Save the Rainforest - Keep "it's a small world" a classic.

[mrfantasmic]

Originally Posted by MasterGracey

Because Pooh has those amazing, incredible, humongous bee hive ride vehicles which mean that the attraction never, ever had a line because they're so amazingly efficient! Nevermind the fact that Pooh opened with Fastpass because... er... well, Disney didn't realize their magically huge ride vehicles could... er.. carry so many people?

Yeah, that's it.

Thank you Captain Condescension for hitting an important point.

All I'm saying is you need to account for capacity before determining what is and what isn't a failure.

[Coheteboy]

Originally Posted by mrfantasmic

Thank you Captain Condescension for hitting an important point.

All I'm saying is you need to account for capacity before determining what is and what isn't a failure.

Can't I just say the ride is a failure based on how much less of a ride it is compared to every other version in the world?

[BassBone]

Originally Posted by mrfantasmic

Thank you Captain Condescension for hitting an important point.

All I'm saying is you need to account for capacity before determining what is and what isn't a failure.

No matter how much capacity a ride has, it can't make crowds completely disappear. Just watch the ride on some days and watch them send empty beehives through the ride because no one is standing in line.

[patattack]

I dont get why they need to include characters into the ride so they can sell merch of them.
I dont see much alice in wonderland merch! Or lion king. Or aladdin, or cinderella, etc. But we all know those things will sell. Why not push merchandise of characters not specifically portrayed in the park anyways? Why ruin a ride when it is unnecessary?

none of this small world update makes sense to me

[HBG2]

An argument that has emerged just in the last few days in favor of the changes is that they would help to up the Fantasyland quotient in a ride that otherwise doesn't really fit in FL. IASW has always been an odd duck thematically, and surely a few Disney figurines would ease the pain.

Here's my response, FWIW, moved here from the yea-sayers' safehouse thread so that people can actually debate it if they wish.

It's true that IASW, in spite of the candy wrap, is not very Fantasyland-ish. Until they dismantled them, IASW's most obvious stylistic soulmate elsewhere in the park was the Blair murals in Tomorrowland. Think too, of Rolly Crump's 1967 white and whimsical TL architectural touches (bandstand, stage, ticket booths). Stylistically, IASW is unabashedly modern, unlike the Medieval/Renaissance and 19th-century-storybook stylings of FL. With its serious message pertaining to the future and to the real world, I'd say IASW belonged in TL more than half of the rides that were/are actually there, as the murals demonstrated.

So, why did Walt put it in FL? Partly for the irony. Modern art loves irony, and this ride absolutely drips with it. It appears so sweet and light-hearted, but its message is grim: IASW takes you by the nape of the neck and makes you look directly at what's at stake if we don't get serious about world peace. All those children are counting on you, adult riders, to prove that their innocence and optimism are not mistaken fantasy. The gap between the real world and world dancing before you is a gap your children did nothing to create: you adults must answer for the difference and decide if you care enough to do anything about it.

It's a trap. Another thing modern art likes to do (or pretend to do, in many cases) is make you think. If you should ask, "Hey, what's Fantasylandish about this ride?," the ride answers, "The whole thing is fantasy—unless you do something to make it reality." Ouch, that's gonna leave a mark.

So does this kind of thing belong, in the end, in Fantasyland? I'd say yes, simply because fairy tales themselves dabble in the same irony. Below the surface, fairy tales are anything but cute and frivolous: They are expressions of deeply-rooted cultural ruminations on Good and Evil, coming-of-age struggles, gender roles, etc. Fairy tales are serious business. I'm glad that the SW ride is scary; it should be. On Alice, the queen screams for wholesale decapitations, as rulers are wont to do. Anyone who reads the Brothers Grimm knows how grim they are. Peter Pan is a serious study of the futility of resistance to adulthood. Et cetera. Once you appreciate the serious adultness of fairy tales, the irony of IASW seems much less out-of-place.

And IASW does offer a needed balance, IMO. The fierce individualism and provincialism of traditional fairy tales (Once upon a time, in a land far away: think hard about those words) needs to be balanced with the communal identity implied by IASW. It's another delicious irony: IASW says, "Screw once-upon-a-time-in-a-land-far-away: no human experience is completely unique, and the world is small." Without IASW, this wise counterpoint to all the traditional stories is lacking. That alone is a reason to keep it intact and sitting right where it will do the most good.

[Scary Scott]

Wow well said ^
now I have ben reading for 12 hours and just saw the HKDL IASW and disaproved.
But as far as Anaheim goes I REALLY dont like the idea of putting in charcters from the animated movies.
but acording to what I hear its just a rumor around the net.
And I have not herd from someone I know who works at the park directly say that Disneyland CA is having the implimented changes.
and lastly I have an Aunt who is a freelance artist / desiner and has worked on allmost all new rides and ride referbs not just for disney but all major theme parks but only one at a time for a legal ill do contract.
but she has people calling over every referb in Disneyland Resort and no word about the disny charicters coming in. however I can tell you that the paint wont look 40 years old anymore. ^_^

[MasterGracey]

Originally Posted by mrfantasmic

Thank you Captain Condescension for hitting an important point.

All I'm saying is you need to account for capacity before determining what is and what isn't a failure.

You're welcome.

