Disney 30 Day Challenge - Favorite Castle

For my third day of my challenge, the TM selected “Favorite Castle” for me to write about...

I guess I've never really thought about it much, and it's certainly vague...

Do they mean my favorite Disney Parks Castle, which is pretty limiting. There's Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland (which I've just seen in person for the first time), and there's Cinderella's castle at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. You can also find Sleeping Beauty's castle in Paris and Hong Kong, and Cinderella's in Tokyo.

I suppose I could expand the park castles to include the new ones featured in the Fantasyland expansion, but they are hardly official.

I think they MUST mean just in general, from the Disney Universe “Favorite Castle”, because otherwise, you're either a fan of tradition (Sleeping Beauty) or scale (Cinderella).

So let's think about the candidates... Obviously the ones we've already discussed exist in the movies as well..

Other possible castle choices are
Prince Adam's(The Beast) castle in Beauty and the Beast
Prince Eric's castle in The Little Mermaid
The Sultan's Palace in Aladdin
Rapunzel's parents' castle in Tangled
Castle from The Sword in the Stone
Castle from Snow White
and...
I'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of, but really... how many of them played major roles in the stories?

So, I guess my criteria is two-fold...

1) Which of the castles played a major part, or was even a major setting in the movie it's set in?
The clear answer and front runner to this is The Beast's Castle from Beauty and the Beast. That castle was amazing! It was vast, and had crazy rooms and dungeons, and a huge amount of the action takes place there, AND! It was enchanted.

2) Which is the most architecturally interesting? 

For me, it's a toss-up. First, we have Eric's castle from The Little Mermaid:

 

Eric's castle is a pretty darn different. It doesn't rely on the height and the impressive spires and towers of many of the other castles. It's still got the size you look for in a castle, but it's a castle built on a cliff by the ocean, and I feel like it's one of the few castles I always wanted to explore when I watched as a kid. It just seems cool. By the way.. does anyone know where The Little Mermaid takes place? Eric has an American accent. There are British accents elsewhere. Sebastian the crab has a Crab accent. Ursula sounds like a drag queen..

The other candidate is The Sultan's Palace in Aladdin:

 

I admit that I'm a sucker for this style of architecture. In fact, if I had all the money in the world, I'd probably build a mansion with a lot of Middle-Eastern accent to it. I love tile, I love the minarets, I love the fountains. It just seems awesome. I love how so much of it is open air. I love the amazingly high ceilings. It's pretty tough to beat...

So... The winner for me, provides the best combination of story and style, and... for that, I have to go with:

 

The Beast's Castle. It's got that sort of cool, woodland feel to it. I love how it just seems totally endless. Like there are whole sections of the castle where people (or Candelabras) forgot they existed at all. The towers are impossibly tall, and the spans connecting them are really cool.  When you factor in the huge role it plays in the story... It's gotta be the Beast.

 

Going to The Promised Land; Part One

One of the first things I thought when the Tofu Muchacha finally told me where we were moving, after months of uncertainty, was “California? That's where Disneyland is!!”

I'm not kidding. She was there, and she can attest.

You see... As many of you know if you've been reading this blog is that I've been to Walt Disney World in Florida many times. I consider it my favorite place. My happy place. My... ehem.. “Laughing Place”. Still, I'd never been to Disneyland. Before moving here, I'd only been to California twice at all, and one of those was for work, and the other was on the Great Piano Adventure (LINK). It was always my secret shame as a Disney Fan. A Disney lunatic who'd never been to where it all started? To some degree I felt like a fraud.

At the same time, I was longing to go there. To see, first hand, the places Walt Disney himself conceived. To walk the roads he walked. To touch the doors he touched. More than anything in my fandom of "Disney", Walt was my favorite part. He's inspired me with his creations for my whole life, and I always felt incomplete as an acolyte without having visited, witness, his great creation. The movies can come to you. Disneyland is a pilgrimage.

Sounds dramatic, probably, and it is. I take this very seriously.

I moved to California on December 7^th and from that point I started plotting my first trip down the state to Disneyland.

