Disney's incredibly lucky that this park wasn't built. I wrote about it in
an earlier column about California Adventure, which I'll quote here:
"Disney executives should thank their lucky stars that that park wasn�t built
in Virginia, California, or anywhere else. One can imagine after the first two
years of lackluster attendance (as evidence, think for a minute: can you come up
with any great ideas for new attractions in Disney World�s Liberty Square? Have
any of your most promising ideas for future Disney attractions been situated
there?) roller coasters, white water rafting rides, and simulators would flood
the park, trivializing its mission and thereby becoming exactly what its
detractors said it would be all along."
The sad part, however, is that in simply announcing the park the damage was
already done. Disney became the company that destroyed Civil War battlefields;
the company with the gall to imply that American history was too complex and
intimidating for the average citizen to understand without having Mickey Mouse
hold their hand.
Sprinkling Disney Characters on Something Makes It Better
Looking at it from today's super-synergized marketing perspective, it's
amazing--and I mean stunning--that the theme park that Walt Disney unveiled to
the world in 1955 devoted only 20% of its real estate to the characters that had
made him famous. Fantasyland was where the characters lived, but the rest of the
park was devoted half to Disney's own childhood, and half to the hobbies and
interests that dominated his life after he'd became less enamored with animated
films.
That the Disney characters weren't very important to 1955's Disneyland
isn't necessarily a condemnation of the movie take-over that's been in full
swing since the early '90s. But it is a reminder that those characters aren't
necessary to making the park a fun and relevant* experience to guests.
Disneyland became a sensation in its own right; the movie tie-ins were
secondary. That they're perceived as essential now is an idea that, at the very
least, can be questioned.
*relevant: a word that should never be used when describing features in a
Disney park (
see this article)
Disney Substitutes
"Fake" for "Real," Even When Real is Cheaper and Better
Finally, here's one that I think Disney fans don't notice very much, but I
believe this to be the number one reason that those not enamored with the Disney
parks are...well, not enamored. It's a massive blind spot that the company has
never seemed to rid itself of.
At the end of Disney's CircleVision tour of Canada in that country's Epcot
pavilion, audiences are treated to a song written especially for the attraction,
"Canada (You're A Lifetime Journey)." This film is designed to communicate
the majesty and grandeur that is Canada, yet somehow, Disney decided that real
Canadian music can't convey that feeling adequately; instead, they hired the guy
who wrote the "Universe of Energy" theme song to tell you this in more explicit
terms. C'mon: there isn't any actual Canadian music that would communicate this
idea even more spectacularly, and in a more authentic fashion? None?
This "Disney-magic-is-better-than-reality" problem reached its apex in the
previously-mentioned Disney's America, with Disney seeming to imply that
Washington D.C. and an authentic Civil War battlefield weren't up to the task of
telling America's story. But this problem crops up in smaller ways in the rest
of Disney's parks.
Disney's Hollywood Studios is a tribute to the movies, yet you won't see
any movies there. Rather than be given the opportunity to see, say, the
climactic scene from Casablana acted out by legendary actors, instead, we're
treated to the mostly terrible Great Movie Ride, where we get to see that same
scene from Casablanca acted out incredibly unconvincingly by a pair of
animatronic figures. If "The Movies" are really deserving of a tribute as
grand as Disney's Hollywood Studios, why do we get the animatronic substitute,
when the film version would be more entertaining to watch, tie more directly to
the park's mission, and wouldn't require the expenditure of millions of dollars
in research and development?
And one final example, in this quote from Joe Rohde, discussing the Animal
Kingdom park:
"Each Disney theme park has a centrally-located defining monument - a
castle, a huge sphere, a mountain � that iconically ironically defines the park
as space, and as story. Because of our themes, the Animal Kingdom team was
driven towards a natural icon. We developed the �Tree of Life�, a hundred-forty
foot tall sculpted tree composed entirely of the shapes of animals from every
realm of the Animal Kingdom."
Yet it didn't occur to the team that built Animal Kingdom that a
"hundred-forty foot tall sculpted tree" is not a "natural icon?" It's cement and
plastic. There's nothing natural about it. Again, we see this ongoing pattern:
nothing "real" could possibly be grand enough for this park; we're going to have
to fake it up to adequately convey to you just how amazing the natural world
is. Was this irony lost on everyone who worked on this park?
To be clear about the point I'm trying to make, I'm not saying that "Canada
(You're A Lifetime Journey)" is a bad song. Nor is the Tree of Life ugly; in
fact, it's pretty amazing. Disney's execution tends to be excellent. But
sometimes Disney plays into the hands of those who would paint the parks as
being vapid and artificial with its frequent assumption that everything can be
improved with a little Disney Magic. Sometimes "real" is more than good
enough.
ConclusionSo there we are. No doubt my vision of a "mistake-free" Disney resort
tramples right over what a few of you might think is the perfect
vacation. Let the firestorm commence. What did I get wrong? What did I
miss? What are your biggest "theme park mistakes?"
Discuss It
Related Links
-- Greg Maletic
In addition to being a lifelong Disney park
fan, Greg Maletic is a designer, software developer, and the producer of the
documentary TILT: The Battle
to Save Pinball. He is based out of San Francisco.
The opinions expressed by our guest columnists, and all
of our columnists, do not necessarily represent the feelings of LaughingPlace.com or any
of its employees or advertisers. All speculation and rumors about the future of Disneyland
and the Walt Disney Company are just that - speculation and rumors - and should be treated
as such.
-- Posted May 5, 2008
