Reaction to DCA artwork
 

Have you guys seen it yet? Chuck has it up on o-meon.com

I see omnimovers!!! (well, what look like they COULD be omnimovers)

While lightyear's better than the hubcab, I'd have to say the Carthay Circle Theater will still leave DCA with the most lame central icon weinie in Disney park history.

And if they think World of Color is going to give Fantasmic a run for its money while featuring NO LIVE PERFORMERS, they are dreaming a worse dream that than the original California Adventure Dreamin'

According to today's WSJ, though, the budget for the remodel is 1.1 billion, which is more than it cost to build the park in the first place. I expect to see some really neat stuff...

I think that now they've consistently lowered expectations for that park, all of this is a VAST improvement, even if it will not create something on the level of Disneyland (or even if it is mediocre, it is still MUCH BETTER mediocre lol).

The Carthay Circle Theatre tho is a bizarre choice for central weenie. It would have been awesome tho to have a REAL icon, a la a giant shiny ball or a 100 foot Stay Puft Marshmallow Mickey which would explode every hour into marshkakke gooeyness, but again, better than the hubcap. And I really wish they would have ditched the DCA name/theme -- and they still might, before all the work is done thru the next 5 years.

I'm really excited for the Mermaid, Cars and Toy Story attractions.

"Marshkakke gooeyness?"
:D

Love it.

$1.1 billion doesn't go as far as it used to.

Some of the more grandiose plans have already been shelved.

The entry should be prettier than it is now, and the artist's rendering of the Carthay Circle Theater that will dominate the new central plaza is ineed pretty, if somewhat lackluster when compared with a medieval castle, a tremendous geosphere, a ginormous mega-tree, or even the Grauman's Chinese Theater.

Frankly, I will miss the Golden Gate Bridge.



I hope you like Pixar. Paradise Pier will indeed look prettier in some ways, but the cool Orange Stinger will be gone (as will the ugly Maliboomer). The buildings will be Victorian, and the area will still be dominated by the Sunwheel and the California Screamin' faux-wooden coaster. Toy Story Midway Mania will be the big new attraction, a C or D ticket at best.

Cars Land might be a pretty little addition, but the TestTrack-like ride will be a D ticket at best.

If you were about to O.D. on Pixar, you might be glad that the Ratatouille Rollercoaster has been shelved. The film has been very popular, but it's not selling plushes.

The Little Mermaid ride may be the big thing. What the hell it's doing in DCA is beyond me. I don't care if they renamed a failed restaurant after Ariel, and have a Triton Carousel .... The Little Mermaid has absolutely, positively NOTHING to do with California. Its an obviously DISNEYLAND attraction being put in the wrong park. Feh. Oh, and I don't believe there are any plans to change the exterior - so the Palace of Fine Arts replica will remain exactly as is.

The rest of the area around the lagoon is likely going to look like rice terraces somehow, but I predict even the coolest water screens and lighting will underwhelm as a major entertainment if there are no live performers.

The Hollywood section is going to look pretty much the same, with a little tweaking - barely noticeable, I bet.

I haven't heard any plans about re-doing the UGLY and BORING farm area and Cannery Row area.


The desert airfield look around Taste Pilot's and Soarin may be re-themed to the nicer Grizzly Mountain stuff. But the Grand Cal is going to intrude further into the park with its DVC wing, and the additions of animatronics and perhaps a train ride to Grizzly Peak have been nixed.



Sorry, but it doesn't sound to me like the $1.1 billion, more than it cost to build the park, is going to re-design the park in any significant way.


What a lametard waste of money!

(cross posted from elsewhere for your reading enjoyment)

I've read several posts in various threads that bemoan the idea of the California theme being diluted. I think that's the idea. DCA will not so much be a tribute to the Golden State anymore, but a unique theme park focussed on Walt's California. From the Red Cars to the Carthay Circle Theatre, to a 21st century take on the long missed Walt Disney Story, this will be stylish, atmospheric, and everything the current theme park isn't. Finally, guests will enter the park and have a sense of being transported somewhere else. I imagine there will be a name change, as well. "Disney's California Adventure" probably being replaced by "Walt Disney's California," again, bringing Walt's experience in California to the forefront.