First off... I should mention for those of you not from California... Sacramento and Anaheim are not close. It's 415 miles from my house to Disneyland. That's a SOLID drive. Even going 70 the whole way (fat chance), it's 6 hours, and that's not taking into account the god-awful Los Angeles traffic. Google Maps calls it 6 and a half hours. Every person I spoke to estimated closer to 8. For whatever reason that 90 minute difference just seems like a lot to me. It's the difference between driving from Cincinnati to Detroit and Cincinnati to Atlanta. Detroit just seems closer. (All together: “That's because it is!”)

So my point is.. whether the drive is six or eight hours, it's not a “go on a whim for an afternoon” kind of distance. It does require at least a little planning, and basically a whole day for travel if you're driving.

It seemed that all my weekends for the first month were accounted for from the start. Christmas, then visitors, and birding, and fun. All fun, don't get me wrong. I love having visitors, and I love my new (slightly) cheaper hobby of birding. Heck... I haven't even had a chance to set up my workshop yet. It's just been busy. Then, the TM's job presented me with an opportunity to make myself scarce. She's this work event, you see, and she warned me that she'd be swamped for a whole weekend with planning.

BINGO.

Now, obviously, I'd rather have had the TM with me. In fact, she's been to Disneyland a bunch of times, though not for a while, so it'd be cool to have been on the other end of the “Park Knowledge” thing for once. Still, this was a great chance for me to go, and stay out of her hair while she worked. (Since we don't really know anyone, we've been spending a TON of time together, which is awesome, but we are also both proponents of doing our own thing from time to time.

Now that the weekend was determined, I set about planning the actual trip. I went on the Disney Parks website and priced out a stay of 2 days and it was mind-bogglingly expensive for a 2 night trip for one person in the middle of slow season. Yikes. Anyway, I ended up getting a decent deal on a hotel just off property and I bought my park hoppers separately.

Then came the big decision... On a whim, I decided to check out the cost of flights, and I found a round trip into Santa Ana (Orange County/John Wayne Airport) for about what gas would have cost me for the full round trip. I realized that with cabs to and from the airport, and airport parking, I'd still be a little in the hole, but the extra time I'd have at Disneyland was the key to my decision. I'd get into DL at 5:30pm instead of 11:30pm on Thursday, and I could stay until 5pm on Saturday instead of having to leave a noon. That's 11 additional hours in the parks. A whole extra day.

It was a no brainer. Done.

So I now knew my whole itinerary.

Fly in. Grab a few hours on Thursday night in the park. Do Disneyland the entire next day, and do California Adventure on Saturday before my flight, still having from 9am to 4pm at the park before having to leave for the airport. Sounded amazing to me.

This is the plan. And I will say that it was a good one. The first night I got there and flew into Santa Ana as the Sun was setting over Disneyland. I could see the Matterhorn from my window on the plane, and I was getting antsy already. Fortunately the lady next to me was nice.

One thing I assumed the entire time was that it'd be sunny and warm. I was wrong. It rained pretty much the entire time I was there. Turns out, this was possibly my biggest advantage. Disneyland, far more than WDW is often crowded with local teens with too much time on their hands. Nothing keeps the hoards of emo, skinny-jeaned children at bay like pending rain. The place was just about empty. It was amazing.

My goal for my trip was to start with the rides that don't exist at Walt Disney World, and then after checking those off, moving on toward old favorites.

Later this week, Part 2.

Disney 30 Day Challenge - Favorite Prince

 

For my 2nd entry in the "Disney 30 Day Challenge", the Tofu Muchacha randomly selected #3, "Favorite Prince"

I can't say that I'm super excited about this one, even though maybe I should be since the Princesses get all the pub. The World of Animation is a Ladies World, and the Princes are usually not much more than props to dispense magical kisses, to appear out of the mist after being turned back to human, to have giant statues made in their likenesses, or to you know... ride around on horses.

There aren't truly that many interesting princes from which to choose, but finally I came up with a couple of princes I could consider...

1) Simba.
Let's face it... He's petulant, he gets his father killed (sort of), he runs off into hiding, he leaves his friends and family and his mother to a life of slavery at the hands of his evil uncle (also a Prince, I suppose). Even with all that, though, he's still kinda awesome. He grows up, becomes a man, and ultimately saves everyone. All the while singing some of the catchiest tunes, and having a super cool entourage. Simba is a strong candidate.

