Disney Brand Fatigue Is Damaging Its Parks
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ค. 2023
- Disney has clearly shown that their parks strategy is not to create interesting attractions for the sake of doing so, but rather treating their parks as vessels of brand synergy. It's becoming clear though, that with diminishing box office returns for big and "safe" franchises among the rise of streaming, that consumer behavior at the box office is changing. Today, I discuss how changing box office behavior could very well end Hollywood's reliance on brands and franchises and why this spells bad news for Disney's parks which are more concerned with IP integration than actual solid attraction design.
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I agree with your analysis on the film industry as a whole, but I think the biggest issue with Disney Parks is that they seem to not want people to come to the parks anymore. A summer vacay at Disney isn't something you can just _do_ anymore; you have have to save every spare penny for like 7 years, then create a dozen spreadsheets to plan the damn thing like an Ocean's 11 heist. If you can manage to afford the ticket, you can't just walk in and say, "What do you feel like riding? Which show do you want to see? Are you hungry? Let's pop over to one of the quick-serve places and pick up something to eat." You have to pre-schedule and book ALL of that on your damn phone 30 days in advance. You can't walk up to a counter, see what's on the menu, and choose based on what looks good to you in the moment. Well, I mean, you _can_ but they will tell you to come back in 3 hrs to pick it up. Wtf? That defeats the whole PURPOSE of quick-service counters. You have to make freaking _reservations_ for _hamburgers and hot dogs and frozen pizza_ are you KIDDING me? A Disney trip isn't relaxing or fun anymore; it's WORK. You can spend a week on a cruise for LESS than it costs to spend 5 days at Disney, and the cruise line will wait on you hand and foot...you get to relax.
Disney only wants rich park-goers with lots of money, so they are making the "experience" as expensive and as unpleasant for the average family as they can. That has done as much damage to the brand as IP fatigue. And they didn't do themselves any favors with the way they are treating their creative talent.
I must’ve went to a different universe version of Disney World cuz I went last year and had a pretty dang good time that hardly felt like work at all. I basically did all those things you mentioned I can’t do pretty dang easily. Sure I had to look up some schedules of things but overall it was a pretty easy going time. So uh… sorry?
With the way it's going, I wouldn't be surprised if someday they get their wish and hardly anyone goes
to the Disney parks anymore and just go to Universal instead. My last vacation to Florida in 2011,
I spent two days at Disney World with a friend and then spent the rest of the week at Universal and Sea World.
I had more fun at Universal and Sea World than Disney.
Before 2011, the last time I was at Disney World was in 1996 and I had a much better experience going
there as a kid in 1990 until I was 16 in 96 than I did as an adult in 2011 when I was 31. Disney World was
so much better in the 90's.
Yes! I went to Disney in 2012 and went back last year, 2022 and I could tell a huge difference between ten years. For one day at Disney World for a family of four, it cost us 600 dollars. We got the genie pass, which helped with lines, and we got to ride more, but it was work. We spend so much time staying on our phones and running back and forth between rides. I did 24,000 steps that day. We went in October and something that I did not know until after we bought tickets was that they kicked you out after 6 pm unless you shell out another 400 dollars to pay for Halloween nights. They did not do that 10 years ago. So we didn't get to see the fireworks or nighttime show. I just feel like disney demands too much money for what you get, and they seem to be less about families and cater more towards crazy disney adults who would pay for all of these things.
So it is possible to do this at the parks outside the US. Disney Sea in Tokyo has lots of pop up character experiences which are great if you don't want to to queue and lots of good and affordable restaurants and food stalls which you don't have to book. Disneyland Paris is also pretty easy to get around and the queues aren't too bad but if you do have to book the restaurants a couple of days in advance which was a pain. Both parks were easy to access by public transport as well.
However I agree that Walt Disney World and the other parks in Florida do seem overly complicated and unaffordable. I live in the UK and this year I was supposed to be visiting Florida for work. "Great!" I thought, "My workplace is only a couple of hours from Orlando, I'll just pop over for a couple of days and see Disney!"
Nope - turns out that unless you book a week's pass, the daily pass to enter one park is double the price. The hotels nearby are so expensive that it would actually be cheaper for me to book a package deal and FLY FROM MY COUNTRY AND BACK rather than just book a budget hotel on its own.
I was also warned by friends who live in the US that two days was not enough time to see even one park because the queues are so long. Ridiculous!
Agreed. Only rich people, hipsters, and theme park needs are paying attention to the minutiae of ride quality, themeing, and the stuff mentioned in this video. People WANT to go to Disney parks. But they've been priced and hassled out of wanting to. How could a family care about whether rides "make them want to come back" when it can cost over $10k for a Disneyland vacation, and each trip is a stressful bout of planning, wrangling, and budgeting?
Disney used to be an affordable vacation, back in the booming economies of the 60s, 80s, and 90s. And they were iconic experiences because they stood out in a limited entertainment market. But these days, with inflation hitting average people hard, the price hikes make sense but just aren't tenable for the times. And with more and more entertainment options for people between the internet, streaming, video games, and even better local destinations in major cities becoming available, it's becoming harder and harder to justify the hassle of planning/booking/vacation time/pet sitting and all the other things that come with a big, long, exhausting trip.
New, well designed rides and moving away from IP based theming won't help any of that.
The biggest problem seems to be that Disney did not realise that their parks were a brand themselves, and instead they destroyed or merged those brands with others. There was no need to do any of this for brand recognition, because names like It's A Small World, the Matterhorn, Space Mountain etc, and their respective lands, already had brand recognition.
Or Pirates of the Caribbean, which started as a ride, and then become something else.
EXACTLYYYYYYYY
This nailed it.
Well said!
Spot on!
I think the executives at Disney work in an echo chamber. The feelings toward Disney, it’s content, and it’s parks seem to be universal, but when you hear their executives speak in public, it’s like they haven’t read a single thing the public has said about Disney for the last four years. They seem to have outward disdain for their own fans now.
I think, to a degree, that's baked into any business run by people who are only their to make money. A lot of these people were attracted to Disney BECAUSE it was a successful money printing press. Not because they actually have an creative convictions.
I may be accused of 'Marxing up the place' but the businesses that are rewarded, in the short term at least, are not the ones that make the best product, or treat their customers the best, these are just means to an end. The Business that does the best is the one that makes the most money. And the people who do the best are the ones who concentrate the most wealth in their own personal bank accounts.
This is a case where the metric we're using to measure a thing has stolen the spot of the actual thing we assume is being measured.
@@Bustermachine well its not a Marxist or capitalist philosophy your just talking about plain greed... greed is the problem with disney now, well and politics.
Factions with cultural engineering agendas will do that
@@Bustermachine We actually see this in a lot of brands. Some of Nintendo's worst-performing times were when trained businessmen with no boots-on-the-ground experience were at the head of the company. There's a reason that Satoru Iwata is so beloved as an icon and the face of Nintendo in most of the 2000's and well into the 2010s. His background was in making games; he understood what people wanted. Or, at least, what people didn't want - the same thing that everyone else was doing, but most likely inferior. Nintendo has never been known for having the strongest hardware, but their software catalogue is what causes them to crush the competition. And when Iwata was CEO, we saw the release of the DS and Wii, some of Nintendo's most popular products.
No investor or traditional businessman in their right mind would have taken a gamble on touch screens and motion controls in gaming in 2004 - it was totally unprecedented and (as we saw with Kinect and PS Move) could fail catastrophically. But these gimmicks made the Wii highly desirable, because no one was doing it at the time, and the way Nintendo's first-party products used the new tools they were given was very appealing to a lot of people.
When you watch Iwata at events, I get the feeling that he genuinely supported every idea coming out of Nintendo at the time, even the ones that failed like Wii Music. The trained businessmen with no experience in whatever they're producing are the ones that inevitably make everything worse. They don't understand the product, and therefore, don't understand the audience. They may think they do, but they don't. And even if they did, they're usually so bankrupt of any ability to think outside of the box, that even if they did realize that they needed to do something different, they'd never be able to come up with something to try. Especially in a creative industry like filmmaking, game development, or music production.
A lot of these companies are run by people who went to a college where they lived in an echo chamber. As such they get out of college and try to implement strategies based on this and it’s backfiring spectacularly.
I think that part of the issue is that our society is becoming increasingly sensitive to being marketed to. We can tell when something is crass marketing, and we don't have a lot of patience for it.
I think it’s also that entities have gotten so crass that you HAVE to notice it
literally every inch of vacancy in our society is being contested by brands vying for adspace.
Benches, Busses, Mega Screens, Gas Station Pumps.
We have advertisements for products ON OTHER PRODUCTS. theres literally more advertisements for products than there are actual products. cross promotions, banners, sponsorships
, its sensory pollution and its suffocating SOMETHING has to give at this point, it can't just keep escalating like this.
Ye indeed😮
@@borby4584yuuuh
@@sasaki999pro Seriously! We need advertising RESTRICTIONS!!
As someone who worked at Disney in the 1990s I saw the transformation of the corporate culture. It all began with Frank Wells' death and Jeffrey Katzenberg's departure. Eisner, who was nothing but a corporate animal, shifted power away from creative executives to marketing people and accountants. By picking someone from the parks as his successor the transformation was complete. Salesmen, by their obsession with volume, always turn everything into a commodity, which is what movies are now. You can't expect premium pricing when you're peddling commodities.
This is definitely it. The higher-ups being replaced with soulless businessmen who want to make a few bucks but have no idea how to preserve a company's image
@@ferociousfeind8538it's more complicated than that. A company is legally required to maximize returns for investors and the investors can sue and remove executives as they see fit.
It has to be heartbreaking to watch them destroy what you and coworkers built. Thanks for a great childhood, friend. We appreciate you 🩷
It's always the marketing and sales people that will always ruin a company down so they become too big to fail.
@@luizeduardogomesribeiropen324its almost like they're the core of most problems currently
I always thought that Disney replacing Tower of Terror with Guardians was a short sighted move. I still miss Tower of Tower a lot.
Ugh I hate the whole marvel area it’s just not the same anymore it used to feel a lot more relaxing before now the colors are jarring to the eyes
tower of tower
They did WHAT NOW
It just couldn't ride enough people fast enough. When I went the wait time was over 2 hours long so I said screw it. That was years ago but still never going back lol
That's a shame, Tower of Terror was my favourite thing at Disney World when I visited as a kid
The trouble with relying upon brands is that people's tastes and interests change over time. You can be super into something one year and despise it the next.
Absolutely agree, it also doesn't help when the brands are constantly producing shit. I used to be big into Marvel, but now I despise it and everything it touches, except for maybe Spiderman since Sony is still competent. Similar to Star Wars, I'm just indifferent about it (there has still been good quality star wars stuff made). I loved the first season of Mando but I haven't watched an episode past season 2, I watched visions instead.
Plus ruining the brands with horrible remakes doesn't help either 😕
Except these brand things can easily be swapped out with something else new down the line though.
ex: Shrek, Fast and Furious
@@delusion5867 I know I keep harping on Toy Story, but I'm really dreading the downward spiral both it and by extension Pixar are in and would be so relieved to never hear from them again for the rest of my life.
