What would the world have been like if Walt had lived longer?

Now there's an interesting question, don't you think? 

Perhaps your first inclination is to say that it would be pretty much what it is today, except with a better Walt Disney World in Florida.  And that might be the exact right answer. 

But we all know that Walt wasn't one to rest on his laurels.  He was always moving forward.  Any reason to think that wouldn't have continued?  His passion at the time of his death was his reimagined city concept which may or may not have been a success. 

I know I've written in this blog that what we got may in fact be preferable to what Walt wanted.  But I wrote that as a Disney fan.  I would never try to argue that what we got was "progress" in any sort of really important way.  Whether his ideas proved to be workable or to be a complete failure, the world would have gained something - knowledge about what might or might not work. 

Would having that knowledge have improved the world?  Well, it certainly would not have hurt the world.  Think of the mess our cities are today.  Not technologically, but socially.  I live near Chicago where we can't seem to stop the kids in gangs from killing each other and often (far, far too often) catching innocent bystanders in the crossfire. 

I'm not sure that Walt's social experiment with urban planning would have helped these people.  But who knows?

But more to the point, Walt was, in my opinion, his generation's Steve Jobs.  Yes, he focused on entertainment most of the time, but in a way, so did Steve Jobs and Apple.   What has Apple really changed?  They've changed the way we consume our entertainment, with our tablets and our iPods and iTouches and our smartphones.  Cool toys, all of them.  I'm pretty sure they all have applications beyond entertainment.  (For example, you can download my DOING DISNEY ebook and read it on the Kindle app on an iPad...shameless self-promotion...and not really to the point since reading is entertainment.)

What if Walt had taken the next step in his audio-animatronics and created actual AI robotics?  What shape might such things have taken?  What if Walt had put his mind to space?  His contributions to our space program were mostly PR-related, but would it not have been cool if he would have had any sort of input, through the megaphone of the Disney media giant, into the direction our space explorations might have taken?  Can you imagine Walt's excitement if he had actually lived to see Neil Armstrong step onto the moon?  Disney might have more than a few satellites in orbit (I'm assuming that, as a media company, they have at least a couple of those things flying above our heads)...they might have actually had a presence in space, if Walt could have envisioned it - and I'm pretty sure that if anyone could have, Walt could have.

I'd love to assume I have someone reading this, and if that is the case, I'd then love to hear what changes, if any, Walt might have involved himself in beyond the urban planning exercise he was devoted to in Florida.  The comments are available if you have anything to add to what is, to me, a fascinating thought experiment.

(As an aside, read   HABST AND THE DISNEY SABOTEURS if you want to take a look at Leonard Kinsey's thought about what might have been if Walt's mind had been allowed to continue working on problems in the world...)

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If you want to read a book about one family's strategies when vacationing for a week at Disney World, feel free to check out my title , Doing Disney: How To Spend A Week At Disney's Florida Resort   It's available on Amazon for $2.99.  I tried to write it for families who get to spend a week in the World every year or two and want to maximize their time in the parks and in the area.  It doesn't try to be comprehensive, but I think you might find a few helpful tidbits within its electronic pages...

Thanks!

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Avatar Land takes a step forward!

It looks as if Disney is proceeding with their Avatar Land expansion of Animal Kingdom. 

The concept art looks good. 

Check out this Disney Parks blog post!

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Thunder Mountain and Walt Disney

We recently returned from a vacation in Sedona, Arizona.  While there, we took a backcountry jeep tour which brought us into gulches and to Native American (Sinagua) ruins nestled in the cliffs behind Sedona. 

On our way out, our guide pointed out several of the red rock bluffs by name, including one called Thunder Mountain.  He then proceeded to mention that Walt Disney actually had a house in Sedona at one time for a few years, and could see Thunder Mountain from his kitchen/dining area.  He said that Sedona's Thunder Mountain didn't really look like the rockwork done on Big Thunder Mountain, but that perhaps it inspired the ride.