2) Hercules
Maybe it's a stretch, because he's more a "god" than a "prince", but he IS the son of Zeus, the king of the gods, so doesn't that make him a prince? Anyway... Hercules is one of the great, un-sung Disney movies of all time. If it had come out BEFORE The Little Mermaid, people would have been blown away, but since it came out in the wake of all those great early to mid-90s classics, it sort of gets forgotten. I'll likely revisit this later, but Hercules also sings one of the great male songs in the entirety of the Disney songbook in "Go the Distance". It's a phenomenal song. He also gets points, in my book, for never truly straying from being a "good guy". He also willingly makes one of the great sacrifices in all of the Disneysphere by offering up his own soul to save Meg's.

3) Aladdin
The true "diamond in the rough". He's a pretty great character, and definitely the... you know... title character. I have a soft spot for Aladdin, because he's a dreamer. He wasn't born a prince, and he certainly makes some misguided choices along the way, but he's brave, and resourceful, and looks out for the little guy (who doesn't love when Aladdin gives some of that bread to those kids?). He also has to fight Jafar, and while he's pretty much unsuccessful at that, he does give it a good try, and trying does matter. Also? He's got a Monkey friend, which is awesome. And a Genie. That's pretty cool too...

So... who's my favorite prince?

Gotta go with Hercules. 

(Incidentally, the Disney Wiki does not list Hercules OR Simba as "official" princes, but I don't care.)

I should mention the Honorable Mention goes to Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid. Not because he does much of anything (besides stab Ursula with a ship), but because in the long-running show at Disney World, the actor playing Eric has the best paid acting gig of all time. He runs out... says a couple of words and kisses the girl. Over and over.

I won't get another one of these done until Sunday, when I get back from Disneyland.

Oh yeah... did I mention? I'm going to Disneyland!!!!!

Disney 30 Day Challenge - Favorite Romantic Moment

A friend on Facebook posted this (originally found on Pinterest):

I haven't been able to blog much for the past few months, since I was in the process of moving to a new side of the country, seeking a job, and just generally being crazed.

So, here I go... I'm going to write about one of these each day... I may miss a day, but I promise I will hit ALL of these.

I couldn't decide which to do first, so I had the Tofu Muchacha decide by picking a number between 1 and 30.  She chose #15, so...

#15.. My Favorite Romantic Moment

I'm sure that some other people have a whole slew of romantic Disney moments they've always loved, but "romance" hasn't ever really been a focus for me in my Disney viewing.

That said, there are definitely some great moment, and often underscored by great songs. I think I'd have a tough time thinking of a great romantic moment without one of the classic songs attached. There's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" from The Lion King.  "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid. "I See the Light" from Tangled (I could write a whole blog about how I love Tangled, and how I believe it'll grow in popularity). Sure, you can also reference some of the classics... Prince Phillip waking Aurora with a kiss, or the prince waking Snow White, or Bambi... chewing cud. (The Tofu Muchacha picked Lady and Tramp eating the spaghetti... also valid).

All of those moments are fantastic, but really is there any greater romantic moment in Disney history than this sequence from 'Up'?


I mean... right?

The romance of Ellie and Carl is one of the greatest sequences in the history of animation. It's almost impossible to think about 'Up' without thinking about this scene, which takes us through the entire lives of Ellie and Carl, where we see their love and their losses, and their dreams. We even see the pain Carl has when he loses his love to sickness and death. It doesn't sound all that romantic when I describe it, but there's such beauty and love in this sequence... it's pretty much perfect.

Best of all? The scene perfectly sets up how the audience views Carl throughout the rest of the movie. When he's cranky and bitter and holds on to his home too hard, we don't think "man... that old dude is cranky as heck." We think "if only they knew! he can't let go of his Ellieeeeee!!!" And then we all cry and become messes in the dark movie theaters.

It's possible that happened to me.

Don't even get me started with what happened when Carl gave Russell the "Grape Soda" badge at the end. I mean, good lord.

