For example, talking to others and doing my own research into the Walt Disney World of the past has permanently undermined my faith in personal nostalgia. It doesn't take too much digging to find opinions of those fans that preceded you that undermine your own; the vocal supporters of If You Had Wings have all but buried the internet legacy of Delta Dreamflight, an attraction I thought highly enough of to make lyrics from it the very title of this blog. But once you start going back even further, to previous generations of fans, the waters become even murkier; how do you reconcile the fact that there are those who feel that the removal of Nature's Wonderland and installation of Big Thunder Mountain permanently ruined Disneyland? There are, presumably, even older fans than that who felt that Disneyland really started to go downhill when comedy elephants were added to the Jungle Cruise.
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| "I WILL NOT REST UNTIL THE FOUNTAIN AT THE BASE OF THE SKYWAY PYLON IS RESTORED" - me in 2003 |
And so this post is something I maybe might have written in the early days of this blog in a radically different way. I've been putting it off for years for just such a reason, and only recently have I finally felt like I've made peace with the fact that all of the stuff that was so sacred to my childhood wasn't necessarily integral to that of others', never mind those who are children right now - today (Star Wars fans take note).
Which itself is a long winded way of saying that I feel like I'm finally ready to make this list something other than a long list of demands for the return of every last thing removed from Magic Kingdom since 1990. That is almost certainly what it would have been in 2007, and possibly in 2011. I've seen similar lists from younger folks who want, say, every single thing done to Fantasyland to be recalled and see the clocks turned back nearly exactly as possible to 1971. There are, to be sure, a good smattering of pet peeves to be found, but hopefully balanced with a good amount of experience and a healthy skepticism that not all changes are by definition terrible even if they are not per se terrific.
The one stipulation I've placed is to consign myself to the realm of the reasonably practical with the park as it exists right now. If I were given carte blanche and a limitless budget, I certainly would love to bring back every quaint shop and attraction of Main Street, but I'm also not convinced that would be anything but a largely symbolic victory. Fifty years changes a place and a culture, and it is not my job here to rail against that. So instead I've presented a list of nine reasonably possible alterations that I feel would tangibly improve the Magic Kingdom of 2018.
So one of the big problems inherent in the design of Magic Kingdom is that they radically underestimated who would actually show up to the darn thing. Despite the success of Disneyland and the test balloon of the World's Fair, in the end Disney erred on the side of elaborate theater attractions, predicting that Magic Kingdom would attract an older crowd that just wanted to get out of the damn sun.
That's not quite what happened. In order to close the gap between what was on offer and who was there, in the years between 1972 and 1975 Disney promoted some pretty odd things as "thrill" attractions, such as Pirates of the Caribbean and the Star Jets. The problem wouldn't be fully resolved until the 1980 opening of Big Thunder Mountain.
One odd result of of this miscalculation in the 60s is that every single Magic Kingdom area except for Adventureland has a massive theater right at its entrance. This isn't so obvious now, but perhaps no other area is as burdened by this as Tomorrowland. Since the 70s, guests have had to keep walking past two variously unappealing theatre shows to get to the good stuff. Disneyland has always had two similar buildings at its entrance, but at least one of them has always been some sort of ride!
The Circle-vision theater is a bit more flexible due to its size, but the Flight to the Moon space to the north has always been more problematic. Redoing the space into Alien Encounter and then Stitch did not solve the problem, and Disneyland opted out of the whole mess by shuttering their twin theaters and then turning them into a pizza parlor.
After 50 years it's time to admit that enough is enough and abandon the theater concept at the front of Tomorrowland. While the Alien/Stitch building isn't large enough to accommodate a dark ride, what it could accommodate is a lengthy queue, dark ride boarding area, and a few scenes. From there, Disney could wall off the front of Tomorrowland and dig a tunnel connecting the two show buildings, allowing vehicles to travel to the much larger Circle-vision theater space for the bulk of the ride. Riders could enter thru the Stitch building and exit thru the Circle-vision building, which would be pretty cool, I think.
