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

Valle Encanto

Background

We’re lucky to be in the midst of what some entertainment industry observers call the “Disney Revival” – a second Renaissance at Walt Disney Animation Studios that began with 2009’s Princess and the Frog and has seen incredible, defining films like Frozen, Tangled, Big Hero 6, and Moana grace our screens. To be honest, all of them are highly theme-park-able properties with astoundingly cool worlds. (I dedicated very large, immersive lands to two of them in my from-scratch concept park, Disney’s Fantastic Worlds.)

Given the space I had to work with, though, I decided to dedicate a mini-land to the very interesting and fairly recent addition: Encanto. Set in an enchanted, forested village in Columbia, Encanto tells the tale of the extended Madrigal family, each of whom is blessed with a supernatural gift that strengthens their town. Warm, authentic, and drawing from Hispanic familial tradition, Encanto is a reflection on what it means to be part of a family, what we do with the gifts we’re given, and how you find your place in the world.

To be really honest with you, I didn’t love Encanto on my first watch, and even if it’s come around, it’s not my favorite of the Revival films. But for this small-ish space, I think the village lends itself perfectly to a “Living Land.”

Build-Out

Basically, my Valle Encanto is a single winding streetscape through the enchanted village that evolved around the Madrigal’s home. Alive with vivid color, astonishing flowers, and continuous music, I think this village lends itself so well to a theme park, and the wonderful foods and flavors and colors of Columbia are just such a great addition. (So much so that if we don’t put an Encanto land here, we’ll almost certainly see one in World Showcase eventually.)

Of course, all of the activity in town centers on the Casita – the magical home of the Madrigals where an enchanted candle brings the house to life.

Here’s where I pass my duties on to you. I designed an attraction I called LA CASITA ENCANTADA that would be a wonderful journey through the Madrigals musical, magical home, pursuing the candle when it mysteriously disappears. The bad news is, that ride uses the ride system and layout of Mystic Manor, which I’ve already used up in this park!

To be safe, I gave La Casita Encantada a showbuilding the same size as the Haunted Mansion, which would be large enough to contain a substantial dark ride. But what should it be? Hmm…

Instead of telling you what I think, why don’t you let me know your thoughts? What kind of attraction would you place in the Madrigal’s Casita? What ride system? What storyline might propel guests through it? Would “something go horribly wrong,” or would your Encanto ride be a musical journey? Let me know in the comments below, or by tweeting your thoughts, sketches, or ideas to @themeparklore!

Until then, let’s keep moving…

Lost River

Background

Indiana Jones in one of those franchises with which Disney’s had quite a “will they or won’t they” relationship. Thanks to the company’s longstanding relationship with George Lucas, Indy has been a part of Disney Parks for over thirty years – first via the Studios’ Epic Stunt Spectacular in 1989, then with Disneyland’s headlining E-Ticket Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure – Temple of the Forbidden Eye in 1995. A similar EMV attraction within a pseudo-Indy land opened with Tokyo Disneyland in 2001 as well. But like Star Wars, Disney simply licensed Indiana Jones as an external IP in their parks.

Disney acquired both Indiana Jones and Star Wars upon its $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012, but even that isn’t as clear as it seems. Despite nominally owning both franchises, the already-produced films in each still fell under the purview of their distributors – Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox, respectively. Obviously Disney solved the latter by buying Fox outright, but Paramount still retains the rights to the first four films in the Indiana Jones series. (2023’s Dial of Destiny will be the first Indy film Disney owns outright.)

There’s also the inherently problematic aspects of Indiana Jones, with its 1930s and ’40s setting, its “othering” and “exoticism” of other cultures, and its colonial messaging all being issues Disney would rather not touch. (There’s no doubt that the existing Indy ride is on Disney’s shortlist of attractions guilty of cultural appropriation at best, and outright offensive stereotyping at worst… but imagining an Indiana Jones attraction without those aspects is pretty much impossible…)

The result is that Disney’s relationship with Indiana Jones isn’t quite as strong as Star Wars, and series’ reliance on one character played by one actor versus a grand ensemble and a continuous narrative makes it less franchisable than Star Wars, too. But when it comes to Disney’s library of characters, no one embodies the adventure genre more than Indy, which is why I wanted an “Adventureland” for this park to be drawn from his world…

Build-Out

Lost River is something of an interpolation of the Lost River Delta land at Tokyo DisneySea, because re-inventing the wheel here felt foolish. (I did create a more from-scratch Indiana Jones-themed land for Fantastic Worlds, where I had more space and fewer restrictions.)