I went to WDW during Christmas 2018. While it was great to see the evening fireworks and projections and meeting characters, there was this cloud of STRESS hanging over all of us. My sister, in her TWENTIES, got mad because we met a character without her. My mom cried because we didn’t make a reservation. I regretted asking my father to pay for Be Our Guest after being excited for years. I was also tired all the time, even when doing “less intense” things like Little Mermaid or Frozen.
I’m grateful my parents gave me the experience but it was difficult watching my family literally change behavior before my eyes due to the cost and anxiety Disney makes you deal with. It’s not worth it.
Yes! You put this into words so well. It’s too stressful for a vacation.
Also there’s no smoking station within the park, so families with smokers either have to wait over an hour for someone to get back from the five mile away smoke break or deal with someone cranky over nicotine withdrawals. I get wanting to keep the kid friendly image, but until smoking addiction is solved, you gotta make accommodations. Addiction is an illness
@@skitterly An illness that affects everyone around you. I'm sorry but I refuse to breathe another person's bad decisions.
@@skitterlyya... no.... even 3rd hand smoke is harmful for people and animals. We don't keep alcohol EVERYWHERE to accommodate alcoholics. What's next? Heroin? I mean.... addiction IS AN ILLNESS
Disney is just walking, waiting in line and spending left and right. It’s not fun. Funny because it’s supposed to be “the happiest place on earth”, however it is not.
I have a better time paying for fast lane at Universal, tbh.
Audiences will tolerate a lot of things. Iffy CG effects, not-great acting, problematic actors. But one thing you can never cheap out on is the writing. You will often hear things like, "it was a good movie, but some of the effects were bad." You will NEVER hear, "it's a good movie, but the writing was bad." Because that's what decides if a movie is good or bad. The writing. Even if a movie with bad writing makes a lot of money opening weekend, it will come back to bite them when no one comes back to see the sequel. PRIORITIZE QUALITY WRITING. PAY THE WRITERS.
If this were true, the three highest grossing films of all time would not be 2 Avatar films and a Marvel film.
@gbf4382 you are conflating good with highest grossing.
Barbie movie lol
Pay writers? Whaaaaaaaat???
@@gbf4382 At least Avatar 2 is acceptable ( not great, but watchable ) and some Marvel movies are good. But most Disney movies are something most people don't care about.
Sequel fatigue is real. On top of that, new IP is seen as risky, so the creative capital isn’t being used. It’s ironic however, since you can look at Disney Tokyo Sea and other European parks to see how original IP thrives.
Also the space mountain rework in tokyo disneyland. If that was in the US, it would be an ip retheme. I heard they were planning to retheme Anaheim's space mountain to lightyear (unless that was a mousetrap article?)
@@idk-zt8rx Please no. Can’t we keep Buzz in his shooting gallery across the way?
@@brandonnotsowise2640 Disney should bring back the people mover and fix tomorrowland instead of tormenting American fans by making the stupidest decisions possible
@idk-zt8rx the problem with the People Mover is that Eisner's Rocket Rods not only damaged the track a TON, but current California safety standards basically made it impossible to operate unless they tear it all down and start over.
@@KetsubanSolo meaning they would have to close the entirety of tomorrowland for a few years. Not much of a problem since they did the same with fantasyland back in the 80s and closed down space mountain in 2003 for 2 years. Now, tokyo is closing one of their most popular attractions for 3 years to update it. Disney has no excuse to not do a tomorrowland rework especially since they decided to close splash mountain to change it to tiana's. They can start on tomorrow land right after they finish tiana's. They can even make a tomorrowland similar to eddie sotto's sci fi city concept from the 90s
I really hope one of the results of this huge strike will be a burst of creative movies. A24 just got approval to be the only studio making films right now, because they looked at Disney saying “Nobody can afford to pay what they’re asking” and called their bluff by giving the writers and actors literally everything they asked for. If indie companies can do it, anyone can.
To be fair, a lot of the writers’ conditions were based on streaming residuals and AI usage, which don’t apply at all to A24. The movie studios were completely willing to pay the writers what they wanted but they’re getting stuck on the other requirements
Really? They agreed to hire a minimum of six writers per project, even if the piece doesn’t need it? I find that hard to believe.
> A24
> somebody is getting paid beaucoup monies to make shitty jump scare films
@@pipbernadotte6707Right, and if EVEN THEY can do it, then Disney shouldn't have a problem. Also, I would take a bad jumpscare film over any of the Disney remakes, no question.
@@pipbernadotte6707
>posts the exact point
>somehow still misses it
P-ZOMBIE
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The thing about Epcot is that even if the “futurism” might have become dated, the parts like that then for many slipped into “retro-futurism”, which itself is very fun.
Wow, thanks for giving a term to an aesthetic I love very much thanks to Fallout ❤️
Disney movies have arguably had their worst year in decades at the box office. They have also had terrible attendance numbers at their parks recently. I think they have done long term damage to their brand and spent that goodwill they had with consumers. I truly wonder behind closed doors if Disneys leadership even understands how they continue to diminish the brand.
I doubt they understand why we're all disatisfied with everything Disney now. Because the only things they see are spreadsheets with economics on them. Lets not forget corporate meddling from executives and shareholders who think they know best, rather than storytellers in both the Movie, TV, and parks industries are a constant affair! Heck that, along with poor treatment of creatives in both pay and work conditions along with insane paychecks for the top brass is a problem plaguing all of the hollywood industry and is why Hollywood workers are striking en masse!
Even there, executives think they can just replace everyone with computer programs and continue, business as usual! And they dont care either way, they earn double digit millions per year, even one years worth of paychecks would be enough to retire by!
As long as Iger is steering the ship, it WILL hit the iceberg and it's only a matter of time...
What a great way to commemorate their 100 years…. 🤡 what a joke.
I legit have a theory that this is some Producer's style gambit because the budgets on their latest movies make NO SENSE. how the hell is Elemental 200 million when Puss in Boots 2 was 120 mil?
@@mitkitty Because the Spider-Verse animation style is apparently cheaper. Pixar's style was revolutionary but now it is outdated
Fact of the matter is, the prices have to come down so that the majority of Americans can actually afford to visit again.
For the astronomical cost to take a trip to Disney, it should be a top of the line world class experience instead of a trip from hell that requires someone to micromanage every minute of their day to to actually see and ride all the mediocre garbage they have on offer.
They should be ashamed of how much they charge people I’m sorry.
ive said this for years. For a family of 4 at WDW you'd have to spend 300 on a room, 400-500 if you want a monorail hotel, and literally as much as 2000. then its an additional 100 dollars per ticket. were already at a minimum 700 dollars and that just gets you a room, and through the door. parking costs extra (i believe as much as 15 dollars, but we can just say for sake of argument that the family took park transportation). most restaurants require reservations due to the long wait times, but you could try your hand at the casual fare where each meal would probably average 15 dollars, so now were at 760. you'd spend most of your day waiting in line, but thankfully because you're staying at the hotel you get to skip 3 lines at specific times... sort of, if you pick popular rides you still have to wait. the parks have always tried to hawk gifts and accessories, but if your kids are a bit older or you really want to be the fun police, you can steer them away from the toys (promising them to go on more rides perhaps). then youd factor in an evening meal, ideally youd sit down at a restaurant, maybe catch the themed dining, but instead you opt to go cheap again, and get something casual... maybe you catch the fireworks while eating your low quality hot dog and fries... another 60.
so if you're frugal you can probably spend 820 dollars for one comfortable night and day in the parks split between four people.
Accoridng to Indeed, average weekly salary in the USA is around 1,070 dollars, we would imagine a family of four would have two earners in the house, each making about that much. Factor in some additional expenses like a nicer meal... beverages, a t-shirt or two, maybe a photo of your family on a ride at the photobooth, and you've spent the average weekly salary for a person in the USA in a single day. Im not sure if the indeed figure is before or after taxes, and i havent included the travel costs for a family of 4 to even get to disney to begin with because they fluctuate so much based on location and season. I Imagine a family traveling from the northeast or midwest to disney would be quite expensive if they flew, probably rivaling the park/entry fees. Just a quick google search on "flights from new york to orlando" revealed anything from 44 dollars to 150. so you could factor that into the frugal estimate and find you could almost have a 1 day disney vacation for the average american salary.
People will say "stay outside the parks" nearby hotel rates run between 60 and 100 dollars per night... but you now need transportation into the parks, and you wont be eligible for that micro-manage line skipping ability, meaning you pay the price in time, car rentals, cab service, ect... but maybe you can get an extra day or two out of it and see a second or third park!
It’s not the same. The magic is hidden behind paywalls. Cast members don’t truly seem to care. I just came from the parks and a cast member was openly mocking our lack of lighting lane knowledge with a coworker. It left us with a bad taste for sure
I'm a SoCal native, born and raised, and I can tell you that back when the park wasn't overpacked and price gouged beyond all reason, it was a pretty fun experience. Heck, when I was in middle school, it was still cheap enough for us to go on a graduation field trip.
Of course, then Disney learned they could almost name their own price and still pack the parks. So they started ratchetting up the prices and then cutting back on quality of service. They price people who live here out of going to one of our own iconic attractions. And y'know what, most of us don't want it anymore. XD
@@Robb1977 like someone in a different comment said: "It's always been expensive. It's just that you feel nickel and dimed the whole time."
Don’t apologize for speaking objective facts
I remember before the streaming service thing, a Disney film coming out was big. Whole family gets in the car, goes to the theatre and maybe you see some friends. Watch the film with them, then go and have some fun while discussing it. An afternoon where the most stressful thing was getting there before the film started.
Me too. The Drive In theaters were such a unique experience
The biggest bummer about the Pandora land is that if had gone with the original theme for that area of mythical beasts it could have had a timeless identity
Timelessness will not be an issue with Avatar. Part 3 comes out in 2025, part 4 will come out in 2029 and part 5 will come out in 2031
@@johnjohnson9915Ugh... no more pre-planned sequels. Films do not know how to die anymore. Not every series needs to be Rocky or Rambo.
Remember when Disney used to make amazing animated films that are timeless classics and were the king of theme parks? I miss those days. I really don't see a future where things come out well for them at this point.
Unfortunately ever since Chapek (either during or after his time as CEO). He and lesser extant Iger has tarnished Walt’s animation side of his company as a joke.
Tbf, Encanto was only in 2021. And Wish could surprise.
@@GravityRaider i have high hopes for Wish but tbh, Encanto isn't anything amazing. It's good but if Encanto is the best animated film Disney has made in the last 10 years without Pixar's help, it's a far cry from The Lion King or Aladdin.
@@ScofieldStudios I'm ngl, I thought Encanto was way better than the likes of Aladdin tbh.
@@ScofieldStudiosAladdin is such an overrated Disney movie, there are much better movies like Beauty and The Beast, Tangled, Encanto, etc…
WDW pass holder here. Spent a day at the parks solo last month (family just slows me down!). Went on Remy, Frozen, and Rise. While technology more advanced than Pirates or Haunted Mansion, the classic rides are so much better. The feel more creative and human.