And while we're at it, it's probably time to close the 20-year-old Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin around the corner. As the oldest and worst of all of the Buzz shooting rides, it's out of place and there's already a Toy Story shooting ride in another park. I'd close and gut the whole thing, perhaps splitting the difference between the Circle-vision space for the two rides.
There could even be a room where the two rides share a show scene - how cool would that be? Imagine seeing two different dark rides interacting with the Peoplemover running above them.
To be clear, I'm not expecting a great new concept dark ride here, but simply any kind of ride would be a better use of the space that what they have now. Have a cute Stitch ride on one side and a Big Hero Six ride on the other. Or perhaps The Cat From Outer Space. Um.... Unidentified Flying Oddball maybe? ....Disney really kinda sucks at creating sci-fi movies, y'know?
Disney does not know what to do with Country Bear Jamboree, and this is a problem.
Bear Band has always been one of those "you get it or you don't" things, and the fact that things have gotten this bad is not all that surprising. In the days when Disney heavily marketed Country Bears, inside the park and out, the show could make a respectable showing, but now that it's competing with two of the biggest attractions in the park just down the street, people no longer feel like they have time to discover Country Bear Jamboree. Everybody reading this blog probably knows (or has been in the past) one of those people who walked clear by it, never giving it a second thought. When I tell many people that Country Bear Jamboree is one of my favorite things, the incredulous look I get speaks volumes.
But the fact is that those who do go in to see it tend to enjoy it more often than not, and having sat through probably hundreds of showings of the bears, I'm here to tell you: especially in the original 15 minute version, the show flat out works. It's weird for a few minutes, but when audiences finally surrender to its weirdo charms, it always brings down the house. Al Bertino and Marc Davis really knew their stuff. This, coupled with the recent cultural shift away from irony, places CBJ in a position to continue to be a minor favorite.
Notice those words: minor favorite. Disney, for their part, has decided that the problem with Country Bear Jamboree is Country Bear Jamboree, and various efforts have been initiated in the past 15 years to introduce newer country music, or have the bears sing Disney songs, or turn the thing into "American Idol".
But here's the thing, is that you can't make Country Bear Jamboree into the afternoon parade. It's never going to be a massive crowd pleaser, because by its very nature it's very, very weird. Country Bear Jamboree is a cult favorite, except Disney insists on treating it as a box office disappointment. The problem here isn't Country Bear Jamboree, but Disney.
Specifically it's the Disney who has insisted, more and more, that guests turn themselves into type A psychopaths, planning meals, lodging, and even attraction times down to the smallest detail. Given how stressed they've made everyone, and given that the attraction always was sort of a cult item, fewer and fewer guests are going to be in a position to give it a chance.
Disney already tried to fix the problem, by cutting down the show - from 15 minutes to a measly 10. This ignores the problem totally, because it again assumes there this is some wide, popular appear to be extracted from a cult attraction. There isn't, and those who liked it fine as it was are now less likely to stop by, while doing nothing relevant to draw in those new viewers it needs. Given that Disney is now looking at messing with the show again, more catastrophically, it obviously didn't work. It's time to save Grizzly Hall.
Country Bear Jamboree is never going to be the headliner attraction Disney wants it to be, and any further changes risk messing it up even worse than it is already - they don't make Disney like this anymore, and nobody has ever improved on a Marc Davis anything by changing it. Ever. So what if, instead of trying to turn the show into something it isn't, we found a way to change the conversation around it?
If people aren't willing to take the time to see Country Bear Jamboree, then what needs to be addressed is its role as a "value proposition". It's a 10 minute show, inside in the air conditioning, which is a fraction of the time the average guests spends standing outside having a nervous breakdown in the July heat. If they don't see the value proposition in getting out of the heat for any reason, then perhaps they need added incentive.
So my idea is to turn Grizzly Hall into an ice cream parlor.
