amateurimagineering

[amateurimagineering]

This actually isn’t Disneyland related at all but Universal Orlando is opening up a third park and while they’ve announced that one land will be a Nintendo land, there are three more lands they have room for but haven’t announced what they are yet and I am here to shout from the rooftops that I want Berk.

Berk! Berk!! BERK!!!!!

I want authentic architecture, at least two island parts connected by multiple rickety looking bridges, and an larger than life viking ship. Plus, obviously, multiple dragon animatronics. I’m imagining a boat ride, a flying simulator, a dragon coaster, and a stunt show. This would be my absolute dream land and I think I would honestly actually literally move there if the post office would deliver to “roof of a viking shack in an orlando theme park”

#epic universe #isle of berk

[amateurimagineering]

A Frozen Ride

I’m not a big fan of the Frozen dark ride at Epcot, so when I think about Disneyland adding some sort of Frozen attraction I hope they go with something new. Here’s one pitch:

It’s post-movie, and begins as a reindeer drawn carriage through some familiar scenes from Arendelle. Elsa and Anna are working on something together, then Kristoff and Sven have a mishap of some sort, and the reindeer from the guest cart comes detached! From there it’s a (gently) thrilling sled ride as the small carriages roll outside of town and through the woods, which in some places has snow falling. Elsa then does some magic to help guide the carts back to safety.

Like I said, I’m not a fan of the Frozen dark ride, I think dark rides are largely dependent on story and character and iconic situations, and Frozen has a bit of a convoluted story and not really any iconic situations. It has fun characters though, and the dark ride doesn’t take the best advantage of them. They just appear and say some lines. It also, I don’t think, properly utilizes the iconic visuals from the movie because so much of the visuals are reliant on how snow moves, not just how it’s sparkles in the light.

Outside of what I think a Frozen ride needs, I think the park itself would thrive with a year-round winter adventure. Dark rides are classic, but more and more rides are trying to mix them with at least a little bit of thrill. And sledding is an activity that kids often idealize but don’t get to do a lot anymore, so it’d be a nice novel experience.

#frozen ride #ride ideas

[amateurimagineering]

A summary of what Disney is proposing:

1- Open up a third gate in Anaheim. It looks so far like a slightly smaller park, and it would take over a big chunk of Downtown Disney, as well as other office and admin buildings around their three hotels.

This could be very exciting. The ideas proposed are for more immersive lands, on par with Galaxy’s Edge and Pandora, with the themes being a Frozen Arendelle land, and wooded Tangled land, and Neverland.

2- Doing something, no hard plans suggested yet beyond “could include a theme park, hotel, retail, dining and entertainment” in what is probably entirely admin buildings south of the current parks. This area is probably also already owned by Disney, but I’m honestly not sure. [EDIT: I’m a dumbdumb this is the Toy Story Parking lot]

This is personally, far less exciting. It’s not attached to the existing parks, and doesn’t seem to even be able to connect fully. It’s not land that currently has any on-stage presence [EDIT: it’s the parking lot oops], and there’s a lot on the site making very clear that none of these plans are legally possible right now because of Anaheim city zoning, so a vague promise of “more” doesn’t seem worth it all to kick up a fuss about it. Zoning laws also seem to be in the way of the third gate, but considering a huge chunk of that area is already set as entertainment space it seems like a smaller hurdle with a bigger reward. This one feels a bit more like “oh no we shrunk Downtown Disney let’s make a second Downtown Disney somewhere else.”

3- Between these two HUGE proposals are plans for California Adventure that seem pretty possible, so I’m not sure why they’re included between the more lofty new park goals. Maybe there’s some height limitations they’re fighting with the city about or something. The new plans are 1- Zootopia. 2- Toy Story Land, 3- Tron Lightcycle Run.

