Pyro Board: 2D Rubens' Tube!

"Concepts in Imagineering" (CII) is a special series of posts about entertainment and creative concepts from around the world. They posit that the tradition of Imagineers using innovative, creative and scientific concepts to enhance yesterday's theme parks is just as feasible for today's Imagineers. If they just look in the right places. Today's CII is:

FULL Disneyland Forever fireworks debut with Main Street projections for...

This, right here, is how you do, not a fireworks show, but a spectacle that also includes fireworks.

Concepts in Imagineering: Blinding You...With Science!

"Concepts in Imagineering" (CII) is a special series of posts about entertainment and creative concepts from around the world. They posit that the tradition of Imagineers  using innovative, creative and scientific concepts to enhance yesterday's theme parks is just as feasible for today's Imagineers. If they just look in the right places. Today's CII is:

Today I'm just quickly posting a few fun scientific experiments as examples of illusions that would work well in an updated Imagination attraction.

Concepts in Imagineering: Sand Art (With Feeling!)

"Concepts in Imagineering" (CII) is a special series of posts about entertainment and creative concepts from around the world. They posit that the tradition of Imagineers  using innovative, creative and scientific concepts to enhance yesterday's theme parks is just as feasible for today's Imagineers. If they just look in the right places. Today's CII is:

It just seemed to me that an emotional presentation like this would work wonderfully as a show in World Showcase. Not the SAME show, but something capable of pulling out the emotion of the crowd with music and pictures, rather than words. Even if were just a semi-regular presentation, it would still be something memorable. 

Concepts in Imagineering: Quantum Levitation

"Concepts in Imagineering" (CII) is a special series of posts about entertainment and creative concepts from around the world. They posit that the tradition of Imagineers using innovative, creative and scientific concepts to enhance yesterday's theme parks is just as feasible for today's Imagineers. If they just look in the right places. Today's CII is:

Migrating this series over from my other blog for a moment to present a simple question. Why can't places like Innoventions, attractions that intend to demonstrate technical and scientific achievement, demonstrate things like these? The applications of something like this to the layman are mind blowing. I know everyone on YouTube had the same idea when they saw it. (A few even though Japanese trains already did this, but we'll just ignore them for right now.) Why not use this as an opportunity to let us know what the scientists are thinking of, too? What do they know about this science that we don't as far as application is concerned?

I could see something as simple as someone demonstrating the tech at a kiosk as being immensely popular. Just imagine something more "EPCOT Center-ish", such as a large video presentation that explains the science, while a Cast Member demonstrates it's usage? The good news is, it doesn't appear to be particularly expensive to do, and it certainly could be presented in a more dressed up manner. Looking forward to see what becomes of this.

Who Cares?

No, really. Who cares?

You want Tomorrowland or Future World to be bright and optimistic, but you argue that the future, the real future, is kinda dim. Hopeless. Irrevocably spiraling into a chaotic vortex of doom. Okay, maybe your not the "Armageddon", "2012", "Howard the Duck" kind of hopeless cause, but even at your most cautiously optimistic, you recognize certain truths about reality and note that mankind is somewhat reckless with resources, nature and life in general. Global warming, civil rights and economic stability are constant reminders that the future is uncertain and that humans are divided on just the existence of the questions, much less the answers.

Well you know what? Who gives a flip?

What does you thinking that Obama is either this century's answers to a Martin Luther King, Jr/John Kennedy hybrid or an evil space alien from the planet Muslim have to do with the price of Kenyan birth certificates in Australia? What I mean to say is, what do the harsh economic/sociopolitical realties of life have to do with what we put in a Disney theme park? Nothing, I say.

Granted, when Tomorrowland debuted in 1955, the general outlook of America's future was one of positive optimism. Maybe even reckless optimism. Everyone was smiley, happy and bright and there was a fully cooked chicken in every pot and a brand new Ford in every garage.

At least, from what I hear tell.

