Put your Mouseketeer ears on... because a very special, all new D23 Edition of Bullet Sunday starts... now...
• D23! I've been fixated on all things Disney since I was a kid, and it's not something that's faded away. As I've gotten older I've just shifted my focus to the work that goes into making Disney happen. The animation that goes into the films and shows. The imagineering that goes into the parks and properties. The drive. The creativity. The planning. It's all so fascinating to me. Which means the D23 Expo which Disney puts on to announce the stuff that's going on is something I look forward to each year. So let's take a look at some of my favorite things that happened, shall we?
• Villains Land! While Disney has been teasing this for decades, Universal Studio's Universal Monsters Land at their upcoming Epic Universe park finally made them get off their stupid asses and actually make it happen. For the love of God I don't understand why Disney has been so regressive in their parks given how profitable they are. They limp along, giving us remakes of old rides by slapping new window dressing on them like Tiana's Bayou Adventure... drop new attractions after frustratingly long intervals like Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, Mickey's Runaway Railway, and TRON: Lightcycle Run... but the only thing that's really been new-new at the American parks has been Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge Land from five years ago. Meanwhile Universal Studios has been eating their lunch by dropping tons of cool stuff at their parks on a regular basis and building an entirely new park. So thank you, Universal, for being the reason that Villains Land is finally happening...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney
Getting new attractions beats having Disney whining about stagnating attendance. BUT WHEN YOU KEEP RAISING PRICES IN A POOR ECONOMY WHILE NOT DOING SOMETHING EPIC TO DRAW IN NEW VISITORS, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT?!? It's like Disney management is brain dead. They just want to keep the status quo, not spend any money to do great things people want to see, then expect people will continue to pay for that just because their Disney. It's just so bizarre.
• Monsters, Inc. Land! Wow. It's like Disney has been reading my blog or something. I have long said that Disney Parks is missing a massive opportunity by saddling Monsters, Inc. with lackluster attractions. Laugh Floor is boring. And the videos of Mike & Sulley to the Rescue! doesn't look much better with its lackluster animatronic retreads from the disastrous Superstar Limo ride that was a total bomb. But creating Monstropolis at Disney Studios and coming up with an actual attraction that's worthy of the movies? I'm all in...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
Interesting that Disney doesn't have a suspended coaster attraction and this will be the first one. Looks darn good, if the implementation is anything like the concept art. Reeeeeally going to need to convey massive depth for that to work. Looks like it's not, so I hope that there's an illusion or screen extension or something...
I'm hopeful that Disney doesn't cheap out on this, because it could be such a cool attraction if they put the money into it.
• Cars Land... East! California Adventure has had a Cars Land for a while. It features the excellent Radiator Springs Racers attraction, a version of which is coming to... Frontierland in Magic Kingdom? FRONTIERLAND?!? Bonkers. Apparently this will be themed to the American West to "fit in"... albeit in an animated contemporary setting (seriously... this is bonkers). Which is essentially a mountain version of Radiator Springs Racers...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
There's also a kid-friendly ride coming, which looks like a retread of Autopia. Something I thought would happen to the literal Autopia in Disneyland and Tomorrowland Speedway in Magic Kingdom...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
Don't know if this means that Tomorrowland Speedway will be paved over for something new, exciting, and completely inappropriate for the space... but we can hope!
• Talk About Bruno! It would appear that Walt Disney World is paving over Dinoland U.S.A. in Animal Kingdom to create a Tropical Americas Land. This will involve a new Encanto attraction that's a ride through Casa Madrigal...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
And they'll also be tearing out the theming in DINOSAUR to make it become a new Indiana Jones attraction. Which is ironic given that DINOSOAUR is a retread of the much, much better Countdown to Extincion attraction that used to be there. The Indy ride will have a bit of a head start because DINOSAUR uses the same vehicles that are used in the Indiana Jones Adventure ride in Disneyland...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Lucasfilm
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Lucasfilm
No idea what in the heck these attractions have to do with animals to belong in Animal Kingdom, but here we are. Remember when Disney was focused on building immersive experiences that created entire worlds? Well that's out the window now, apparently (see: Cars Land above). At least Pandora tried to build attractions that have alien animals in it.