The latter two don’t overuse lame screens. They have way more physical animatronics and sets.
I totally agree. It broke my heart when they replaced the Great Movie Ride with that lame Mickey and Minnie slideshow. We have gone there since it was called MGM when the Great Movie Ride was one of the centerpieces of the park, and every time have ridden the great movie ride. I have no idea why they got rid of it. And we also loved the March of the Storm Troopers they had multiple times per day. It was great seeing the reactions of kids as the storm troopers “questioned” them. Of course, I suppose it was as more profitable to replace them with lame screens elsewhere. I too am a season pass holder, but I don’t think for much longer if this trend continues.
Totally agree
@@spinlok3943 Well. Animatronics are expensive and sure Disney isn't in the bussiness of expending money right now.
@@Paulxl That is absolutely no excuse. I thought Disney was a multi billion dollar corporation, not a struggling small business. How could they afford attractions like that in the 60s?!
The new dark rides rely too much on technology. The thing that makes rides like Peter Pan interesting is knowing it's models, anamatronics, miniatures, and paintings that are creating an imersive experience. They have presence and look real and that makes you the rider feel like you're there rather than feel like you're watching something. It's the difference between live theater and a movie.
Agreed. You go to the movies to look at a screen, not Disneyland.
I think another huge factor is, ‘how long has the IP been around?’
Mario games have been popular for decades, with several generations growing up playing them. Moana and Frozen have been around for only a few years. While Star Wars and Marvel have also been around for generations, the current versions in parks (new Disney Star Wars movies, the marvel series as a movie franchise focusing on the avengers) have also only been around for a few years-decade. So there’s just no proof of their longevity as cultural touchstones like there is for ‘Mario brothers and the mushroom kingdom’. Harry Potter is one that may start seeing a decline as JK Rowling becomes an unpopular figure.
I wonder how different it would look for Disney if they revived theming around older Disney movies that have been around for decades?
It would likely give them a few more years, but does nothing to address the fact that prior are so oversarurated with entertainment that they are collectively burning out faster and faster the more companies provide.
"JK Rowling becomes an unpopular figure" lol. Only in your dreams, woketard
The original Harry Potter is the most popular series of books of all time, and the best seller, just behind the Bible. I would dare to assume the Harry Potter universe will be fine. But of course, people hate shameless cash cows (Harry Potter sequels, star wars sequels, Indiana Jones sequels, etc.) 😊
See, I just thought it was my nostalgia talking, but I agree that it feels like Disney's neglecting its older, classic IPs in favor of newer stuff. I feel like they don't believe their older traditionally-animated movies will appeal to modern kids who are used to their movies being samey-looking CG or big, epic special-effects blockbusters, hence why they keep making those godawful live-action updates that nobody likes, but I mean...have they given the older stuff a chance? How are modern audiences going to appreciate the classics from the Golden Age and the Disney Renaissance (and even the weird-but-charming stuff from the late '60s and '70s) if Disney just pretends they don't exist and shoves the most recent Star Wars/Marvel thing in everyone's faces instead?
I also think Disney just has too many IPs to deal with. They've got all the classic Disney stuff from the 1920s onward plus the entire catalogs of Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel. They can't keep absolutely everything relevant anymore without pushing a million other things into obscurity. When they're trying to promote a half-dozen new Star Wars projects, their newest animated film, whatever Pixar is releasing, streaming/TV programming, new or updated park attractions, and the approximately seven hundred new Marvel shows and movies they've decided have to come out every year, there's no time or money to try to drum up nostalgia for older stuff.
@@amandaf4720 It's almost as if Disney is too big of a company that should be broken up into much smaller companies that can more properly handle their IPs.
The new stuff has lost it's "magic". It's too specific. To me one of the most amazing things about Disney was the ability to tell a story no matter if you knew the language, the story, or much of anything particular and almost anyone, from anywhere, of all ages could enjoy it.... There's a reason they also have people from all over the world and just a sea of smiles and overall understanding of being in a happy place. We used to always run into so many nice people and kids who we couldn't understand due to language barrier but we could still talk about how to collect pins from cast members and my kids would show their kids pins and end up trading or something like that and then find out where we're all from and just good experiences like that. The themes are just tooooo specific nowadays and definitely amazing with the new technology, it just becomes stale. I can ride most of the rides virtually and when it's on a 14 foot screen and the house is shaking, I'm only missing a few mosquitoes and a delicious Mickey Ice cream bar. Great video!! Have a wonderful day! 🍻🌎❤️🌮🎶
They should approach all the rides/attractions like the Haunted Mansion. It's an original attraction that can be changed for a small part of the year with an IP. Just make a fun experience that has the opportunity to change for a bit and then it goes back to normal after that.
I think that would be a cool idea.
Except Disney can be just as lazy about this too. They go all out transforming the Haunted Mansion into The Nightmare Before Christmas. But when they wanted Space Mountain to temporarily be the Star Wars themed Hyperspace Mountain, all they did was change the music track and throw in some projections simulating a space battle between the Empire and the Rebels. It was very underwhelming. If you're not to going to put in the effort, why do it at all?
@samusmp1_412 I mean Space Mountain is already basically music with some projections of space… I feel like there really wasn’t much else they coulda done without basically tearing down the whole ride and starting over.
+
Space Mountain was at its best when it was totally dark with the exception of a few stars
This is all fairly spot on. Also, Disney World parks have very little spontaneity or even "planned" spontaneity to make every day feel a bit different. Every visit is basically the same, here is the game plan, check all of the boxes, trip is over. In Disneyland you see characters out and about more, Disney World you rarely see this, other than Galaxy's Edge I don't think I've seen it in any other park. Sure, they are spread out to take pictures but they aren't just out walking saying hi and I know they have built in excuses as to why it's hard to do this but it doesn't fly when I know they do it in Disneyland.
One of the more fun things in Epcot is they have the mariachis by the Mexico pavilion, the Matsuriza in the Japan pavilion and another performance in the Morocco area. Again, these usually have times but they can feel spontaneous, and are fun sideshows you can catch along the way. None of these are IPs, just short shows you can catch that makes the atmosphere feel festive and different as you walk around. In Galaxy's Edge they could have different aliens walking around, Magic Kingdom have some lesser known characters walking around like celebrities, have a few characters from Avatar walking around in huge outfits. They build things in the hope you feel immersed but skimp out on little spontaneous things that actually make a world feel immersive. Like you said, their plan is here is an IP, enjoy, and for people like me who have seen very few of the IPs, it doesn't hold much value.
I do agree that entertainment is Disneyland is FAR better. I didn't really understand characters until I first went there and saw them everywhere, interacting with people in fun ways like the Mad Hatter and Alice climbing onto the teacups. WDW entertainment budgets have been slashed to the bare minimum and I think the only "streetmosphere" entertainment in Magic Kingdom is just the Dapper Dans and the piano player at Casey's.
It is a theme park for God sake it's all planned
A final comment on Disney+.... Think of the beatles. The biggest band in history. But they couldn't get away with having an all Beatles streaming service. So they instead become a prestigious offering on another service. That's what Disney should have done with another service. Stayed with them, nurtured the relationship, kept the Disney vault concept but put it on there, and be this upscale high value thing on someone's service while Disney deposits fat checks.
Problem is with corporations as big, like disney, they don't want some of the money even a big cut. They want ALL of the money they want the control and two or more of them under the same roof each smelling big buck they will go try make their own thing where they don't have to give a cut to someone else or, how it turned out, people choose more careful and more are driven to pirate the movie again because its just easier than to look on 5 services if it streams there and have they even a sub for it at the moment
Disney is the sole reason for the streaming wars becoming as ridiculous as they have and that is pretty much my main source of vitriol for them nowadays.
this is what they should've done with Netflix instead of giving them the finger.
The Harry Potter world works so well because we are exactly on places they show in the films. We experienced many experiences our faves experience. While galaxys edge has not nostalgia. We don’t feel like we got transported to a movie we grew up watching. Because we have never seen batuu before
See the stars - ride the movies
To me Galaxy's Edge is successful in making me feel like I've been transported to the Star Wars universe. The real problem for me is how they chose to focus on the poorly received sequels instead of the much more iconic characters.
My thoughts too. The problem with Galaxys Edge when looking at the videos from tourists is the very land itself! I don't understand why they wanted to go with something totally new. Batuu doesn't exist within the SW universe when you look at the films for places that are in the canon. It ruins the magic merely by existing. Why should we have Batuu when we could have the beauty of Naboo or walk over "flaming lava rivers" on Mustafar... Those are places within the SW universe. I would love to see multiple lands within GE such as Yavin-4, Naboo and Mustafar. I chose not to go when Disney's leadership started driving customers away with their greed and ignorance and did something they wouldn't like: I went to their worst enemy Universal. And it was fun. The Harry Potter parks were what I EXPECTED. That's the other issue. Disney knows what the customers were expecting but they didn't want to deliver on the final product. They know the customers expected to see familiar lands so why did they not go with that concept? There's a reason for the old saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"...
And Universal HAS learned from this. There are rumors that they will continue with the HP franchise by having a broomstick ride or the Ministry of Magic at Epic Universal when it opens. They have already sent fans into a bit of a frenzy with Super Mario World but that's because it delivered what the fans expected. I guess that's the key word: expected. The fans expected to see Mario and Universal knew this. This approach will determine whether Epic Universal succeeds. I think it will with new HP lands and even Mario Kart being added. Disney blew its chance and has been falling ever since. The tragedy is that they refuse to learn and keep shoving politics in the customers' faces. I don't think any of their movies other then Guardians of the Galaxy 3 made any money this year and their stock has tumbled so low that it was downgraded from "buy" to "sell". That's the last thing you want with your company stock when your rivals have not only closed the gap but taken a step ahead of you...
To me, Star Wars land looks like a junk yard.
Star wars land is ugly. Why didnt they turn Tomorrowland into Star wars land? It already half was. Then they could use that other space behind frontierland for something new and imaginative. Maybe a medeival fantasy world with unicorns and dragons? Throw in the Black Cauldron and Sword in the Stone if you need tie ins. Maybe some Robin Hood and even Gargoyles too. Heck, invite the Gummi Bears! Of course theyd need a new name and Fantasyland is already taken, but thats not too big a hurdle. Ren Faires, folk art and traditional craft faires, and Fairyworld conventions are very popular. Guests spend plenty of money at those events. Offering a well themed year-round experience immersing guests in great romantic and heroic legends, with a medeival bestiary full of cryptids and creatures, and wizards and fae folk wandering about? I would LOVE to see a well themed land like that. And just think of the merchandising!
it sucks because as a child I dreamed of going to Disney one day but now that I have adult money the price gouging and complete IP overhaul just looks like an underwhelming money pit of a trip. I went to universal in LA because Disney was booked out but tbh I’m sooo happy it turned out that way. Maybe one day disney will be a dream destination again if they fix it but it’s soured atp. I would feel bad but as the actor and writer strikes show, Iger and his contemporaries out of touch with reality greed driven tactics ruined their own brands by trying to play Silicon Valley tech games and selling out to Wall Street.
The best time to go to Disney is as a child - because that’s when you don’t have to pay for it!