I love the graphic of the Mickey sunburst from the Mickey Mouse cartoons on the wonder wheel! I'm excited, I think they've come up with a clever and respectful fix to a theme park that, frankly, traded on the Disney name without delivering the goods.

And in reading about it further, I see that Cars Land is going to replace the lamentable Bountiful Valley Farm. I thought it was going to be out in the Timon parking lot, so that's a change I can enjoy.

Because I'm looking for substantive changes to the dreadful park ... not window dressing or changing of a rose's name. (And by "rose" I mean "turd.")




So, what did we have at DCA when it opened: A Hollywood Land, a Seaside Amusement Park, a High Sierra Mountains area, a Flight-Test Desert Airfield zone, an Agricultural Farmland, a Cannery Row facsimile, and a deserted San Francisco Street.


What will we have by 2012: A Hollywood Land, a Seaside Amusement Park, a High Sierra Mountains area, a two-pronged Pixar Movie Land, a Cannery Row facsimile, and a deserted San Francisco Street.



Pardon me, but I don't see much difference. Making DCA prettier and even adding some more attractions does not change its worthlessness as an appealing theme park.


Don't get me wrong: I'm glad it will be better looking. I'm glad there will be more to do.


But it will still be THE SAME PARK.


A Rose.





And by rose, I mean ....

OK IsM I am gonna totally disagree with you here. A facelift IS important because it makes the park more appealing to hang out in. It gives the park some kind of emotional connection that it is currently lacking. As it stands, I hate hanging out in DCA because 90% of the "hang out" sort of areas are fugly and unappealing. The scale models for the DCA entrance look much MUCH better than what I thought (with the exception of the MGM-style turnstiles). It isn't just the removal of the hubcap and the addition of the theatre.

Disneyland is so much fun to walk around in because of the scenery; if DCA's overlay can match that level of detail it will make it a much much better park.

Look at Al's rundown at the end of today's update. It isn't that they're just adding a few things here and there. The two biggest problems with DCA are that it is ugly and there isn't much to do; this is a huge step in the right direction to correcting those things.

And here, there is a thematic shift as to "Walt Disney's California" (emphasis on the Walt Disney) from "A Celebration of California In General (*just add whoopi)". It's a mindset of having a Disney Adventure rather than visiting a park about California in California. Is it the greatest idea ever? No. HOWEVER -- it directly addresses the "who wants to visit a park about California in California?" issue.

IsM I'm not sure why the "deserted San Francisco Street" is a problem (during construction it will be the preview center, and who knows what it'll be after 2012). (FYI Gn2Dlnd and I had a good laugh this morning discussing the 3:00 parade for that area ;) )

They aren't going to demolish the thing and start over. But I guess that the park will forever remain worthless if you're of the mindset that "no matter what they do, the park is unfixable short of leveling the f*cker." :D (Of course, my requisite confusion with IsM's mindset might just be because I'm trying to figure out the mindset of someone whose mindset is unfigureoutable, lol)

I'm hoping that when the planned Little Mermaid area gets put in DCA, that they replace the Little Mermaid area in Disneyland with something else. We'll see, I guess.

:)

I'm looking forward to the return of the flying saucers.

It is not unfigureoutable: just realize that that mind automatically begins with the premise that everything sucks and sometimes comes around to things being okay (not always - just sometimes). That mind is old and curmudgeonly. If you know that going in and learn to just smile and nod and go about your day, life becomes simpler.

:)

Walt Disney's California??? How so?

Oh, I agree the entry will be Walt Disney's California ... and it looks to be quite charming and appealing.

I suppose you could even say the Hollywood Street is Walt Disney's California. By making absolutely no change to it. That's ok, I think the street is pretty as is. But the "studio" area, even with it's recent facelift, is dreadfully ugly. And Tower of Terror might as well be in Shanghai if they are going to leave that area a dead end (where the weinie disappears from view once you get to the land where it's located).


