Sneak Peek – Special Features Archives - Page 4 of 4

November 12, 2021June 23, 2024

Disney+ Parks: Thoughts on the Increasingly Interchangeable Identities and Diminishing Themes of the Disney Parks

theme [theem], n., a unifying idea; the deeper meaning; the thing that a story is about.

Once upon what feels like a very long time ago, each of Walt Disney World’s four theme parks was imbued with its own theme; a concise identity; a clear vision of what, exactly, it was about. Make no mistake, when Imagineers discuss “theme,” they don’t mean decoration, or props, or intellectual property; they mean an underlying, unifying idea; even a message. Theme with a capital-T, if you will.

Consider the Theme underlying each of Disney’s parks at the time of its opening. Magic Kingdom was fantasy made real; EPCOT was reality made fantastic; The Disney-MGM Studios was about the romance and reality of Hollywood; Animal Kingdom, an embodiment of the supreme and untradeable value of nature. In the design and development of each park, each had an identity – one distinct from the others and wholly its own – that not only informed the attractions and environments within, but set a bar for, protected against, and served as stalwart gatekeeper to would-be interlopers.

It’s clear today that Walt Disney World’s four theme parks are four very different places built at four different times and with four different visions. (Few would stand in EPCOT believing they were in Animal Kingdom.) But beyond the decoration, are they really about four different things? Does each sum up to have something uniquely big – or for that matter, anything at all – to say? Or have Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars created an era of interchangeable “Disney+ Parks” differentiated only by their decoration?

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August 25, 2021October 12, 2023

Ticket to Paradise: Disney Parks Prices from 1955 to 2024

Our world moves in cycles; predictable patterns of ebbs and flows, beginnings and endings, life and death… like the phases of the moon, some things can just be counted upon as tried, true, and sure. And so it is with annual price hikes at Disney’s two resorts in the United States. Truly a tale as old as time, you can bet your bottom dollar that come hell, highwater, war, recession, or pandemic, somehow and some way, the cost of a day at Disneyland or Walt Disney World will rise.

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August 5, 2021February 20, 2024

WHAT IF… Disney’s Legendary, Terrifying Alien Encounter Was Reborn in Universal Orlando’s Jurassic Park?

Every day, themed entertainment designers ask themselves and each other the same question: “What if?” In the so-called “Blue Sky” phase of design, there’s no limit; no capacity; no technology; no budget. The idea is to dream big and let reality hem in the project’s scope later. In this new Theme Park Tourist mini-series, we invite you to “Blue Sky” with us, and to reimagine a ride that could use a refresh.

As part of Park Lore’s Member-exclusive Extra Features collection, we launched into a new “WHAT IF…” miniseries when we pitched a retheme of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, turning this Sunset Blvd. E-Ticket into a 1930s head trip into The Twilight Zone. Today, we’re wondering what it would be like if Disney’s ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter was reborn at Universal Orlando, and merged into the Jurassic World mythos…

Think this hybridized concept is crazy enough to work? Here’s our pitch…

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February 27, 2021June 25, 2024

MyMagic Minus: The Rise and Fall of Disney’s Billion Dollar Pre-Planning MagicBand Empire

Standing in the sunset glow of Batuu… alone; gazing up at fireworks from a Main Street that’s… empty; a family perfectly sized to capture that Splash Mountain photo… with no pesky strangers in the log. Anyone who’s made the mistake of mentioning “Disney World” in earshot of a smart speaker or so much as Googled the possibility of a trip will quickly find their browser filled with these rosy images of a Disney Parks vacation. In the alternate reality Walt Disney World depicted there, there’s an unspoken guarantee: your family will find a Disney trip as effortlessly magical as all those ABC sitcom families in the ‘90s did.

Of course, anyone who’s actually been to Central Florida will tell you that those dreamy plans quickly evaporate upon arriving on Walt Disney World soil. There, reality checks you fast. Pathways surging with people; restaurant reservations sold out six months in advance; multi-hour queues in parks notoriously short on rides yet packed with E-Tickets; transportation, ticketing, theming, and infrastructure from the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s butting up against one another in continuous conflict.

In the mid-2000s, record crowds (and record prices) were beginning to break the spell of “The Most Magical Place on Earth,” sullying Disney’s reputation for courtesy, efficiency, and show. MyMagic+ was the sleight of hand that would bring the magic back… An abstract-but-ambitious billion dollar undertaking, Disney World’s all-at-once modernization was meant to add ease and simplicity back into a visit; to make Disney World as frictionless as promised; to leave guests effortlessly traversing (and spending money) across Disney’s Central Florida campus. Did it work? Well…

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August 2, 2020November 28, 2022

“It’s Not My Disneyland Anymore:” An Emotional Lament on the Inevitibility of Theme Park Reimaginings

NOTE: This op-ed is a time capsule; a piece concieved of and written during a time of major upheaval at Disneyland Resort. I stand by the emotional perspective I hold in this piece, and even as the changes then became the “new normal,” I recognize that the time will come if it hasn’t already when my favorite parks don’t look like the places I remember. I hope you’ll read it with an open mind and consider how it applies to “your” Disneyland, too.

I think I’m done with Disneyland for a while.

Before you go telling me “Good! Shorter lines for me!,” give me a chance to explain.

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.

This article and hundreds more are available for Gold and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Gold and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

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June 26, 2020November 10, 2023

Disney’s Most Magnificent Attraction Posters and Their Stories

Anyone who’s ever visited a Disney Park knows exactly the kind of magic, mystery, and wonder that awaits within… sailing with pirates, soaring over London, exploring remote jungle rivers, and launching into space. It was the belief of Walt and his early Imagineers that guests would need primed to understand these adventures – the kind most had never expected could exist.

Bringing together talented artists, filmmakers, designers, and thinkers, they developed attraction posters… Just as a film’s poster tries to convey the action, adventure, intrigue, and romance of a movie in a single still image, so too do Disney Parks’ attraction posters act as living advertisements, drawing in and exciting guests as previews of what they’ll soon experience.

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