Disneyland Archives - Page 4 of 11

October 3, 2020April 6, 2021

10 Most Incredible Projection-Mapped Moments in Disney Rides (With Videos to Prove It)

For more than six years, Disney’s designers have been assembling an industry-leading toolbox of storytelling tricks. From Audio Animatronics to cutting edge ride systems, Disney doesn’t just lead the industry… sometimes, it is the industry. But in the last few decades, fans have seen one particular tool rise to the forefront in Disney Parks: projection mapping.

While we certainly could make a list of the most incredible scene-based effects in Disney Parks, projection mapping is not just “screens!” In fact, it’s quite a lot more. When Imagineers use projection mapping techniques and technologies, they create media to project onto physical sets and built or natural environments. In that way, projection mapping isn’t about merely projecting media, but about using projected media to expand, deepen, enrich, or enhance a world.

To that end, our list will be packed with in-ride moments where projection mapping adds life, energy, and “magic” to Disney Parks rides! Sometimes subtle, sometimes explosive, projection mapping is a major tool in Imagineers’ toolbox today, and with each subsequent use, designers seem to refine its roles. These are just some of our favorites… where else have you seen projection mapping enhance your favorite Disney attractions?

Be warned! Projection-based moments that serve as jaw-dropping finales, showstopping scenes, and epic encounters are on this list, so if you’d rather avoid spoilers for rides (up to and including Disney’s newest), you may have to skip an entry or two!

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.

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September 19, 2020December 29, 2021

From Tourist to Trainee: 6 Iconic, Archetypal “Roles” You’ve Stepped Into in Disney & Universal Parks

Whether you’ve rocketed through the boundless cosmos on Space Mountain, been an adventurer uncovering the mysteries of the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, trekked through the lantern-lit forests of Grizzly Peak, or explored the snow-capped village of Hogsmeade, you’ve been a part of one of the most essential cornerstones of themed entertainment design: story.

When you spend a day at a Disney or Universal Park, you truly do “leave today” and step into new worlds, new adventures… and new roles. From archaeologists to time-travelers, students to tourists, reporters to escape artists, a day at the parks is truly a day on-stage, trying on an assortment of once-in-a-lifetime roles.

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September 19, 2020February 21, 2023

NIGHT MAGIC: The Main Street Electrical Parade From Powering On to “Glowing Away” Forever

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… Disneyland proudly presents our spectacular festival pageant of nighttime magic and imagination in thousands of sparkling lights and electro-syntho-magnetic musical sounds… The Main Street Electrical Parade!”

For generations of Disney Parks guests, that triumphant, electronic, vocoded fanfare was far more than an announcement; it was a prelude to a dream. Dazzling sights set aglow in the darkness of Disneyland; infectious, joyful music bounding throughout Magic Kingdom; a dreamscape of hundreds of thousands of lightbulbs reflecting in the eyes of young and old… This was peak Disney.

For fifty years, the Main Street Electrical Parade was a synthesized, symphonic, mobile masterpiece, elevated to stand among classic attractions like very few entertainment offerings can. It was an icon of the era; a masterwork of engineering, audio production, design, and marketing… and then, it was gone. At least, for a while.

Today, we induct the Main Street Electrical Parade into our catalog of Lost Legends – the in-depth stories behind loved-and-lost theme park classics from around the globe. We’ll trace the development of this sensational cross-generational fan favorite, follow its many rebirths, and see how the concept has been often imitated (but never quite duplicated!) in an array of dance-along nighttime parades that have come since.

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September 3, 2020June 18, 2021

“Just Open The Line!” “Make It FastPass Only!” Nope. The Case for Rise of the Resistance Boarding Groups.

NOTE: This Special Feature was written in February 2020, just before Walt Disney World’s theme parks closed due to COVID-19 and the parks’ capacities were heavily altered. Park capacities as well as the throughput of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will have changed, but as a defense of Disney’s batched virtual queue (“Boarding Groups”) and its potential continued use on “high demand + low capacity + low reliability” rides, this Special Feature will remain unedited.

Imagine you lead Walt Disney World’s operations team.

You preside over the operations of the world’s most talked-about theme park experience – Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance… a single attraction so sought-after, families are willing to set 4AM alarms on their vacation to rouse kids from their peaceful slumber just to get a chance to see what’s inside; a ride unanimously called the world’s most ambitious; the attraction that’s literally redefining the capabilities of a theme park experience before our very eyes; the ride everyone wants to ride.

Now all you need to do is figure out how to get people on board.

We’ve all seen it on Facebook, Twitter, or Disney Parks discussion boards: “Just open the line!” “Make it FastPass only!” Would it really be that easy? Well, next time you see those comments, send them this article… Because today, we’re going to tackle this problem once and for all. With some detective work, we’ll see exactly what the future may hold for the queue of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

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August 18, 2020February 22, 2021

REVIEW: “Kiss My Halyx!” Defunctland’s Must-See Musical Microcosm of Disney Rock ‘n’ Roll

There is not now – and likely, has never been – a single thing to happen at Disneyland that could be described as “inconsequential.” Disneyland is hallowed ground. Every person; every attraction; every thing that has taken place there shapes – and is shaped by – Walt Disney’s original magic kingdom. Even still, there are plenty of times that monumental moments and pivotal people in the story of Disney Parks are left untold, fading from generation to generation until they disappear from the parks’ stories for good.