I wasn't sure of the timeline, and didn't want to call him out on that.  First, I've never read anywhere that Walt Disney spent significant time in Sedona, though it wouldn't surprise me if he did, considering how beautiful it is there.  Second, I believe Marc Davis did most of the concept art for that ride (I suppose it's possible that Davis spent time in Sedona).  Third, I am thinking that Big Thunder Mountain wasn't conceptualized until well after Walt's death.

Anyone who has any comments or information on this tour guide info, please leave a comment.  Did Walt ever live in Sedona?  Did he have anything to do with the planning of Big Thunder Mountain?  Does Sedona, or any part of Arizona, have anything to do with Walt's inspiration for anything in Disneyland?

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New Blog: Theme Park University

I was surfing through my Disney blogs today (I wish some of them updated more regularly) and, on Leonard Kinsey's Dark Side of Disney blog, I noted a link to a new blog from Ron Schneider (Dreamfinder) and Josh Young, titled Theme Park University. 

It appears to be an interesting look at the creative development behind theme parks in a general, and sometimes specific, sense. 

Of note is a three article (so far) series by Josh Young about the development of the Hard Rock Theme Park in the Myrtle Beach area. 

It actually got me excited about my own ideas about theme park development, some of which I wrote about in a series of blog articles back in December of 2009 and January of 2010.  (You can find them by clicking on the archives over there to the left, selecting those two months and picking and choosing the articles, if you're so inclined.) 

Take a look at the new blog if you find this sort of stuff interesting.  I know I certainly do!

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What is that...???

...in Joe Rohde's left ear?

Yesterday we were flipping channels and I came across a History Channel showing Modern Marvels:  Walt Disney World.  I have the DVD of this one, but it's hidden aways somewhere and so my son and I watched just about the whole thing. 

When we got to the part on the Animal Kingdom, they show a lot of Imagineer Joe Rohde discussing the construction of that park.  At first I didn't think much about it, but my son asked me, "What's that thing hanging from his ear?"  I told him it was an earring or something, but thought that it was awful big! 

A bit later, they showed him a bit more from the left side, and it looks like his ear lobe is grossly stretched out. 

Anyone know what it's supposed to be, and what is the point of doing that?

I guess I'm just getting old...but Joe doesn't look like a spring chicken (as they say)...

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Are Theme Parks "Shallow"?

I recently saw an interesting Facebook post by one of my Disney friends. This particular friend (David) runs the blog Disneyology, which is linked to over there at the left (Favorite Internet Spots). He posted a quote from someone suggesting that theme parks are shallow representations of a much richer reality and that people who enjoy them are pathetic. Here's the exact quote:

“The overwhelming feeling that one carries away is sadness for the empty lives which accept such tawdry substitutes. On the riverboat, I heard a woman exclaim glowingly to her husband, “What imagination they have!” He nodded, and the pathetic gladness that illuminated his face as a papier-mâché crocodile sank beneath the muddy surface of the ditch was a grim indictment of the way of life for which this feeble sham represented escape and adventure.” - Julian Halevy.

So, my question would be, is this news? Newsflash! Disney Theme Parks Aren't REAL! Do visitors to Disney theme parks think they are? Somehow I don't think so. Does it make it less entertaining to ride on Expedition Everest because it's not the real Mt. Everest? Again, I don't think so.

The interesting discussion in the comments centered on whether this critique is a critique of all art, or simply a prejudiced attack on theme parks specifically. I saw comments where famous films and famous paintings were mentioned; that if Mr. Halevy was criticizing all these experiences, his argument would hold water better. That could be true. Perhaps a Disney theme park is not comparable to the Mona Lisa, but it is a matter of degree.

Because both things are works of art. Lots of things are works of art. We wandered around a suburban art fair last Sunday, and I saw plenty of things that showed imagination in varying degrees. Some I liked. Some I'd never consider hanging in my own house. Some, I could tell with a mere glance, were simply not my cup of tea. But does that make them "bad" or "shallow", or their artist "talentless"? No, it just means that I didn't like them.

