announcements.

Don’t be silly.

The truth is that almost anything, be it an unsubstantiated rumor from someone who claims to have connections or a piece of concept art released on the official Disney Parks blog, is enough to whip the Disney fanbase into a frenzy of fiercely opposing viewpoints. Take Avatar Land, which is slated to open at Animal Kingdom at some point in the current century, unless it doesn’t. All that was announced was that there would be an Avatar Land at Animal Kingdom. That’s all. No concept art, no description of possible attractions, nothing. But that complete lack of data didn’t stop people from taking to the Internet to declare that Avatar Land would either be the best thing since penicillin or the worst thing since Rob Schneider’s career, and accuse the people who disagreed with them as being no better than the cowards who stood by and let Hitler overrun Czechoslovakia.

Now, the Disney fan community isn’t the only one that engages in this ridiculous behavior pattern. Right now there’s a segment of the online Superman fan community who has already decided that it hates the new movie Man of Steel, even though they haven’t seen it yet because it won’t be released until Summer 2013.

So, I’ve made a decision. By the power vested in me as a person who says things on the Internet, I hereby declare Kiri-kin-tha’s First Law of Metaphysics to be in effect online:

Nothing unreal exists, and no arguments about nonexistent things are allowed.

So, a Florida Cars Land? It doesn’t exist right now. It’s not real. So stop arguing about it. Avatar Land? It’s even less real than the Floridian Cars Land. No arguing about that either. If either of these projects actually gets off the ground and are actually built and opened, then they will be real and you can argue about them.

Okay, I’m going to get off my soapbox now. Later I’ll be back with a post about EPCOT’s logo, and as the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation gets closer I’ll have something about that.

Happy Internetting!

The Radiator Springs Backlash Brouhaha

On October 17, 2007, the construction of a Cars Land for Disney California Adventure in Anaheim was formally announced. About ten minutes later the Great Internet Speculatron generated the rumor that Cars Land would be cloned for Walt Disney World in Florida, and would likely replace the Lights, Motors, Action stunt show and maybe part of the Backlot Tour at the Hollywood Studios park. For its part, Disney was pretty much silent about the idea, but that didn’t stop people on message boards from exhaustively debating the merits and the drawbacks of an East Coast Cars Land, all before ground had even been broken on the original West Coast version.

Just as the Internet had begun to tire of this debate, Cars Land opened in California to instant popularity, which was not really a surprise inasmuch as California Adventure had pretty much been the Phantom Menace of Disney theme parks before this. And predictably, the Great East Coast Cars Land Debate was resurrected-this time with a twist: a message board personage whose claim to be a Disney insider was believed by other people on the message board said that Disney was definitely, for sure, bringing Cars Land to Florida. And the Internet totally took this guy’s word for it. My Twitter feed blew up with some people expressing joy that Cars Land was coming to Florida and others complaining that cloning a uniquely-California Adventure experience for Hollywood Studios would diminish both parks.

What’s my opinion? Honestly, I’m not sure I even have an opinion on a recently-resurrected five-year-old rumor about a hypothetical thing that may possibly happen at some point in the future, unless it doesn’t. However, I think we can all agree that Cars Land is a nice thing. And if, in the future, all the various competing interests within the Disney Corporation find it in themselves to replace the mostly sad and pathetic back half of Hollywood Studios with a nice thing like Cars Land, then I would certainly be in favor of it. I have a similar opinion about Animal Kingdom’s Avatar Land, which I understand is slated to open at some point in the 21st century.

What of the notion that this would somehow ruin the artistic uniqueness and sanctity of Hollywood Studios and California Adventure? Honestly, the artistic uniqueness and sanctity of Hollywood Studios and California Adventure is not really something I care about. I appreciate the Studios because it’s home to some genuinely cool things that wouldn’t fit into the Magic Kingdom or EPCOT. But I’m not emotionally invested in the purity of its theme.

My dearest wish is for Disney to give top priority and a huge budget to the goal of making EPCOT’s Future World awesome again. Until that happens, it’s really hard for me to get all worked up about anything that comes out of the Great Internet Speculatron.

The NextGen Aversion Rationale

As the Fantasyland expansion project at Florida’s Magic Kingdom inches toward completion, you’d think that it would be the main topic of conversation in the online Disney fan community. And you would be wrong. Fantasyland is already old news. No, the big topic of conversation these days is the NextGen initiative, which encompasses things like interactive attraction queues and parkwide games like the new Sorcerers Of The Magic Kingdom and is moving implacably toward a new system called XPass.