No, seriously. Imagine taking out the back wall of the lobby so when you enter, you can see into the theater. There's now an old-fashioned saloon bar dispensing soda and ice-cream, and the seating area is the theater. Rip out all of the benches, and have multiple tiers of big comfortable booths with charging stations facing the stage. Oh, and every 30 minutes or so, the show begins!
This way everyone could have everything. Those not interested in the show can come and go as they wish, but those who would enjoy the show but would never otherwise made the time to see it can discover it as an added value to relaxing indoors with some ice cream. And those of us who love the show can "Rent Space" in the theater by buying some food. And, most importantly, the show would finally be turning an actual profit and pulling its weight in the park.
Who knows, maybe with all of those positives we can even get a longer version of the show back.
Ghostly Grievances
Okay, here's some petty stuff. I said I had some, so let's get detailed!
I think the 2007 Haunted Mansion refurb is one of the best Disney attraction redos ever, and secured a future for this beloved attraction. But that doesn't mean everything's exactly perfect. And here are a few of my pet peeves I'd personally love the address about my home away from home.
The first isn't so much a peeve as it is just something I still don't understand. In 2007, the Graveyard vocals were finally fixed and synchronized after about 15 years of being all over the place, which was great. But for some reason, they replaced most of the vocal tracks with new ones!
I don't think the new vocals are awful or anything, but I still don't understand why this was done. I don't even think it dramatically changes the ride experience, but the sheer weirdness of even thinking of doing something like that still just nags at me.
My second grievance is at the start of the attraction. Until 2007, Haunted Mansion kicked off with a slow crawl past some creepy portraits with follow-you eyes. I loved this introduction to the ride, setting to my mind the perfect tone of the house being alive and watching you. I don't think the replacement scene is bad, but what puzzles me is that the portraits were relocated to the barren Load area but the eyes were covered up!
I think if anything the effect would be even better on foot, and give people something to really enjoy while in line to get on the cars. I'm positive that this one isn't WDI's fault, though - I suspect that Operations requested the effect be axed under the belief that such an interactive effect would cause a bottleneck. I'd like to point out that such an effect has worked fine at Disneyland since August 1969 without causing a bottleneck, but given that Ops themselves insist on running the attraction improperly, stuffing far too many people into each Stretch Room and therefore causing a bottleneck, perhaps their wishes shouldn't carry so much weight.
My final gripe is a bigger one, and it has to do with something that I do think negatively affects the attraction. In 1969, Claude Coats was given a chance to re-think the Mansion for Florida, and made a number of improvements which I think make the MK model the definitive version of the attraction.
One of the biggest changes was in the Corridor of Doors, which dramatically improved the impact of the scene. Now lit in oppressive red, the scene was given a visually improved breathing door effect and a new climax, as a dead looking pair of hands are prying the top of the final door off its hinges. To my young mind this was an iconographic high point of the attraction, a moment where it really felt like the Haunted Mansion was a direct and immediate threat.
It also greatly improves the end of the scene. At Disneyland, few guests notice the last breathing door on the left because their attention has been directed off to the right. When the Doombuggies pivot past the final door and turn to face the clock, most people naturally keep looking straight ahead instead off looking down to see the bulging effect. Moving the main punctuation up to the top of the door simply stages the effect where most are prepared to see it, and also prepares you to be looking up in time to see the clock. The effect was a sudden, startling flash as you realize that the ghosts are getting ever nearer to you.
Well, in 2007 they removed the red lights - and they removed the hands. I was told at the time that an executive inside WDI decreed that no ghosts should be seen before Madame Leota summons them, to which I say fine - but that also means you've gotta take the hands off the coffin a few feet away. Personally I think the hands were a great touch, and as something drawn by Marc Davis and okayed by Claude Coats, I trust the opinions of those guys more than anyone else. I'm resigned to never seeing the blood red lighting again, but let's bring back the hands, please?
