The Disney Channel

While laid up, I got to spend more time around the family than I usually did. In the winter months, I usually don't get home till relatively late, and by the time I'm home the kids are getting ready for bed, or at least immersed in homework that I need to go over with them.

This additional time translated in part to watching some TV shows with my middle school kids that I usually wouldn't see. A fair number of them were Disney Channel shows.

The shows that they like a lot are Wizards of Waverly Place, Shake It Up, Jesse, Austin and Ally, and of course, Phineas and Ferb. Three months ago, I doubt that you could have forced me to watch these programs. But they have their charm, as I realized from sort-of-forced viewing. They have their innocent humor, their cute girls, their cool guys, and stories that are simple but at least effective enough to occupy my middlee schoolers' minds. They have another show or two that they like quite a bit, but not on Disney. (They're big fans of Big Time Rush.)

These aren't just shows for girls. Austin and Ally, for example, has my kids interested in internet programming and its possibilities, not to mention songwriting and playing music. (They already have a pretty strong basis for this interest.) Wizards of Waverly Place (which has apparently ended as a series but is still being shown in reruns) entertained them with its Harry Potter wannabe vibe. They just find the other shows entertaining.

I'm glad to report that maybe Disney is doing something basically right with their programming on the Disney Channel.

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John Carter...really?

It's been awhile since I've posted anything substantial hereabouts. I've been injured, as you may note from my previous post over a month ago, and my time has been very limited. My limited work schedule has been quite packed since I have a significant backlog of work to do, and lots of paperwork needs to be done this time of the year, regardless of the disability and medical insurance stuff I have to also pay attention to.

Anyway, as I was coming into work this morning, I heard on the news that John Carter was expected (by analysts) to lose 150 million dollars. It did 30 million (if I heard right) last weekend. And it cost 250 million to make.

Wow.

Who is John Carter, anyway? I mean, here I am, a SF fan, and I have never read the Edgar Rice Burroughs book. I loved Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, and dabbled in others also. I read a lot of Brin, Benford, Card, Bear, among others. But I've never read A Princess of Mars. So maybe I'm making an assumption here, but is this story set on Mars? If it is, well, our well-known scientific knowledge (even my middle school kids know this) points out that Mars doesn't have any life on it.

However, I have to admit that I don't know what exactly the premise of this story is. Maybe they've retold it to make some sort of sense. I don't know.

So here are these big ol' commercials for the film, and they look pretty nice, but they aren't compelling. I asked my kids: Does that movie look cool? And I got a lukewarm "Yeah, it looks pretty cool." Not an "I gotta see it, it's so cool-looking" answer. You'd have to hear it to know the difference. There was no follow-up for them, asking about it. Once my younger son asked, "Who's John Carter?" (My answer was that he was a classic character from an early science fiction novel...but I've never read it.)

I feel the same way about the previews and commercials for the films. I got way more excited about the previews for Enchanted when it was coming out a few years back. Or for Bedtime Stories. These commercials don't excite me at all.

It's hard to believe that they spent that kind of money without knowing what their audience was. Is 30M a good opening weekend for a "blockbuster"? It doesn't sound too good. But maybe I'm wrong on that.

Maybe this movie is one of those things that sounds like a great idea but can't really live up to it, even if done extraordinarily well. Time will tell, I suppose.

addendum: Honor Hunter over at Blue Sky Disney posts THIS about the film, suggesting that it's a pretty good movie after all. Maybe even a great movie. I didn't realize that Andrew Stanton directed it. He points to huge marketing flaws as the reason for its suck-y opening. And that's more or less my point here. The marketing for this film stinks. My kids agree with what Honor says. They want to see The Hunger Games, not John Carter.

addendum #2: Cory Gross gives this film a pretty darned good review HERE at Voyages Extraordinaire also. I always considered myself a science fiction fan, but it seems I've missed something by missing this series. OTOH, it doesn't sound like the cerebral SF of Asimov or Clarke, which was more what I went for. I did recognize some of the names as I read the review from a book by Heinlein, especially Dejah Thoris...(Was that book The Number Of The Beast?)

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A January without posts is like...

...well, like any other month, I guess. But I couldn't let it get past me.

I had a bit of a setback late last month. I fell. Broke my ankle in multiple spots. Now I have lots of metal in there. My buddy says that now I get to look forward to the body cavity searches when I fly. I hope not.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, before the month ends, that DFR has not gone dark. I have a thought or two for posts. (Though, that's about it...literally...) I was going to make some comments on the fact that there are NO Disney animated films for Oscars this year. Not even the Pixar release Cars 2. Is that fair? I suppose. Perhaps I'll get to do an entry on the topic before the Academy Awards near the end of February.

But for now I think I'll just concentrate on getting my ankle better and getting back on my feet. Again, literally...

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Disney Film: Experiencing TOY STORY (the first) again

Last night, the Disney channel was showing Toy Story in prime time, and when I got home from work, my boys were planted in front of the TV watching intently. I sat down across from my wife at the island in the kitchen, and I noticed that she continually shifted her attention to the action on the screen.

Finally I sat down between the boys and let myself get pulled into the movie again. It is far from my first time watching it, and it is not my kids' first time either. But the film is simply entrancing. It grabs you and you can't not watch!

I came in too close to the end, really. Buzz and Woody were in Sid's room, trying to escape before he awoke. Then there is the scene where the toys break the rules, and then the frantic chase to get onto the moving truck. Finally, the happy ending and the arrival of the puppy.

