The State of Epcot

[WAJAS]

That office has been there for years

Didn't know. My b.

 

[epcyclopedia]

And now Jim Hill is saying Cars overlay on Test Track. You're right, this happens every year, little ever comes of it.

GM/Chevy owns the building - short of Disney paying them back a lot of money it's staying a GM-branded attraction.

 

[epcyclopedia]

And for the record, Test Track 2.0 was not designed by Imagineering. GM/Chevy had their own people do it.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

No way Disney's that stupid to retheme Test Track to Cars. Possible merch stand, sure, but not retheme.

 

[s8film40]

No way Disney's that stupid to retheme Test Track to Cars. Possible merch stand, sure, but not retheme.

Put a super popular IP about cars that's about to release its third film into their attraction about cars, yeah that's a real crazy idea.

 

[Nick]

Put a super popular IP about cars that's about to release its third film into their attraction about cars, yeah that's a real crazy idea.

Sure it makes merchandising sense, but it's not happening. GM has sponsored the space for 35 years and they still see it as a good way to expose people to their brand.

It would take a huge buyout on Disney's end, too due to the sponsorship contract still has quite a few years left.

 

[s8film40]

Sure it makes merchandising sense, but it's not happening. GM has sponsored the space for 35 years and they still see it as a good way to expose people to their brand.

It would take a huge buyout on Disney's end, too due to the sponsorship contract still has quite a few years left.

I agree I don't think it's happening, but I don't think GM would really have an issue with it. If anything I could see GM pushing for this more than Disney.

I think right now Test Track already has one of the highest wait times in the park. They don't exactly need to boost that. Resources would be better spent creating kg something else to help balance crowds. You never know though.

 

[epcyclopedia]

You have to go back to what happened with Test Track 2.0 and that buildings history.

GM's own marketing department considers it one of their most valuable showrooms. It actually shows up in their owner surveys as the locations many buyers first saw a new vehicle. It's a no pressure display and thousands of guests poke and prod the cars daily. When it was world of motion GM even used it to test seat fabric and seat belts and door handles for longevity because it simulated many years of real wear/tear as guests climb all over things.

All that in mind, the months before the switch to Test Track 2.0 and Disney doesn't want the ride to close - it was doing just fine in guest surveys and wait times. GM does. Rumors start. Disney says the ride won't close - even to its own staff. GM pulls its trump card. It literally owns the building due to their contract.

They literally force it to close.

GM hires one of the original designers from Horizons to head their team and has all the design work done at one of their design studios. WDI which was opposed to the project is included in the capacity of like project management but is otherwise unused. Disney runs extremely little publicity on the changeover - sort of grumpy about how it all went down.

There's no way the same company makes their ride a Cars attraction in the immediate future.

 

[Nick]

You have to go back to what happened with Test Track 2.0 and that buildings history.

GM's own marketing department considers it one of their most valuable showrooms. It actually shows up in their owner surveys as the locations many buyers first saw a new vehicle. It's a no pressure display and thousands of guests poke and prod the cars daily. When it was world of motion GM even used it to test seat fabric and seat belts and door handles for longevity because it simulated many years of real wear/tear as guests climb all over things.

All that in mind, the months before the switch to Test Track 2.0 and Disney doesn't want the ride to close - it was doing just fine in guest surveys and wait times. GM does. Rumors start. Disney says the ride won't close - even to its own staff. GM pulls its trump card. It literally owns the building due to their contract.

They literally force it to close.

GM hires one of the original designers from Horizons to head their team and has all the design work done at one of their design studios. WDI which was opposed to the project is included in the capacity of like project management but is otherwise unused. Disney runs extremely little publicity on the changeover - sort of grumpy about how it all went down.

There's no way the same company makes their ride a Cars attraction in the immediate future.

And besides all of that, it makes zero sense to make one of Epcot's most popular attractions even more popular by adding a popular IP.

If they want to put the Cars IP in the parks, build a new freaking ride somewhere (or idk, Cars Land?).

 

[kingcooger]

And besides all of that, it makes zero sense to make one of Epcot's most popular attractions even more popular by adding a popular IP.

If they want to put the Cars IP in the parks, build a new freaking ride somewhere (or idk, Cars Land?).

I had heard that Lasseter blocked them from doing Cars Land in DHS because WDW kept wanting to make cuts to the project BEFORE they had even started planning to save money. This leads me to believe that Cars will not be a full blown attraction in any capacity at WDW unless they go all in on the full land. If someone knows more details about how the whole Cars Land thing went down with WDW, I would love to have a fuller story.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Disney bought Star Wars which leads to new movies, making it more relevant and instead of cars you get Star Wars land.

 

[JungleSkip]

Anyone mention that WDI set-up an office behind Wonders of Life?

That's WDI's home base in Florida. Been there forever

 

[WAJAS]

That's WDI's home base in Florida. Been there forever

I thought they moved that to Team Disney for some reason. Weird

 

[Mad Dog]

You have to go back to what happened with Test Track 2.0 and that buildings history.