• Avengers... Assemble? I haven't been to Disneyland's Avengers Campus because the scathing reviews make it sound like there's just no reason to go. They slapped Guardians of the Galaxy all over Tower of Terror then surrounded it with crap which has impressed nobody. Apparently Disney is finally going to address that by tossing in two new "E-Ticket" attractions. The fist being Stark Flight Lab (featuring Robert Downey Jr.)...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Marvel Studios
The second ride is Infinity Defense which will have you helping the Avengers battle Thanos in New York...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Marvel Studios
The ride vehicles makes it look like this is a rehash of what Universal Studios did for their Spider-Man ride. Regardless, it also looks I finally may have a reason to give a shit about California Adventure again. That's nice.
• Coco! And speaking of California Adventure, it's also getting a new boat ride based on Coco, which will hopefully be a wash of color with fantastic animatronics and a good story as promised in the concept art...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Pixar
Anything less would be a complete waste of everybody's time.
• Avatar! And yet another new attraction announced for California Adventure is something based on Avatar: Way of Water that's, surprise, another boat ride...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Lightstorm
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Lightstorm
Copyright ©2024 by Disney
I don't know if this will be in California Adventure proper (which seems to be rapidly running out of room) or if it's part of the Disneyland Forward expansion. Either way, it will be nice to get some fresh IP in the park.
• Walt Disney: A Magical Life! The idea of having an animatronic Walt Disney talk to people ala the Abraham Lincoln attraction seems like a no-brainer. Apparently the issue was waiting for technology to catch up to the point where Disney was satisfied that Walt could be brought to life, and now we're here...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney
So as not to enrage fans of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Walt Disney: A Magical Life will somehow rotate with the existing Disneyland show. I would be very interested in seeing how that's going to work. Are the show stages on motorized engines which slide them into place? Hoping that they release a behind-the-scenes documentary on Disney+ for that.
• Lion King Paris! Apparently Disneyland Paris is bypassing Tiana's Bayou Adventure and getting a Lion King flume ride instead...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney
Remains to be seen if they do something stupid like making the ride be some kind of unwanted sequel to the film like Tiana's Bayou Adventure or actually try to tell the story of the movie which is what everybody wants to see.
• Spider-Coaster Shanghai! And Shanghai Disneyland is getting a roller coaster based on Spider-Man...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Marvel Studios
I hope they make it more exciting than the crappy Incredicoaster that they made for California Adventure. Slapping static statues on sticks around the track is just sad.
• Spider-Man Hong Kong! Also in Asia? What looks like a Spider-Man drop-tower ride looks like it's coming to Hong Kong Disneyland...
Copyright ©2024 by Disney and Marvel Studios
I can't think of drop rides in Disney Parks with the exception of Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror in Magic Kingdom, the former inferior duplicate in California Adventure (which now has a Guardians of the Galaxy makeover, and another copy in Disneyland Paris. It will be nice to see a fresh take on the concept.
Sorry Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea, nothing new for you!
And that's a wrap on D23 PART ONE. See you next entry!
I've mentioned more than a few times here, I try really hard to not have regrets in life (okay, I've probably mentioned it several times... give me a break, I've been blogging for over 20 years!). It's just not worth it to pine away over something you did or didn't do, something you said or didn't say, or somewhere you went or didn't go. Just be happy with what you got out of this life and not worry about the rest. It happened. Or didn't. What more can you do without the ability to travel in time?
That being said...
This is not to say that there aren't things I wish could have happened or not happen for one reason or another. Missed opportunities, if you will.
As an example... I really wish I had visited the Aspen Hard Rock Cafe when it was open. It would have been so easy to do. So easy that I kept putting it off so I could hit the more difficult ones in foreign countries. But then the cafe closed with little warning and my plan to visit every US cafe evaporated. That really sucked. It haunted me for years. Now-a-days, when I've pretty much given up on visiting Hard Rock properties, it's like... meh.
