Tag Archives: DisneyQuest

The First Disney Pixar Movie

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2012 is the Bizarro Year.

This year, we hailed California Adventure, Hong Kong Disneyland, and the Magic Kingdom as shining beacons of incredible theming. Tokyo Disney Sea’s newest rides are a transplanted carnival game thing and a Magic Carpet spinner.

At the box office, Spiderman and Batman got beat up by second tier superheroes like Iron Man and Thor.

George Lucas managed to rekindle the excitement for millions of fans across the globe. And also released Red Tails (remember that? Yay, Disney gets it!)

And Disney Feature Animation and Pixar decided to dress as each other for Halloween.

Back in the summer, Pixar released its first real “Disney” movie: A princess story involving a magical transformation, female empowerment, and jaw-dropping fairy tale visuals. The only things missing were a wise-cracking monkey and Alan Menken.

On Friday, Disney Feature Animation will release its first real “Pixar” movie, about a tall, lunkish character who gets fed up with being the bad guy in his own life story and tries switching careers.

Also called “The Michael Eisner Story”

Brave did decent, but not “Pixar Juggernaut” box office. Meanwhile, I’m predicting Wreck-It Ralph turns out to be the biggest Feature Animation hit in almost 20 years ago. It has all the elements of the best Pixar films: A unique world. A touch of childhood nostalgia. Geek street cred. Strong voice casting. And that killer, killer idea that makes audiences want to see it, such as pairing a multi-Oscar winner with the star of Jungle 2 Jungle.

There’s a buzz around Wreck-It Ralph that was never there for Princess and the Frog (a return to hand-drawn animation!), Bolt (Miley Cyrus is — or possibly has — a dog!), or Meet the Robinsons (something vaguely goofy that kind of has to do with time travel and a genius family but it’s hard to talk about oh just go see it!). One has to go all the way back to the heady days of the early 90s, when Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Lion King reacquainted audiences with the magic of Disney animation. Oh, and Rescuers Down Under. Mustn’t forget that.

Like any cyclical business, it was feast or famine. After the Katzenberg glory years, Disney started putting out things like Brother Bear, Home on the Range, and Chicken Little. All of which went on to become some of the most timeless classics ever watched by Roseanne Barr. That allowed Pixar to step in and steal the animation crown, along with Dreamworks, which somehow is well respected in spite of releasing both Shark Tale and Bee Movie.  It somehow seems wrong that after 80 years of making animated features, Disney Feature Animation owns only 5 of the top 40 highest grossing animated hits, and one of those is a live action movie starring Bob Hoskins. Only Lion King is in the top 10.

If Wreck-It Ralph can deliver the goods story-wise (and from everything I’m hearing, it does), then it’s a good indication that Disney Animation might be all the way back. Tangled was a very strong effort a couple of years ago, but Ralph has “breakthrough” stamped all over it. It’s the sort of movie Pixar used to make, before they got distracted with movies that were either all about marketing (Cars 2), or impossible to market (Brave). Those movies still did well at the box office, but not up the standards Pixar had set for itself.

If Ralph does blow people away, it opens up a whole new franchise of opportunities for the theme parks. Imagineering already has Marvel stuff ready to go. You just know they’re going to do the same with Star Wars (and of course Howard the Duck). But the world of video games may be the most untapped intellectual property in the theme park universe. And no, Toy Story Mania does not count.

For the first time in history, virtually the entire relevant theme park demographic has grown up with video games. There are still a few older park goers who didn’t, but families and their kids have never known a life without Mario and the rest. I’ve been saying for years that Legoland should have been licensing video game characters for their rides, to define themselves as the true “Toy Land” in the theme park lineup. Now Disney has a chance to do it for real.

Wreck-It Ralph is starting to make the usual “new release” appearances in theme parks. The merchandise is on the shelves. The “making of” displays are up in the Magic of Disney Animation. The character greeting area opened on Sunday. The first “inappropriate touching” lawsuits were filed on Monday.

Fix It Felix game at Hollywood Studios.

But there are signs that this could turn out to be more than just another Up or Wall-E. Those movies came and went with the same character meet-and-greets and art displays. Once the movie disappeared from theaters, so did all the park stuff. You might find an occasional Wall-E for sale at Mission Space, or Dug photo op, but there’s no real demand. Ralph can change all that.

I haven’t seen it myself, but apparently there are rows and rows of “Fix-It Felix” game cabinets dominating one floor of DisneyQuest. If any attraction could use some rejuvenation, it’s DQ. Can you imagine it re-themed as a true “Video Game Park,” with Ralph as its host? Imagine it stripped of its current disjointed levels, replaced with familiar themed environments from Mario Brothers and Zelda and Halo and Skyrim. Get rid of old polygon attractions like Virtual Jungle Cruise, or wildly irrelevant Mighty Duck pinball activities, and replace them with supercharged video game experiences. Why not a FPS (First Person Shooter) Lazer Tag arena themed to the classics of the genre? How about a Mario Kart (or Sugar Rush) go-kart track? Maybe even a life-sized, human-catapult Angry Birds experience?