It’s not clear where any of these will go, but there are plenty of hints that Toy Story Land would replace Pixar Pier (”Guests can take a ride on Slinky Dog Dash, a roller coaster Andy assembled from his Mega Coaster Toy Kit. They can also join the little green aliens as they swirl about in their rocket ship toys in the Alien Swirling Saucers. The land also includes carnival games and a restaurant, Woody’s Lunch Box” Yeah that’s Pixar Pier - Incredicoaster, Lamplight Lounge, Emotional Whirlwind - all remastered)

Zootopia would fit well over Hollywood Land, as that’s already a cityscape. Tron though...that wouldn’t fit anywhere in California Adventure. I mean there’s space for it sure, but thematically? The only place I wouldn’t mind it going is over by Paradise Gardens, as long as they also theme that sad food court land around it somehow, and I do wonder how any of that Tron theming will work on the waterfront, especially at night when it will fight with World of Color or I guess just entirely shut down the way that Paradise Gardens does currently.

As exciting as some of these ideas are, I’m a little baffled by the combative tone. Not that they’re taking it, they’ve long had a strange sort of entitlement to the entire city of Anaheim that I’m frankly not a fan of, but that their reasoning for why they think they have to make this a fight at all. There’s a phrase in the opening that seems to spark the fight and it really honestly bothers me: “We want to bring more Disney investment to Anaheim. However, this simply isn’t possible under current inflexible planning restrictions unless we remove and replace treasured rides and attractions in our Parks today.”

I just really disagree that there’s nothing that can go away in Disneyland and that the only option is to expand further into the city. I’ve made proposals on this blog for an Arendelle village and a Tangled attraction! There’s plenty of room for both (though of course not on the massive scale the new lands would be on) where Autopia is. But the above statement seems to imply that everything that’s currently in Disneyland is too sacred to ever go. And it’s just not. Autopia was there opening day, I understand the importance and sentimentality of it; but it doesn’t represent tomorrow at all at this point and the ride experience is severely lacking when it comes to current standards for Disney magic.

Heck, it was a bit of a twist to see Tron thrown in with DCA remodels because in Shanghai where it was developed, and in Disney World Magic Kingdom, where it’s currently being built, that coaster is in Tomorrowland. Magic Kingdom is taking out their Speedway (the Autopia equivalent) to build Tron! Tomorrowland in general is in desperate need for modernization and has been for years.

And there are other lands that will need the same pretty soon: namely Frontierland and honestly Adventureland. Again, this time they’re whole opening day lands with beloved attractions rather than just one outdated attraction, so understand thinking they can’t be touched. But while Adventureland is still somewhat able to keep its heart as it rethinks how it treats its inspiration locales, it is positively tiny, which makes it feel lesser than a lot of giant new parks. Frontierland on the other hand has been struggling to remain on brand as it gets rid of its openly offensive aspects. There’s a lot of options to combine them into one larger land, keeping the best parts of Adventureland and letting it get more magical and wild with more IP as it travels upward toward Galaxy’s Edge.

If Disneyland wants to talk about allowing their flagship resort to keep up with the other, newer parks in terms of technology and experience, it seems very strange to take the position that one park should forever stay as Walt last saw it due to sentimentality, and the actual solution is to simply surround that first park with something fancier.

#disneyland news #long post #disneyland forward

[amateurimagineering]

#disneyland #disneyland forward

[amateurimagineering]

It feels weird to go into too much detail about Galaxy’s Edge or any of the attractions there, since Disneyland closed so soon after it opened, but it’s virtually identical in Disney World, which has been open for a while, so there’s some context I think.

I’ll say upfront the land itself is almost completely perfect. It’s got an amazing look, an amazing sound, an amazing smell. It’s a little shopping heavy I’ll admit, which when it comes to the stores I don’t mind because the stores are so interesting, but I do think the merch carts take away the atmosphere (but I think that about all merch carts everywhere, they just blend better in New Orleans). And I realize the purpose of the land is to feel immersive (which it does! When not looking at a merch cart you will feel fully transported I promise you), I do wish they’d broken their “no signs” rule for like...bathrooms. And in general, I wish there were more attractions. Either in the form of live entertainment or a lower-tier ticket ride like the animatronic tour ride they pitched in the early stages. But that’s it for criticism as far as the land goes. I can’t even say anything bad about blue/green milk because I don’t have the cilantro thing that makes them taste like soap to some people. I could sit in Galaxy’s Edge all day, just watching the characters wander around, listening to the droids chatter, watching the sun reflect off of the rock walls - it’s a magical experience.

