Disney Story Realms, Part II: The Continued Journey Through a Reimagined Disney Adventure World at Disneyland Paris

Aside: Marvel Avengers Campus

Though it seems a very long time ago after this whole walkthrough, remember that when Walt Disney Studios opened in 2002, the Backlot was perhaps its most reviled space. The backlot was where any semblance of placemaking was allowed to disappear, giving back to the “fascinating” industrial behind-the-scenes of a Hollywood studio. That meant corrugated steel warehouses, big metallic soundstages, and wide, concrete expanses.

The Backlot did contain the park’s only “E-Ticket,” which was a copy of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. It also had Armageddon – Les Effets Speciaux, a sort of immersive special effects show themed to the 1998 film released by Disney’s adult-oriented banner, Touchstone Pictures, and the Moteurs Action! stunt show later ported to Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

A French outpost of the Avengers Campus concept was one of the announcements officially made alongside the park’s 2018 promise of a €2 billion growth spurt. It was relieving when that early concept art showed the heroes overtaking the Backlot. The results are more mixed. Armageddon was demolished to become a French copy of the Spider-Man WEB Adventure that debuted at California Adventure a year earlier.

Imagineering has, until Anaheim’s upcoming Infinity Defense, been allergic to building from-scratch E-Tickets for their $30 billion MCU. Instead, they’ve almost exclusively retrofitted existing rides or ride systems. Whereas California’s campus absorbed the existing Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to create its E-Ticket (Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!), Paris forged its by re-theming Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster to Avengers Assemble: Flight Force.

Unfortunately, it kind of sucks. To be fair, the physical coaster itself is a quarter century old and born of a different philosophy when it comes to high-thrill coasters. But even in terms of the new heroic overlay, it sort of does a “poor man’s” version of what Florida’s Cosmic Rewind does really well (a coaster set in space that zips past screens and intends to tell a story) and what already exists at Disneyland Paris with its launched, multi-inversion Space Mountain. The result is that it’s kind of a bummer.

The good news is that we don’t necessarily need to keep Marvel Avengers Campus at all. I think we could given that a land whose ultimate origin in a comic book is a clever fit for the theme of Disney Story Realms. But we don’t need to keep it. And certainly, it now feels like an outlier in a park that’s been very fantastical and flourish-y. So while I definitely like the idea of a tech campus (which is also so strongly supported by the Backlot-inherited architecture that we’d be “reasonable” to keep it), I’m not sure it has to be Marvel. So again, let’s diverse entirely from corporate mandates and rethink for our final land at Disney Story Realms…

Chapter Ten: BIG HERO CAMPUS

Background

When Disney purchased Marvel in 2009 for $4 billion, it ignited the same kind of corporate all-call mandate to mine that had occurred with Pixar almost four years prior. Divisions across the company were tasked with finding ways to leverage Disney’s new acquisition, which famously amounted to more than 5,000 individual characters.

At Walt Disney Animation Studios, Don Hall (director of 2011’s Winnie the Pooh and later, Moana) stumbled upon a hero team he’d never heard of, but whose name intrigued him – “Big Hero 6.” Debuting in 2005 (but featured in their own mini-series beginning in 2008), the Japanese-stylized comic book series follows thirteen year old tech whiz kid Hiro Takachiho and his synthetic bodyguard named Baymax (imbued with the consciousness of his dead father) who reluctantly join forces with the “Big Hero 6” team to protect Tokyo from Everwraith – a sort of collective astral force embodiment of those killed in the U.S.’s bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

It was a long shot, but Hall pitched an adaptation to John Lasseter (then Chief Creative Officer) who was intrigued by the potential creative freedom of leveraging an obscure comic book series. That turned out to be a good instinct. The final film is so diverged from the series that “Marvel” appears only as a “Special thanks” in the credits. Indeed, Hall’s Big Hero 6 film allowed Disney to leverage core characters, names, and Japanese influence of the comic book, but to otherwise invent a new origin story, new characterization, and – perhaps most importantly – a vibrant new world called San Fransokyo.