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| Tokyo's version shows how the gag looked in context, video by LMG_Vids |
Oh, and you know the changing portrait in the Foyer? It's projected from the rear, and bounced off a mirror, meaning it's flipped twice and is seen from the right way around from the guest side. In 2007, somebody forgot about this, and flipped it to account for the rear projection, but not the mirror. He's been facing the wrong way for 11 years.
One thing that I feel gets short attention in Disney circles is the role of Walt Disney and his studio in the cycle of American art we retrospectively call the Golden Age of Hollywood. Many elements of this man's career that seem incomprehensible to those of us looking back eight decades later are rather typical if we compare him to the likes of Daryl Zanuck or Louis B Mayer. The thing is, without certain contexts, we run the risk of making too much hay out of something that the larger culture of the era took for granted. And one of those facts of life of making movies once upon a time was the Production Code.
The Production Code was the result of one of those times where society is struggling with the normative changes brought about by a booming but still young Industry. Because Cinema was a media form that could reach such groups as women, children, and immigrants, the result was a morals panic in 1922 and again in 1934, each time bringing new standards for motion picture producers to abide by and increasingly strict controls.
Because Disney produced animated cartoons - not musicals and crime pictures - the influence of the Code is rarely discussed in relationship to his productions. But it was such a pervasive influence on popular culture that it created norms which would have seemed so obvious to not even be worthy of mention. And in the case of criminal behavior, the Production Code is entirely clear: if you break the law, you've got to pay the consequences. Usually this simply meant killing off the villain at the film's end in a way which seemed either accidental or coming about of their own doing. This is why so many classic Disney villains fall to their deaths: the hero really couldn't just outright kill them without needing to, under the Code, be killed off themselves.
Which is really one way of saying that the Morality Play construct of Pirates of the Caribbean, rather than being some grand artistic statement as it's been made out to be by writers such as this one here, may not have even been a consideration in 1966. Pirates were bad guys, so they must come to a bad end. And for audiences and storytellers who grew up during the enforcement of the code, it would have been simply a matter of course to be concerned with depicting this: of course the pirates must die, it's simply the way it is done!
But that's only half of the story. Come now and let's jump forward in time about forty years, when a new Pirates of the Caribbean is being created that caters to the expectations of a new audience.
This audience has grown up accustomed to films where the main characters may be not all that sympathetic and where evil is not always punished. For this audience, it makes sense to present pirates not as criminals, but as fantastical creatures from a storybook come to life. But more than anything there's one concept which the entirety of this new Pirates will be staked on: the notion of the anti-hero - a character type not seen in a single Disney film of the classic era.
And that, more than anything, is the thing which totally disrupts Pirates of the Caribbean, and why Jack Sparrow seems to so totally change the meaning of the attraction. The entire concept of the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction is that piracy is bad and immoral and crimes will be punished, whether that be exploding in a burning warehouse, being stabbed over a treasure chest, or slowly dying in a cave full of pilfered treasure. But the mere existence of Captain Jack Sparrow suddenly turns a clean, clear group of villains into a group of villains where... some of them? Aren't bad either?
And then there's the merchandising, which regrettably plays a role in all of this too. Now to be clear, it's not like Disney hasn't always been selling pirate hats and swords and letting children buy them and run around the park pretending to stab each other. I was purchased a tiny metal pirate gun when I was five and I used it to shoot all of the animals on the Jungle Cruise. Kids will be kids. However, for a long time Disney has really been pushing the angle of "join the crew", no more so that at The Pirate's League, where boys and girls can be made up into pirates and pirate-princesses or mermaids. There's also an interactive Adventureland game where you band together with Jack Sparrow to search for treasure. The emphasis, time and time and time again, is on joining the crew, the same crew that we can see on the ride burning down a city!
The moment you back away from the position that the ride was designed under - that pirates are bad news - is the moment when you then open up the possibility for debate of "well if the Pirates are such fascinating fantastical beings, then why are they doing such awful things?" and that's when you start losing the heart of the ride. Are we supposed to admire the pirates? Are they heroes or villains?