I used to want to go too when I was a kid but now I just go to have drinks and because my dad loves it.
It's just an upscale Six Flags more tame Six Flags with the IP slapped on rides
The fact that they (and we) are talking about "I.P." s and "franchises" instead of stories and emotions and joy and wonder, that tells the story right there.
If you ever go overseas definitely try an overseas Disney. Tokyo Disneyland was a fairly positive experience for me in 2014, the park is a bit smaller but it has all the classic stuff. You will still have to line up for some rides (I waited a couple hours for the special Nightmare Before Christmas themed Haunted Mansion, which honestly wasn't worth it) but most are fairly quick to get on to
In the past 3-4 years, every conversation I’ve had about watching a new movie in theaters has ended in someone saying something like “I’ll just wait till it’s on streaming”.
For sure 😂
I think the key problem with Disney is that the leadership is running the company to please billionaire Wall Street shareholders instead of pleasing guests and viewers. If they change their focus to creating compelling content and experiences, regardless of IP, the rest will follow. Cutting workers, budgets, development, and infrastructure in pursuit of a quick profit is a road to failure.
Well they certainly are doing a bad job, $DIS in 2021 was $174 per share, now it's $84 😒
Your literally predicted the “when it comes to the Universe we’re all shareholders” line in Wish, you deserve a prize
From the Roller Coaster Philosophy blog, this is the best critique of Pandora: The World of Avatar I've seen, posted four years before it opened:
"Alas, after more than a decade of service Camp Minnie-Mickey is not long for this world, soon to be replaced by the recently announced Avatar Land. While it’s nice that this land is finally being used to fulfill its potential, I do have to question if it’s a better fit for Animal Kingdom than the Beastly Kingdom would have been. Yes, thematically Avatar and Animal Kingdom share many of the same messages and I suppose Avatar is better here than at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. But it doesn’t feel like an ideal subject for Animal Kingdom’s long-missing third act that explores the kingdom of fantasy creatures. The concept of Beastly Kingdom was much more democratic, rooted in popular mythologies that have been shared by many peoples across history. Avatar, on the other hand, is a story world created by one man with a rather didactic message intended specifically for modern western audiences. As I’m sure we’ll be reminded by the many © and ® symbols scattered throughout this new land, Avatar distinctly 'belongs' to a corporation instead of the popular imagination, and I’m not sure if that’s a right fit to complete the story arc for a park that otherwise is about communally sharing of worlds both natural and cultural."
It's an interesting take, but Pandora thematically works specifically because of Joe Rohde. Otherwise, I think it would have been a flop and I wonder how that would have affected the future of Disney parks.
@@PoseidonEntertainment I still think Pandora will always be somewhat incommensurable with the rest of Animal Kingdom because it's an IP glue-sticked onto a theme, but I agree that Rohde was the key to making it work.
I'm curious what Disney will do when they need to make a large change to Animal Kingdom now that Rohde's gone. And by curious I mean, I wonder how far Disney will miss the mark.
You are the best marketing strategist that Disney has never had. Objective and critically thorough, Disney needs these logical criticisms on their marketing team for sure
The problem is they won't see a problem until the bottom line gets affected.
@@Paulxl yep! And rad avatar, ATHF FTW
And therein lies the problem. For several years, Disney has been rooting out dissenters. All that's left now are like-minded people that think Disney is on the right course. They've fired, blacklisted, and trespassed, from all Disney properties, employees who so much as mentioned they were concerned with the company's direction. They'll never hear logical criticisms because there's nobody left to give them.
Love his critiques. Getting buy-in from management to get other departments to support you is a much harder task that goes beyond creativity especially in a large corporation.
Right? I was amazed about how he/they nailed everything right on the head.
Re: the Indiana Jones thing - I saw people on social media talking about how they were going or went to the movie because of nostalgia for going to the old ones with their departed family members. But what I couldn't understand is why they wouldn't take it as an insult that Disney and Lucasfilm are so cynically exploiting their emotions.
Because deciding to go see a film for nostalgia purposes is not being exploited, it's an adult making a decision to do something they're interested in.
Of course there always will be someone who bites the bait, but the box office was a disaster for that movie, specially because it was obvious they planned to replace Indiana Jones with her God daughter that came out of nowhere. They even killed his son to make it happen, which was a low blow, not for just the audience, but also Indiana jones as a character. In fact, they are thinking in bringing back the original characters of marvel phases 1 to 3. It's more than obvious to anyone who is not a blind fan boy than that is a desperate last ditch effort to catch people's attention again, because no one gives a damn about their last projects (they are not worth your time nor money). Brands are not the money printing machines they thought they were.
I agree. It 100% is exploitation. These films are part of American culture and American identity. These sick fucks are destroying our heritage, demoralizing us, and warping the minds of our children. Not only do they not care, it seems that this was their objective all along.
@@arglebargle5531 Man, what a say to word it. You might as well say say "Sweatshops aren't exploitative because it involves adults making a decision to do something they're interested in - make money." Never mind the people wringing them dry like cattle. And you might as well say fraud and MLM aren't exploitative either since it involves "adults making a decision to do something they're interested in," never mind the people playing them for fools.
@JoseAngel01 I have heard someone call stuff like this "Franchise auto-cannibalism", where a long-running movie series starts to destroy itself by bringing the stuff that made them successful back.
My actual favorite experience of seeing Diagon Alley at Universal was…not finding the entrance. Seriously. My little group trekked back and forth and finally got up the nerve to ask a girl in a Slytherin robe (a guest, not staff, mind you) who walked us in. Definitely felt in keeping with the theme.
Yeah when I went last year I was like where is it and when I found it and saw everything for the first time I was blown away
Did you do that thing where you tap random bricks with a stick in hopes that the door would magically appear?
(Please tell me that tapping bricks is how the door actually opens)
@@davidhong1934 I'm not that person, but I can say when I went I had a similar experience. We wandered around the Universal Studios section of the park after being unable to find the initial entrance, and then my brother had to go to the bathroom. We went looking for that instead, turned a corner from where they were, and BAM, crowds of people. This was right after it opened, too, so I don't remember the precise layout, but we actually had to navigate around that wall to make our way in. Felt incredibly authentic.
The Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland are the best example of an engaging, timeless ride that is inspired by a forgotten IP. But the IP doesn't matter to the people who ride it, because it delivers a great time.
I wouldn't consider The Matterhorn to be based on a film, even if it was what inspired Walt to create it.
I was, and still am, terrified that Disney is going to turn the Matterhorn Bobsleds into Olaf's Reindeer Race.
@@samusmp1_4 I was always expecting the Yeti from "Monsters, Inc" to show up one day. I'm glad they stayed with the normal Yeti, at least that was one of Walt's ideas.
@@whistlingsage9817 I think the only thing that stopped that from happening is that the ride does have a story. The yeti is there to protect the mountain and you're trying to safely get out instead of becoming the newest addition to its graveyard of failed expeditions.
The Monsters Inc. yeti doesn't tell that story all. Not that that would stop Disney from putting him in there anyway. I'm happily surprised the Matterhorn has been left untouched by IP after 64 years of operation.
The Matterhorn idea comes from the movie Third Man on the Mountain. If you haven't seen it, you are missing out.
when Disneyland closed Tower of Terror for a guardians of the Galaxy, i was incredibly bummed. it's one of my favorite rides, and i really don't like Disney World all that much
I have a guilty pleasure for the Guardians of the Galaxy ride since I love those films. But now is that the Guardians trilogy is over will they update it to fit post Guardians 3 or retheme it into something else like who knows if Avengers Campus can keep up, I know they’re building that Avengers multiverse ride but how much longer can Avengers Campus hold up?
For me, it was shutting down their Magic of Disney Animation exhibit in favor of ANOTHER shallow Star Wars attraction. It felt like taking a precious family heirloom, and then pawning it off for a used iPhone that won’t last for more than three years. 😔
@@JonathanGaetangl that ride was so fun, only ride i had a blast on
Disney gobbling up successful IPs / Franchises and killing them, reminds me of game companies like EA obtaining smaller successful dev studios and running them into the ground
Well....
*Looks at EA's Star Wars games*
Yes.
Im still mad about how they wont sell American mcgee his ip rights back after killing the third game😭
That's ironic because I heard that Disney is thinking about buying EA. Look it up on TH-cam.
@@katethemikufan9109 unstoppable force meets immovable object 😂
@@katethemikufan9109
You gotta be f****** kidding me.
I thought Disney was trying to stay AWAY from gaming.
Old IP based attractions like Jaws, ET and Jurassic Park River Adventure worked well with the IP implementation not just because they were all good rides but because the IP they were attached to are considered all time great movies. Stuff like The Secret Life of pets just can't compare to that kind of stuff
I wasn't around when original epcot was a thing,but watching videos about rides like Horizons rlly inspire me. They seem like great classic attractions and I'm actually sad they were replaced by mostly cheap ip rides that just don't fit the overall theme of the park.
I wasn't either, but I watch videos of those attractions from time to time because they're just so interesting.
@@PoseidonEntertainmentOG Epcot was quite a scene.
All the Future World Attractions had serious corporate sponsorship and the World Showcase Countries were all staffed by citizens of that country.
I’ll never forget the original Exxon Dinosaur ride (which became Bill/Ellen and is now Guardians)
Now Epcot is just for people to go get drunk (which is also fun)
@@barrylieberman5954 I went to epcot when i was a kid during the millenium celebration era. Back when epcot was the go to park. After watching this video, it's bittersweet to see it in the state it is now :(
@@rafaelgonzalez4469 Same. Went back with my fam a couple years ago too for a couple days and it was already beginning to show signs of this weirdness. Wasn’t the same and I was so disappointed because I remembered how amazing and magical the experience had been the first time we’d gone :(
As a former cast member for Galaxy’s Edge it was always astonishing to see the wait time difference across both the Disneyland and Hollywood studios versions of Galaxy’s Edge. Hollywood studios was double or even triple the wait time. I think on Christmas Day it was 180 minutes in Hollywood while it was 30 for smugglers run in Disneyland. Rise was over 200 minutes while it was less than an hour in Disneyland.
I assume that the target audience probably plays a role in those discrepancies as well. I wonder now that the "newness" of the land is wearing off, how well will it still continue to draw people in? Apparently there was Cast Members attempting to invite people into Oga's because of such low occupancy a few weeks ago.
@PoseidonEntertainment Also, to expound on something you said in your video, Hollywood Studios has far fewer attractions than the MK or Epcot. Disneyland can spread the busy day 60-70K guests over a much broader attraction base.
Disneyland guests have already been on Rise 10+ times so nobody cares to wait that long. People still wait 90+ mins to ride Space Mountain or Radiator Springs for some reason. I mean, Radiator Springs Racers is a total IP but nobody has gotten tired of that. The land is beautiful. Maybe same thing at Pandora, like the land is so authentic and immersive that guests just enjoy being there.