All of those moments, and that whole journey and growth for Carl... they are all set up by this sequence. It's incredibly romantic, yes, but integral to the plot, too... So it wins for me.

Tomorrow? Who knows. The Muchacha hasn't given me a number yet.

Disney + Star Wars = Best Day Ever

Apparently it takes a 4 billion dollar deal to get me blogging. That’s okay, though, because if the news of Disney buying Lucasfilms can’t do it, I may as well close up shop.

So yeah…

Disney inked a deal to buy Lucasfilms for 4.5 BILLION dollars. That purchase includes Industrial Light and Magic and Skywalker Sound. Lucasfilms, in case you don’t know, is the studio that has the creative rights to Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

As you can imagine, as a Disney fan, I believe this is the awesomest thing in the history of awesome things. Both film franchises feature original trilogies that are easily among the 5 best trilogies in film history. Not only are they awesome, but they’re also insanely profitable. In fact, maybe 4.5 billion dollars isn’t enough money to pay George Lucas.

So yeah, Disney can’t lose.

But what do I say to all of the obsessive Star Wars fans who are afraid that Disney will ruin the legacy of The Force?

Well…

First, let me defend my beloved Disney against all of this “Disneyfied” nonsense. I’ve seen around the internet this idea that suddenly Disney is going to somehow over-commercialize or over-cutesy the Star Wars creative property.

Um… Have these people seen the Star Wars legos, and video games, and toys and toys and toys? George Lucas was the all time greatest ever at wringing out every tidbit of cash out of literally ever corner of his kingdom. My long-time buddy, The Scary Pinecone used to collect the Star Wars figures, and there were tons of figures of characters I had no recollection of from movies I’ve seen dozens of times.

George Lucas created Ewoks. George Lucas created Jar Jar Binks (for Pete’s sake!) He forced poor little innocent Jake Lloyd to shriek “Yippee!”. Do they really want to get into this “Disney=Cutified” thing?

Anyway, here are my points in favor of the deal:

1) As many others have pointed out… There’s absolutely no risk from either side of the deal. Disney will make boatloads of cash no matter what, and they’ll also have the extremely valuable studios of ILM and Skywalker Sound. Lucasfilms risks nothing in terms of quality, because let’s face it… The last good movie to come out of Lucasfilms was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. The last good Star Wars movie was in 1983. I was 3 years old. I will be 33 in February. The recent Star Wars movies have been worse than mediocre, and my preference is to just forget that Indy 4 never happened at all. Disney can’t make it worse. There’s only one direction to go, and that’s up.

2) George Lucas conceptualized Star Wars as a 9 Part Story, and only 6 parts have been created. He’s openly said that he’d never make Episodes 7 to 9, and that’s a shame, because if they use the Timothy Zahn “Heir to the Empire” trilogy as a basis, the fans are truly missing out. Those stories are awesome, and they introduce some spectacular characters, aliens, and worlds. It could be awesome, and Lucas doesn’t have the creative juice to do it. Even if he did, let’s just be honest and admit that the biggest problems with the recent films is that he had too much control. Disney is arguably the only studio to have the bandwidth, talent, and funds to do it right. I’m excited. I say give the reins to J.J. Abrahms or Rian Johnson or Joss Whedon and sit back and enjoy the ride.

3) Disney, with their enormous scope, can offer the Star Wars fans an opportunity to love their stories for years to come in dozens of different medias. I’ve already heard talk of Star Wars themed attractions at the parks. New movies. New cartoons. It’s a way to keep the stories alive and bring them to even more audiences. I mean… who wouldn’t love to go to Disney World at ride the hot new roller coaster “The Millenium Falcon and the Kessel Run”? (That’s my idea, Disney… HIRE ME!)

4) Nobody’s really talking much about the Indy movies, and maybe that’s because Harrison Ford is old, Shia LeBouf is… unsuitable to take over the franchise, and you can’t really do “Indy” without “Indy”. That’s fair, but a buddy of mine asked me about Disney’s track record with Sci-Fi, and I have to admit, it’s not that great. Action/Adventure, however… I’d venture to say that the best Action/Adventure movie of the past 10 years is the first Pirates flick. The Avengers is pretty good too… I’d be interested to see what Disney does with a property like Indiana Jones… Can they go in a different direction without Harrison Ford in the spotlight?