I know I’ll be in line this weekend for Wreck-It Ralph, and I’m sure many of you will as well. With Carsland, Fantasyland, Lucasfilm, and the Avengers, Disney is already having an incredible year. I think Wreck-It Ralph may turn out to be the icing on the cake.

 

The Diamond in the Rough

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One of my favorite topics is complaining about places at Walt Disney World that I’ve never been able to visit.  Ever since my post about the Catwalk Bar, I have been consumed with jealousy for people more privileged than myself.  I think it’s because when I was a young lad, I once begged for pennies outside the Gulf Coast Room, and was spit upon by more affluent parkeologists like Teevtee, whose parents would occasionally take him for a flambé feast before shunting him off to private boarding school in Vermont.

I snapped this candid photo of Teevtee at last year’s annual Parkeology gala, as he scrutinized my attire.  This was just before he and the golf pro got into that big fight over a game of bridge.

To recap, I never got to visit the Catwalk Bar above the Soundstage Restaurant at the Disney MGM Studios.  This is the same building that now houses Playhouse Disney.  Well, technically it now houses construction workers, who are busy installing Disney Junior, which is essentially the same thing as Playhouse Disney.  Much like Playhouse Disney, Disney Junior will not allow access to the Catwalk Bar, since preschoolers do not typically consume alcohol, unless their last name is Lohan.

I do not know why the Catwalk Bar should cause me such fascination.  It’s probably because I cling to the false hope that there are cats up there.  Big, fuzzy, cigar smoking cats enjoying a late afternoon martini before heading out to watch the “Calling Dick Tracy” show.  These sort of closed-door, long hidden areas are the cause of an unhealthy amount of fantasy on my part.  If only I had a time machine…
When I was younger, I could throw a football a quarter mile.  Then I got interested in theme parks.  Big mistake.

Let me share another little bit of history that I wish I had experienced.  You probably wish it too, as it is utterly juvenile and completely awesome.  Much like the Catwalk Bar, I cannot even find a picture of this thing.  But for a few months, shortly after DisneyQuest opened, it existed.  And then it was removed.  We here at Parkeology would never advocate physical violence, but we will not object if you find a lawyer and give her a dirty look.

DisneyQuest is a little heavy on Aladdin.  The genie acts as your host in the elevator on your rise to the top floor.  A painted cutout of the Cave of Wonders arches over the “Explore Zone” staircase.  The premier game used to be the Magic Carpet Virtual Reality thing (which has sadly been eclipsed by such wondrous entertainment diversions as my cellphone, Twilight novels, and waving a string at my cat).
But how many of you know there used to be an Aladdin ride?
In the future, we will all look like complete doofuses as we navigate polygonal worlds filled with four different types of texture.

It was a primitive thing on the top floor, right after you got out of the elevator.  It was named after the Cave of Wonders and it was a tube slide.  Literally, it was one of those things at the Boneyard or Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure.  It probably had that same silly Cave of Wonders cutout over it.  It went from the top floor at DisneyQuest all the way down to the ground floor (home of the Virtual Jungle Cruise, which has sadly been surpassed by such wondrous entertainment devices as picking lint out of my cat’s belly button and making obvious Lindsay Lohan jokes).

Based on my experience with late-night DisneyQuest teenagers, I don’t think I would call any of them “diamonds in the rough.”

The slide lasted only a few months before some kid died a horrible bloody death, falling from 5 stories up, then getting accidentally mauled by sharks that had gotten loose.  Or maybe they just got a rug-burn on the landing.  Anyway, if you want to stick a pin in a voodoo doll of a lawyer, we will not say anything.

Or feed them to a living statue.  Remember when they had living statues at Italy in Epcot?  They were a big hit.  Never ate anybody though.

And I never got to ride the thing, which is the real crime, because I totally would have spent all my time doing that rather than trying to figure out Missile Command.  Is there anybody who is good at that game?  I mean seriously, I am just awful at it.  Pretty good at Burger Time though.

Sega released this video game 18 years ago.  It surpasses all major DisneyQuest attractions in accuracy, beauty, and playability.  It has also been known to give noogies to “Ride the Comix”.

Buried Treasure

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Parkeology is the search for fact, not truth.  So forget any ideas you’ve got about lost attractions, exotic travel, and digging up Walt Disney World.  We do not follow maps to buried treasure and X never, ever, marks the spot.

…unless you happen be one of those unethical French parkeologists.

But what are we supposed to do when we discover buried treasure literally right under our feet?

DisneyQuest itself is a virtual treasure trove for parkeologists.  Heck, even Alien Encounter, that beloved Magic Kingdom classic, still has a presence here.  There are plenty details and ruins to examine within the five floors, but today we’re concentrating on the ground floor.  Round the corner from the Virtual Jungle Cruise, in an area currently occupied by a bunch of Jungle Safari-themed video games, there is a lost treasure just waiting to be unearthed.  The Treasure of the Incas.