But if there was one thing in Galaxy’s Edge I’d want to get my hands on, it’s Smugglers Run. It’s a fun ride, it’s got an amazing line experience (although nothing beats the line experience of Rise of the Resistance holy moly I don’t want to spoil that one for anyone but I am promising you you will enjoy the line experience as much as the ride itself), but there are some glaring issues. Namely, 2/3s of the guests are getting a significantly worse experience.

All rides have The Best Seat, like when given the chance heck yes I prefer to sit in the top row of Soarin’ so I don’t see any dangling feet, or the front row of any roller coaster besides Space Mountain so I get to be the first person to see the drops and turns, but Smuggler’s Run’s seat differential is a step beyond.

Not many people have been able to ride it, so I’ll explain that there are six seats in Smugglers Run: two pilots (one controls vertical flight, the other horizontal, and only one gets to make the jump to lightspeed), two gunners (who fire harpoons at the cargo we’re supposed to be stealing), and two engineers (who fix the ship when we get hit). The most preferential seat is obviously the one that gets to jump to lightspeed, because that’s an emotional moment, but both pilot seats are the ride at at its best. They’re in the front row in front of the window/screen and they have steering controls that look like steering controls. It feels a little weird to split up horizontal and vertical flight, but it feels not dissimilar to what you imagine flying a spaceship is like.

The others sit in staggered seats behind, and push buttons. They aren’t just a less good view because you’re sitting behind someone, they’re less good because the interactivity is generic and the view isn’t even of the window. The gunner and engineer panels are on the side of the ship, so to do your job you can’t look at the magical space battle going on in front of you. The interactivity is also generic button-pushing, no aiming for the gunners or details about what you’re fixing for the engineers. Those guests are an afterthought of an afterthought and it’s pretty frustrating honestly.

The point, I imagine, was to make the ride accessible to all levels of familiarity with gaming. Too detailed and only teens and young adults could play, leaving out little kids and older adults. But there are some ways to make the back seats engaging and unique without feeling too hard.

For the gunners, give them aiming power. Right now, the pilots do more aiming than the gunners, because they make the ship level with the cargo, and all the gunners do is fire when ready. I think they do use arrow buttons to aim a little (it was my plan to experiment next time I rode it, but alas), but because the buttons are on the side of the ship facing away from the window they can’t actually see what they’re doing. There are two options to fix this:

1) The panel can still be on the side of the ship, but there could be a display screen that echos what’s going on “outside” the window just rendered more simply so it looks like aiming algorithms. The gunners use arrow buttons to move the exterior harpoon and then a fire button. So it’s still buttons, maybe even the same buttons they have now, but they can see what they’re doing and it feels more specialized.

2) The gunners, currently in the middle of the cockpit, are moved to the back and put on a small platform that echos the separate room Luke and Chewy fire from when they use the Falcon’s weapons systems in the movies. There’s firing mechanism is the bike handle-looking thing on a stick, again from the movies, and because they’re slightly elevated from the rest of the cockpit they can see over the pilot’s head to the screen to aim directly. This of course would require rebuilding all the cockpits which would be daunting for Disney but would honestly turn the gunner position into a coveted seat.

For the engineers, there is one incredibly simple fix: give them a screen of the ship on their panel (which can still be next to them on the wall), that has parts start flashing when they need repair. The buttons they push have clear visual links to what they’re fixing on the ship. Right now it’s literally just flashing buttons. Hondo yells a little, sometimes saying what’s wrong with the ship, but it’s a loud ride and words don’t really mean anything when Disneyland is such an international draw. Literally just...give the engineers a picture of what they’re doing. Give them levels, like the engines are flashing yellow but the shields are flashing red, which do you fix first?

Smugglers Run is some honestly breakthrough technology, with a cool story. It’s like Star Tours in the ride experience will never be the same twice, because the pilots will take different routes or the gunners will get a different number of cargo, or the ship is damaged in a different way. Or just that you the guest are sitting somewhere different doing something different! And to make that part of the customization to the next level, the seats all have to have something unique about them. The pilot seats are perfect, they were who this ride was designed for. But there are four more people in the cockpit with the pilot, they deserve a fun time too.

#Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run #Smugglers Run

[amateurimagineering]

Fun Things to Add to Hollywood Land

Turn Monsters Inc. ride into a revamped Great Movie Ride, with special effect demonstrations and animatronic reenactments

Turn Stage 12 into a Mary Poppins dark ride, taking guests along Mary’s routine going to parks and dancing on the rooftops of London hanging from their own flying umbrellas (two person seats, flying over sets and models like the Peter Pan system)

Take out the Studio Store, Schmoozies, the Hollywood Backlot Stage, and the Fairfax Market to make way for 1) a new restaurant, styled after a mildly sleazy piano bar (with scheduled live music performances of disney songs done in a jazzy style) and 2) a cocktail bar (alcoholic and juice)

If we still need a store for when Studio 17 isn’t also a superstore, there can be a small one attached to the two new eateries

#hollywood land redesign #dca redesign

[amateurimagineering]

When it comes to lands, I’m always a bigger fan of the ones that transport you somewhere than the ones that are themed more around a similar aesthetic. Like I love Carsland, Galaxy’s Edge, and Pandora because the environment is completely shifted, from the landscaping to the buildings, with even the layout of the land supporting the theming. One could say it’s easy when you have just one property to base it on, but Galaxy’s Edge is technically a reference to 9 movies (and like 5 tv shows) set in 3 different time periods on countless planets, so it possible to create a new setting that still fits your IP without directly copying from the source material.

You can see the real difference when you compare Pixar Pier to Fantasyland, both lands that have different movie properties all packed together in one land where the theme is just “those properties,” but Fantasyland manages to create a united aesthetic around a general time period and location with just enough variation to make them all stand out while still making all of the facades coordinate.

Pixar Pier kind of loosely calls to carnivals and boardwalks until they don’t, and then swings back and forth between time periods at will.

The problem is more that Pixar isn’t its own genre. Pixar movies span different settings, and there’s not really a reason to isolate them all. I mean, Cars is a Pixar movie and it got its own land all to itself! This is less to dunk on Pixar Pier, which really is far down the list of things I’d change about DCA, and more to say speed round on brainstorming new land ideas for Disneyland and DCA!

1- Paradise Falls, from Up - a tropical jungle with a giant waterfall, it could be stunning. Leaves the door open for other properties in the wilderness (bring A Bug’s Life back into the park?) and other properties in South America (bring The Emperor’s New Groove into the park for the first time??). It’s not out yet so I can’t be sure but there’s something about Luca that also looks like it fits, like it reminds me of Carl and Ellie as kids and that seems to fit a thematically if not literally setting-wise

2- SanFrantokyo, from Big Hero 6 - a unique cityscape that’s a fusion of two different aesthetics, opening the door for multiple tie-ins (Disney and Ghibli have a relationship, but I don’t know anything about their theme park rights or interests, but like...think about that for a second). Also a great lead in for other superhero properties like...

3 - New York, for the MCU - this would really conflict with the original theming behind Disney California Adventure, but they dropped that theming years ago. Take a page out of New Orleans Square, Main Street theme the land around one normal city but exaggerated

3 - Wakanda, also for the MCU - this is a far more fantastical setting, with less direct attachment to as many characters but it was ground zero on the biggest movie event to date, so it’s not not likely to see a bunch of other characters around. There’s the opportunity for inside spaces and outside spaces, with a lot of super high tech features

4 - Knowhere, also for the MCU - it’s becoming slightly obvious that I have some issues with the theme behind Avenger’s Campus, huh? I’m not trying to be overly negative, I just really need to see it to buy the idea of a pop up Avenger’s recruitment center. Considering Guardians Mission Break-Out was the first foray into Marvelland, I think basing the land around that particular space aesthetic would have been both easiest and smoothest. It can house Guardians, Thor, the Hulk, Captain Marvel, and any character that later went to space (Iron Man, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, even Hawkeye and Black Widow!). The biggest drawback would be the risk of this seeming too much like Galaxy’s Edge, but to be fair they’re in different parks, and do have different aesthetics

5 - A land of Ancient Magic - not from any one particular IP, but I’m thinking the celtic woods from Brave, mixed with the decaying high fantasy of Onward and Raya and even Atlantis. I like the idea of going back to a time before lands were based on IP, but that could still house it, and I think this could be a great replacement for Frontierland one day, which I think is aging out of relevance

6 - Toy Story land - Florida Hollywood Studios, Paris Studio Park, Hong Kong, and Shanghai already used this as their main Pixar land, and in terms of fantastical aesthetic it’s such a slam dunk. This could be all of Pixar Pier if we let it

7 - Pacific Islands - Between Moana and Lilo and Stitch there have been a not insignificant number of incredibly popular stories told in Hawaii and there seems to be no other place to represent them so just give them their own land!