The idea is that in this universe, after the (real life) 1906 earthquake that destroyed 80% of San Francisco and claimed 3,000 lives, it was the countless immigrants from East Asia who stepped up, rebuilding the city with seismic-stabilized engineering techniques drawn from their homeland. Now – more than a century later – the resulting city of San Fransokyo is a Pan-Pacific cultural, technological, and architectural metropolis.

San Fransokyo is vibrant, and poppy, and colorful, and playful, and joyful. I sincerely think it’s one of the most captivating “places” to have been produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios in its history. Especially for those of us familiar with the real San Francisco, this fantasy-infused version is just pure magic. The City we love, filled with cherry blossoms, pagodas, paper lanterns, floating wind turbines, torii gates, and a fast food chain called “Noodle Burger”… It’s just so clever, warm, and habitable.

And also, Big Hero 6 is a great film from the Disney Revival, that made nearly $700 million, and is based on a comic book! So I think it’s a very interesting and clever “substitution” for Avengers Campus to consider that our techy, modern “Tomorrowland” for this park can adopt this IP. Again, yes, we could grandfather in Avengers Campus with the same logic that it’s based on a comic book. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a little out of sync with what we’ve got so far, and to keep it here would be quite the cop-out and a deflating finale, wouldn’t it?

I am so in love with San Fransokyo as a place that it won’t surprise you to learn that my Build-Out of Disney California Adventure included it long before Disney decided to add it (in the Chapek-coded sense of just renaming the park’s existing Pacific Wharf to San Fransokyo Square, hanging up lanterns and vinyl posters, and changing the land’s soundtrack to J-pop.) The version I envisioned for California Adventure was the city’s waterfront “Enbakadero” pier district, centered on its version of the Ferry Building.

Our setting here is different. The existing Avengers Campus is landlocked, with no body of water to bring a “wharf” area to life. It’s also not a place we could easily retrofit into a sweet, hilly neighborhood of San Fransokyo. Thanks to its ultimate origin as the Backlot, this is ultimately a flat corridor of large, utilitarian buildings. To my thinking, Imagineers were wise to decide that a “Campus” was its highest and best use absent major demolition. Thankfully, that works for Big Hero 6.

Build-Out

A substantial portion of the film is set at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, or “SFIT” – a lush campus of laboratories that (like Avengers Campus) give a sense of technology and tradition colliding. There are glass and steel laboratories right next to what must be historic, pagoda-topped lecture halls, dining halls, and campus quads filled with whiz kids testing out novel inventions centered on making our world a better place.

In other words, all that works well about Avengers Campus as a theme-park-able space is inherited here, but we gain a lot, too. More vibrancy, more communicative architecture, and at least as much “life” as the entertainment-filled Marvel version brings.

Absorbing the existing (and largely adrift) remains of what was once a “Disney Television Studios Tour”, we inherit for our Campus two mini-attractions. The existing “Studio D” theater (populated by Disney Jr. style family shows) becomes HIRO’S TRAINING ACADEMY, a similar interactive show and dance party aimed at toddlers-through-elementary schoolers.

Then, the “Stitch Encounter” digital meet-and-greet (a la “Turtle Talk with Crush”) can become <<BONJOUR, BAYMAX!>>, providing a similar “small group” encounter and Q&A with the bot, with English and French showtimes. Again, this building is currently part of “World Premiere.” With it, though, our Campus ends up with two “whole family” experiences right off the bat, which I think is a pretty nice “welcome” for families who begin their day by heading left instead of right (and thereby walk our timeline backwards, but oh well).