It's clear that WDI's position is that instead of a morality play, Pirates of the Caribbean is an action-adventure, an action-adventure to fit with the popular action-adventure films of its era. Jack Sparrow is like a layer of sweet frosting plopped on top of this brooding atmospheric rock. It may make it more fun, but it doesn't mean its a cupcake.
I think the Magic Kingdom version is nearer to that action-adventure than the others, and pretty much always has been. But if they're going to commit to that tone, then more work needs to be done not only to clarify who exactly is supposed to be the good guys and who is supposed to be the bad guys, but how all of this fits together.
I'd do this by bringing back a new version of the Blackbeard captain in Bombardment Bay and losing all of the mentions of Jack Sparrow in the well scene. You can then take Jack Sparrow out of the well scene and move him upstairs, near the start of the ride, where he can establish that he's looking for the gold - a motivation consistent with his character in the films - and perhaps hint that the caverns are haunted. If the queue were then re-worked to make it clear that you are in a fort and the pirates are coming to attack the town, then we could have an unbroken chain of action from the start of the ride to the end. Add some exciting music to the exit and you've got an action ride.
Of course the real question is whether at this point it's worth redoing the ride to better present the film material at all. Prior to the 2006 reform, Jack Sparrow mania was at a fever pitch, but already the films have receded from the public eye. WDI removed the Davy Jones waterfall from Disneyland this past year, and I wouldn't be surprised to see most of the film materials slowly being phased out over the next decade. It may seem like commerce beats art more often than not, but one nice thing about art is that it tends to last and last while profits fade.
At a bare minimum, MK Pirates needs help on its setup. The current attraction gives no real hint that you're supposed to be entering a fort being attacked by pirates, and the loss of the firing roof cannons does nothing to help this. Additionally, the queue was redone in 2006 and the Glendale-based design team slapped the Pirates Overture music all over the entire queue, totally messing up the creepy tone that had been established since opening day and drowning out the dialogue establishing that the pirates are coming to attack further into the queue. Since the roof cannons were refurbished to make them part of the Jack Sparrow game, turning those on a constant loop, returning the "Pirates Arcade" music to just the entrance tunnel, and turning up the volume of the queue dialogue are three 100% free things WDI could do tomorrow to improve the front part of that attraction.
Consider the Background
Given that I'm pretty well known for this these days maybe this isn't so surprising but I really wish somebody would sit down and rethink the area music at Magic Kingdom from the ground up. I don't think parks per se need to constantly be evaluating their musical background, but Magic Kingdom has overall made fairly few changes to the locations and kinds of music they play since the 1990s, and I think this can lead to bad "legacy" changes sticking around longer than necessary.
For instance, all of watercraft that ply Bay Lake and Seven Seas Lagoon are trapped in the early-00s "Radio Disney" mode, and the result is I think fairly embarrassing. Relaxed instrumentals and perhaps ocean-going music really would do a better job setting the atmosphere for these minor vehicles. Similarly, especially given that new ones are supposedly en route, not playing up-tempo music on the monorails is really a lost opportunity. These sort of minor improvements can really help set expectations and pace the experience, so you don't have the absurd juxtaposition of, say, playing 90s pop covers on a ferry boat that moves at a snail's pace.
Similarly, I think Magic Kingdom overall needs a total rethink in the sound department. Some areas, like Liberty Square, Frontierland, Tomorrowland, or the Tangled bathrooms, are perfectly fine, while others I think really could be improved with new music selections. Given that the expanded Hub area seems to belong as much to Fantasyland as Main Street, stately music would go a long way towards improving the feeling of that area. Similarly, Cinderella Castle has been playing the Disneyland Paris castle area loop since at least the mid-90s, and for that castle the choice is entirely wrong. For the first 20 years, Cinderella Castle played a short vocal version of "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes", and all it takes is a trip to Tokyo Disneyland to hear what an impact that track has in situ.
