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Lights, Camera, Action!: A Blue Sky, Armchair Imagineered Redesign of Disney’s Hollywood Studios Theme Park

What is Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and what should it be?

That question has hung over decades of Disney Imagineers like a dark cloud. It makes sense… after all, you have to remember that when Walt Disney World’s third gate (then called the Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park) opened in 1989, its purpose was twofold: externally, to whisk guests away into the real, behind-the-scenes filmmaking of Walt Disney Pictures, and internally, to scare competitors at Universal Studios out of their plans to build a version of their world famous Studio Tour in Orlando. Long story short: neither endeavor was successful.

Image: Disney

As a result, Disney spent decades laboring over the park, stuffing it with one-off E-Tickets to draw in guests. The park’s “studio backlot” theme was a scapegoat of sorts, allowing designers to abandon the standards they’d set at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT and instead mash piecemeal IPs into beige studio soundstages, focusing on promotion over permanence. Even by the early 2000s, the park’s “studio” style had soured. In an era defined by immersive, timeless projects like Islands of Adventure and Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios looked like a cop-out.

In the mid-2010s, Disney began polling guests on potential new names for the park, at last signaling that it might turn away from its “backlot” origins… “Disney Cinemagine Kingdom.” “Disney XL Park.” “Disney Beyond Park.” “Disney Kaleidoscope Park.” None stuck. That’s probably because – especially with immersive, cinematic lands like Toy Story Land and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge topping the bill – it was obvious that Disney’s Hollywood Studios wasn’t a Hollywood Studio… but… what was it?

Continue reading “Lights, Camera, Action!: A Blue Sky, Armchair Imagineered Redesign of Disney’s Hollywood Studios Theme Park”
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MEOW WOLF: A Glimpse Into the Colorful, Creative, and Cosmic Future of Themed Entertainment Design

“Meow Wolf.” If you said it out loud a decade ago, you would probably have gotten a lot of concerned looks from family and friends.

But today, this artist collective based in Santa Fe, New Mexico has become a well-known creator in the themed entertainment design space with three permanent art installations spread across the American West. Meow Wolf’s three explorable installations – The House of Eternal Return, OmegaMart, and Convergence Station – are totally immersive, explorable environments; potential puzzles with discoverable backstories and vast lore; trippy, artistic, home-grown, artist-led, locally-sourced, completely-original universes designed for visitors to get lost, climb, slide, dance, relax, feel, and try something new.

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EPCOT40: New and Nostalgic Ways To See, Hear, and Feel “Classic EPCOT” in the Park, Four Decades Later…

Whether you first visited EPCOT in the ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, or 2010s, a trip to the park today would tell you that EPCOT’s story has been a complex one. EPCOT is a park rooted in the past and perpetually tasked by the present to envision a future we now inhabit. At nearly every step of its life, it’s battled between what it was, is, and could be. Somewhere between being hopelessly retro and hopelessly futuristic, the park has been the subject of fan debate for decades, even as piecemeal updates, changes, replacements, and character injections have tried to balance EPCOT’s thrills, entertainment, and family appeal.

We all know that in 2019, Disney officially launched a California-Adventure-sized reimagining of EPCOT, committing billions of dollars and at least a half-decade of focused attention to Walt Disney World’s second gate. It’s unlikely than any singular vision for EPCOT could ever balance the whims of fans who recall its intellectually ambitious origin, executives who have long detested its lack of character, and guests who have long been caught between the park’s competing identities.

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 Bronze, Silver, 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 Bronze, Silver, 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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Bursting the “Disney Bubble” – 8 Lost Perks & Brand New Upcharges for a Post-Pandemic Walt Disney World

More than 50 years ago, Walt Disney staked out his studio’s secret landholdings in Central Florida, decreeing: “There’s enough land here to hold all the ideas and plans we could imagine.” In the five decades since, Disney’s San-Francisco-sized property in Central Florida has grown in fits and starts, but always under the glassy, iridescent dome of the “Disney Bubble.”

The “Disney Bubble” is invisible, yet it insulates Walt Disney World in just the same way that the tree-lined berm shielded Disneyland from the “real world.” The “Disney Bubble” is intangible, but evidence of it surrounds you. Once “inside,” you’re not just in swampland seceded from Orange and Osceola Counties to the Reedy Creek Improvement District, but immersed in someplace safe… familiar… magical. It doesn’t matter that Disney’s most “Deluxe” rooms are often comparable to off-site hotels a mile away and a quarter the price… the “Disney Bubble” is real, and you can’t put a price on that.

Continue reading “Bursting the “Disney Bubble” – 8 Lost Perks & Brand New Upcharges for a Post-Pandemic Walt Disney World”
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Universal Alignment: The Build-Up To Universal’s New Epic Theme Park… And Why Disney Doesn’t Seem Too Worried

It’s been decades since either Disney or Universal opened a new theme park on American soil… and in those decades, game-changing innovations in ride systems, guest-facing technology, and industry best-practices have changed by leaps and bounds.