Honestly, I'm almost glad Universal is doing so well. Disney has made their park into an IP filled mess that you need a degree to even see the things you want, upcharge for half their interesting experiences. They've upped the price for worse experiences. With Epic Universe, there's gonna be enough quality park content to match the length of a Disney trip. And if they keep opening more smaller family parks like they're doing in Texas, they'll snipe the family friendly market by bringing it closer to home, because who wants to drag their small children on a plane to then have to drag them around in the heat. They'll build real brand loyalty by giving families more affordable experiences closer to home, further incentivizing a season pass with a big trip to Universal
Nailed it on the head: Its not the theming that makes a ride great, its the concept and executions, and branding is what dates the ride rather than the ride itself
You absolutely hit the nail on the head with this video. I think many of us saw Disney going 100 percent IP only attractions as a potential danger….and now the parks are in trouble almost as much as their movie and tv studios….what made Disney parks so special was that everything wasn’t about IP’s….they were about experiences…the little details, the stories being told. Heck, the most popular rides were based off of things that weren’t tied to anything…Space Mountain, Big Thunder, Pirates, Haunted Mansion.
Yeah exactly! Disneyland and Disney World use to be about stepping into a world created with the same storytelling magic and quality we saw in their movies. But now its only used as a showcase to shove IP's into peoples faces and feed into their profit streams and promote their movies and shows, which themselves have fallen vastly in quality for the most part! They've failed on both their main pillars of foundation, and though Disney would probably be "Too big to fail" conventionally, they've screwed up so bad, and continue to screw up and ruin their reputation that its actually affecting them, which I'm glad to see.
they abandoned imagineers and handed over the idea control to stock market addicted, creatively hollow business heads
I hate to burst your bubble here but the parks are not in trouble. If you did any research you would know that the parks are literally carrying the Disney company right now.
If it's not built to stand outside the context of the IP, it's not built to stand at all, because the IP _will_ lose relevance over time.
To add to this video: look at the Disneyland Paris annual passes.
Disney just cancelled most Infinity pass benefits and increased its price by EUR 200.
Yeah, Disney fans are tired of how Disney treats them.....
I'm always reminded that the origin of 'Fan' is 'Fanatic' and nobody is more wrathful than a fanatic who has been disillusioned by their idol.
The new Disneyland Paris Pass is such a fiasco starting with the price hike to the no longer existing benefits and then marketing it "as we made a survey and this is what you all wanted! We are just listening to our customers 🤷"
That didn't sit right with a lot of people.
And then everything that went wrong since the release...
But anyway and the initial day there was a 4 hour queue so people were rushing to get it (that queue area had been empty since then but since you can buy them online it's not really an indicator on how well the passes are actually doing 🤷)
The new passes are more expensive and vastly reduce the benefits... but even more concerning, they are only available to existing pass holders.
I was a very loyal customer and had annual passes every year until the covid lockdown when I stopped paying because I couldnt travel and even if I could, the parks kept being closed or fully booked when I was available.
Now things are "back to normal" and I can travel again, I'm no longer allowed to buy an annual pass 😢 I used to make at least 4 trips a year and buy a tonne of food and merch/clothes/pins unique to that season to remember the trip and add to my growing collection. But now, I'll probably just make 1 or maybe 2 trips a year and will have less money to spend.
To me it feels like they are trying to phase Annual Passes out and are hoping people will just buy full priced tickets every time they come back. In reality, I think it means less people will make multiple trips.
The logic must be that new customers spend more and there will be enough to replace the AP holders, but I sincerely doubt that. AP holders are the people who love the parks the most and probably buy more food, merch and extra experiences each time, whereas new customers are mostly queuing for rides and shows to "get the best value" and probably don't have as much spending money.
@@PixelsLtd I didn't touch on this in my previous comment but what's even worse is yes they were marketet as only available as renewal or upgrade for existing passholders but then Disney itself put a link on their site for everyone to buy it. Accidentally, it got taken down. But it has been shared and is still available so technically everybody can buy a pass and Disney has not sorted this out to this given day. They said those passes would be cancelled and refunded but none of this has happened and people are using those passes to go the parks. It's a big hit in the face for every body who is honest and playing buy the rules and just one of the many issues with the new passes
@@Kirschhh_ Oh wow I didn't hear about that. To be honest, if I'd have seen that link existed I would have bought one and felt fine about it (but obviously, everyone should be allowed!)
After going to the park at least a handful of times a year for decades, often bringing and paying for friends, family, co-workers' group trips etc, and spending an absolute fortune (my pins alone are easily in the region of what could have bought a house, with no exageration), and buying the most expensive annual pass for years in a row, the fact I'm now not allowed to have one, just because I stopped paying during a pandemic when they were closed for months but expected everyone to keep paying, really feels like a kick in the teeth. I've been loyal for decades... but now it only counts if I was in the last 12 months, even though there was world circumstances that meant I couldn't travel? its bull.
Disneyland Paris has always been my favourite place in the world but over recent years several of the changes have made it feel less and less "special" and the experience more limited and penny pinching everywhere possible. It used to be all about making every guest feel welcome and valued and that went double for returning people who were obviously the biggest fans. But nowadays it feels like you are being rushed and squeezed for extra money and just another number. It makes me sad. I'm very much looking forward to the new Frozen land and the eventual addition of Galaxy's Edge, so I'm holding on for the minute... but they are close to my brain just ticking over into "I no longer care about this and feel a bit duped" mode. And if that does finally happen, I'm not sure what I'll do with a lifetimes' worth of overpriced themepark tat not to mention framed art, statues, decorations, kitchenware etc all round my house.
I've only been to Orlando a handful of times, and my last big trip was in 2018 - but all the changes made in the Chapek era make me really hesitant to return. Its really quite painful as a lifelong fanatic fan of the Disney parks and many of their properties to be slowly falling out of love with everything and seeing it more as just a cynical money grab which views consumers as literal numbers rather than valuing them. Perhaps it was always this way and the mask just slipped, but I feel its much worse recently. (I'm in my 40s, so its not like I just suddenly realised how the world works!)
You hit the nail on the head here. Universal’s IP attractions (for the most part) can function outside of the IP. Heck, I’d never interacted with Harry Potter, Men in Black, The Simpsons, or even Shrek before visiting Universal Orlando and it got me interested in all of them. Disney, on the other hand, does use IP as a crutch for attractions like Galaxy’s Edge and Toy Story Land. I hope Disney takes a page or two from Universal’s playbook (heck, at this point they might just need a full copy of it)
Regarding Disney movies, I've been starting to wonder if maybe they need to revive Michael Eisner's old Singles and Doubles strategy? This is where they make films with low budgets, but have an engaging script that will draw audiences in anyway with much less of a financial risk. If a low budget movie ends up being a home run anyway, that's an even wider profit margin. Disney had a very successful decade of blockbusters in the 2010s, largely fueled by Marvel, Star Wars and the live action remakes. However, having all of their films be high budget blockbusters with expected $1 billion or more grosses is just not sustainable in the long run. Especially now that those franchises are beginning to see a fading audience.
I've wondered if we're about to enter an era similar to that. Still, I think it's a bit different, as novelty concepts seem to be getting better returns right now. Eisner's films were a little less distinguished but made sense for a different kind of audience.
What are most of the massive budgets even spent on? It can’t just be special effects.
What is the singles and doubles strategy?
@@geoffreyrichards6079 It is complicated, but it is mostly due to reshoots/ redos of sfx. Also those budgets went up these past few years due to covid delays/ precautions.
Baseball term.
Instead of aiming for a home run(a billion dollar blockbuster that costs three hundred million to make) with the higher risk of a bomb bankrupting the studio you just make decent movies on the cheap with less risk when some bomb but others successes make up the small cost of failure.
Still make maybe one giant movie every few years but use the smaller movies to test and train up talented behind the scenes people so you have loyal directors who won't bloat a production budget and waste time shooting something fifty times so they can edit in the right one later(except for Kubrick, he's allowed if he ever comes back to life).
I think the high prices that keep going up to go to both Disney Parks are hurting the most in people and family’s wanting to make visits or return visits to the parks.
It's not that it's more expensive... It's always been expensive. It's just that you feel nickel and dimed the whole time. It's not enough for them to just have expensive park tickets anymore. Now everything costs extra and instead of feeling magical, it feels like a shakedown. Now it's not an escape for a day, it's being depressed every time you have to get out the card again.
Agreed! Higher cost less value. Removing disney express was a mistake with initial intention of keeping guests on dis property. Sure its only a uber ride away but a family of 5 pays 250 just for transportation from airport. 100 for fastpass per day, no late night for resort guests unless your in deluxe.
Bottom line if you want the same benefits pre covid a family of 5 is paying THOUSANDS MORE for similar formally free benefits.
All the while Universal has suites with 3 queen beds, pullout couch and trundle bed for less than 100 a night off season
Well that, and I think that a lot of the "new" things are one-and-dones. People like Galaxy's Edge, but is it specifically a reason for them to come back? I haven't heard anyone saying they "have" to go to Disney to see Star Wars in the same way that they want to go to Universal for Potter.
I agree. I even talked to a Anaheim local at an Angels game and how price increases are out of control just to attend Disneyland and how you’re getting charged even more for it (Genie Plus). The magic costs people’s their wallets and mortgage these days. He even mentioned Universal (Hollywood) and how they have more newer experiences and costs less. I know Universal is a little bit expensive depending on your group but at least Disney isn’t getting into your wallets a lot during your visit.
I think this is actually a really important conversation to have, honestly never really thought about it and now I'm a little upset because Disney has the power and money to probably make more interesting and cohesive attractions but they just don't want to innovate or change. Which is a little heartbreaking because I'd love to see something completely new without any attachments to a brand at all. I wonder if anything will change.
This is Disney we’re talking about, they’ve been innovating and changing since I was born(in 2002…) They’ve just ran into a rough patch lately, this ain’t nothing new for Disney, they’ll be able to bounce back, I’m sure of it.
Ever since the rumors of Universal getting rid of the gouged carcass of Lost Continient, which itself was such a cool thematic land, I've been playing around with the concept of a small, self-contained Legend of Zelda extension for Nintendo World. And with this video, I've revisited the idea with these good points in mind. The part of the franchise I think would tickle folks, both familiar and unfamilar, would be Kokiri Forest. I think Universal having an "enchanted forest" land could be really fun. The Great Deku Tree makes for a stunning icon, and also big trees with faces have always been popular, and the Great Deku Tree's cartoonish wizardy face would save it from the uncanniness that other like animatronics suffer from. Additionally, turning the Poseidon's Fury ride into a Temple of Time or Forest Temple maze/walkthrough attraction could save quite a bit of money. The theme would also carry with it the spirit of the original land, particularly the Merlinwood portion. But LoZ's history kinda touches on all the parts that once made up Lost Continient.
Just some blue-sky thinking is all.
That’s sounds awesome actually. I’ve heard rumors about Illumination making a Zelda movie and a Zelda themed area would be perfect just like how Super Nintendo World was built around the time the Mario Movie was being made and released.
As someone who lives in California, I've definitely noticed a trend towards attending theme parks other than Disney in the last few years. I've been to Universal Studios Hollywood and Knott's Berry Farm a lot more times than I have Disneyland.
You are 100% spot on here.