I’m not going to talk much about XPass here because most of what we think we know about it comes from one source and there’s been no official information released as of yet.

I am, however, going to talk about the parts of NextGen that we do have today: interactive queues and (briefly) Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. This little Groucho Marx ditty nicely sums up my feelings about them:

Now I know what you’re probably thinking: I’m a curmudgeonly fanboy who hates change and wishes Disney World would stay forever frozen in the year 1989. But that’s not it. Nor do I object to the implementation of new technology. Heck, I love new technology. But here’s the main reason why I have a problem with NextGen:

The company is spending over a billion dollars on it while existing attractions and facilities are deliberately allowed to fall apart or stand empty.

A perfect example of this is Peter Pan’s Flight. It’s a very popular attraction, kids love it, and it always has a long line. It’s also basically the same ride that opened at Disneyland in the ‘50s, and as maintenance at Walt Disney World has fallen by the wayside, it’s begun to look rather musty and dilapidated. A few new effects, maybe a modern Animatronic or two, and some general TLC would go a long way toward making the attraction fresh and new again. So that is not what Disney is doing. Instead, they’re going to be putting in an interactive queue, presumably with touchscreen video games for people to play while they’re waiting. That’s a bit like getting an expensive paint job for a rusted-out car. And while interactive queues are great for rides like Soarin’ that are not continuously loading, all they do for rides like Peter Pan or Space Mountain is slow things down.

What about interactive games, like the new Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom? From what I’ve heard, it certainly seems to be popular with kids. But it also seems to be causing traffic problems by causing lines to form where none were ever intended to be.

After the NextGen project has blown through its alleged billion-dollar budget, what will we have to show for it? The Monorails will still be falling apart. Various aging and ill-maintained Magic Kingdom attractions will still need the improvements that have been vetoed by park VP and world-class idiot Phil Holmes. Over at EPCOT, the Imagination pavilion will still be a pathetic shell of its former self, the Wonders of Life pavilion will still be empty, and Universe of Energy’s show will still resemble an overlong episode of I Love The 90s. The Backlot Tour at the Studios will still be a joke, and Animal Kingdom will still have, well, all the problems that Animal Kingdom has. Also, Downtown Disney will still be a complete waste of time.

If all four parks on the Florida property had reached ideal buildout, every attraction was well-maintained and the infrastructure was in good shape, then I could see this NextGen thing as a good idea. But as things currently stand, it’s just a shiny object dangling in the face of clueless senior management, distracting them from the real improvements the resort needs.

And that’s why I’m against it.

Disney in Space Part 3: Robotic Jar-Jar

You thought this post was going to be about EPCOT, didn’t you? Well, in a perfect world where EPCOT Center’s Space pavilion got built, it would be, but as it is we won’t be getting to EPCOT until the next post.

The crowd-pleasing, utterly unrealistic thrills of Space Mountain nicely foreshadowed the success of Star Wars in 1977. Much like Space Mountain, Star Wars made no effort to realistically depict space travel, its sole aim was to tell a fun, exciting story. Nevertheless, because of the dented, “lived-in” look of its environments, Star Wars felt more realistic to the general public than the sterile, scientifically accurate 2001: A Space Odyssey. And because of the success of the original Star Wars trilogy and its tie-in merchandise, it captured the imagination of a whole generation of children.

However, by 1986 it looked as though Star Wars was running out of steam. The last installment in the trilogy was three years in the past, and there were no firm plans for future films. Star Wars merchandise was almost impossible to find in stores, and George Lucas looked like this:

^{There is no chin under George Lucas’ beard. Just more of his neck.}

Yes, the mid-to-late 1980s were a strange time for the Star Wars franchise. But in 1986 the spirits of young Star Wars fans everywhere (including an 8-year-old me) were lifted by the news of a Star Wars attraction by Disney that used revolutionary simulator technology to take you on a trip into hyperspace and down the infamous Death Star trench! Unlike Disney’s previous space rides, in which the opportunity to experience the thrills felt by real-life astronauts was the primary draw, here the main attraction was prospect of being immersed in a popular fictional universe-one, it should be noted, that was not a Disney creation. In many ways, the decision to insert Star Wars into Disneyland mirrors the recent decision by Disney’s leadership to bring James Cameron’s Avatar franchise to Animal Kingdom. If today’s Internet had existed in the mid-1980s, might the online reaction to Star Tours have mirrored this year’s Avatar announcement? It’s interesting to consider.