#dca redesign #imagineering #disneyland redesign #land ideas

[amateurimagineering]

See  that little pond south of Small World? It’s called the Fantasia Plaza, but nothing really happens there, just like most of the area in front of Small World. It’s a great place to watch the parades, or eat, but what if there was something else going on?

What if Autopia goes away to make room for a smaller second castle on the waterfront? Possibly a Frozen dark ride, with the water being given a plexiglass cover so it’s a frozen lake for atmosphere. Although of course not just atmosphere, because now that’s it’s solid it can be a showspace! I am of course thinking of an ice skating show.

I don’t have any strong feelings regarding Frozen one way or the other but I want some ice skating in Disneyland, because that would just be so magical wouldn’t it?

#disneyland redesign #frozen dark ride #disneyland live shows

[amateurimagineering]

Some of the buildings surrounding Disneyland and DCA are vital storage space for parade floats but some of them are simply office spaces or storage for out of season decorations and I desperately want to know what these ones are

behind the Incredicoaster. Sirs! What are you and can we get rid of you???

I just think Pixar Pier is too narrow to really follow through with the whole “neighborhood” thing. The Incredicoaster takes up the whole skyline, and then there’s the two Toy Story rides, then the boardwalk games based on 1) a Pixar Short, 2) Toy Story again, and 3) Wall-E (the only representation of Wall-E in either park). Then the general “Mickey and all of his Pixar friends” ferris wheel, and then waaaaaaay down in the isolated loop is the Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind. Those don’t feel like neighborhoods to me, there’s just not enough room for them to seem like much more than separate themed rides thrown together.

But if there was more park on the other side of the Incredicoaster! Then they can breath and have some more design and really transport visitors to a new land!

#pixar pier #dca redesign

[amateurimagineering]

One of the absolute coolest things ever teased about Galaxy’s Edge was a transportation ride. Not a lot of visitors still see the charm or fun in riding down Main Street on a horse drawn carriage or the Omnibus, but I can’t think of anyone that would turn their nose up at a lap around Black Spire Outpost on the back of an animatronic alien animal.

Like most things that aren’t ready on opening day, I was assuming this idea was dog-eared more than fully shelved: it looks like a really really hard thing to build and program by itself, and would also be hard to figure out the best path through the winding landscape of Galaxy’s Edge, so learning how the crowd naturally moves before implementing the thing would also help.

Since the shutdown, I still do think this idea is on a backburner, but it might be on a far back backburner.

That doesn’t stop me from thinking about it though! Because if they can get this thing working, what else can they do? To go off on a bit of a tangent, one of my dreams for Disney California Adventure is adding more lands with environmental design, and overhauling the lands that are defined entirely through buildings. Mostly because of the wordplay, I’ve been thinking about how Paradise Gardens Park could be transformed into Paradise Falls (the land that Carl goes to in Up). I though oh they could have a hot air balloon ride that circles the park, a Wilderness Explorer’s adventure through some caves under the fall, a boat ride on whatever part of the water isn’t needed for the World of Color fountains. And then I remembered the rideable animatronics from Galaxy’s Edge and thought “what if you could ride Kevin.”

What if it was like a riding class, with a herd of Snipes going through basic lessons led by a castmember dressed like a Wilderness Explorer. The moves would all be programmable, but it’s presented as if the guests are controlling their animals, starting with walk, trot, canter, then a bit of maneuvering around obstacles, maybe a JUMP?? The animatronics wouldn’t behave perfectly in sync, they’d each have some individual movement like a head nod or a small little body shake.

Animatronics aren’t just pretending to be a person anymore! They can be the ride themselves and I can’t wait to see it!