The first thing I thought of when reading the quote was the Jungle Cruise (because of the dated-ness of its special effects, and because of the mention of the crocodile), but then I thought of EPCOT's World Showcase. I thought of the detail that goes into making these small reproductions of various countries. Does it make me willing to forego a European vacation, because I've walked through Disney versions of England, France and Italy? Not at all. But these reproductions are accessible and entertaining to us. Simple economics say that we are going to be able to experience Disney more often than tour the great European cities.

The second thing I thought was that the first sentence is quite condescending. To presume to know anything about the lives of that woman and her husband, to know if they "accept such tawdry substitutes", or simply cannot experience anything other than this, seems to me to be irritatingly condescending. What is "grim" about something that brings someone pleasure, however small and fleeting? I think that Disney parks aspire to a bit higher level of providing enjoyment than he seems to give them credit for. But that's a matter of opinion.

David's take on it seems to be that there is no reason that the two things cannot both be appreciated on their own levels, and that while theme parks shouldn't be substituted for real experiences, they CAN be enjoyed as well for what they are and for the artistic ability and effort that goes into their creation. Others seem to feel that, as a work of art (however "tawdry" it may be) Disney theme parks should be compared to other works of art, not to real experiences. I hope I'm stating those positions accurately. Perhaps David will blog about it himself.

This blog has over the years concerned itself with Disney movies, other types of animated film entertainment, with Disney theme parks and with other amusement parks, and with attractions in the Midwest and in a few other places where we've vacationed. It has never advocated stopping one's experience at the Disney park, even though they are the main focus of the blog. But I don't see how one precludes the other.

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Disney Parks: DAK getting an added land...

If the blog reports are true (I've read it in several locations now, including FutureProbe and Voyages Extraordinaires), Disney's Animal Kingdom is adding a whole other land, to be based on the movie Avatar. Reactions appear to be mixed.

The most common objection seems to be that Disney is not trusting enough in its own properties and its Imagineers to come up with something interesting enough to base an entire land on. Instead, they are "copying" off Universal and licensing a franchise to create content for their park. I suppose there is something to this. Not so much the properties part, because, well, what does Disney have as far as film that would fit with an entire land in the Animal Kingdom? I'm not sure; perhaps someone has some ideas. I understand the objection, but I don't know what the content that they already own that they're supposed to use is.

The second part is that the Imagineers could come up with something more engrossing than Avatar. This is a stronger objection, in my view. The Imagineers have proven themselves over and over again. Could they, on their own, have come up with a Beastly Kingdom conceptual overlay, for example, that would work better than Avatar? It's likely they could.

It does seem that Robert Iger likes acquiring properties rather than developing them, so the licensing of Pandora fits in with his modus operandi. Then there's cost. I'd guess that, since this story and theme have been pretty well developed for the film, perhaps it is somewhat cheaper to turn it into a land. Perhaps it's even significantly cheaper. I don't know. But it does take out the beginning stages of development, with all the failed ideas and directions, and sets the Imagineers firmly on their path. And there is no reason that they cannot shine in what they finally conceptualize and develop for the theme park land.

In the end, I don't care. This development addresses some significant problems that Disney has. They need something more at this park, and they need something to add capacity to the parks at the resort, on a whole. A while back I posted an entry wishing for a fifth gate, and in the comments it was suggested that they can't (or won't) maintain what's already there, and that what they really need is to turn DAK and DHS into something closer to a full day park.

This development may just do that for Disney's Animal Kingdom.

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The Opening Sequence...

Sam Gennaway at Samland (too lazy to put this link in, sorry) had a post that caught my interest a short time ago, titled The Magic Kingdom: A Grand Entrance> In it he talks about the approach to the Magic Kingdom from the guest's perspective, and the way that Walt Disney and the Imagineers wanted to control the experience. Sam also talks about the "storyboarding" of the event, as many of the Imagineers came from a film background. So it was no surprise that the experience has parallels to the opening sequences from a film.