You’d expect that any marketing campaign for Star Tours would focus heavily on the popularity of Star Wars and its familiar characters, and you’d mostly be correct. But there’s also this amazing gem unearthed by Progress City USA’s Michael Crawford that aired during the Disney Sunday Movie on December 28, 1986. It starts with a C-3PO rapping, and then it really gets weird. Just watch:

After watching that, you probably have a lot of questions, which I will do my best to answer in a handy Q&A format:

Q: Why was C-3PO rapping?
A: it was kind of a fad back then for people who had no business rapping to publicly humiliate themselves attempting to do so. Remember this?

Q: I thought Sidekicks starred Chuck Norris and that kid from SeaQuest, not Buck Rogers and the kid from Surf Ninjas?
A: Ah, you're thinking of the better-known 1993 film of the same name. Sidekicks was also a short-lived TV show starring Gil Gerard and Ernie Reyes, Jr.

Q: Was it about an asthmatic Ernie Reyes, Jr. having daydreams about Buck Rogers?
A: Thankfully, no.

But the C-3PO rap number and the awkward presence of the mismatched Gil Gerard/Ernie Reyes team is the least of my problems with this sequence. You know how it was when you were a kid, and a a cheerful, well-meaning adult would clumsily try to relate to you despite the fact that they obviously didn't know anything about the stuff you liked? "Hey, you like Star Wars?" they'd say. "Is that the one where Dark Vadar and Dr. Spock beam down to the Planet of the Apes?"

Well, Disney obviously found one of those people to write the script for this weird little adventure. Not only was this person clueless enough to think Star Wars is an aspirational, scientifically accurate tale about the future and the wonder of human achievement like Star Trek, but they even thought TRON was a space movie. A space movie! Because it takes place in a computer, and spaceships have computers, and therefore any movie about computers must automatically take place in space, right?

Fortunately, the people who worked on Star Tours were not so out-of-touch. During the "dark period" where there were no new Star Wars productions on the horizon, Star Tours offered the only "new" content we'd see until 1999. I can't emphasize enough how cool it was to walk through the queue for the first time and see C-3PO and R2-D2 for real, in three dimensions. Unfortunately, the Rex character's "comical" incompetence and panicked flailing was an unfortunate precursor to the Jar-Jar antics that would soil the long-awaited Episode I, but Star Tours was such an enjoyable ride that it was easy to look past that.

The Star Tours ride system was adapted for only one other Disney attraction: EPCOT Center's Body Wars, which opened with the Wonders of Life pavilion in 1989. Until the mid-90s, it was promoted as EPCOT's headlining attraction, much like Soarin' is today. Unfortunately, the Wonders of Life pavilion was shut down as a cost-cutting move after it lost its corporate sponsorship, and the Body Wars simulators were scavenged for spare parts for Star Tours.

This wasn't the end of simulators at EPCOT, though. EPCOT Center would finally get its Space pavilion in 2003. In the concluding post in my Disney in Space series, we'll talk a bit about the Space pavilion that never was, and then take a look at the only attraction on Disney property to feature Lt. Dan and in-ride barf bags.

Star Tours 2: It’s Going To Be All Right

At first, the news that Star Tours was going to get that long-awaited 2.0 upgrade got a pretty positive reaction. However, there have also been some negative comments (on the Internet? Impossible!) and some genuinely worried fans. After all, George Lucas doesn’t exactly have the best record when it comes to improving things:

Case in point

Star Wars fans haven’t forgotten how they were bitterly disappointed by Episode I . . .

For some, this face still haunts their nightmares.

. . . and how that disappointment turned to anger when Episodes II and III weren’t much of an improvement. But what was wrong with the prequels, really? Pretty much everything but the special effects. Well, guess what? Star Tours is really nothing more than a special effects reel with synchronized cabin movements. Plot doesn’t matter all that much, and whatever acting there is will be peripheral to the main experience. The only thing I worry about is the 3-D.

You see, Disney and Lucasfilm are not the first people to think of putting a 3-D movie in a motion simulator ride.  When I visited Busch Gardens Williamsburg in the mid-90s they had one. And it made me nauseous. Sure, the technology has come a long way (and I can’t remember if the Bush Gardens ride used stereoscopic 3-D or the old kind with the red-and-blue glasses) but based on my past experience I’d say it’s definitely possible that Star Tours 2.0 will make more guests queasy than version 1.0 did.