What has the rest of the park got to do with Walt Disney's California, and moreover, what is Disney doing to tie in any of those areas with Walt Disney?

Sure, the High Sierras existed while Walt lived in Los Angeles. Ya know what? - he even wanted to have a resort in the Mineral King area of Sierra National Park, with the County Bear Jamboree as an attraction. Is there any planned tie-in to the legitimate Walt-connection of DCA's High Sierra area??? None that I've heard of.


Seaside amusement parks? What's the Walt connection? Walt HATED them - that's the Walt connection!!


Pixar-Land? What's the POSSIBLE Walt connection?? Even if you accept Cars Land as Route 66 Land ... what the heck is the Walt connection? That Route 66 existed in California while Walt lived in California? WTF?


I'm not buying the Walt Disneys' California bit.


But I'll agree with Cherny that making DCA far less ugly will go far in making it a much more pleasant place to hang out.


It'll still be a park about California IN California, with less emphasis on California while all its lands continue to evoke California - - and barely distinguishable from present-day California.


But when I think back to when I used to hang out more in DCA, it was because there were things there I liked to do and see. Better restaurants, The Power of Blast, the Eureka Parade. Those had nothing to do with how pretty or ugly DCA was. But I will prefer prettier, of course.

Oh, and they should add shaded areas to the park, too.

I meant the man AND the incarnations of what his creations wrought, not just the man himself. It's a park about having Disney Adventures, rather than California Adventures... which is where the park appeared to be headed from day 1. I'm not going to rehash the bad ol' days ;)

I didn't quote a lot of what you wrote but it doesn't seem like you're as totally opposed to the ideas as you made it out to be in your first post that I responded to.

HOWEVER, your last paragraph (above) which I quoted sort of negates the whole "worthlessness" argument. Having more things to do and see will either enhance the value of the park or it will not (due to the crappy theme, or for whatever reason). You can't have it both ways. (Did I actually just say that sentence to IsM? lmao)

I'm in the camp that it sounds mostly like a face lift with one new e-ticket.


I'm not really down on DCA to begin with but I'm not seeing a big boost here any more than adding a bug's land was anything massively significant (it made it better but it was incremental).

Walt Disney as a character isn't going to fly with anything but a core of hardcore fans, the average Disney park visitor really could barely care less so it is probably best that this be just an "essence" rather than actual focus of theming.

I doubt it will fundamentally change the performance of DCA as a separate park. But that is simply because I don't think you're going to be able to have two separate park admissions 80 feet away from each other where this is such an extreme cultural disparity between them.

If that ever comes it will come with time, not so much with physical improvement.

"Walt Disney as a character..." Now there's the missing piece! Would he be a face character or would they manufacture a Walt head so it looks the same at all times?

I think they should just rename it to Walt Disney Studios Park that would actually encompass everything.

In reading Al's Update of today, it seems the Cars Land is going to have an entrance near the Tower of Terror, finally bringing an end to that lame dead end.

Heheh, the giant weinie will work from Raditor Springs, but still not from Hollywood. But at least there will be a flow of traffic past it. Yes, an improvement.

Cars Land will also be a major improvement if the buttes of the Radiator Springs territory block out the Anaheim Convention Center and other such realworld intrusions.


The big news is indeed Cars Land. Everything else is just a prettier version of what already exists.

I'm thinking they will make him an animatronic as part of the new "Walt Disney Story" attraction.

I would actually love that. :snap:

But, hell no about making him a face character!

I disagree. Prettier and themed attractions are in fact the essence of the Disney difference. (And what DCA lacked the most)

Well, you and I have a completely different opinion on the Disney difference, then.


The Downtown Disney Shopping Disney District of Disneyland is a pretty shopping mall. But I don't feel the wonder and magic while I'm there.



THEME is the key (to me). Picking a good theme and doing it well is the essense of Disney theme park success, imo. One out of two won't cut it.

The New California Adventure, er, I mean, Walt Disney's California, will - at best - have one out of two.