I never really thought about the approach to the Magic Kingdom, or to any Disney park, from this exact perspective, but I think it can apply to every park. Think about an opening montage of a film, then compare it to the "framed" view from, say, the monorail coming up on Epcot. You get your wide shot, narrowing in focus as we approach the park, the Sphere getting larger and larger, until finally it disappears out of the shot as we loop around FutureWorld, and again the wide shot shows the American Adventure in the distance, teasing us with the view for a few seconds until we loop back around and exit the monorail. The Sphere looms now, and as we pass through the entryway we have a still shot of the icon. As we walk toward it, it gets larger and larger, until we are in its shadow, and now we're part of the story.

It works for Animal Kingdom, too, as you drive in. You see the huge Tree of Life in the distance (the wide opening shot) then it disappears behind the foliage as you approach the gates. Finally you (the camera) are passing through the lush jungle, animals on either side of you, exploring a bit along the way, until you burst into the clearing, and there it is, a closer "wide" shot, now looking absolutely huge. And you are into the story.

I don't know film terminology, I am not from a film background. Yet I love watching movies, and I find this comparison to be almost inspiring. It's a whole other way of experiencing the park as I approach it.

Filmmakers build excitement and suspense, setting up the entire story through the use of their opening montages; Disney Imagineers do much the same thing. I'm looking forward to visiting in the future, to consider my approaches to the parks in these terms. I'm also going to think about this as I continue to armchair imagineer my own parks...

Thanks, Sam, for a Disney enthusiasm boost.

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Why Story is King: Steve Alcorn in THEME PARK DESIGN

This is an important idea to Steve Alcorn; important enough that he uses "Why Story Is King" as the first sub-topic in his Chapter 5, titled RIDES, and then as the title of Chapter 9.

With respect to rides, Alcorn talks about his favorite Disney rides: a toss-up beetween "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Haunted Mansion". I've seen it echoed time and time again in blog posts and posts on the MiceAge discussion boards, these are the two rides that "real" Disney fans list as their favorites. Alcorn says that he now understands that what made these rides his favorites was their use of story as their "key ingredient".

Would everyone agree with that? I've seen it mentioned a few times that the reason these rides are timeless and so repeatable is the level of detail in the ride. So perhaps it isn't JUST story. Perhaps it's the combination of story and incredible attention to details. I know I'm still finding stuff in the Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion that is new to me when I ride it. It's a great experience every time I ride it, and I'm not entirely sure that it's all because of the story.

On the other hand, most of the "dark rides" in Fantasyland ARE almost entirely dependent on the story they tell. I don't see the same level of detail on Snow White or on Pooh that I see on Haunted Mansion and Pirates.

In Chapter 9, Alcorn talks about story as a component of Disney's thrill rides like Tower of Terror and Rock'n'Roller Coaster, He compares them to other thrill rides like Knotts Berry Farm's Parachute Drop, and concludes that the Disney rides are better, but almost always much more costly also. He mentions Universal's Earthquake ride, which I've never been on, and he feels that the reason it is less than "completely fulfilling" is because it does NOT have a satisfying story. The riders aren't given a reason for even being ON the subway train.

It was interesting to me that Alcorn feels that The Lord of the Rings would not make a good ride. He states that "rides with more complicated storylines are often best implemented using simulators". I take it that he feels LOTR is just too complicated to make a good attraction.

(I'm not sure he's completely right on that one. I think it would make an incredible "land" ala The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, what with the richness of detail and settings that the films offered to viewers. And I think that parts of the story would translate well to dark rides. The Mines of Moria, where Gandalf battles the Balrog and is lost to the Fellowship, for example, would make a really cool dark ride, if told with animatronics and with video on the level of Spiderman or The Forbidden Journey of Harry Potter. Other scenes would be probably make excellent dark rides or thrill rides. Just my opinion.)

I've seen it suggested in various places that Disney relies too much on the rule that everything has to have a backstory of some sort. They use it instead of making a higher quality ride, if I'm reading the criticisms correctly. But Alcorn seems to say you NEED both - high quality AND a good story, because "Story is King".