And that’s almost what happened to Halyx. Almost.

Image: Matthew Serrano Films / Defunctland

August 7, 2020August 31, 2020

8 Luxurious Hotels Where You Can Sleep “INSIDE” Your Favorite Theme Parks

Let’s face it: spending the night inside your favorite theme park is probably one of the coolest ideas on Earth. Problem is that there are precious few legal ways to do it. But all is not lost. Sensing guest’s deep connection and love for their parks, some resorts have gone out of their way to create premium, outstanding hotel and resort accomodations that are completely and totally immersed into the stories and settings of their parks, and featuring exclusive entrances just for hotel guests.

Below, we’ve selected eight of the best examples of awesome hotels placed right inside your favorite adventures. All of the experiences below are pretty high-tier. Some are so exclusive, there’s practically no amount of money or time on a wait list that can promise you a stay. As for the rest, they may take some saving up, but it’s a lot more comfortable (and legal) than camping out in the bushes hoping to go undiscovered all night long. Have you had the chances to stay in any of these deluxe accomodations? Which would you most like to experience?

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This feature is one that’s usually locked in our Member Vault, where Park Lore patrons can find hand-drawn art, armchair Imagineering walkthroughs, and other in-depth Special Features, as well as quick-read, just-for-fun Extra Features. Thanks to supporting Members, this feature is temporarily unlocked as a preview!

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July 16, 2020February 22, 2021

ROYAL RANKING: The Definitive Castle Countdown of All Six Disney Parks Palaces

Disney Castles are some of the most iconic architectural structures on Earth. Standing among the Eiffel Tower, the State of Liberty, the Taj Mahal, and the Sydney Opera House, they can be identified by silhouette by young and old alike. Every single one of Disney’s resorts on Earth contains a castle as its icon… but not all of these princess palaces are made equal…

In Disney’s long-running quest to reinvent, repurpose, revolutionize, and reimagine the icons of their parks, some Disney castles rise to the top while others fall behind. Reimaginings, new color schemes, and overlays have affected them all, but on our quest to compare Disney’s castles, we’ve got to make some hard decisions about which of these palaces are truly the most beautiful.

Take a look at our countdown from ugliest to most beautiful and let us know: which Disney castles could use a rebuild, a repaint, or a redesign? Which are timelessly beautiful?

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July 7, 2020July 7, 2020

9 Attractions Disney Would NEVER Build Today (For Better or Worse), and Why…

What if the very first Disney theme park was being built today? What if the modern Walt Disney Company decided to break into the theme park business? Would the classics make the cut?

For most of Disney’s iconic attractions, the answer just might be “no!” That’s why today, we’re taking a close look at nine major hurdles today’s Disney Parks leadership might have a hard time getting over, and the nine (or more!) beloved, fan-favorite attractions that would probably NEVER get the green-light today… including the questions we suspect executives would ask about each.

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July 5, 2020October 29, 2020

Possibilityland: A Walk Through The Disneyland That Never Was… But Could’ve Been

To all who come to this place of possibility: welcome. Possibilityland is your land. Or… It could’ve been!

Here at Park Lore, our Possibilitlyand series contains the stories of rides, attractions, lands, and even theme parks that almost were. With each entry, we’ve explored never-built, could-be classics from the Western River Expedition to Muppet Studios; Disney’s America to Westcot. But today, our trips into Possibilityland set their sights on an entire alternate-reality version of a park we think we know…

Today, we’ll walk through themed lands of Disneyland that look quite different from the ones we know and examine the attractions that were cut just before they came to life. In Possibilityland, we can find attractions, areas, and even full lands that simply never came to pass. Think about it: if someone had said “Yes!” instead of saying “No!” (or vice versa), this could be the Happiest Place on Earth!

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July 5, 2020January 5, 2021

These 13 “Endangered” Attractions May Not Survive the 2020s! Will Your Next Ride Be Your Last?

If you’ve been a theme park fan long enough, one thing you’ve learned to deal with is change. It seems that attractions are always coming and going from Disney and Universal’s parks, and with both operators’ new unspoken commitment to featuring box office blockbusters and “hot” intellectual properties (sometimes at the expense of classics!), that tempo seems likely to only increase…

In June 2020, Disney dropped the surprising announcement that Splash Mountain would soon be reimagined entirely, swapped to a new ride featuring Princess and the Frog. Though we’d altogether call the change one for the better, the switch brings us to a hard truth: standing at the dawn of a new decade, we have to imagine that there are quite a few other classics that won’t survive the 2020s. To guide us through this rundown of “endangered” attractions, we’ll use the same rising classification used on at-risk species.

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