Villains Land at Magic Kingdom

[kingcooger]

I think in terms of branding and recognizability, the main villain has to be Maleficent. It's the path they took for Kingdom Hearts, Fantasmic, Decendants, Kingdom Keepers. They love throwing her at the top of the pile.

Maleficent conjures up the fears and dark memories of the riders, taken form as Disney Villains, and sends them after us. That's a simple hook that has work a bunch of times before in other mediums.

It's interesting to create a lineup of Villains for the ride, because some already have some significant representation elsewhere at Magic Kingdom like Ursula, the Evil Queen, Captain Hook, Gaston. Facilier was chosen to explicitly not be included in Tiana's. There are picks like Scar, Cruella, Jafar Hades, Chernabog that definitely could be given a good spotlight.

Others feel a bit niche and I wonder whether they'll actually be included or not. Horned King, Mother Gothel, Lady Tremaine, Yzma, Oogie Boogie, Queen of Hearts, Frollo, Tamatoa; All of these feel either limited in spectacle, too out there and niche to include, or like Disney has leaned away from the characters for a while now. The only reason why I think Frollo might have a better shot is that Hellfire was played during the announcement. I'd love Oogie Boogie, but he and TNBC as a whole feels pretty separate as a brand from the Disney Animated Villains brand. Yzma Lever coaster is a really cute idea, but feels very locked in with a specific demographic of millenials and Gen Z that wouldn't age great for a key E-Ticket. Probably the same reason why we won't get RNRC Starring Powerline anytime soon.

I just figured Maleficent was the coaster, honestly…

 

[TheUniC6]

One thing that just crossed my mind. If you look at the concept art, you can see what appear to be dragons or some other mythical creatures flying in the sky. Perhaps they might borrow that same technique for the flying dragons Universal is doing for Isle of Berk at EU?

 

[GA-MBIT]

One thing that just crossed my mind. If you look at the concept art, you can see what appear to be dragons or some other mythical creatures flying in the sky. Perhaps they might borrow that same technique for the flying dragons Universal is doing for Isle of Berk at EU?

Yeah... With Disney World, I'll have to wait until I see them still flying a year after opening until I call that a win. TIE Fighters and Fantasyland Dragons are cool but only when they run for more than 1 day ever.

I honestly wonder about how long-term the HTTYD Dragons last, but that's a different thread.

But hey, maybe if the HTTYD Land goes over well, maybe it is an actual possibility? Jenny joked in her Starcruiser video about how "if we actually want Droids in Galaxy's Edge, we need to get Universal to build them first, and wait for Disney to get embarrassed." Maybe this is the path!