Truth is in 1955, depending on your perspective, things may not have been as all rosy as you hear. The Cold War was in full effect and that year President Eisenhower began an annual exercise to asses the United States preparedness in the event of a nuclear attack. Hurricane Diane caused flooding that claimed the lives of 200 Americans in the Northwest and caused $1 billion dollars in damage. Two subsequent plane crashes claimed the lives of around 100 additional Americans. The average life expectancy was 69. Rosa Parks was arrested that year for refusing to comply with city segregation laws and not sit in the back of the bus. Oh yeah, segregation. Remember segregation?

My point is actually quite simple. Disneyland's Tomorrowland wasn't built because the world was a rosy, happy-go-lucky utopia. It was built in spite of a world that also had an uncertain future and a present with major injustices. Tomorrowland wasn't supposed to reflect all that. It was built to see past all that. To look ahead at something optimistic, rose colored glasses required. It was supposed to foreshadow a utopia, not reflect an existing one.

As usual, don't get me wrong. I know what's going on in the world does matter. And I'm well aware that solutions to modern day problems are at the core of inventiveness and progress. But the argument that Disney's future themed Lands can't be positive because today is too bleak ignores the realities of what made those places work to begin with. Dystopian futures existed in popular fiction back then, too. But whether or not it seemed like we were going that route was not and should not now be an influence in what goes into a Disney theme park.

What should go in it? Positives don't necessarily have to be enforced by ignoring the negatives. Tomorrowland always seemed to be playful side of the future, while Future World always focused on the education side of it. Go with that. Take the cartoon characters out and put the most high minded theories on space exploration, oceanography, alternative energy, health and transportation into Future world. Take the cartoon characters out and put thrills of exploration, time travel and futuristic living back into Tomorrowland. Doing all of this acknowledges todays problems, but inspires young minds to consider avenues of studies they may have never wanted and gives us old heads something to think about, too.

It's okay, Disney. You can inspire kids to think bigger than just pop stardom. Maybe you'll even inspire them to fix something once the grow up. It's happened before.

So in reality, what's reality got to do with it when putting some of the magic back into the Future? Whether you look at it as Sci Fi or just forward thinking, the Future Lands of Disney should be putting the emphasis on a technological wonderland. America's ability to get a decent light railway network now be damned.

Catching Up: Fantasyland Refurb

I don't get my Disney news like a lot of other fans do. I'm not one to hang out on the Disney websites for very long, as I'm very much into other things besides Disney and I have to bide my time carefully. Don't get me wrong, I'm very interested in what's coming up at Disney and with the theme parks in particular. But in the last few years, Disney hasn't exactly been a land flowing with milk and honey. About the only good news I was getting was hints and suggestions from anonymous insiders that good things were coming. That things were going to get better, and that we just had to hang in a little longer. I have to admit that for a time, with the force fits of characters in every nook and cranny and the random, and meaningless, celebrity apperances in the theme parks, I wasn't exactly feeling hopeful.

The first good news I got in a long time came when Re-Imagineering posted this Photoshop masterpiece with nothing more than some uplifting West Side Story lyrics beneath it. I have to say, I still get chills when I see it. Never before had the removal of something from EPCOT Center, given me so much joy. Much more recently, these same insiders indicated that the Godforsaken hat was coming down from Golden Age Hollywood Boulevard. More good news for sure, but again, we were talking about removal. And while the Bad Show of both of these monstrosities needed to go, we were still talking about taking stuff away from the parks that shouldn't have happened to begin with. It remained to be seen if anything new would be the source of something uplifting.

Then I started trying to catch up on my Mousestation podcasts. If you've never listed to the Mousestation you should give it a go, as Mike and Mark have taken their networking seriously over the years and have an impressive set of interviews to show for it. A recent discussion on Episode 346 with Steven Ng brought some of the best news I'd heard in a long time. Obviously, I'm pleased with the news about Star Tours II. I wouldn't be worth my screen name's sake if I wasn't. Without a doubt, Star Tours is showing its age, so a revamp is more than welcome. But if you can believe it, I find myself strangely more entranced with the Fantasyland refurbishments in Orlando than most anything else.