In other cases, I think less music would be just as effective. Frontierland can keep its upbeat Western music around the entrance, but there's an opportunity here to create a more dynamic soundscape, perhaps with plunked banjos or honky tonk pianos coming from upstairs windows. How cool would it be to walk along the Rivers of America at night and hear the crickets and frogs of the Mississippi instead of the hum of Florida cicadas?
To be abundantly clear here, I don't think every track needs to be changed at Magic Kingdom, never mind changed back to what it was in the 70s and 80s. There's plenty of places where what's playing there now is as good or better than what was used there before, such as Tomorrowland. And while I'd jump at a chance to return the WEDway music to its ride, I think the 2003 Tomorrowland music does such a good job setting the correct tone that there's no need to change it again. But there's other areas of the park where the design of the area says one thing and the music says another, and I think bringing those into closer harmony would really improve things for everybody.
To give just one more example, MGM / Hollywood Studios recently had the entire entrance of that park totally redone from a musical perspective with an integrated "vision", and the effort made a huge difference. Music can improve or detract even when the design of a park remains static, but I think Magic Kingdom feels like a very different place than it did even ten years ago, so there's a real opportunity to improve here.
That Dumb Hub Stage
Yes, it's back. Already my number one remaining complaint about this park, I still think the Hub Stage is a terrible, terrible decision, and on top of that, doesn't even make much sense for the theme park built in Florida. Do people really enjoy standing in the absolutely merciless sun to watch the 30 minute long shows that happen here?
A few years back, Disney announced they were going to build a new indoor theater off Main Street, a decision I applauded. The project hasn't moved forward, leading to online rumors of cancellation. I really do think that, given the choice between standing out in the sun and sitting indoors to watch a Mickey Mouse show, most guests will choose the latter. Given all of this, I'm hopeful that the Main Street Theater is simply delayed, or will return in a better form, and that once open it will start reducing Entertainment's absurd reliance on a hub stage. I think the hub stage would be a nice venue for band performances, or seasonal events, but it's time to stop pretending that this dreary slab of fiberglass is remotely an appropriate location for staging increasingly long and elaborate shows.
If nothing else, if the number of shows on the Hub stage were even at a bare minimum halved, this would allow time for Operations to bring out those Main Street Vehicles, which Magic Kingdom's Main Street hurts for badly. If it were up to me to start from scratch I'd lose the Hub stage permanently and build a theater facing the castle where the poorly-utilized Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station is, but really any move forward on this totally senseless arrangement is a good one.
Restore the Peddlar's Passage
Did you know that Liberty Square had two of its buildings cut fairly late in the game? They were right across from each other, near the Riverboat Landing, and while one of these has received its very own write-up on this blog nearly ten (ack) years ago, it's the one across the way that I'd like to focus on here.
The north side lost building of Liberty Square (above) was originally intended to feature artisan crafts like woodworking and blacksmithing, and when it was cut, designers replaced it with a short-lived open green space. This stuck around for maybe a full year total, when the constant out of control queue for the Hall of Presidents required that the south half of it be turned into a covered queue for the attraction. It stayed like this for some time until the grass was paved over and replaced with a bunch of circular planters, which is the arrangement that's still there to this day. Over the years it's hosted various popcorn wagons and merchandise options, before settling into its current role as an outdoor food market circa 2002.
So here's an situation where Magic Kingdom has been utilizing a building they have no real need of, a covered queue with an open air network of umbrellas and random tables, for a perfectly good purpose, but due to the very nature of its temporary setup, not doing it as well as it could be done. And here's the thing: there's already a 100% attractive structure that was designed 50 years ago by John Hench and Herbert Ryman that's just sitting in their archives unused.
So what I'd do is pull the blueprints, make the necessary adjustments for modern accessibility, and put it up on the spot of the old queue and circular planters. The same food options can be offered in the interior space, with the added benefit of not needing to operate at reduced capacity when it rains every day.