#dca redesign #up #animatronics #ride ideas

[amateurimagineering]

Kill Your Darlings; The Top 3 Precious Attractions I Could See Go

Autopia was one of the few rides that opened with Disneyland on July 17th 1955. It is also the very first ride most Disneyland superfans are willing to give up if any of them (original or not) need to go. It’s a ride out of time, both in terms of technology (the cars don’t hold up to the average mini-golf/go-cart center cart tbh), and theme (car culture is a thing of the past, a fact that DCA’s Carsland fully acknowledges with its retro styling that still manages to look more modern that Autopia). There’s also the fact that it’s very loud and very smelly (breaking a lot of environmental immersion in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland). The fact that it has a huge footprint that could fit half a dozen new attractions and a whole new land if they were smart doesn’t hurt. It’s simply holding the park back, and I say this as the one person in any group I’ve ever gone to Disneyland with that always suggests going for a ride. I have a collection of fake licenses, and that’s enough of a memory.

The Tiki Room. Unlike with Autopia, Tumblr is probably the only place I can say I want to get rid of the Tiki Room and not be attacked by every other Disneyland fan out there. But come on, the birds’ mouths are louder than their song! And the characters are blatantly racist. It’s a charming notion, and I would never want to get rid of the Tiki Room as an entertainment space, but it needs some very serious plussing. It needs new animatronics, new characters, and a new remastered recording of the music. That’s all at the very least. I think there’s a real way to make the story of the Tiki Room more authentic without losing the cheery goofy magic of the show. I love the Tiki Room, because I love sitting down and watching a show while I eat my Dole Whip, but it’s outdated and needs some help.

Star Tours and Indiana Jones probably saved the park in the 80s. They were modern and advanced and just incredibly fun. Only one of them holds up. Star Tours has just been made completely obsolete by Galaxy’s Edge. Both in terms of “why is there Star Wars somewhere outside Star Wars land” and because Smuggler’s Run is built around the same concept: a flight simulator where you are part of a customizable story that continues the story of the movies. Star Tours was one of my favorite rides for a long long time. I love every inch of the queue, and listening to Sigourney Weaver tell me to put my ears in the basket under my chair, and hoping I’ll get to be the undercover rebellion member even though I know I’m not sitting in the right chair. It’s a great ride, but it’s been made better elsewhere in the park and it’s time to let it go (a similar reason is behind my desire to see Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster leave as well: Toy Story Midway Mania is simply a better interactive game ride, and the only reason I think Buzz has stayed around so long is so that there’s on in each park. Star Tours doesn’t have that excuse, since you don’t need a park hopper to experience both it and Smuggler’s and see which one is lacking).

#disneyland redesign #star tours #the tiki room #autopia

[amateurimagineering]

Tomorrow Isn’t In Space

Tomorrowland was conceived and built in the middle of the space race, and it hasn’t given up that narrow view of what tomorrow looks like since. Well originally Tomorrowland was a bit of an expo space, obsessed with new technology (and advertising the companies that made it), but once Space Mountain hit it quickly became Spaceland. And to be clear, Space Mountain is one of the best Disney attractions of all time. Is there story? Nope! There doesn’t need to be. The music and lighting and projections do all the work to completely transport you and make you feel like you’re going impossibly fast in a place that’s definitely not a giant warehouse. It’s smart high tech (for the time it was built) and smart low tech (literally just turn off the lights and your imagination does the rest).

So Tomorrowland is where Star Tours went, and where Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster went, where AstroOrbiter (no relation) and Galaxy Grill and Pizza Planet all went. And, for some reason, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. The only non-space related thing in Tomorrowland is Autopia, a ride that honestly feels more retro than Frontierland given how obsolete the very idea of car culture is right now. But is “space” really the best representation of tomorrow? Is it the best representation of exploration and discovery, two key themes behind each of the original lands?

No, I don’t think so. I think our future is on Earth, and I think our future is in technology and within communities.

My perfect Tomorrowland would have a version of Living with the Land from Epcot. A version of Journey to the Center of the Earth from DisneySea. A revival of Carousal of Progress that showcases not just American inventions and culture but a global representation of innovation. It could have entertainment not based around Jedi training, but based around showing off Disneyland’s own mindbending technology (a Mythbusters with fewer explosions, if you will). I’m not opposed to IP, but the perfect Disney IP representation of the future is Wall-E, not the green aliens from Toy Story.