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Designing Disney Parks - Armchair Editions

We all love to be armchair Imagineers, designing in our minds and sometimes on paper and/or the computer additions to the Disney parks. Sometimes, we go further, redesigning entire parks. Or we design entirely "new" Disney parks in new locations, using some of the attractions (maybe tweaked a bit) from existing parks, and maybe adding a few new ones from our own ideas.

One website that Future Guy at Futureprobe noted months ago was this one: Peter F. Schaab - Design and Visualization for All the Places We Gather To Be Entertained and Enlightened. This particular section of the site has a comprehensive redesign plan for EPCOT Center, which he did as a hobby project. It's pretty well done, with illustrations, 3D modeling, and even animations. Some really interesting, original thinking went into this redesign.

Another site is this one: Theme Park Conceptual Site Plans written by Randy Savage. This site mainly uses Disney themes to either reconceptualize existing parks or create new ones. The author does apply his imagination to Universal parks as well.

I recently discovered this site: Imagineering by Grumpyfan. The author imagines improvements to many Disney attractions, and also conceptualizes totally new experiences from time to time. It's a fun, interesting blog with tons of good ideas.

Another site, My Park, My Rides, is a fun site that combines the author's armchair imagineering efforts with commentary on the Disney parks (mostly), reimagining various rides and offering ideas for new things to entertain guests at the parks.

The last site I am making note of is Amateur Imagineer. This blog has "gone dark" so to speak, the last post being in May of 2009. But there were a bunch of entries before that, and some were pretty interesting (and still are). It's worth reading the back posts on this (apparently) now-defunct blog.

I've also seen some pretty incredible artwork on some MiceChat threads where contributors there post their own artwork, obviously mostly related to Disney parks and attractions. I don't have specific posts, however. I just remember being bowled over by the level of skill some of them had.

I only wish I could draw like that. I think that if I had some of the talent that these people do, I'd be in business designing my own concepts for parks and resorts and hotels and restaurants. At this point in my life, I don't have much interest in enriching Disney any more than I already do with my patronage, but I do have interest in designing my own project, as I've noted in several other posts. I'd be applying this imagination and these skills to conceptualizing a park in my part of the country.

I envy them. At the same time, I think they should dream even bigger!

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Imagine(er) That!

This is a poster which can be found in the Innoventions pavilion at Epcot.

Don't you sort of wish there really WAS a reality tv show called this?

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Disney Bookshelf - The Imagineering Field Guide to Disney's Hollywood Studios

Hey, it's August, isn't it!?!!

I remembered that the latest of the Imagineering Field Guides to be released had, in fact, been released, and there it was at Amazon for just a bit under ten dollars! So I ordered it (with a couple CD's, one by Adam Lambert for my wife and one by Tinted Windows, a sort of pop supergroup with members from Smashing Pumpkins, Fountains of Wayne, Cheap Trick and Hansen - but if you want info about that, you'll have to wait a bit), and have been reading through it for the last couple of days.

I'll probably make another post about this book after I read more of it, but it's what I expected - insights from the Imagineers about details of DHS, much like the previous books provided for other parks. I'm learning the background of many of the names of stores and buildings, and little tidbits about some rides and attractions. I think it's probably best if I reserve specifics for that future post.

But, as I have posted here in previous entries, I do not consider DHS to be an inferior park. I think there's plenty of cool stuff to see and do, plenty of good places to eat and I love the ambiance of the place. So this Field Guide is going to make a handy travel companion in the fall when we head down to Disney World.

So far, I'm satisfied with my purchase.

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Circulation Patterns

An important subject to consider when laying out our park is the way the guests are going to walk through it. Is it too early to start thinking about this? Heck, we haven't even discussed what the theme of the park is. (And I'm not entirely sure we will..)

Well, I don't think it is too early to at least consider the circulation patterns of the park, at least superficially. It was one of the first things Walt thought about, whether he did it consciously or not. We all probably remember seeing images of the "back of the envelope" sketches Walt did of a possible park near his studio, and then of course as the project grew, the sketches did also, with added level of detail and thought going into them.