5) Speaking of “The Avengers”, I think that perhaps this is the best example of why a Disneyfied Lucasfilm is going to be awesome…

Disney bought Marvel a couple of years ago, and every comic book fan boy freaked the hell out. “Oh no! The Hulk will have Mickey Ears! They’ll be “baby” versions of Iron Man and Captain America.”

That hasn’t happened. Disney’s done a great job of keeping true to the Marvel stories and characters. I realize that there’s only been a small samples size to this point, but The Avengers was stupendous. They did it right. They hired respected “Geek Insiders” like Joss Whedon to write and direct. They made sure the effects were tight. They treated their stars right, so we know they’ll be back. It was masterfully done, and nobody can complain. Maybe someone doesn’t love the plot, but all-in-all, it was an enormous success. Also they made 1.5 Billion dollars.

Look… There are no guarantees, but Disney is the one company out there that combines the technical prowess, the creative talent, and the ridiculously deep pockets to do it right.

Let me put it this way…

If we knew that Lucas wasn’t going to be available to make another Star Wars movie, but we knew there would still BE a Star Wars movie… what studio do you want taking over?

Disney is it.

Rumors and Whatnot

Ooof. It’s been a while.

I wanna take a little while to talk about some of the rumors swirling around the development of different stuff at Disney World.

The main new rumor is surrounding the new “Avatar” themed area at Animal Kingdom. The newest information says that the entire project has stalled out, because James Cameron is difficult to work with, and is obsessing over “Avatar 4”. This is especially weird due to the lack of an “Avatar 2” or ‘Avatar 3” yet. Different sources are saying that Cameron’s tendency toward perfectionism is threatening to drive Imagineers to insanity, and at the same time they’re talking about how even if the new land does get off the ground, the cost to achieve Cameron’s vision will simply be too high when the interest level isn’t really even coming close to that of the main competitor for this type of attraction, Universals “Wizarding World of Harry Potter”.

So… the question is… is it worth it to pursue? Initially, I thought the Avatar themed area was a great idea. It provided a sort of built-in full immersion vision straight from a true creative innovator in James Cameron (if not also a total egomaniacal nut). It had the potential, assuming they expanded the “known Avatar universe” to include creatures and beasts from the 2^nd and 3^rd films, to really be a beautiful, unique addition to Animal Kingdom.

The more I thought about it, though, the less interested I became. Avatar just seems so… fleeting. It seems so much just a thing of the moment, and not an enduring classic in much of any sense. I also started to have real issues with using a largely non-Disney creative property to devote so much time and money. If Disney wanted to add a new area to Animal Kingdom based on a movie, or movies… what about Finding Nemo (even though The Seas in Epcot already sort of does that), or Tarzan, or The Jungle Book. Seems like The Jungle Book would be a fantastic option. It’s iconic and memorable and wholly Disney (at least the animated version. ). I feel like they could even create some really cool attractions around it. I am imagining a wild mouse type roller coaster ride using the King Louie sequence. It just seems really fun in my head.

You know… I just thought of this, but what about a world dedicated to “Brave”? I know it wasn’t AS popular or AS well received as some of the other Pixar movies, but the visuals of it were stunning, and it has a shitload of bears…. Maybe that’s not enough to build a whole “land” around, but whatever. My point is there are options.

Anyway… the other big rumor is sort of connected to the Avatar thing, so I wanted to address this too…

The supposition is that if Avatar isn’t happening, that Disney will have to do some other big thing in order to grab crowds and interest. There’s a lot of talk around the grapevine that Disney will close off “Lights, Motors, Action” in Hollywood Studios and build in a carbon copy of “Cars Land” that they just completed in Disney’s California Adventure.

This… doesn’t interest me.

It’s not that I’m against “Cars” as a movie… Well… I sort of am, but I’m not against the Cars Land in Disneyland. I think it’s one of those things that makes sense financially, because Cars is so damned popular, and Disney is ALWAYS looking for ways to market to pre-adolescent boys.