GM's own marketing department considers it one of their most valuable showrooms. It actually shows up in their owner surveys as the locations many buyers first saw a new vehicle. It's a no pressure display and thousands of guests poke and prod the cars daily. When it was world of motion GM even used it to test seat fabric and seat belts and door handles for longevity because it simulated many years of real wear/tear as guests climb all over things.

All that in mind, the months before the switch to Test Track 2.0 and Disney doesn't want the ride to close - it was doing just fine in guest surveys and wait times. GM does. Rumors start. Disney says the ride won't close - even to its own staff. GM pulls its trump card. It literally owns the building due to their contract.

They literally force it to close.

GM hires one of the original designers from Horizons to head their team and has all the design work done at one of their design studios. WDI which was opposed to the project is included in the capacity of like project management but is otherwise unused. Disney runs extremely little publicity on the changeover - sort of grumpy about how it all went down.

There's no way the same company makes their ride a Cars attraction in the immediate future.

:thumbsup:Exactly. And I doubt GM is going to replace the Malibu on car lots with Lightning McQueen or whatever name that car goes by:doh:....Another reason I never pay attention to anything Jim Hill says. His MO is throw 1000 things against the wall, maybe one sticks, and he'll say I told you so.

 

[Alicia]

:thumbsup:Exactly. And I doubt GM is going to replace the Malibu on car lots with Lightning McQueen or whatever name that car goes by:doh:....Another reason I never pay attention to anything Jim Hill says. His MO is throw 1000 things against the wall, maybe one sticks, and he'll say I told you so.

It's starting to sound to me like he has an insider (or two) that tells him things that he's heard pitched at meetings, or discussed here or there. But when you're telling the world about one-off idea pitches at a pitch meeting, as if they're truth, it kind of weakens your credibility. I don't doubt someone somewhere said these things, I just doubt they ever got to planning stages. It was pitched probably along with a hundred other ideas.

This may be why we hear Tron coaster over here, Tron coaster over there. Maybe at a meeting the subject of what to replace UoE comes up... Maybe Tron can go there.... Maybe Maybe, what else do we got?... Then later another meeting for Tomorrowland Raceway, and the same guy pitches Tron coaster again. Okay, yes, that could work, but what else we got?

Then that gets relayed to Jim. And he tells it to us like it's fact.

That could explain why he's got sooo many things to talk about and only one in a few goes through to fruition.

 

[belloq87]

It's starting to sound to me like he has an insider (or two) that tells him things that he's heard pitched at meetings, or discussed here or there. But when you're telling the world about one-off idea pitches at a pitch meeting, as if they're truth, it kind of weakens your credibility. I don't doubt someone somewhere said these things, I just doubt they ever got to planning stages. It was pitched probably along with a hundred other ideas.

This may be why we hear Tron coaster over here, Tron coaster over there. Maybe at a meeting the subject of what to replace UoE comes up... Maybe Tron can go there.... Maybe Maybe, what else do we got?... Then later another meeting for Tomorrowland Raceway, and the same guy pitches Tron coaster again. Okay, yes, that could work, but what else we got?

Then that gets relayed to Jim. And he tells it to us like it's fact.

That could explain why he's got sooo many things to talk about and only one in a few goes through to fruition.

That's a very plausible explanation for Hill's MO, but I guess unlike a lot of people, it doesn't really bother me. I like the speculation game. I don't hold it against Hill, I just adjust my expectations accordingly when consuming the information he has to share.

 

[Alicia]

That's a very plausible explanation for Hill's MO, but I guess unlike a lot of people, it doesn't really bother me. I like the speculation game. I don't hold it against Hill, I just adjust my expectations accordingly when consuming the information he has to share.

Oh yea totally. I love the Disney Dish and even pay for the premium podcasts. I'd rather know too much than less info. I agree, we should just adjust our expectations.

 

[JungleSkip]

Oh yea totally. I love the Disney Dish and even pay for the premium podcasts. I'd rather know too much than less info. I agree, we should just adjust our expectations.

I think Jim is probably the most entertaining person on a podcast in the Disney sphere...my only issue is he deals in absolutes, when he damn well knows 95% of the stuff he's talking about will never happen

 

[belloq87]

I think Jim is probably the most entertaining person on a podcast in the Disney sphere...my only issue is he deals in absolutes, when he damn well knows 95% of the stuff he's talking about will never happen

That's a supremely fair assessment. On the positive side, he's a pretty engaging storyteller as it relates to the history of the various parks. He can spin a yarn.

 

[fryoj]

There's no way the same company makes their ride a Cars attraction in the immediate future.

What if Lightning Mcqueen was redesigned in the next movie as a Camaro and the rest of the cars were all Chevy's?

Not happening I know, but that would be an interesting carrot to dangle if they really wanted to overlay TT.



But that being said, if Dis really was upset with how GM pulled rank on TT 2.0, wouldn't that make the buyout and cars overlay more likely?