This was an interesting little cooperative game that required two or more players.  The technology was simple (or would seem so today), but it had an aura of mystery and adventure about it.  The idea was that you were treasure hunters exploring a lost Incan temple.  The goal was to guide your jeep into various treasure rooms within the labyrinth and collect the treasure that you found there.  The jeeps were rugged, custom designed vehicles that vaguely resembled the transports from the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland.  The twist was that the jeep was literally a remote-control jeep, about the size of a shoebox.

“Lookout!  It’s a giant foot!”

The entire floor was taken up by a maze, covered over with Plexiglass.  There were rows of steering wheels over on the wall, each corresponding to one of the numbered jeeps in the course.  The jeeps had wireless cameras so that whoever was steering could see a video feed from the jeep’s point of view.  The other player would stand over the maze and shout out instructions, telling the driver where to turn, guiding them to the treasure rooms.  Once a jeep entered the treasure room and triggered the switch, the driver’s terminal would flash with NEW TREASURE ACQUIRED or some such message.

Mel Gibson grew frustrated with his team’s driving during the 2001 Treasure of the Incas tournament.

Back in the days when DisneyQuest charged per game, you would actually receive tickets from Treasure of the Incas, depending on how many treasures you collected.  You could then redeem these for prizes.  I picked a coffee mug with a weird eyeball creature on it, but there were other choices also.

At some point, Treasure of the Incas became problematic (rumors were that it was due to cellphone interference).  the game was turned off, but the maze under the plexiglass floor remained.  When the Safari video game came along, they carpeted over the entire thing, but if you listen carefully as you walk, you can tell that the floor is hollow beneath you.   Buried treasure right under your feet.

This video is kind of choppy, but gives an overview of DisneyQuest circa 1998.  Treasure of the Incas appears at about the 6:00 mark.  If you watch the whole thing, you might catch a glimpse of something else from DisneyQuest’s early years — even cooler than buried treasure — but don’t blink or you’ll miss it. We’ll cover it in a future parkeology post.

Tronorails

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A few monorails around the resort are starting to take on a new look.  They will stay this way at least for the next nine months or so, until Walt Disney Pictures gives birth to the sequel to a certain breakthrough film from 1982.

No, Condorman was 1981.
There’s a lot of internet buzz for the movie, but getting lost in the argument is that the original Tron was a boring exercise in experimental technology.  Park fans like us would rather debate whether it is okay to use transportation vehicles as billboards. 

But I mean think about it.  We’re 28 years removed from the original film, and the most excitement it has generated (in the parks) involves some temporary tattoos.

Admit it.  This is cool.
Why didn’t Tron make an impact?  It’s not necessarily for lack of trying.  You might recall that a mega-blockbuster theme park opened the same year as Tron, Disney World’s first massive expansion project, fully half of which was devoted to visions of the future.  A Tron Arcade was originally slotted for EPCOT Center’s Communicore building.  It would have been located in the same area where Club Cool is now.  According to Harry Abrams’s fantastic book Walt Disney’s EPCOT Center: Creating The New World of Tomorrow (Harry Abrams wasn’t much for brevity), the Tron Arcade would be a

speculative and playful vision of games of the future [which will] give us the chance to interact with intelligent machines in a wide variety of gamelike activities.

In other words, it was a video arcade.
No one knows for sure why the Tron Arcade never materialized, though one suspects it may have something to do with the fact that Tron barely made back its $17 million budget.  In the end, Tron only managed to invade the parks in one teensy weensy way:  

This poster makes it sound way more impressive than it was.  Disneyland’s Peoplemover already had “speed tunnels” (an effect used in World of Motion, Dream Flight, and Horizons), in which a fast-moving image is projected around the ride vehicle, to give the impression of high speed (sort of a precursor to Star Tours).  They simply swapped in new footage of Tron’s lightcycles, replacing the old footage of race cars or something.

I guess technically I’m leaving something out.  Tron has actually had a presence in Walt Disney World since 1998.  It is enjoyed by only a lucky few every day, tucked away on the Fourth Floor of a Tron-like blue building in the heart of Downtown Disney.  Give it a try, if you can find it.  It’s way better than that Peoplemover thing.


Photo Attribution

Proud History of Sea Serpents

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Walt Disney World seems to have a great fondness for sea serpents.  There are several that have appeared in various locations throughout the property.

The most fanciful serpent prowls the waters of the castle moat in Magic Kingdom.  At one time, he had a great fondness for Swan Boats, but now he just suns himself on the banks and waits for someone to notice him.

A Sea Serpent pops up during the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction in DisneyQuest.  Unfortunately, this guy is as elusive as Nessie, since I don’t have a picture of him.

A sea serpent built entirely of Legos is probably the most visible of the current sea serpents.  He has no problem posing for pictures out at Downtown Disney.

Alas, the two animatronic sea serpents are no longer with us.

This goofy looking guy oggled the passengers of the Nautilus at 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, before Disney bulldozed his home to make way for a Pooh plaground.  Actually there were twin serpents, since each side of the sub got its own view.

This handsome fellow was probably the most detailed.  He hunted the sailors who set out to broaden our World of Motion over at Epcot Center.  He was removed to make way for crash test dummies.