Aside from that one minor concern, though, I predict that Star Tours 2 will mostly avoid the pitfalls to which George Lucas’ more recent Star Wars projects have fallen victim. After all, it’s not like it’ll be a five-minute reel of Greedo shooting first, conversations about midichlorians, and Jar-Jar antics.

At least I hope not.

Thoughts on Star Wars Weekends

This past Saturday (June 5) my wife, her brother, and I headed down to Disney’s Hollywood Studios to experience Star Wars Weekends for the first time. Despite the heat, humidity, and crowds, it was an unqualified blast! The best thing about Star Wars Weekends is the wonderful sense of humor the event has.

The fun starts about fifteen minutes prior to park opening when two Stormtroopers appear atop the turnstile plaza and entertain the crowd with their humorous banter. This year, they were joined by Boba Fett:

Throughout the park, there are several Star Wars characters doing meet-and-greets. Some, like Darth Vader and Chewbacca, have designated greeting areas. Others, like Stormtroopers, Tusken Raiders, and Gamorrean Guards, roam freely.

Here’s a picture of my brother-in-law and I with a Stormtrooper:

And here’s a Tusken Raider clowning around Darth Vader’s greeting area while the Dark Lord was on a 5-minute break:

One cool thing about Star Wars Weekends is the fans in costume. Usually, Disney prohibits guests from wearing costumes in the parks, but this policy is relaxed for certain events. We saw several people in very authentic-looking Jedi costumes, one guy in an excellent Lando Calrissian outfit, and someone dressed as Han Solo from The Empire Strikes Back, complete with the late-70s/early-80s hairstyle!

There was also a rather large gentleman I saw sitting on a bench, wearing a white T-shirt, white shorts, and a Clone Trooper helmet. You know how Stormtroopers have different outfits for different environments? There are sandtroopers and snowtrooopers and swamptroopers and even spacetroopers. Well, this guy must have been dressed as a Floridatrooper. You’ve got to admit,the T-shirt and shorts are way more practical than that hot plastic armor! And yes, I do have a picture of him, but to avoid seeming mean-spirited I’m not going to post it.

One feature of Star Wars Weekends that’s become a regular thing at the Studios is the Jedi Training Academy for kids:

I wish the photo op portion of the show was available for adults; I imagine there are lots of guys in their 30s and above who would love to get a picture of themselves crossing lightsabers with Darth Vader. I know I would!

The highlight of Star Wars Weekends, though is the Hyperspace Hoopla show that closes out each day:

It is, in my opinion, one of the best shows at Disney World. Hyperspace Hoopla’s only problem is that not a lot of people are able to watch it in its current venue. The stage is not that far off the ground, so anyone farther back than about three people deep has trouble seeing. The terrace of the adjacent Backlot Express restaurant is a good place to watch from (that’s where we ended up) but again, there’s not a lot of room there. I really hope that the upcoming Star Tours 2.0 refurb addresses this. Alternately, the show could just be moved to one of several locations in the park that are better suited to handling the large crowds that Hyperspace Hoopla always draws.

So, my final verdict: despite the crowds and the Florida heat and humidity, Star Wars Weekends are a can’t-miss event.

One other thing: I may have mentioned in the past that I’m not a big fan of thrill rides, especially roller coasters. My phobia of coasters is matched only by my phobia of large spiders. However, at the urging of my wife and several friends, I decided to take the plunge and ride Rockin’ Roller Coaster. After all, it only lasts one minute and five seconds, how bad could it be? Well, here’s a picture of me after the ride was over.

I’m not vomiting, I’m kissing the ground. More accurately, I’m pretending to kiss the ground for comedic effect. No, roller coasters still do not agree with me. Still, the experience got me thinking about the popularity of thrill rides, what people consider to be entertaining, and how that relates to EPCOT, so that will be a subject of a future post.

Lastly, in three weeks, I’ll be spending three days in Orlando on business, and after trashing the Coral Reef Restaurant a couple of times on this blog, I thought it only fair that I at least eat there one time to see if it really sucks as bad as I think it does give it a fair shake. Hey, I survived Rockin’ Roller Coaster didn’t I? I feel brave. So I made a dinner reservation there, and I’ll be writing about that experience, too. It’ll be my first-ever restaurant review.

Until then, happy trails and thanks for reading!