Beyond that, we enter the existing footprint of the real world Avengers Campus. Some swaps here are, I think, very straightforward. We use the premise of the existing Spider-Man WEB Adventure to created BAYMAX BOTTLE BOT BLAST! In it, we flock to the campus Expo Hall for a Battle Bot Convention. There we have the opportunity to design our own virtual bot in a “Test Track 2.0” design studio, or to actually construct a physical one at the associated retail outlet, BUILD-A-BOT, in the mix-and-match style of the Droid Depot in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

Though we arrive at the Expo Hall expecting to show off our bot designs to the reigning champions, a remote-installed virus causes their Bronze, Silver, and Gold medal robots to go haywire, turning on their creators. That’s when we’re called to action, leveraging our prototype, untested bots’ skills to follow Hiro’s Megabot into the expo call and face down the champions! Whether a virtual creation or a physical one, our bot can link to the ride vehicle, leveraging its unique attack and defense stats to save SFIT – including a finale wherein the three bots combine into a “Megazord” style creation for a final boss battle!

While the waterfront San Fransokyo land I planned for California Adventure is filled with wharf eateries and sourdough snacks, the Campus in Paris would, of course, feature university eateries. SFIT TEST KITCHEN gives us our gimmicky Quick Service location (we could even keep the “grown and shrunk food” motif that makes the existing Pym’s Test Kitchen kitschy and fun) whereas the land’s buffet becomes HATOBA FOOD HALL, which sort of beautifully fits with the idea of an all-you-can-eat campus dining hall.

At the far end of the real world campus has resided the launched, triple-inverting coaster –as Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, accessed via a warehouse with a massive logo billboard; as Avengers Assemble: Flight Force, wrapped by a metallic undulating light canopy meant to represent FRIDAY – the Stark-made A.I. that operates Avengers Campus. Now, as “Big Hero Campus,” we continue that gradual evolution to finally give this E-Ticket space a fully dimensional facade – the Ito Ishioka Robotics Lab.

I don’t really have interest in re-using Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster for a third iteration. Though a coaster can be a storytelling medium and hybridize with a dark ride, I don’t think this particular Vekoma model really can. It’s not meant for that. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster acknowledged that by sending us through (in Florida) a hyper-stylized race through LA landmarks and (in France) an abstract light show. But Flight Force tries to give us plot points to follow, which feels like it takes concentrated effort when you’re in over-the-shoulder restraints racing by in the dark, flipping and bracing yourself.

So instead, I’ll use this ride pad to duplicate the same ride I envisioned for California Adventure’s version of the land – BIG HERO 6: KAIJU CLASH! My idea here is that we are attending the grand unveiling of a new innovation: a seismic-stabilized Gyro-Sled passenger drone, designed by SFIT students to be released from their hangar throughout the city to pick up civilians in the event of an earthquake, whisking them to safety. Of course, when a seismic event begins during our demonstration, riders are rushed off to the hangar to climb aboard one of the four-person Sleds as they parade out of the warehouse – Disney’s first KUKA Robo Arm dark ride.

Only once we’re seated on the Gyro-Sled and take to the skies over San Fransokyo, the true cause of the earthquake is revealed: the emergence of a giant armored kaiju from the Pacific Ocean. Teaming up with Big Hero 6, we’re off on a race around the Bay to quell the kaiju’s fury by disarming the deep sea drilling rig whose ecological devastation brought the creature to the surface to begin with. The adventure ends with a thanks from the Big Hero 6 team and our Sled’s piloting themselves back to the campus, where we can step off onto the unload platform as the Sleds realign to be sorted back in storage for the next emergency.

I think this is excellent use of the KUKA ride system, and a perfect, action-packed IP to apply it to. It also gives our Story Realms a thrilling, whole-family ride that’s a sincere technological E-Ticket and a great anchor for our high tech hero campus.

But the adventure doesn’t stop there. Given that we have a small area left to work with to reconnect this space back to Camp Half-Blood and Point D’inspiration (completing our loop), I thought we could add a last action-packed capacity boost to the park with an SFIT Science Fair (taking the Fair literally) with three flat rides that flesh out the park’s offerings.

The trio begins with HONEY LEMON CHEM COLLIDER, giving this park a full-scale Demolition Derby-style ride like Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree or Alien Swirling Saucers. Tokyo Disneyland actually used Big Hero 6 as the decoration of their version of this ride, placing it in Tomorrowland. Same idea, I think, except that here we become chemicals in Honey Lemon’s experiments, orbiting and nearly colliding as we both spin and swing side-to-side.