I went to Toy Story Land shortly after it opened. I rode the rides which were fun, I even found the alien whirly ride to be surprisingly fun. But then I looked around and said to myself, OK, now what? I looked around, shrugged and moved on. After a few days it dawned on me what the problem with Toy Story Land is. It is a land full of toys, but you can't play with any of them!!!!!! It literally invites you in to a wonderful playplace and all you can do is walk around and look, maybe take a few pictures. They should have at least put in some sort of playground area, like the old honey I shrunk the kids playground but full of large toys. They need something to do besides just the rides and food. That land is just not going to last very long.
This is roughly my opinion of theme parks generally - a lot to look at, and not much to do but walk around and look at stuff.
A lot of new Disney lands/attractions are "fun", but they don't resonate in a creative way and make you want to come back.
Yep, I love all the thematic details in Haunted Mansion, Pirates and even Living with the Land (one of my favorite rides) and I want to go on them again and again. These are just not present in Toy Story Land (or are too passive). Although I did think slinky dog dash was fun and I do want to ride it again and again, the other stuff there just isn't up to snuff.
@@clintonmcbride7015 Mine too.
@@PoseidonEntertainment What it kinda feels like is 'everything is a screen, or a projection, VR'. Y'know, the kind of thing you could do literally anyplace but are choosing to present in your exclusive park.
Unavoidable IP has pushed me out of the Disney parks. I grew up on Pixar Movies, but I also grew up with Walt’s vision. Keep moving forward. I think you did a great job summarizing how I and many others feel. It’s such a disappointment.
Back in the day, Disney land had overall themes to certain regions of the parks, but it wasn't tied to any IP. There was a western region, a New Orleans/Haunted Mansion area, the Matterhorn, Future World, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Carribean, etc. I think these were much more timeless.
Feel this quote is fitting about Disney’s haphazard use of IP:
“You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could. And before you even knew what you had... - You patented it, and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunch box, and now you're selling it.”
It seems like in the past when they had actual competitors, Disney's strategy was to make wonderful, creative rides and experiences to draw people to the park. Now that they're the juggernaut their strategy seems to be "What's the laziest, cheapest thing we can get away with and still be able to bleed our guests as much as possible?" It seems to be their strategy in the parks AND in terms of entertainment. THAT SAID, I would totally watch a Tiki Room movie starring Taika Waititi.
Yes yes, this is a major contributing factor! Disney has been a HUGE monolith in the entertainment industry both physical (ie parks) and visual (ie movies) for a very long time, with little to no competition, and thus the CEOs get lazy because they know that no matter what they do, they’re still getting more money than any smaller competitors.
You can actually watch this happening in other industries, too. AAA games are very similar in that a lot of them are rushed and filled with bugs on release day (Pokémon SCARVIO comes to mind) and are generally putting out less satisfying content. I’d argue it even happens with social media platforms- TH-cam can do whatever it wants, because we don’t have anywhere else to go.
The only way to really combat this, I think, is to introduce a viable competitor. Sims 4 is a good example, for a very long time there weren’t significant, wanted updates actually added and there was a lot of unrest, because Sims was basically the only one of its kind. Enter Paralives, an indie game of very similar concept and ideas, that a lot of Sims players were talking about. Suddenly there’s a bunch of new content that Simmers have been wanting; horses, new basegame hairstyles, skintone improvements, refreshes of the townies. Likely because the devs got scared. Indie games are starting to put pressure on AAA studios too.
We may be about to see a change in Disney as well, with. The massive success of Spiderverse and Puss in Boots, and the subsequent unfavorable release of Elemental. (Though tbf, I’m pretty sure Elemental wound up like that because of bad marketing, more than anything.) of course that’s movies and not parks, but I do think (and hope) that change is coming regardless.
(Sorry for the essay, oops! Got excited)
Exactly. Eisner himself said to his staff "we have no obligation to make art ... making money is our only objective." He said this in 1981, and clearly Disney hasn't strayed from that.
It reminds me of what has happened to wwe when wcw went away
@@Antonio-ck2hp Sad days. Man modern day WCW would be insane.
This is probably one of my favorite videos you've done. You hit the nail on the head at multiple points. The insecurity of the modern film/TV industry is most definitely affecting the parks.
I think his point was "you stopped making good rides and lands and going all in into IP isn't going to help you in the long run, Disney"
One of the more memorable shows I saw as I kid going to Universal in the early 2000's was WaterWorld it was so exciting and the theme was so fun! It wasn't until I was well into my 20's that I realized it was based on a movie. Turns out the movies kinda blah to me but the stunt act is still a fond memory because it wasn't 'about' the film it was about having a awesome time with cool explosions, jet skis, and amazing stunt artists putting their hearts into their craft! It was a experience not just a glorified advertisement.
I had meant to mention it, but it somehow got lost in the script. It's a good example of an attraction standing on its own even if you're not familiar with the IP.
When I was a kid I was into science and sci-fi in general. So my parents took me to Epcot. We didn’t go to animal kingdom because I wasn’t interested in lions and animals and stuff as much. When you start to make all your parks one giant pile of “Disney”, the parks lose their individuality, which I think is key to their success.
I really enjoy universal, especially the Harry Potter area, even though I didn’t read all the books and watch all the movies. That’s because it’s just such a cool place. It’s not just a themed ride or two, it’s a whole different world. You don’t feel like your in Florida, well, except for the heat and humidity.
I find it really surprising how much Disney try and use their new IP in park attractions, no matter how unpopular it is
They'll use the Sequel trilogy for Galaxy's Edge and never back down from keeping it 'lore-friendly', when the only thing people are going for is the generic Star Wars things, and not for the story of the Resistance, First Order etc.
They've tried to use rides to prop up somewhat weaker IP too, such as with the potential Coco/Encanto expansions and the recent obsession with Moana, like these IPs aren't unpopular (there's a reason there isnt a Good Dinosaur retheme of Dinosaur at AK), but these aren't signature Disney necessarily.
To be fair, Galaxy's Edge isn't really Disneyland. It's a cash grab, and part of a world that is decidedly not Disney. They own it, but Lucasfilm has their own operational charter. Disney just bought it to try and wring every last dollar it could from SW fans.
Hardcore Disneyland fans won't step foot in Galaxy's Edge. It is offensive to old timers and younger purists alike.
Coco was a good Movie.
@@Sakura_MatouI mean in popularity, not necessarily quality.
I think you are underestimating the popularity of Moana, especially towards children of color. Moana justifies a spot due to this niche, imo.
Because they’re looking at charts and focus groups, not making any creative decisions
WDI has gone so far downhill, they seem to be less focused on innovation and more focused on figuring out ways to bring in ips, brand synergy, and 'modernizing' things.
And by 'modernize' i dont just mean in the scope of inclusion type things but more specifically a 'modern aesthetic' to things. For example, the new reopening of Trails End restaurant in fort wilderness. They ripped out ALL of the old themeing and replaced the theming with what is better described as 'western decorating' by just putting random wagon wheels and horseshoes on the walls like a typical contemporary country cuisine restaurant. Note the wording I am using, it is not THEMED but DECORATED.
WDI use to be masters of theming and here they are giving us some generic western country decor to cover the walls. The restaurant feels 'modern' in a very contemporary and not Disney way.
Same thing with the resorts being refurbished. I'm sure the original designs and concept art for the hotel theming involved the Disney creative team. Disney came up with unique theming that existed no where else, and went and hired people to build those designs. I'm sure it cost a mint. Nowadays, the Disney suits feel that people will keep coming based on nostalgia alone, and won't care that their favorite resorts now look like cheap, modern cookie-cutter hotels with some IP thrown on the walls as a nod to "Disney".
@@JFlocRNa 100% agree. That was also right there at the forefront of my mind when I used the term 'modern' like I did. Same with them making those new fort wilderness cabins the design they chose, among many other things.
I don't really blame WDI but the executives. WDI at this point is just skilled laborers hired to execute the vision of the executives and not really anything more. There do not seem to be any actual creatives left in the department, or if there are, there is absolutely no way that management will listen to any of their pitches.
@@PoseidonEntertainment Joe Rohde was probably the last truly innovative person working on large scale parks projects. But even he had his limits. If I'm not mistaken, Pandora wasn't his idea, Bob Iger and Tom Staggs contacted James Cameron because Avatar made $3 billion at the box office and Iger wanted Disney to also make billions off the IP. I'm sure Rohde retained a lot of his creative freedom because of his status but ultimately he got his marching orders like everyone at WDI.
@@samusmp1_4 yes, it wasn't his idea, but he also had enough sway that he allegedly was able to completely shut down attempts to put Zootopia into animal kingdom under his watch. This tells me that if he TRULY felt there was no fit for Pandora in Animal Kingdom, he could have pushed it out, which further shows how strong of an imagineer he was that he could take things that aren't his idea and find ways to make it fit and pull out the magic. And if he felt that strongly Zootopia wasn't a fit despite being able to do that for Pandora, then it REALLY is not a good fit.
Rhode has a lot of my respect for what he did with Avatar because I was so skeptical about it. Such an obvious ego push on Iger's part, "if they have harry potter then I will one up them by having the single biggest selling movie at the time for an immersive land". But Rhode comes and just makes it mesh so well.
It’s so painful what’s become of Epcot. As a kid it felt like a celebration of humanity , her achievements, her dreams, and her ambitions. Now it feels like the husk of that vision with… something discordant and lost taking its place
This frustrates me because it's all so true. They have the capability to create original ideas (Cosmic Rewind starting out as a Big Bang ride is a perfect example). They also have a fanbase that has vocally supported original ideas. For example, the S.E.A. family of rides and stories are often praised by many. It just frustrates me to see a company that just blatantly disregards this feedback and instead pushes for shoehorning IP.
I think an argument can also be made that consumers are growing increasingly tired of these franchises at the movies as a result of the way the company force feeds them content and subjects them to IP in service of purely making money. Consumers have grown wise to the "cheap tricks" from a mega company, and beloved characters of films morph into vessels of capitalism in their minds. Heartfelt stories become hollow and plastic. Toy Story 3, for example, was an emotional conclusion for audiences of all ages. Toy Story 4, however, felt like a way to sell toys shaped like a spork, and Toy Story 5 feels like a last ditch solution from a company that doesn't even know the actual problem.
Anyway, the most frustrating aspect remains this: They're capable of creating innovative, original concepts. They're just refusing to do so.
The difference is that Disney used to make rides and then made movies out of the popular ones. Now, they are making movies and building rides based on the popular ones.
Edit: What Disney needs is an area that can be built on, themed on the "movie of the day" and then torn down to rebuild for the next theme.
@@erictrott6553 I always said Disney's Hollywood Studios should be the official IP park for Disney and perhaps maybe Animal Kingdom. Magic Kingdom and Epcot should focus on original ideas.
@@DeepDeepSpacewhy animal kingdom?? They have the least IP already and it’s fine that way
@@josiahgoes9633 well Animal Kingdom does have the Avatar Land. But it would be a good place to put animal themed IPs like Lion King, Jungle Book, and even Ratatouille. I would rather it there than at Magic Kingdom and Epcot.