Now, just over the horizon, those decades of innovation and imagination appear ready to coalesce on the first from-scractch major U.S. park born after the Wizarding World reset the rules of themed design. Universal’s Epic Universe looks to be a best-of, portfolio-defining park maked by immersive, blockbuster themed lands and cutting edge E-Tickets based on some of the world’s highest-earning franchises.

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Get To Know MCO: 6 Stories, Secrets, and Surprises From The Orlando International Airport

Orlando International Airport. For most theme park fans, it’s the literal gateway to the Magic Kingdom; a waypoint to EPCOT; the official start of a Disney Cruise; a stopover en route to Universal Orlando… and at the end of a trip, the depressing portal back to reality. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably passed through the Orlando International Airport yourself! But how much do you really know about “MCO” and how it connects to Disney World literally and metaphorically?

Image: MCO

Today, we’ll take a look at a few of the surprising stories you may not know about Orlando International Airport, as well as dig into the oddities and features of this airport that you know and love. Take your seats; place tray-tables in their upright and locked position, please, as we take off into the true stories of MCO… Speaking of which…

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 Bronze, Silver, 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 Bronze, Silver, 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.


Log In or Join Now
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“It’ll Never Work!” 5 Now-Hilarious Things Walt’s 1950s Competitors Said About Disneyland & Why They Were Wrong

Today, the top three most-visited theme parks on Earth are all “Disneylands.” Just about every park built “A.D.” (that is, After Disneyland) borrow in one form or another from its model, layout, or attractions. So it’s easy to forget that once upon a time, Disneyland was a risk… one that industry experts were certain was doomed to fail.

Our friends at The Park Database compiled a very interesting list of quotes from Walt’s very own 1950s competitors shared at a Buzz Price focus group. In retrospect, obviously, these amusement park operators’ ideas about what would and wouldn’t work about Disneyland are downright hilarious… but they’re also very telling.

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 Bronze, Silver, 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 Bronze, Silver, 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.


Log In or Join Now
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California Dreamin’: An Armchair-Imagineered, Master-Planned Build-Out of Disney California Adventure Park

“Armchair Imagineering.” For Disney Parks fans, it’s a skill that’s learned early, and practiced often. Almost inescapably, theme park aficianados can’t help but to imagine what could be; what should be; what we would do if we were given creative control of a theme park we love and an unlimited budget to make it happen.

And once in a while, we finally decide to put our ideas down and make them real. That’s exactly what lead to this project: my armchair-Imagineered, fully-matured, Blue Sky version of California Adventure. (It’s not the only “Blue Sky Build-Out” I’ve created! You can check out my reimagined version of Disney’s Hollywood Studios on Twitter, and my from-scratch plans for a whole new Disney Park – Fantastic Worlds – here on Park Lore.)

I should say before I even begin that no one “armchair Imagineers” better than S.W. Wilson, whose blog – Ideal Build-Out – contains work that is not only jaw-droppingly, stomach-churningly enviable, but almost inconcievably professional. Be sure to bookmark that blog, and follow @buildoutideal on Twitter for incredible park concepts.

Continue reading “California Dreamin’: An Armchair-Imagineered, Master-Planned Build-Out of Disney California Adventure Park”
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MILLENNIUM FORCE: The Record-Shattering Story of Cedar Point’s Gigacoaster Icon and How It Won the Coaster Wars

Right at the intersection of art and science resides the roller coaster…

And though we’ve devoted in-depth features to many – from Son of Beast to the Big Bad Wolf; Expedition Everest to Top Thrill Dragster; Space Mountain: De la Terre à la Lune to Volcano: The Blast Coaster – in the opinion of many of the industry’s most devoted fans, the ride that most magnificently combines art and science in one is Millennium Force, the landmark gigacoaster at Cedar Point.

Continue reading “MILLENNIUM FORCE: The Record-Shattering Story of Cedar Point’s Gigacoaster Icon and How It Won the Coaster Wars”
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FANTASTIC WORLDS: A Land-by-Land Tour of Park Lore’s Blue Sky, Built-Out, Armchair Imagineered Disney Park

You know that park that lives entirely in your head? The one you’ve dreamed of and daydreamed and doodled to perfection? The one you’ve “armchair Imagineered” to such detail, you feel as if it could be a real place? After many, many years of sketching it and rearranging its pieces and adding and subtracting, I decided it was time to write mine down.

Welcome to Disney Fantastic Worlds – my first from-scratch theme park both in real life (where I started doodling the basics of this park a decade ago) and for Park Lore.

Let me say now that this feature will doubtlessly be the longest I’ve ever written for Park Lore. Together, we’ll travel from land-to-land, uncovering the Pitch, Inspiration & Concept, and Experience of each of this imaginary park’s nine lands. I may not be able to make this place as real in your mind as it is in mine, but I really intend to try! If you’d rather skim through the big stuff, you can read a Twitter-condensed version here. But if you’re interested in hearing some of my inspiration and reasoning and behind-the-scenes thinking about how this park came together, settle in!

Continue reading “FANTASTIC WORLDS: A Land-by-Land Tour of Park Lore’s Blue Sky, Built-Out, Armchair Imagineered Disney Park”
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