Oh, but the thing is that the design benefits to Liberty Square would be huge. Designed to resemble a charming series of colonial cottages very much like the ones behind the Liberty Tree, it would restore one of the biggest cuts to the design of Liberty Square when the building got the axe: the narrow, atmospheric alley that was supposed to run between the side of the building and the Hall of Presidents, an area called the Peddlar's Passage. Liberty Square has always been charming, but imagine an opportunity to bring back an intimate alley from the designers of New Orleans Square that was lost for 50 years while also serving to improve an existing problem area in a way that Disney is actually honestly prepared to spend money on these days. The blueprints exist in the Archives in Glendale. This could be real.
The Rivers of America and Railroad
I long ago decided that I really have no interest in working for Imagineering, so for those of you who do and are fighting the good fight: I salute you. But if I could join and do just one thing, one single thing I'm absolutely chomping at the bit to redesign isn't a new Horizons or Mr Toad or Journey Into Imagination, it's the Rivers of America and Walt Disney World Railroad at Magic Kingdom.
For instance, it would be nice to see a jungle animal or two as we pass through the "outskirts of Adventureland", and I think Disney missed a huge opportunity when they cut up the plane from The Great Movie Ride into pieces and tossed it out instead of moving it to sit alongside the railroad tracks for clever visitors to ride the Jungle Cruise and finds its rear half.
The back stretch of Magic Kingdom has always just been sort of a nothing area, and in the early days this was even presented as "a view of untouched Florida". Today it's seen more as "the outskirts of Fantasyland", which is absurd, but if that's what it is, that's what it should look like. I'd move the rattlesnake and frog-on-a-stump vignettes to be nearer to the Frontierland area, nearer to the Indian village, and do something with the idea that Fantasyland is somehow supposed to be nearby. Perhaps some fantastical boats plying the retention pond, or, to play into the idea that this its way outside the "nice" areas of Fantasyland, some crumbling castle walls would add a sense of romance and mystery.
The tunnel that goes under the overpass could be claimed to be part of the mine of the Seven Dwarfs, and have a jeweled forced perspective tunnel that leads off in the direction of the new coaster. Another approach that would be interesting is to imply that the villains hang out way outside here; Stromboli's wagon parked alongside the river or Prince John's carriage from Robin Hood would be a cool touch. Honestly, the area's so green and underpopulated that it would be super cool to pass by Robin and Little John hanging out around their camp.
Past Tomorrowland, the Railroad provides views of the Seven Seas Lagoon and the Contemporary, making it the only castle park to really try to integrate the railroad, park, and resort area into one scenic view, but I've always thought more of an effort to imply that we're getting closer to Main Street, and that the Main Street Citizens come hang out here, would be cool. It can be something as simple as a Model T Ford parked underneath a tree with a picnic set up.
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| Nice shot of the boat, but don't forget the "dangerous" floating logs! |
Another thing I'd like to do is install a number a "show" boats in the river alongside Liberty square, to better carry the idea that it and Frontierland and supposed to be bustling port towns. This idea went away when the Keelboats did, but some prop tall-masted ships sitting alongside the docks of Liberty Square would really tie together the north part of the land. Oh, and of course, something needs to be done about that burning cabin. I don't care if it never burns again, but it needs to be fixed up and turned into something attractive to look at if that's the case.
This has been a longwinded and fanciful ramble, perhaps more than any other in this list but I think it's nice to point out that even without a Primeval World diorama and fancy Star War-blocking waterfalls, there's no reason why simple additions couldn't turn both of these attractions into real winners.
And One Last
Okay, one last petty one. I love Magic Kingdom Small World, and I don't care if you don't like it, or think that Disneyland's is better. I love this ride. But in the otherwise excellent 2005 refurbishment, why on earth would they remove this absolute masterpiece of a visual gag from the final scene?
You laughed, admit it. It's still funny. Bring it back.
If you enjoy long winded design essays like these, then you should check out our Theme Park Theory Hub Page, where there's a lot more like this. Thanks for stopping by!