Disney, of course, settled on a "hub and spoke" pattern, where people enter the park, walk toward the central hub down the "spoke" that extends to the entrance/exit of the park, and finally end up in that area, where they can make choices on where to visit first. Along the outside edge, it's sort of an incomplete wheel. You can enter into Adventureland, and you can make your way to Frontierland from there. You can then go into Liberty Square, then into Fantasyland, then finally into Tomorrowland. The soon-to-be removed Toontown is a sort of dead end, though there is a train station down at that end. From Tomorrowland or Adventureland, it's back to the hub.

Six Flags Great America uses a loop, of sorts. You come to their carousel, then you either go left or right. You traverse the loop in either direction. There are some cross-connections, but generally speaking, you have to walk all the way around the loop to get to attractions located on the opposite side.

Epcot has sort of a hub in Futureworld, with its spokes extending to Futureworlds East and West (right directions?), and to the loop that makes up World Showcase. Animal Kingdom is a bit more complicated. I think it's basically a hub and spoke design, but because of the vegetation, it's hard to visualize it. DHS is also hub and spoke, with less connections between the areas. You can't get from the Tower of Terror to the Pixarland without going back through the hub.

In an outdoor park, I think the hub and spoke design is likely the best, but I think a loop with lots of cross connections could work well too. I suppose if you cross connect things enough, it almost becomes a hub and spoke layout. In an indoor park, I was thinking of something that I'll call the "butterfly" design. Basically this is a central area with loops on either side. It gives the guests choices on where to go, and then brings them to their choices in a pretty ordered pattern. It would work pretty well in a limited space.

I was thinking about malls in relation to this, thinking that they might be good models for circulation patterns in an indoor park. Our local mall is sort of a linear mall, with anchor stores at either end of the line, and four branches off this main drag. Two of those branches have anchor stores at the end of them, and two exit to the parking lots. A layout like this isn't bad. Take away one of the anchors, and make that your park entrance/exit. Then have your lands at the ends of those branches. This wouldn't be terrible for an outdoor park. In fact, it's almost a hub and spoke design!

Another is sort of like a tree. You come up the trunk of the tree, and the branches (paths) fan out from that trunk. In the back of the park it's quite wide, and a lot of stuff could fit back there. As you go out the branches, they sort of circle across the "top" of the tree and the left paths end up joining to the right paths. Of course, you can always go back down the center. Again, if the trunk is thought of as the hub, the branches as the spokes, it's not that much different.

All of these designs assume a single entrance/exit. On Themed Attraction.com, there's an article discussing a meeting between some of Walt's representatives and some amusement park bigwigs, back in the 50's. They suggested that you'd need multiple exits for any park, but Walt and most every big amusement park since proved them wrong. Would it be a bad thing to have multiple entrances? I think it could be a good thing for a larger outdoor park. For an indoor park, one way in and out is sufficient, it would seem. I don't know what Walt's reasoning was, to limit it to one way in and out, except that it gave them a level of control for the least amount of money.

When we're sketching the layout of the various attractions in our park, we'll probably try that "butterfly" approach first. And see where we go from there.

Musings on theme

I've been reading over the notes I've taken both from internet and book sources and from my own thinking over the last couple years as I've pipe-dreamed about developing a theme park.

Theme is one of the more difficult things to figure out as I try to come up with concepts for this facet of the park. On "Themed Attraction.com", one of the links shows the reader a letter from a young man to ex-Imagineer Eddie Sotto, where the writer describes his theme park as "The Secret World". Elsewhere, I found a blogger with a desire to develop his own theme park, one called "Alternate Realities". But what do these titles tell us about the theme ideas of their park designs?

Not much. The possibilities are, well, maybe not "endless", but pretty broad. As I opined in my last post, the theme needs to be focused enough to allow for a cohesiveness in the attractions of the park, but broad enough to allow the designer to come up with interesting attractions and to have room to change, grow, expand.