On the podcast, Mark says that he doesn't think they're gearing anything up for boys, as the changes are mostly drawn from the Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Pixie Hollow and Beauty & the Beast mythos, so they'll likely spend most of their time over in Adventureland. As much as I admire what Mark and Mike do on the Mousestation podcast, I have to respectfully disagree. Not so much with the point that boys aren't interested in princesses and fairies, but I think that it's the wrong way to look at it.

Disneyland didn't open in 1955 targeting any specific demographic, other than the kid at heart. Disney's animated films, while heavily themed towards princesses, weren't targeted to just Disney's girl audiences, either. If your son is a Disney fan, like you, just how may "Disney Princess" movies has he refused to watch because it was too "girlie"? Does he refuse to pick a favorite if you asked him for that same reason? Children's gender bias is partly the nature of youth and partly what they're exposed to in their everyday life. But when you're talking about "The Happiest Place on Earth", that dynamic dramatically changes.

After listening to the rundown of the additions to the new Fantasyland, I was taken by one thing. How when distilled to describing this in everyday conversation, you basically wanted to use the word "awesome" a whole lot. Awesome attractions, awesome thematics, awesome show pieces. (And yes, I count restaurants as attractions when their theming is great and nonstandard.) From the rose effect at The Beast's Castle to the "transformation" of Cinderella before your eyes, at least on paper, it sounds like an incredible spectacle, one worthy of bearing the name Disney and Imagineering. It sounds like they intend to make incredible attractions, base them on existing properties, and then just open the door for people to come see them. Not only that, but it seems like great effort is being made to do something Disney had forgotten how to do. They're sticking to theme.

They said nothing to specifically indicate that some of these new features were intended just to draw in the girl crowd. Granted, Pixie Hollow is more than likely to draw young girls then most areas, but until we see the entirety of the refurbishments completed, I think we'd be jumping the gun to conclude that's all we're looking at here. I don't fault people for thinking that way, though. We've been trained to think it couldn't be any other way. Disney is partially responsible for that. Over the last few years powerful emphasis has been placed on a little line of merchandise called "Disney Princesses" and some sort of female creature known as a "Tween". But again, I got the sense that this area of Fantasyland wasn't designed with them exclusively in mind. It was deigned to be interesting. To everyone. A principle that resulted in a decidedly "girlie" object being the centerpiece for every flagship Disney park. I know for a fact that a boy in Disney will go where it seems interesting, whether it's Belle, Beauty or Babette, they're not going to care, as long as the theming captures they're imagination and the attraction is entertaining. Even Mark, on a previous episode of his podcast, was commenting on a discussion he and his ten-year-old son were having about his son's favorite effects in Snow White's Scary Adventure.

I don't blame anyone for thinking of this in terms of gender, other than previous Disney antics and marketing schemes. But the one thing those were, that this isn't, or at least doesn't carry that same vibe, is that those were blatant, pandering attempts at marketing. There's nothing subtle about a Ariel, Jasmine and Belle in a collection of dolls dressed as pop stars. Nor is there anything subtle about the target demographic of The Disney Channel. But now were dealing mostly with characters from classic Disney features, not because there's a DVD, or a popular live-action remake, or because Pixar did a better movie again to tie it in to. In fact, this feels very much like a nice mix of, to borrow a trapping from the comic book industry, the Golden, Silver and Modern Ages of Disney animation. For once, it doesn't feel like pandering, just good business. The kind Walt was famous for.

As with all things, I'll reserve the final judgment on the finished product. I'm sure some things will be better, worse or simply different than I imagined. But for once in a great long while, I feel very hopeful about Disney. That's not to say there still isn't a mile long list of things that are wrong with the place. A lot of damage was done during the previous administration and from what I hear, the old internal politicking still festers in Disney's ranks. EPCOT's Future World and both Disney's Tomorrowlands still languish. EPCOT's World Showcase runs the risk of becoming the world's most elaborate Disney Store. There's still plenty of campaigning against the system to be done. But I have to say, it's nice to have a sense of what I'd feared we'd lost over the last couple of decades. Its nice to feel that sense of what Walt used to instill in his Guests, even after he had passed away. In short, it's nice to feel the Magic again. It will be even better to experience it.