And I will consider that a major improvement. But mark well me words ... in 2012, there still won't be anyone buying a full-price ticket for DCA. (er, WDC)

But DTD does not have themed attractions, and therefore escapes my description completely. DCA itself is little more than a mall with a smattering of modestly-themed attractions at the moment (hence the nickname, Paul's Mall), but the addition of more attractive elements (and btw, prettier includes theme, because you can only be so pretty before you require a theme to carry you... look at the Monte Carlo in Vegas vs. the Venetian) will help.

I notice how they're timing this to coincide with the launch of the two new cruise ships. :D

FOOMP!

For some perspective ...

The Nokia Theater opened last night in Downtown L.A., with The Eagles and The Dixie Chicks filling the bill. It's the first part of the L.A. Live complex of theaters, clubs, restaurants and hotels. Price tag of the complex - $1.7 billion. That's for an entertainment complex on the scale of Downtown Disney.


$1.1 billion to completely revitalize a Disney theme park is grossly inadequate.

$1.1 billion in 2007 dollars is about the same as $885 million in 1998 dollars (which I believe was when construction started on DCA). I am not what relevance that has, but I thought I would mention it.

It is not a realistic comparison. With the DCA refurb, the basic infrastructure is already in place (utilities, a majority of the structures, property, etc.). $1.1B is a huge budget for redoing DCA. It does not guarantee that they will do it right, but it IS a substantial investment.

I don't know that you can really compare them as they are entirely different types of construction. LA Live includes several high rises, inluding a 50-something story hotel. Building tall is vastly more expensive than building wide (not exactly the scale of Downtown Disney). Plus, the project included purchasing 28 acres of downtown Los Angeles property, an expense that Disney doesn't have.


But yeah, $1.1 isn't necessarily a lot of money.

I'm all for them spending a ton of money to try and fix DCA, but I think there are bigger problems that the money won't be able to fix.

The layout of the entire park is weird. Epcot's layout makes sense, as does DL's etc. The flow is good at these parks. Maybe it has to do with the circular pattern...

DCA is this weird oblong peanut shape with dead ends. Can they fix that? I don't think so.

Also, in my mind, ToT will always be flawed. We have a Cliff's Notes version of WDW's. And I guarantee they won't fix (elevator moving forward and then dropping) that one ever...

I have a question:
Where is this Cathay Circle Building going to be put?

Yep, ToT ... not repeatable to me. I don't know if the original version would fare better in my mind ... but the one being built around the world is the truncated DCA version.

You'd think with the ecstatic reaction to the DisneyWorld version and the tepid reaction to the DCA version, a different choice would have been obvious.


But they are fixing the dead-end problem at ToT, and you will be able to walk down Hollywood Street, into Cars Land and then into ... well, wherever the other end of Cars Land lets out (Bugs Land? Ex-FarmLand?).

Paradise Pier isn't technically a dead-end ... it just seems that way (at least to me) because I never go down to the far end. I only get as far as California Screamin' ... then I turn around and go back. Since Midway Mania will be right next door and Little Mermaid will be where Golden Dreams is ... I think the far end of Paradise Pier will remain terra incognito to me.


Even with no dead-ends, the layout of DCA with its several different circular routes laid out next to one another ... with no real way to circumnavigate the park as a whole ... is indeed a poor layout with no real remedy.

Perhaps they can build a bowl out of it, making a berm with mountains around it facing Katella, blocking out the real world.

At the end of the street, about where the "Hubcap" is at. There will be a "Main Street" from the entry, down to the end where the plaza is. It will be like the castle at the end of Main Street in Disneyland.

Only it will be a movie theater.





How splendidly magical !!

Maybe it will be a magical theatre.

Look at it this way - it's another place to have sex in the park.

:p

what are the others?





I don't know of any have-sex places in DCA. In fact, the whole park kinda makes me go soft, if ya know what I mean.


But, supposing I could get excited in the confines of DCA, where would the spots be for my unexpected lust to be fulfilled?