For the next, NANOFUGE, I wanted to use the Zamperla Air Race model – a high-thrill, acrobatic ride wherein riders sit in vehicles attached to articulating arms, which swing in full circles as the ride rotates. Highly acrobatic and dizzying, this is a more intense ride, but one that’s captivating to watch and gives us another experiences here for thrill-seekers as it swings, loops, and completes acrobatic motions.

And finally, I added a classic Zamperla Disk’O, GOGO XLR8R. The jury is out on whether these count as a coaster in a park’s lineup (the generally definitive Roller Coaster Database says no), but the experience ticks the box for most guests. On board, 40 riders at a time sit in an outward-facing circle, leaned forward with back restraints. The disc they’re seated on then spins as the powered ride gradually advances back and forth on the track, growing in momentum until it can crest a central hill and race up a spike. (Even better, the space beneath the central hill becomes the entrance to the land from Point D’inspiration, creating a really great visual “portal” into the campus.)

Theoretically, this is an experience comparable to the park’s existing RC Racer (which we’ve turned into the Wonderland-set Jabberwock Joust), but anytime I make myself anxious about having multiple related iterations of an experience (as is also the case with the Chem Collider and the Pumpkin Carriage Swirl), I remember that Magic Kingdom has four mechanically-identical Dumbo-style rides that are all dressed differently and feel okay about it.

And frankly, our Big Hero 6 IP gives this land so much more flexibility to offer that sort of wacky, fun, comic book idea of a science fair of physics-related flat rides than the more grounded and self-serious Avengers Campus does. I love that flexibility and the ability to embrace color and kinetics instead of being afraid that it’ll pull us out of the environment.

That Science Fair then connects this land to a garden path toward the lagoon and Point D’inspiration, alongside which you can also find a back entrance into Camp Half-Blood through a lovely grove. But man, looking across the total lineup here, I think we’ve actually converted Avengers Campus into maybe the most stacked and diverse land in the park? I mean, look at this lineup…

The End

And folks, just like that, our loop is closed. The timeline is complete. And we have officially ventured from the earliest fairytales to the stories of today, as embodied by Disney’s adaptations. Through the decades, genres, and literary media, we’ve explored the early fairytales and feature films like Snow White all the way through modern, comics-inspired adventures from Big Hero 6.

This is an incredibly dense park – a true “Build-Out” in the sense that it uses just about every available square foot and is packed with ride capacity. From playgrounds, meet-and-greets, and shows to substantial E-Tickets, I really wanted this park to be my best-balanced yet; filled with energy, color, and things to do for all ages and all thrill levels.

If you think back to the start nearly 30,000 words ago(!), I was embroiled in such conflict about what to do with this park. And even once I did settle on that idea of a timeline inspired by books, I sort of quietly doubted if I could make a modern Disney Park feel “reasonable” without Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, or Avatar. But you know what? I think I did it. Though we do draw from existing concepts here, I think this is… sort of a great park? Sometimes I finish these and go, “It’s good, but it’s not great, and I’ll want to return it to sometime to make some changes.” But I sort of feel like I’m wrapping up this Build-Out going, “Yep, that’s great.”

Considering how many times I set out to “fix” Walt Disney Studios and how many times I ultimately gave up, I feel a tremendous personal success in presenting this final plan. It may not be perfect, or possible, or “realistic,” but I can tell you this much: it wouldn’t suck ass!

Now for final words: I would wager that less that 2% of people who started reading this feature 30,000 words ago are reading this sentence, and since you are, I assume you enjoyed it or at least appreciate the effort! So if you would take one (or all) of these actions, it would mean the world to me:

1. Comment on it! I care so much about these projects and they take months of effort outside of my “day job,” so your feedback is what makes it clear to me that this is actually being consumed and enjoyed and considered. When one of these Build-Outs “flops” and gets little interaction, I feel… sad…
   
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Until next time, please know how grateful I am for your time. I mean, seriously. This one was out of hand. But you stuck in there, and I hope you had a nice time. See you soon!