@@josiahgoes9633avatar is all IP, dinosaur is an IP ride, Tough to be a big is IP, festival of the lion king is IP, Nemo musical is IP, kite tails was IP
I’ve been saying this for years and years but pixie dust snuffing Disney fans kept shutting me down saying “you just don’t like change.” I like change, just not BS garbage like the stuff you mentioned in the video. Look at where all of this “change” has gotten Disney now.
For movies I think the trick will be trying to make the next niche “cult classic” over blockbusters.
What you want is an existing fanbase for a project or person, but not necessarily any previous history on the big (or silver) screen. Books, non-DC/Marvel comics, screenwriters who got their start on gofundme or youtube, etc. Nimona is a recent example.
i still can’t wrap my head around how someone could consider movie IPs, which sometimes amount to no more than essentially fads, to be “timeless”, literally the exact opposite infact
Super interesting discussion! Very interesting that you brought up Cosmic Rewind early on here, because I specifically remember thinking that I could not possibly care less about the Guardians backstory of that ride. I just wanted a good coaster. I actually found the excessive theming in the queue kind of annoying. If the plot needs 3 preshows to explain, it's too complicated
I wish Imagineering would put down the immersion copium.
The plot is stupid and inconsequential regardless of the content in the pre-shows. I can think of a lot of better things that would feel more thematically interesting than Guardians of the Galaxy.
Your spot on regarding the Potter areas at the Universal parks. I've watched a couple of the films but really don' t know much about them. But the areas created in both parks are incredible. They would stand on their own regardless. It really is the kind of thing 'studio' theme parks were known for. I'm not sure I agree though the Nemo area was pointless. It's a nice intro to the aquariam area for the little ones. My daughter loved it and it was a good segway to exploring the marine life. We love walking the countries around Epcot and I do wish they would just keep the disney charactes out of this. One used to walk into the Mexican pavillion and there would be some Mexican art amoung other things..now it's Coco.
I don't think that the idea of Nemo is an inherently poor introduction to the pavilion, but the execution of the ride is the problem. It was literally slapped together last minute because of the surprise success of the film and it's scenes are just so disconnected from one another. If you hadn't seen the movie, I don't think that it would make any sense to people.
I also agree about the Jason Bourne thing. I recently visited Universal and Islands of Adventure with my little twin nieces. While both they and I are big fans of Harry Potter and so could obviously enjoy the Harry Potter themed sections of the park, my step-dad really wanted to do the Jason Bourne show which neither of us are familiar with or care about. I remember actually being annoyed that we were going to do it. By the end of it, I found myself having had such a good time and genuinely enjoying the performance in spite of my total unfamiliarity with the brand, which actually surprised me. 😊
Honestly, I liked a lot of the old Disney rides before they got their IP makeovers. Maelstrom was always a nice break from the Florida heat with a usually short wait time. The emphasis on Vikings and Nordic folktale elements was interesting and surprisingly dark (like a lot of the older rides). It's a shame how all that got replaced with the underwhelming and rather saccharine Frozen IP. I don't really understand why it or the French restaurant needed IP makeovers. Simply adding in a few subtle and recognizable elements could have been enough. I think Epcot would have really benefited from doubling down on the "around the world" concept rather than trying to fit in as many big, expensive IPs as possible. My sister and I used to love going around the circle and exploring all the different locales and the street food offered. When we went back after the "revamp", I think we left early because it was so crowded and underwhelming whereas our previous trip, we had opted for a second day at Epcot to eat at some of the restaurants we spotted and attend a showcase that a family had been raving about near us in a line for Haunted Mansion. (I can't remember what the show actually was, but I do remember that Gaston made us cry from laughter while we were waiting in line.) Traveling out of the country was always out of reach for my family growing up, but a couple of years' worth of saving up could get us a Disney vacation. Now it's even more expensive and honestly not as much fun as Universal or simply exploring the rest of Orlando.
It's fascinating to me that they have made it really really big, have near endless amounts of money, power, fame etc. But they've gotten so in their heads about just sticking to what makes that insane money when people are starting to see the cracks
When you mentioned the shelf life of IP associated with rides and experiences, the first one that occurred to me was Captain EO - What started out as a talent/icon coup turned into an embarrassment that Disney wishes everyone would forget.
Captain EO was an original idea not a pre existing IP. And it was never an embarrassment for Disney. It was a popular attraction for years.
@@DeepDeepSpace The "IP" in Captain EO's case was Michael Jackson. They were selling Michael Jackson.
How is Captain EO an embarrassment? I thought it was weird for Epcot, but it was definitely popular.
Damn we need to bring back Captain EO. Most epic 3D musical with MJ. Perfection
I clicked on this so fast, it's crazy. When I saw how poorly Disney was doing on the business channels and even hearing disney fans being disappointed, I was hoping you'd make a video and here we are! It's the greed. It's sad. Disney isn't atainable for most people.
Hey man, great video. But I’d like to add that it’s not just brand fatigue that’s causing less and less attendance at Disney, but the ever growing price
i fully believe that the best disney rides are ones with original themes or ones that are themed after really niche properties that nobody had heard of
Our next trip to FL, my family will be skipping Disney and doing Kennedy Space Center and Universal instead.
We don't have to love the IPs to enjoy themed areas and the excellent rides, but Disney is a more stressful trip to plan with the top 5 rides we care about being spread between 4 parks and the cost and complication of Genie+.
Sadly, Disney gets very lazy every other generation or so, as at one point in time, direct to video releases was their bread and butter until they flooded that market as well. They also started taking shortcuts in animation which is what put Disney on the map to begin with. As of today, we seem to be in one of those lazy periods which means they will put forth the least amount of effort and expect HUGE returns for their efforts. It would seem the market is correcting its self, and Disney is hurting because of it, plus Iger did tons of damage before he left the first time. And he now seems ready to do it again in support of his rather lofty bonuses for righting the ship, that he led to the rocks to begin with.
I think releasing their bad films direct-to-video probably helped their brand. People knew that if a film was released in theatres, it would be a great movie.
Sadly, that's no longer the case.
It's like how Rick and Morty put their dumb, corny but also rather fun ideas in the interdimensional cable episodes (and Morty's Mind Blowers), so the other episodes generally had a good standard of quality (except obviously Raising Gazorpazorp and also Look who's Purging Now. I didn't like how Rick just forgave Arthrisha after what she did. They should've killed her). But most of Season 6's episodes felt like something out of interdimensional cable (except Rick: A Mort Well Lived and maybe Night Family). I did like how Solaricks explained it by saying that Rick rushed quite a bit finding them a dimension to move into after Mr Frundles took over the Earth, and that Parmesan was pronounced weirdly, whilst also implying there were some other differences. Like, of course these episodes feel like interdimensional cable: they're in another dimension. And also, since Rick rushed to get them there, he didn't bother checking whether it was in the Central Finite Curve, which is why the dinosaurs were smarter than him. And of course the president seems out of character in the finale: this is a different character from a different universe. Like how Evil Morty is completely different from most other Morties. And it's probably also a meta joke about how they rushed to get this season out fast. And actually, the show's tone always changed when they went to another dimension. The tone of the first 5 episodes of Season 1 felt completely different to the rest of the show, and Season 6 also felt different from the rest of the show.
But now I'm getting off on a tangent.
My point is, when you gather all the garbage in one place, everything else is great.
Disney in the 80s was pretty bad too.
I imagine the 2020s will be another lost Disney decade.
@@maxpowr90 True as a 80's kid I agree. I liked the old Disney movies
on VHS back then but I was a huge fan of Don Bluth and I still hope that someday
he'll come back. I've been cheering for Dreamworks since Shrek first came out and I hope
they dominate Disney in the box office for a long time.
The difference is that while Disney is leaning solely on their IP and not putting any effort into their rides, Universal has improved and knows that not just IP will bring people in, you have to build actual rememberable experiences, it's why they're starting to perform better than Disney and more people just seem to enjoy Universal nowadays. Especially with their EPIC Universe expansion coming soon, it's clear they know how to build lands that are actually able to interact with guests and make them come back.
Streaming would be considerably more profitable if they stopped making these massively bloated shows. For a while there was this resurgence of TV shows because networks started getting extremely good writers who relied on creativity. If you want people to keep tuning in and watching the whole series it needs to have a good story. And a standalone story. It shouldn't be required to watch four movies and two whole other TV shows first just to be able to understand this new one. Look at the shows that people like to go back and watch over and over: Friends, Community, Parks and Rec, Breaking Bad, etc. All have fantastic writing but not insane budgets, I mean Friends mostly took place on the same three sets and is STILL making the studio money all these decades later. But studios, especially Disney, got it in their heads that they need to spend a ridiculous amount of money to make a profitable movie or show and lately that's been blowing up in their faces, and then they complain that "people don't want to go to the movies anymore." No dude, we do, we just don't want to waste $20 per person on something that is rubbish. As said before Barbie and Oppenheimer brought people out in droves because they looked good and then the high quality of them spread like crazy after opening weekend. But studios can never get their heads out of their rears until they're drowning, and even then they'll blame everyone but themselves.
One of the things that annoys me the most is when Disney half-asses an attraction redo. They don't rebuild, they just re-skin, like a palette swap in video games where the only thing different about a character is the color of their costume.
California Screamin' became the Incredicoaster. So they threw in some show elements from the movie.
The fundamental problem is that the ride itself is still a California boardwalk wooden-aesthetic coaster, which has absolutely no thematic cohesion with The Incredibles IP. Oh, I guess Dash can run fast so that ties in with the initial launch. 🙄
Anything could be thrown in there and it wouldn't make a difference. Make it Onward, pretend you're in the van trying to find your dad, look there's your dad's legs at the end of the ride, we did it! Make it 101 Dalmatians, you're trying to escape from Cruella.
If Disney had The Incredibles in mind when they were designing an attraction called the Incredicoaster, this is not what they would have built.
The ride is still fun, but Disney glue-sticked a story on top of it and now it's trying to be something it can't.
I guess we'll see how the Princess and the Frog attraction turns out as a replacement for Splash Mountain. It seems like they'll have an easier time with thematic cohesion because a log ride can lend itself well to a bayou setting. But unless Disney totally rips the guts out, they'll still have to work backwards to make the story fit the ride, instead of building a ride that complements the story.
Slinky Dog Dash is even worse, because it's a microcosm of everything wrong with the land theming.
You're telling me that Andy has enough money to buy an entire track dedicated to Slinky Dog? Along with the other 900 boxes of shit he already owns AND the Midway set?! How rich is he?
I loved riding California Screamin as a kid. The soundtrack was awesome. It was actually my first coaster to conquer my fears of roller coasters because of the loop. I was glad I got to ride California Screamin on the final day and got a Fastpass. With the Incredicoaster I just don’t have that same vibe with Screamin, and the only reason Disney rethemed it is to promote Incredibles 2 which was not as good as the first Incredibles. Oh and to promote Pixar more by shoving all the Pixar characters into the pier.
@@eatatjoes6751Andy grew up to be a tech mogul. For nostalgia, he collected old toys from his childhood, and made elaborate rides with them.
