It's turning out just about how I expected, it looks
okay. I got excited for a little bit when we started hearing there was a boat ride coming, that's actually something that would have a lot of potential with the IP, but that's sounding like it's kind of a dud. The idea of the bioluminescent plants sounded cool at first, but that seems like it could be lacking in execution. The banshee ride sounds fine, sounds like an interesting twist on a simulator, it's just a shame you don't go flying through a locale that more people have an emotional connection to.
I'm deeply concerned that the clips we've seen are about the extent of the boat ride, save for the shaman sitting and singing.
The shaman is at the end, right? The idea of the boats backing up at the end like they do at Pirates and having to listen to that dude forever just fills me with anxiety, haha.
To me i dont know how you can look at this picture and say this looks "meh" (another internet word that's overplayed)
there is some incredible artistic creativity but to each their own. Me personally i think this blows carsland away artistically. I compared it to carsland because both environments are physical settings/environments not buildings
It's
nice. There's absolutely fantastic creativity involved, and all of the artists and artisans have done a great job with the very difficult assignment they were given. But it's easy for a big company like Disney to make something look this nice when you're spending money out the wazoo on it. They pay for the talent required and they keep spending money on it until they get it at least a little right. What determines whether I impressed or not is what Disney
chooses to spend significant capital on. The fact that they chose to spend money like this on a franchise that has, at best, questionable staying power is very troubling to me, especially since they seem to be trying to replicate the success of Harry Potter. That demonstrates a disturbing lack of understanding of what made Harry Potter work, and why Avatar
really made as much money as it did.
Maybe there is enough weight with the Avatar IP that there are some shekels to be made off of it, but it probably would have been much more wise to build a one-off ride, and then expand from there if it was really successful. Maybe the banshee ride could be thrilling enough that it could have stood on it's own, or they could have really fleshed out the boat ride for the family-friendly Pirates/Mansion-like ride the park desperately needs. But regarding the picture above, it's lovely, it may have even been artistically more challenging than Cars Land, but I just really don't think there's going to be anywhere near as many people that Pandora emotionally resonates with as Radiator Springs. My gut tells me that people will first walk into Pandora and their reaction will be something to the effect of "oh hey, this is pretty neat" as opposed to the true wow moment you get when you first walk into Diagon Alley or Radiator Springs. Some people completely fall apart crying with joy when they first walk into Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley. I see it on a regular basis. If Disney pulls it off right, people will probably burst into tears the same way when they see that lifesize Millennium Falcon in Star Wars Land (not to mention actually walking onboard and flying the damn thing). Heck, I've seen people turn on the waterworks
just meeting Chewbacca. I really, really doubt anybody is going to have anywhere near that reaction walking into Pandora.
Maybe I'm ranting too much, but this whole Avatar thing just baffles me, from a business perspective, from a guest perspective, from just every angle. I get liking the movie, I liked it okay myself, and I even acknowledge there's potential in the general idea of the franchise with future movies (Cameron has certainly upped the ante before, with T2 and Aliens). But this Avatar land is a big risk that doesn't have a very high chance of a huge pay-off for Disney, and Disney just simply isn't a risk-taking company anymore. It just literally seems like Iger saw "#1 GROSSING MOVIE OF ALL TIME" and forced this thing through without any critical analysis of
why the movie actually made so much money and the genuine impact it had on people.
Rumor is we're getting a Haunted Mansion equivalent to Skipper Cantina.
Where did
that rumor come from??
I have and it's fantastic. If all goes to plan, I'll be heading back there this year. It's easily one of the most photogenic lands I've visited.
I think this is a great comparison btw. :thumbsup: Greatly themed lands to less than stellar IPs. (I know kids love Cars and Avatar is the biggest box office ever but that's just my opinion.)
Cars is kind of a funky franchise. There's a lot of people that it just doesn't do anything for at all, but then it does seem like there's a lot of people that it really struck a chord with. It kind of captures different facets of Americana all tied together by car culture: small town American life, NASCAR, cross-country road trips, and such. I love the first movie particularly because it really triggers some of my happiest memories as a kid, of taking road trips across interstates between big cities and backroads through small towns, it really captures those feelings well. Cars 2 didn't really have much of that, I think that one was obviously just a cash grab. The first one was more grounded in reality, based on the reality of small towns falling by the wayside when bypassed by the big interstates, whereas Cars 2 was just a big fanciful spy thriller. I do think there is potential for more great stories about Americana and car culture viewed through the prism of the Cars world, but Cars 2 wasn't it.