If I were to relate the story to someone totally unfamiliar with the movie, they'd probably say, "well, that's a nice story" or something like that. But the movie transcends the simplicity of the tale. It becomes something so much more, even today, after seeing Pixar's digital magic worked over and over, and seeing digital special effects that blow your mind! When it came out, the technology to create such a film was new, but Pixar infused it with something more than tech savvy - they gave it heart - the same heart that we see in so many Disney releases.

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Disney Film: The Muppets

I took my kids to see The Muppets last Friday night. I wasn't planning to go; the idea of seeing the Muppets wasn't on the top of my wishlist. I don't think of Muppets and think "Christmas must-see".

But I read the blog entry at FutureProbe, where it was given a fairly enthusiastic thumbs-up, and my kids really were pretty excited about seeing it, so we picked that one over Arthur, Hugo and Puss In Boots>.

I'm glad we saw it. It was a lot of fun. Jokes aimed high and low; I found myself laughing at stuff and my kids would look at me like, "what was funny about that?" Several times. On the other hand, they laughed hard at a few things that, well, that just brought a smile to my face, as much for their reaction as to the onscreen joke. (Don't ask me what these were. I don't remember anymore.)

It isn't high concept stuff. It was just a fun little story about trying to save the Muppets Studio from a bad guy. Reminded me a little of The Blues Brothers with the whole "we're getting the band back together", needing to raise money quick through the use of a "show". I wonder if it has anything to do with Frank Oz's involvement in the original Muppets show and with the Blues Brothers movie?

I don't put this up there with the stuff we get from Pixar routinely, or even most of the stuff we've gotten from Disney Animation, but it was a good, fun movie, and I certainly didn't feel like I wasted our money on it! (In other words, it was worth seeing in the theater.)

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Blog highlight from 2011...

...for me, at least.

You like to know if someone is reading your entries as a blog writer, at least I do. So comments are always appreciated. When I don't get any comments, I confess I get sort of disillusioned with blogging. Or maybe "disinterested" is a better word.

So for me, the highlight of my blogging for this year came in January! In this post, titled Why Story Is King, I wrote about my new (at the time) purchase of Steve Alcorn's book titled Theme Park Design, specifically a chapter about the use of story in theme parks. And lo and behold, who should comment but Steve Alcorn!

I have to say, it made me feel really good to hear from the author, to know that he read what I wrote, and he even had a little bit of input. It's the kind of thing that keeps me interested. That keeps me writing this blog and not giving up on it.

That, for me, was the highlight of 2011, at least with respect to this blog. (Plenty of other higher-lights in other areas...) Good thing it came early in the year. Who knows what I would have done if it hadn't come? :-)

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Disney Vacation: How Long?

A while back I read a post discussing the number of parks, or perhaps the call for a fifth gate, at WDW. It may have been at FutureProbe, or somewhere else. (But I think it was at FutureProbe.) The point was that Disney expanded with the idea of getting visitors to extend their stays from one week to maybe 10 days or two weeks, spending money at the resorts, at the parks, at Disney stores and at Disney restaurants.

If it had worked it would have put a lot of extra money in the Disney coffers. But it didn't. People didn't extend their stays. They just spent less days at a particular park in favor of another park.

But I wonder.

Does this "length of stay" statistic (which I've personally never seen but which I believe is out there somewhere) tell the whole story? I mean, the truth of it is that Americans don't vacation that way. Ten days is probably the longest we go for. Two weeks, maybe, if it's somewhere extraordinary. Perhaps Hawaii or Europe, or an African safari or whatever. But not for a domestic vacation. Probably not to Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean either. Ten days is probably the max. More likely most are going to be 7 or 8 nights.

I don't know what the average is for weeks of paid vacation in the United States. I'd guess it's probably around 2 weeks. Maybe 3 weeks. Not too many of us get 5 or 6 weeks off paid each year. So, figure one of those weeks gets spent at Disney for your average Disney-phile. The question becomes then, where are they going to spend the other week? Maybe a resort on a lake. Maybe at a relative's home in Phoenix, or in the Ozarks Mountains in Missouri.

Any way to get them to spend their second week at Disney?

Well, maybe not, if there isn't much "new" to see. You've already gone on Space Mountain, Pirates, Test Track, Everest, Rock'n'Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Haunted Mansion, it's a small world, and Splash Mountain. Multiple times. You even got on Soarin' twice and Toy Story Mania once. So what's to go back for? If it's thrill rides you like, you can go a lot closer to home and not have to pay for lodging and air fare or travel expenses.

Maybe you suggest that people should come back just to "experience the magic". Sit in the parks, take in the ambiance. To this I say, wishful thinking. When you've only got a week or two weeks, many families will choose to do as much as they can during that time frame. Sit on a bench? Fight crowds again? There's no "magic" in the mosh pits that are also known as Disney's park concourses.

To me, the way to make people spend more of their yearly allotment of vacation time at a Disney park would be to make it a better experience. Don't keep raising fees in order to raise revenue. Don't make that steak dinner at Le Cellier two dollars more and/or give the diner less food for the price. Don't give me less services at a hotel but charge me more. Don't give me a less comfortable experience at a park, whether it be more crowds or longer wait times, and charge me more for it. Those are not the ways to win the hearts of potential Disney-philes.

Give me more for my money. Give me a dinner that rivals the best restaurants in the country. Give me more and better attractions. Make my stay at your resorts even more comfortable, more enjoyable. That's how you are going to get me to spend even more time at Disney in a given year.

To me, worrying about whether a guest stays at a resort for 7 or 8 nights, or ten or twelve nights per stay is worrying about the wrong question. The right question is "how can we get our customers to spend even more time on our property in the course of a year?" There is plenty to do in Orlando. Right now, we don't even have to patronize Disney parks or restaurants even if we stay on Disney property. Give us a reason to stay on property. Give us new experiences and enhanced old experiences.

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