All I'm saying is you need to account for a mothballed Fastpass option for an attraction that rarely offers wait times exceeding 10 minutes when proclaiming it's "popularity."

Love,
Captain Condescension.

[mrfantasmic]

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Failure?

[animagusurreal]

Originally Posted by mrfantasmic

+

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Failure?

Mr. F, since you're the one who has a problem with our perception that Pooh is not a huge draw, I propose that you provide us with some proof that it is a huge draw - which you have not yet done - or else leave us to wallow peacefully in our ignorance .

You do make a point about the removal of FP alone not proving that Pooh is unpopular. I went on Pooh shortly after it opened, on a very busy summer day and there was a five minute wait. I doubt that you could say the same about Pirates. I doubt you could even say the same about Monsters Inc over at DCA.

Personally, I have seen and waited in long-ish for Pirates. I have not for Pooh.

I must say that your rebus puzzle-style message was funny.

[mrfantasmic]

Originally Posted by animagusurreal

Mr. F, since you're the one who has a problem with our perception that Pooh is not a huge draw, I propose that you provide us with some proof that it is a huge draw - which you have not yet done - or else leave us to wallow peacefully in our ignorance .

Yes, well clearly I can't do that or I already would have. Suffice it to say that I know I'm right, but cannot give you details. Perhaps someone else could provide the exact numbers, but I won't.

Glad you enjoyed the pictures, though. That was fun.

[ZeekSlider]

You know what? This thread has started to devolve in my eyes.

Post after post, all I'm reading and taking away from people's opinion is that they are afraid of change in the same way as a Republican was during the Civil Rights Movement. (Oh no! I just compared something to something inappropriate like the woman who compared the closing of VMK to Hiroshima! Well, slap me silly and call me disrespectful!)

Videos of HKDL's Small World are out. Isolated photos of the characters are featured on their English website. You have enough right there to restart your campaign of letter writing and maybe even get back on the news wire again.

But no. All I've read is how the company should be doing this instead of that. Where's the letter writing people? Where's the gusto and drive that you guys had when this news broke early on? Where's the media coverage?

As far as I'm concerned, there is none.

Good luck preventing this change from happening. Given what I've read in the past several days, I'm saying it will be inevitable. If you want your "original" Small World now as far as theme and message goes, you're going to have to go to Orlando, Paris, or Tokyo.

[animagusurreal]

Originally Posted by ZeekSlider

Post after post, all I'm reading and taking away from people's opinion is that they are afraid of change in the same way as a Republican was during the Civil Rights Movement. (Oh no! I just compared something to something inappropriate like the woman who compared the closing of VMK to Hiroshima! Well, slap me silly and call me disrespectful!)

I think you were at least partly joking with the anti-Civil-rights movement comparison, but it seems you're trying to paint anyone against this change as extremely closed-minded.

Meanwhile, in this blanket dismissal, you have addressed none of the points made by posters who are against this particular change (addition of characters to Small World.) Show me one quote where a poster says or shows that they're against any and all change.

This makes me think another thread, where people who don't like the concept of TSMM were compared to people who were against then-revolutionary ragtime music at the turn of the twentieth century. TSMM, with its character tie-ins and buzzword "interactivity", does not look like "ragtime music" to me. "Ragtime music" is whatever original, revolutionary idea is brewing in some Imagineers' head right now that management doesn't want to see come to fruition. (If TSMM does turn out to be some revolutionary new attraction experience, I'll gladly eat my words )

[HBG2]

Originally Posted by ZeekSlider

Post after post, all I'm reading and taking away from people's opinion is that they are afraid of change in the same way as a Republican was during the Civil Rights Movement. (Oh no! I just compared something to something inappropriate like the woman who compared the closing of VMK to Hiroshima! Well, slap me silly and call me disrespectful!)

More like, "Oh no! I just made an @ss out of myself!" Martin Luther King Jr. and almost all other black leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were Republicans. Political opposition to the movement came from southern Democrats. Before you take cheap political shots, do your homework.

[lazyboy97O]

Originally Posted by mrfantasmic

Yes, well clearly I can't do that or I already would have. Suffice it to say that I know I'm right, but cannot give you details. Perhaps someone else could provide the exact numbers, but I won't.

You could very well provide basic observations and guesses regarding the capacity of the attraction. I have seen nothing about how the number of vehicles is so great that many beehives can be sent out empty.

[fo'c's'le swab]

Originally Posted by ZeekSlider

Post after post, all I'm reading and taking away from people's opinion is that they are afraid of change in the same way as a Republican was during the Civil Rights Movement.

Originally Posted by HBG2

More like, "Oh no! I just made an @ss out of myself!" Martin Luther King Jr. and almost all other black leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were Republicans. Political opposition to the movement came from southern Democrats. Before you take cheap political shots, do your homework.

HBG beat me to it. While King's political affiliation is often seen historically as 'non-partisan', (though his father was a Republican, and the National Black Republican Association claims him as being a 'registered' member) it is ludicrous to say it was fear-motivated political efforts by the Republicans that tried to stall the Civil Rights movement--it was the Southern 'Dixiecrats'.

The poster's lack of knowledge on matters historical illustrates perfectly the need for historical preservation and education--IASW qualifies as such, IMO. Now I can see why historical arguments regarding IASW fall on deaf ears..."History? Who needs history--buncha old guys--boring!".