One of the elements I love best about Tokyo’s land is that it’s arranged as two opposing camps on either side of a river: the settled camp of explorers who’ve set up a rickety, piecemeal village of “modern” civilization on one side, and a campus of ancient temple complexes on the other. There’s a brilliance there in crossing the river being the path into the ‘unknown’; a juxtaposition of who’s really the richer civilization; a comparison of then-and-now.

Differentiating this EMV ride from California’s (with its Southeast Asian setting and style), I came up with the concept of INDIANA JONES ADVENTURE: TEMPLE OF THE FEATHERED SERPENT – an Aztec temple deep in South America where guests search for the ancient ruins of a great lost statue of Quetzalcoatl.

Again, it’s tough to even wade into this without going, “Yep, that’s not okay.” Like, the theme-park-ification of genuine Aztec imagery – especially being exaggerated and turned into gee-whiz, escape-the-gods’-wrath special effects is just not going to happen. Even a “fictional” culture that clearly resembles a real one is just such a sticky place for Disney to go.

And yet here I am saying Indiana Jones deserves a land, and a ride. I just feel that we’ve got to work out the best way to do it while living up to the character and story while also being thoughtful about which tropes we accept (while acknowledging that they are indeed tropes), and which we have to say, “Yeah, we don’t want that.” I think assembling councils and project teams derived from the populations involved as paid cultural consultants is the least we can do, because maybe they’d say, “This sounds like fun, and here’s how you make it accurate to our own myths and legends, and here’s the message we’d love riders to get!”

Anyway, in my continuous quest to add C- and D-Ticket capacity to these parks, the most obvious thing to wedge into the last expansion space would probably be a copy of the ultra-compact Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril roller coaster at Disneyland Paris. But… it’s not a very good ride. So instead, I opted for the return of an endangered species: a HUSS Top Spin I called THE ALTAR.

It’s 100% because I’m a ’90s kid and watched these nimble, flipping Top Spins (otherwise a traveling carnival favorite) become increasingly well-themed, swapping straight-up nausea for wonderful atmosphere at worst, and downright storytelling at best. Some of the best – like Phantasialand’s Talocan and Kings Dominion’s TOMB RAIDER: Firefall included synchronized music, fountains, flames, water bursts, and decor that made them as fun to watch as to ride, adding great kinetic energy and theming to regional, seasonal parks. (The peak of the genre – the Lost Legend: TOMB RAIDER – The Ride at Kings Island – remains one of the greatest closed rides of all time, if you ask me.)

It’s true that these rides fall well outside of Disney’s usual standard in terms of hardware and thrill level… But encased in theming, set back from the main path a bit, and orchestrated beautifully with fire and water and music and a built-in mini-plaza from which to watch… I mean, why not? It’s not that intrusive, and less thrilling than Mission: SPACE.

The only concession to be made here is that Indiana Jones Adventure and The Altar combined probably have slightly less daily throughput than the current Epic Stunt Spectacular they’d be replacing when that show is firing on all cylinders. But as an experience, I think they would create a really wonderful one-two punch for a land.

And… cut!

Which, I guess, brings us to the end of this Blue Sky build-out of Disney’s Hollywood Studios! In all, this “reborn” park would still have so much of what makes it strong today – its emphasis on old school Hollywood environments and its big name IPs. What it would lose is its flexibility and its excuses. This would be a park with clear dedications to particular stories, built in scenic concrete! Though a few expansion pads could be mustered from backstage facilities, we’d be looking at a park pretty well “complete”.

Hollywood Blvd. Sunset Blvd. Hidden Hills. Metroville from The Incredibles. Walt Disney Studios. Mickey’s Steamboat Springs. Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Muppet Studios. Valle Encanto. The Lost River of Indiana Jones. Those ten lands would begin as worlds dedicated to Hollywood, then link guests through portals into the worlds of Disney, Pixar, and Star Wars. It’s kind of a nice concept, right?

So what do you think of this built-out Hollywood Studios? Is this a park you’d like to visit? Or did you envision Disney World’s third gate evolving in an entirely different direction? Let us know in the comments below, or share your visions on Twitter and tag me at @themeparklore! I’d love to see what you’re dreaming of…

Until then, be sure to swing by my other Blue Sky Build-Outs – Disney California Adventure, Universal’s Islands of Adventure, and the from-scratch concept park, Disney’s Fantastic Worlds.