Yeah, I don't know of any tee pee's over there

I think it'd be sort of fun to fcuk in one of the Ursula booths in the animation building, especially during voice playback and you hear yourself from 1 minute prior.

And of course, nobody's ever in that Seasons of the Vine room. Just blame your urges on the wine if anyone ever waltzes in.

Or ask if they want to join in!

Then they could change the name of the attraction to "Believe, there's magic in the wine!" :D

OMG, a thought... will it *actually* be a movie theater? Because that would give them a place to move the Mickey cartoons to and fulfill Pressler's life dream of turning the Main Street Cinema into a plushie store.

I thought I read it was going to house some sort of "Walt Disney Story" attraction. I think it should be hosted by a giant 20 foot animatronic of Arnold Schwartzenfoofer. Man, that'd scare the bejesus out of the kiddies.

Oh, that's right *phew*

It would be cool if somewhere in the DLR showed seriously old-time movies like the MSC used to do before they converted it to all Mickey films.

Like Deep Throat or Valley of the Dolls

No no, it'd be The Loin King, Booby and the Beast, A Lad In Jasmine, Bangbi, Humpo, Blow White and the Seven Whores, Binocchio, Sindarella, Poke a Hot Ass, Homo on the Range, 101 Vibrations, Mary Cockins, or even Bedknobs and Broomsticks (yes yes that one is already dirty).

I worry about you.

Yes, Cherny, you are a sick deminted little man. Don't ever change! :D

Are you sure we don't like him better when he's minty-fresh?

The moving cars of the Sun Wheel are a great place for some action

I was on a monorail last night all alone with a cute straight boy and seriously wondered if there were cameras. *sigh*

I miss making out on the PeopleMover.

And Innerspace.........

No, I don't miss making out on him.

Of course, I don't really know what I might be missing.

And I won't be telling.



Sunwheel is a good call. As for the others, we all know where the spots are in Disneyland. (And, yes, my alma mater was tops among 'em.)

If I'm going to get some action on the Sun Wheel I need to be accompanied by someone other than my terrified-of-heights spouse. Unless by "action" I mean "getting puked upon repeatedly." Which I don't.

There are people who are into that...

And you know this because.......

Recently visited the Museum of Sex (MoSex) in NYC and they currently have a display on fetishes. More on that some time.

Ah... thought it might be from personal experience. ;)

Well, that too, but I was trying to not confess to that.

Hey ! Stop dissin' MY rose !!!!!

...Send it out to Sydney !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The artwork looks amazing, but hopefully it will turn out s good as it looks.

I'm excited though.

Barfy !!! Welcome ! :cheers:

Hey, Thanks. I was referred to this site by a friend. Its good to see some familar faces on here.

You're seeing faces?

I see dead people










Forgive me - it is late and I am still at work.

No problem at all.

Well, not faces...but usernames. =D

Faces? Where's Rod Stewart?

Does that count if you were the one that made them dead in the first place?

Good point. We all know Kevy is really a very sinister person. ;)

Damn... am I going to have to go on the lam again?

MONKEY ON THE LAMB!

I didn't know you were into baby sheep. :p

Oh, absolutely not - they MUST be full grown.

After all, I'm not some sort of freak!

We've now descended from a discussion of the new design ideas for DCA to man on sheep love.

Lounge of Tomorrow - An Adventure Thru Inner Skank

Nice one! :snap:

Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!

S'cuse me? I don't do monkeys.

That's not what I've heard! ;)

Gorillas are not monkeys.

But, they still grunt. :p

Does innerSkankman know about this yet?

It's a good thing there are no minors here on Lot...

How about spelunkers?

I like spelunkers. They always like to venture into deep dark places. ;)

Spelunkers like going down

I'd be more relieved coming back up !

isn't minor under 18... cause i thought there were a few of them... but none under 16... at least from my lurking observations...

amazing how fast these topics change around...

-sits back and enjoys the topic :cheers: -

He was kidding.

WHO'LL THINK OF THE CHURROS!?!?!

Probably anyone who can afford to capture and eat them ;)