I just think that porting it, wholly, over to Disney World would be just straight-up lazy. It’s not a thing that’ll garner big interest from anyone really. It was when it opened in Cali, but I believe that aside from Magic Kingdom, Disney should be working hard to make Disney World and Disneyland two divergent experiences. Doesn’t that even make more sense money-wise? If DL and WDW aren’t interchangeable, people will want to experience both places individually, instead of seeing them as an either/or kind of experience.

As of now, there’s no official word from Disney that would lead us to believe anything other than Avatar being on schedule, but keep an eye on Festival of the Lion King in Animal Kingdom. If it doesn’t close in January, that’s a surefire sign that Avatar isn’t happening , at least as planned.

Next time? I talk about Disney and how they can take advantage of the Marvel Universe.

Fixer-Uppers

Obviously, I love Disney, and I love Walt Disney World. It’s my favorite place on Earth.

That is well documented.

I may even go so far as to say that 9 of every 10 choices is the right one, and that they are, for the most part, always going to get the benefit of the doubt from me.

That said, I firmly believe that nothing, and nobody is above a critical eye. There’s no such thing as being perfect all the time, and even my favorite places could use some adjustments on occasion.

So… Today, since I’m feeling a little grumpy, I’m gonna talk about the #1 attraction/ride/whatever from each of the 4 main Walt Disney World parks that I believe needs to be either completely re-thought, or junked altogether to make room for something better.

The Magic Kingdom
There was once a time where I would have said The Swiss Family Tree House needs most to go… In fact, I believe I did,once upon a time. My feelings have changed. Maybe it’s just that I’ve gotten older and wiser, but while I don’t know that I’ll ever like it all that much, I do see why it’s a good thing. It’s one of the few places in the parks where the visitors are asked to use their imaginations some. Also… as a total sucker for nostalgia, how can I possibly criticize an attraction that exists purely due to nostalgia.

No no… the only logical option is Stitch’s Great Escape.

I know I’ve already ripped it up and down, but really it is terrible. It takes up a huge parcel of land in Tomorrowland. It’s not entertaining. People don’t like it. It’s an embarrassingly bad quick-fix for the more interesting ExtraTerrorestrial: Alien Encounter. It’s just… so frustrating. They have this golden location and they have all kinds of great material to source for an attraction in Tomorrowland (What about Wall-E?). I mean, heck… Keep it as a Lilo and Stitch thing, but just make it better for Pete’s sake. Poor Pete.

Epcot
It’s difficult to really straight-up criticize anything in Epcot. For the most part, I think it’s the most well considered, and strongly imagined park. Some of the most interesting rides are there (Soarin’, Spaceship Earth). Some of the more innovative (Test Track, especially now). Even some of the more nostalgic pieces (Journey into Imagination).

Of course, like I said, there’s always room to get better, and I think there are a couple of candidates that are ripe for an update, revamp, or total replacement.

I could go with Mission: Space. Many people really enjoy this ride. I, personally, don’t get all the fuss. The thing is, though, it’s kind of…sort of… potentially… dangerous. It’s at least a little unpleasant sometimes. Or even most of the time. That ride will straight-up mess you up if you have even the slightest inclination toward motion sickness. Seems so silly to have one of the Weenie rides also be so unsettling.

Still… there’s one culprit bigger than the rest…

Honey I Shrunk the Audience / Captain EO

Shhhhhh. Just hear me out. I like them too, but they’re SO old, and so outdated. Honey I Shrunk the Kids was a great, fun movie for me when I was 10, but the kids nowadays aren’t so up on their Wayne Zalinski references. They just don’t know those movies that well..

Try to explain Captain EO and the totally bizarre thing going on in that movie to a 10 year old who doesn’t know who Michael Jackson is. Go ahead. I’ll give you time...

…

…

They just looked at you like you’re insane, right?

I understand that Disney brought it back out of the Vault when MJ died, but it’s time to put it back for good. It’s so freakin’ strange.