As another example... I really wish that I had visited the infamous "Star Wars Hotel" (AKA Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser) at Walt Disney World in Florida. I'm a huge Star Wars nerd, and the immersive properties of the hotel seemed like something I would have enjoyed. But it was ungodly expensive, and I just couldn't afford it. My plan was to wait until the newness wore off and the price would (hopefully) drop a bit when Disney needed to draw in more visitors.
Except rather than lower the price when they weren't getting enough visitors, Disney CLOSED THE HOTEL! I was bummed. Just like the Aspen Hard Rock, I had missed my opportunity forever.
And then I saw this video by one of my favorite YouTubers, Jenny Nicholson, detailing her totally fucked and busted experience at the doomed attraction. It's four hours, but time well-spent...
Holy shit!
Thank God I didn't have thousands of dollars to throw away on this awful experience. Knowing my luck, I'd end up with a worse stay than Jenny, and it's not like Disney is going to give you your money back if they failed to accomplish what they promise. At least I assume that's the case. If you go to one of their theme parks and an attraction you were dying to ride is broken down, you don't get part of your ticket price back. Unless you're an influencer with huge social media reach, apparently.
So, yeah, absolutely no regrets when it comes to Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.
As it should be.
The first half of the "final season" of The Crown dropped on Netflix last week. The four episodes are entirely devoted to Princess Diana's final days and death, and anything to do with The Crown is largely ancillary. Sure you've got Prince Charles struggling to get his relationship with Camilla legitimized with both Her Majesty The Queen and the public at large, but make no mistake... this is the Diana Show. She's stealing the headlines. She's driving the narrative. It's her world and everybody else is just living in it.
Which is very much as I remember it.
Diana is a fascinating person. And admirable. She tried to use her fame for a number of good causes (the two most famous being compassion and understanding of people with AIDS and the global removal of landmines, but she also advocated for the homeless, shined a spotlight on the struggle of people living in poverty, and supported numerous cancer charities... to name a few). That she also dared to try and build a life for herself and find happiness bothers an awful lot of people, which is profoundly sad.
A sympathy that The Crown definitely shares.
Right up until her death in the third episode.
Although the story that Netflix is telling has been refuted on several fronts. The foremost of which being that Mohamed Al-Fayed was the driving force behind his son Dodi Fayed and Diana's romance and, by further extension, is responsible for their death since he set up the infamous photos that escalated the paparazzi frenzy. Every photographer wanted their million dollar payday, and that ultimately resulted in tragedy.
It's just speculation.
Which, from the beginning, is all The Crown really has.
And yet we watch it anyway.
I've mentioned how I was eating breakfast and watching television before driving to the airport for work on August 31st, 1997. The morning the news broke here about the car accident in Paris. When I got to Seattle, it was being reported that all three passengers had perished. Then, as I was waiting, it was reported Diana was still alive. As I was boarding my flight to Orlando, there was serious confusion as to whether she had died or not.
After landing, all the televisions were reporting the sad news of her passing.
It didn't really register.
Not until the next day. My work was at one of the Disney World hotels. I had finished up my first meeting and went to Epcot for lunch with a friend in "Italy." I was early, so I walked counter-clockwise to pop by the France Pavilion for a pastry first. To get there, you have to pass through the pavilions for Canada and The United Kingdom. Which is to say "A member country of The British Commonwealth and The United Kingdom."
And since Disney endeavors to make each country's pavilion be as authentic as possible, the staff is populated by people from those countries. And they were grieving far from home. Far from the people who could truly comprehend what they were feeling.
Though the people at Disney World that day were far from unsympathetic. Flowers were piled around the UK Pavilion just as they had been back at Kensington Palace. The usual murmur and laughter was greatly muted.
Then you'd cross the bridge to the France Pavilion... and everything was back to normal.
Or as normal as it could be considering a person loved and admired around the world was gone.
In the end, I think The Crown could have ended with Season 05 and we'd all have been better off. The wild speculation about Diana in Season 06 serves no purpose. It's not even very entertaining. And the drama surrounding The Royal Family was already portrayed far better by the 2006 movie The Queen.
Not that Netflix hasn't wasted money on useless programming before, but this time it just seems so unneeded.
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