IPs in the parks were fun for a while but I think the bubble is slowly bursting. For me, it's partly declining interest in the over-saturated franchises they're clinging to. But it's also partly that I miss the feeling of "exclusivity" in the parks. I used to go to disneyland with the excitement of riding the unique splash mountain or tower of terror. I know their original versions were technically both based on IPs but even those felt way more unique than their redesigns.
I agree. I remember hearing that during a Disney Parks show there was a Frozen segment and most of the audience groaned when “Let It Go” started playing
It's very sad. I have a 6 year old who no longer wants to go to Disneyland any more. Last time she hardly was able to get on any rides and it was ridiculous with reservations and constantly having to engage with your phone made spontaneity a thing of the past. She now prefers Knott's where you run around and do what you want when you want. I am not sad that you can buy a annual pass for what you pay for a single day at DL. Growing up we had multiple Disney shows on TV, Disney radio and DVDs that kept us engaged. Young kids have too many options anymore and have lost their engagement with Disney after about age 5 or 6. The work and constant nickel and diming that a trip to the park now requires just makes it no longer worth it. And yes all these themes that don't resonate with the majority of people and are one and dones, does not help.
Original Test Track was such a fastastic experience - I bet too many people complained about the heat tunnel.
Living Seas was a beautiful part of the park, then Nemo totally gutted the immersion.
Finally, Innoventions might be too "90s", but the ambient soundtrack they use for the main park is so whimsical, hopeful, and nostalgic, that it's the perfect theme for the old science and technology learning experience. I couldn't imagine EPCOT without it.
Have you been to Epcot recently? The soundtrack is gone. It's been replaced by a soundtrack made up of vaguely inspirational but unremarkable tracks from copyright licensing soundtrack websites like what I use for my videos.
Dunno why I'm posting this here, but here we go.
With Universal opening up Epic Universe in 2025 and really committing to a multi-day resort model, they're definitely going to take another large share of theme park attendance, as they've been shown to be able to do with the Wizarding World in 2010. Now the question is: would this prompt Disney to open another park in Orlando, where would it be located on the premise, and what would it be about (even if you don't expect them to actually make one, just entertaining the idea is fun). Just a thought experiment I thought up and thought people on this channel would like, especially since realizing that they haven't built a new Orlando park since 1998.
I doubt Disney will add any new parks to the Florida Resort. There is a lot of space in the current parks that could be built out. Some attractions can even be replaced. For instance, the Tomorrowland speedway takes up a lot of land that could be put to better use.
But I wouldn't be surprised if Disney added a third Castle Park in the United States.
I'm not at all interested in a 5th park because Epcot and Hollywood Studios still need major fixes. Animal Kingdom also needs additional capacity. I wouldn't trust current leadership to debut an interesting park.
@@PoseidonEntertainment oh no I absolutely agree, but we both know Disney hasn't made the best decisions lately. They'd probably just think "oh they have a new park? us building one will draw more people to us too!" So it's just entertaining to think of what crap they'd try to create.
Bro is the 🤓 of all theme park fans and I love it
I used to like this channel but I wish this dude would stop being such a non-stop. All his videos seem to have this vibe lately. “Half-baked with an IP slapped on it” personally I like theme parks and this channel bums me out, so I have to unsub even tho I didn’t want to
I think defunctland is nerdier. Poseidon is more critical.
@@Dean.Crockett this is just the state of much of modern Disney. If you watch Poseidon's other stuff you'll find that there are much more positive videos about weird or interesting things about different theme parks, its just that these negative videos get much more traction and views than others.
@@Dean.CrockettBecause that’s what modern Disney is right now… IP rides are fun, but what are the most iconic rides you think of when you hear Disney. 95% of them are original ideas.
Poseidon is more 😈 with 🤓
For so long I tried to find the words to compare the WDW design choices from when I grew up (90s) versus today, and I finally found the words I was looking for: In the 90's early 2000's, the designs of the parks, the rides and the resorts felt organic, and an extension of the idea of what Disney magic can be, truly transporting you to wonderous places that still had that Disney wonder. Flash forward to now, and it just all feels artificial and cheap, tearing down and changing unique ideas and adding cheap department store level architecture and slapping IP stickers all over it in hopes of making it something more than it really is. In short, the old day designs were organic, the new ones are artificial.
It still baffles me why they made Galaxy's Edge be entirely about the Sequels.. There might have been a few diehards that would have complained about the theming and how it doesnt make chronological sense, 99.9% of us would have loved to see a true Star Wars land with all our favorite characters.
Poseidon entertainment just want to let you know you are one of my favorite video creators. And you definitely deserve more subscribers
I appreciate you coming and watching the videos. Here's to hopefully hitting 100,000 subs by the end of August 🍺
I think to those outside of theme park fandom like us IPs have a big effect for.
Some rando in the Midwest when told about an immersive alien planet ride may not care as much as when it’s Pandora from Avatar.
I just think they should focus on making compelling rides first and then implementing the IPs into them instead of whatever the hell webslingers was 🤮
This x1000 I'm a fan of disney world because I like disney if I want theme parks I can go to ones much closer. I don't mind non ip rides and experiences at disney but I'm going there to see mostly IP. But at the same time want a good time so would appreciate thought being applied to the thing they put the IP on.
Yeah, I think that's the problem. Disney is compromising its theming and details in favor of cheap marketability to people who would otherwise never really care. What happens to Disney when Epic Universe becomes more interesting to that demographic?
The comparison with Universal is entirely accurate. I recently visited Universal Studios Japan, and it was immediately obvious that the incorporation of Intellectual Property & pop culture titles was primarily in service to quality entertainment experiences first and foremost: the branding was a part of the experience, but not the *whole* thing. Case in point, the Jurassic Park area has 2 of the park’s premier rides in Flying Dinosaur & River Adventure. Both rides make heavy use of Jurassic Park theming and branding, but whilst these attractions could be re-themed to any conceivable IP to satisfy management types who think just having recognisable names everywhere equals success, the fundamentally excellent ride experience offered to guests is what makes the difference in actual enjoyment. It isn’t just simply sticking a billboard over a lacklustre ride/show purely for brand recognition as Disney keeps doing, and I think Universal’s approach goes a long way to explain the difference in fortunes each side is experiencing recently.
I've been a Disney loyalist my whole life. But after the SAG strike I was appalled. I'm not putting anymore money towards Disney until they start fixing things ethics wise
just started watching ... I am not against SOME IP .... it makes sense in some cases ...... but what i miss from Classic Epcot (glad Spaceship Earth and Living with the Land are still there are two of my favorites) are the ORIGINAL Imagination and (I forgot the area in the pavilion like with the rainbow tunnel, while typing this)... Innoventions/Communicore.... and of course Horizons ... like the Imaginears got really creative then and didn't have to had IPs slapped on them
I have a theory there are no actual imagineers, just new hires that check social media sites and assume its what every customer likes in general. We have a bunch of people with the title Imagineer but I cant recall a single physical park mockup concept they have produced, or volumes of concept art submitted for consideration and put on display for public feedback. We get maybe 15 still images of a single ride and itll be underwhelming when produced, if we are lucky enough to get concept art for the change at all.
I mean, 'Imagineer' isn't a term of art. So it seems equally likely that you just have the slots beings filled with bog standard mechanical and electrical engineers who can sign off on modifications, rather than anyone with creative ambition.
Don't get me wrong, you need BOTH. Disneyland became great on the back of its excellent design and SAFETY record.
I remember the star wars section was supposed to incorporate a bit of all three trilogies to appeal to everyone, but Kathleen said no, forget the old, think only about the new.
I agree with the points you presented in this video. I think using existing IPs to generate crowds will work to some extent, but people is not going to come back since it's just 'been there, done that'. Especially with the availability and quantity of media enabled by streaming services, these IPs can be experienced somewhat outside of the parks. I think theme parks should be built around experiences you can't get anywhere else. Thinking back to the 80's and 90's, I was so excited to be at Disneyland because it's like stepping into another world. But having gone back last month after 15+ years, it just felt like I'm walking around in advertisements. Disney should shift their focus from existing IPs, and really create one-of-a-kind attractions that you can only experience while at the park.
At very least, if they're going to us the IP, they have to COMMIT to doing something with them that happens to be more interesting than a dark room full of monitors and faces projected onto cheap mannequins. It's not the IPs, I think, but the way the IPs are being used cheaply to avoid actual innovation and work.
I mentioned up thread, while Elemental will probably be a break even to modest success in the long run, the concept of Elemental is basically BEGGING to be turned into waterpark style attraction.
I mean, it has everything you'd want - The main city in the film is made up of fanciful water features that could easily mingle places for parents to relax while having a view of the areas their kids are playing in. Lots of verdant landscaping and visual interest in the city design that could be converted into interesting ride.
You can theme misting systems and blowers to keep hot guests cool after 'air elementals'.
Even Firetown can feature prominently as a place for restaurants, outdoor barbecue, and live performances.
They need to make new stories with new characters . Stop this nonsense of remaking a movie.
As a kid, I loved the world expos more than Disney. They felt more sincere. And hilarious in retrospect. Like the 98 expo had a display in the China exhibition of a Chinese flag and astronaut on the moons surface. I don't remember any of Disney, but I never forget the donuts from the polish exhibit at any expo.
I didn't even know that epxos were running that late. I still like the idea of big, expensive events like they used to be though. I know people will say "oh, well the internet made this irrelevant" but I disagree. Going to something like the many bigger world expos would still probably be really popular today, especially with how prominent experiential stuff currently is.
Excellent, thought-provoking video. Disney leaders have lost touch with the majority of its customers (and what they pay to experience) plain and simple.
My partner currently lives not that far from Orlando and has an annual pass at Disney, so they can afford going there and just do one attraction and spend the rest of the day lazing around, there is always next weekend or the next day off.
Out of curiosity, I have checked how to go to Disneyworld and what to do (I don't live in the US). Took me ten minutes to start googling Universal and local theme parks instead, and if you ask me it took me nine minutes too many to realize Disneyworld isn't worth it.
Here to say that Disney Sea and Tokyo Disney were a blast. They seem to be more well managed and cared for if that makes sense. Built differently and more fresh. I hope Sea never changes.
Are they like Paris Disney, privately managed? Ie not by Disney?
yes, both tokyo disney properties are managed by a different company@@Songbirdstress
Love your videos, keep up the amazing work!
It is SO satisfying to hear all of the things that have exausted you as a modeen consumer and former Disney fan put so eloquently and concisely.
So when I was growing up the whole difference between Disney and Universal Studios was the latter was just about "Ride the Movies." All Universal's rides and attractions were based around movie franchises of theirs. This represented kind of a shift from their original theme, i.e. *making* movies or "behind the scenes." There really wasn't a whole lot of making movies themed material in the "Back to the Future Ride," but it was still related to a movie. Disney did always have attractions based on their movies, but then they did a lot of stuff that went beyond it: They had rides and attractions that took you into the past, the future, dense jungles, outer space, the history of human knowledge, etc. Over the past 20+ years they've really let that ambition slip away. Now, every Disney ride is branded with a movie tie in, and all the classic rides have been turned into movies. In other words, Disney parks are just another version of Universal Studios now.