And there are just soooooo many movies that could work as inspiration for a new 4D movie. How about one of the Marvel Characters that Disney owns now? I honestly don’t know the kinds of costs we’re talking about to make these movies. Maybe using modern stars in these characters is impossible, because the stars won’t do it. So… maybe do an animated one. I’d love an UP attraction. UP is sort of all about adventure and imagination anyway, so… use it. They have the full physical infrastructure of the building there. They have the mechanics to make the seats do stuff and have water spray and all that. Just give it a new coat of paint already.

Hollywood Studios

Probably of all the parks, this one was the hardest for me, because I honestly feel like I’m killing one of my pets. I better just yank the band-aid and get it over with…

The Great Movie Ride.

Oh man… this is tough.

Alright, so… The Great Movie Ride was at one time my favorite ride. Not just at (MGM) Studios. Not just at Walt Disney World. Anywhere. The actors were good. The scenes were clean. The animatronics were awesome. The movies were… not all that familiar, but I knew about them ENOUGH to pick up the cues and whatnot. That was 19 years ago, and they have barely updated it at all in the entire time since.

I hate to say it, but:
1) MGM’s been out of the picture for several years now, so there’s no reason to be beholden to MGM movies. Not that Singin’ in the Rain isn’t a great flick, in fact.. they all are great (kinda the point), but if you’re not answering to MGM, you have every chance to update the scenes to all kinds of Disney movies too. Think about a scene with Pirates of the Caribbean (from a different perspective than the actual ride). Think Avengers!
2) The Great Movie Ride is in the plumbest, cherriest (why are all the “bests” kinds of fruit?) spot in the whole place. It’s got a huge building. Why even constrain yourselves to updating the pre-existing ride. Maybe make it a ride-through dark ride for Disney Animation History. You could ride through scenes of Snow White, Fantasia (even maybe keep the Fantasia room as it is), Dumbo, Peter Pan… you get the picture. Make it sort of a combo of Great Movie Ride and Spaceship Earth… or maybe more specifically… A Spaceship Earth with Disney Movies as the theme as opposed to “Communication”. Where better to have 20 animatronic Walts doing different things throughout?

Animal Kingdom
The simplest answer would be to trash the entire “Dino-Rama” concept, and start from scratch, but that’s not the game here, and I can’t choose between Primeval Whirl and Triceratop Spin as to which is dumber. So, I’m going off the grid a little, and picking a ride that gets very little attention, which is a shame, because it has so much potential…

Kali River Rapids.

This is literally the only ride that I encourage people to skip when they come to Disney. It’s not that it’s bad. It’s not. It’s… well.. it’s two things.

1) It’s far too short a ride to justify more than a 10 minute wait. It’s barely over a minute if you don’t count the hill. That’s not long enough for a white-water rapids type ride. There’s just not much excitement.

2) On Splash Mountain “getting wet” basically means that you’ll get a little wet, and likely just enough to cool down in the Florida heat. On Kali River Rapids “getting wet” means that you’ll be walking around with wet underpants for the foreseeable future. It means you definitely need to put your wallet in a Ziploc bag. It means that you’ll hear your own feet squishing in your socks for the remainder of the day. You get absolutely, positively drenched.

There’s about a 25% chance you avoid the total drenching, but if I’m being honest, there’s never been a single day in my life I wanted to walk around a theme park with a shirt so wet that I have to wring it out.

It’s just not worth it, in my opinion.

Again.. it’s not a bad ride. It’s just a ride that doesn’t seem like a ride at all. It seems almost entirely like it’s simply dumping 2 buckets of water on you and sending you on your way.

The worst part is that there’s a message on the ride (about deforestation and conservation) that you BARELY get to glimpse as you rush by on your way to the dunk tank. Disney spent a huge amount of time and money planning out this story line and creating a really pretty beautiful looking scene, and the ride almost totally passes it up in about 30 seconds.

I don’t know what you do to fix this ride, but in a park with limited usable space, it just seems like a waste.

So… that’s my list. Like I said… I love this place. I love what it stands for. I love the way it affects people. The only way it can keep it going forever is to Keep Moving Forward.

What stuff would you update? Anyone who LOVES Kali River Rapids?

Next Up – My review of an old Disney animated movie of my choosing.