Looking at it, maybe my Tomorrowland isn’t quite about discovery and exploration either. It’s about sustainability and preservation. After all we don’t magically find tomorrow, we create it. And what’s a more optimistic lesson to impart onto children than they are the masters of their own adventure.

#disneyland #disneyland redesign #tomorrowland #tomorrowland redesign

[amateurimagineering]

I spent New Year’s Eve going into 2020 at Disneyland. It was the third time I had ever been to a Disney Park ever in my life, and I went with two people who I only knew casually, and had never spent more than 4 hours with at a time (and never together). It was the most magical and wonderful weekend of my life, and I let myself be slightly peer pressured into getting an annual pass to let the fun continue. To turn 2020 into our Year of Disney. We would go back two more times before the park closed, one time during the Chinese New Year celebration (The Year of the Mouse, we said smilingly so unaware of what was to come).

I do believe there’s something special about Disney parks, and I do believe without a trace of irony that they’re all works of art, but I’m still not sure how much of the kind of manic love I’ve been feeling toward them since that visit is really some kind of response to the fact that all of our plans were cancelled and we were locked in our houses without money or company.

It doesn’t really matter, though, because the love is there. The interest has grown with every night I spent trying to distract myself or force myself to feel even a little bit of optimism by watching videos or reading articles about the last place I had felt honest exhilarating joy.

I will be completely honest right now. Is the Disney Corporation a morally questionable organization that causes damage to both communities and their environment? Yeah. Is the Disney Parks division part of that? I mean they have nightly fireworks so again, yeah. And that’s an “at best” description tbh.

But it’s also true that the parks are the absolute fondest memory they’ve ever had for some people. For some families! It’s true that they are, again I am not exaggerating even a little, masterpieces of craftsmanship and detailed design.

I’ve been leaning quite heavily on Disneyland and other Disney parks recently, both in research and in daydreams, to get me through some very dark times. Dark times for my personal life and just like the world at large. I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do when I can eventually go back, and when that gets a little depressing thinking about what I would do if I could make the park catered a bit more toward me (because as much as Disneyland brings out the best in me, the least negative, there’s no mistaking there are problems in all the parks or at the very least areas that aren’t as perfect as other areas).

And then I thought, hey, Disneyland is about community and sharing the love, so why not share the love. Share the creative output and collaborate a little, even in hypothetical.

Disneyland is our land, after all.

#statement of purpose

[amateurimagineering]

Disneyland is Your Land

“To all who come to this happy place; welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past…and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams and the hard facts that have created America…with the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.”

There’s a certain mythologizing that people do about Walt Disney. And for those who have been deeply affected by the magic of Disneyland, that tends to extend to the Imagineers as well. Of course they aren’t myths or legends or superhumans; they were artists. They did something risky, something that no one at the time could have ever guessed would grow to what it has today, but any artist does the same thing every time they follow through on that little kernel of a thought that asks “what if.”

And of course, I believe that everyone is an artist in some way. Imagineers are famous for their attention to detail: the forced perspective of Main Street and Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, the small hearts on the shutters in Fantasyland, each and every hidden Mickey in the park. That’s not the product of one person thinking of everything, that’s people of different skillsets and disciplines coming together. And the parks have only grown more detailed as the company relies less on artists teaching themselves new skills to fill the vacancies. Every piece of Disneyland is designed by someone, from the paintjob on It’s a Small World to the way the Smuggler’s Run queue circles around back of the Millenium Falcon to keep the walkway clear.

“I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.”

Disneyland will never be complete, Walt once famously said in response to a reporter criticizing the lack of attractions at the unfinished park he opened 364 days after breaking ground because any longer without paying back his loans and Bank of America would have came for his hide. Was it a cop-out? Maybe. But there’s no denying the power in the second half of the quote: “It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world.”

There’s still imagination in the world, a little question in the back of everyone’s mind that sounds off at random times throughout their day that asks “what if.” Maybe we don’t always follow every idea through to the end, maybe we don’t follow any. But the thought is there. Disneyland is your land, and anyone can cook.

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