The previously mentioned site "Themed Attractions" had one post (I couldn't find it today upon quick perusal) that talked about developing theme by scripting the guest experience from the moment they exit their vehicle in the parking lot to when they enter the park. (And beyond that, of course, but I think this part goes a bit into giving you the designer an insight into how your theme would work practically.)

For example, were I talking about a park called "Alternate Realities", I might look at how I could integrate these various realities. One of the better books I've read on time travel and changing realities was Isaac Asimov's .The End Of Eternity . In this story "eternals" travel through a sort of temporal elevator, stopping at various centuries and making changes that they deem desirable to the "present" and observing how those changes play out. Maybe something like this could form the basis of this park. I would then "script" exactly what the guest would see as he/she approached the park from the parking lot. What sort of building? What do the doors look like? What's off to the right? Left? Where are the ticket booths? Entry gates? Once they go through the doors, what do these temporal elevators look like? How many are there? How does a guest choose which temporal elevator (as the themed portals to this concept) to use to enter the park? Then what? Etc., etc.

Is this idea broad enough to support an entire park? I think it might be; the possibilities for attractions in various realities are pretty vast. Is it focused enough? I think it is that, also...it is pretty specific about how these realities come to exist, and how you get from one to another. This is someone else's concept, though, and that's about as far as I'd want to go with these thoughts...

I had an idea, that I've more or less dismissed (for now), for a similar theme - one where these time travelers, also called (by Asimov) "Eternals", collect by copying or by directly importing various important constructions and such throughout history, to their own futuristic "museum". Maybe the Taj Mahal is there, or something like it. Maybe the pyramids from Egypt are there, or maybe the Mayan structures. Perhaps a portion of the great wall of China is present. How do we get to this future? Well, we don't - it's come to us through some sort of accident, where instead of them grabbing structures from our past, present and future, they've managed to send one of their cities to our present time. One complete with this "museum" to our own architectural triumphs, but also with a large part of their futuristic metropolis intact.

(shrug) It's just off the top of the head sort of rambling. But I think it's sort of fun to muse about these sorts of ideas. Blue sky. Pipe dreaming

Eddie Sotto and Imagineering Disney

I was pointed to this by another blog but for the life of me I can't remember which one. I wanted to specifically link to it because I am interested in these sorts of discussions.

Eddie Sotto "sits down" for an interview with Imagineering Disney and discusses a lot of things related to his thoughts on what Disney could or should be doing with their properties, not necessarily considering fiscal feasibility, just blue sky stuff. If you haven't read it, here's the link: WWED? Armchair Imagineering with Eddie Sotto

One bit caught my eye, because I had said something similar in an old blog post about Future World and Tomorrowland makeovers. While they should BE green, they shouldn't make "Green" a part of the "show", so to speak. In other words, they should just have green practices, but not necessarily hit the visitors over the head with the efforts made to conserve, recycle, use alternate energy sources, etc etc.

A really interesting read. Mr. Sotto has tons of great ideas.

"Why Western River Went South" by Jim Hill Media

A while back I linked to one part of a series on Jim Hill Media, titled "Why Western River Went South". I was looking for links to the proposed theme park development in St. Louis that Disney considered, then dropped, before putting all the corporate eggs into the Florida basket.

The discussion in that segment that interested me in that post was mostly about how they would have built a cold weather, indoor amusement park along St. Louis' riverfront. But today I went back and reread it, and realized that there was an incredible story that I had just touched upon by reading that post. It was the story of an attraction called Western River Expedition, the brainchild of Imagineering Legend Marc Davis, that never got built.

Today I read the entire article (I had a long period of inactivity at work) and found it to be very interesting. It's in ten parts, and there is quite a lot of detail in the story.

I'm linking to the "search" page on the Jim Hill Media site where you can see all nine parts, and go from one to the other. The parts are not listed in order, so remember which one you just read before you go back to look for your next target.

Give it a read if you have a bit of time and haven't read this already.

"Why Western River Went South", Jim Hill Media



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