Rides That Need To Be Renovated

[Wizzard419]

But at the same time, we are a war loving country. Make a WWII movie as a serious drama and you're on the short list for an oscar. Hell, we have 24 hour military channels, and half of the History Channel is war stuff. That and people had picnics to watch the civil war.

...and yet there people nationwide protesting the Vietnam Conflict, the Gulf War, Operation Freedom in Iraq, the military involvement in Afgahnistan, and the recent involvement in Libya? If we love it so much, how come we hate it so much?

Not "we", "some". That and I think the last time we actually declared war was Korea. There's an annual infographic that is made of the US budget and DoD is always the largest portion.

In pretty much every war since WWII there has been too much nuance in the lead up. With WWII we can lie to ourselves and say "we got involved because of what Hitler was doing" when in reality it was retaliation over a trade embargo.

With all the details and argument over anything more recent it becomes more controversial, such as the Kent State shooting.

But yeah, moving back to topic. AA's aren't free and the changes can't be made in a weekend. I'm not even sure if Disney would want to change anything in the show because they would probably have to delete a scene and no one wants to be on the chopping block.

I always wanted to use this quote that my history prof. threw about. "War is good buisness, invest your son"

[Mr.ToadWildRider]

I'm not even saying the need to add more about war. I was just commenting that I would think that in terms of the development of the United State both the War of 1812 (the Revolutionary War Redux that most people don't know about or forget...we were invaded by Britain, they burned down Washington, the Star Spangled Banner was written etc.) and the Spanish-American War (really where the USA became an "international power" by defeating an aging Spanish empire) wee more important than the creation of the national park services.I'm not implying consefvation isn't a huge, global priority, but rather that it doesn't really reflect the nation's development as well as other events/eras. I'm just saying that it seems like the Cold War/Peace Movement and the Civil Rights Era seem to be glaring omissions if we want to talk about the development of the country. Even just the space race with the Soviet Union. Yes they have that interlude in the montage of Neil Armstrong's space landing but I still think as a country that moment is more important than Roosevelt's decision to expand park services (if you listen to the script it sounds as though the scene depicted is after the parks have been created and Roosevelt is deciding whether to expand them.)

[Wizzard419]

I still have a feeling that aside from the cost, it would be very difficult to remove any segment without causing some outrage.

[Mr.ToadWildRider]

I still have a feeling that aside from the cost, it would be very difficult to remove any segment without causing some outrage.

That's true of any change to any attraction though. I'm sure if they changed Stitch there would be some outrage by people (and no I don't mean those outraged it wasn't changed sooner).

At the end of the day we can disect what scenes need to stay, which ones are expendable, what would be added, etc. but it's all just for fun. These changes aren't going to take place,so I think it's enough to say that AA probably needs a renovation, or at least could use one, but whether it will or not won't be decided on this forum. I prefer to think about things like this in the context or "realistic"- in otherwords, I won't be presenting an opinion that Horizons be brought back or something like that unless it's a topic of unrealistic dreams, because there is no way that could happen. Could they add an extra scene or two to AA though? Sure. Will they? Highly doubtful due to costs, politics, show length, etc.

I just think they should give certain eras in our country's history more than a 1.5 second blurb in a film montage, especially when there are scenes dedicated to something like the National Parks. Again, not beating up on the Parks Services, but that scene gets more play than Native American/White conflict (Chief Joseph interlude) and WWI (Eddie Rickenbacker film reel) combined and I"m not sure that seems just given the significance of those 2 events compared with the national parks let alone all the other stuff completely omitted.

I mean Martin Luther King gets to say "I have a dream today"...Neil Armstrong gets to say "The Eagle has landed"...and JFK gets to recite "My fellow Americans ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country; my fellow citizens of the world ask not what America can do for you but what together we can do for the freedom of man." That's it for the period of circa 1945-2011 and beyond. A lot of extremely meaningful stuff happened in that nearly 3/4 century, and I dare say a lot of stuff more meaningful that the creation of the National Parks. I realize they can't update it everytime something happens but we're talking about events that took place decades before EPCOT even existed and a half century ago from the present. That's a lot of time to make an update...

EDIT: As a side note I'd point out that the Hall of Presidents, a similar attraction, has received a much more substantive overhaul of the show in recent years. Why can't they do something similar at AA? If anything, I think AA deserves it more than HOP. AA is supposed to be an overall depiction of the history and spirit of the nation on display for the world at the World Showcase. HOP is tucked away in the smallest "Land" in the MK- a place where fantasy is supposed to be the driving force- not education.

[mindflipper]

Hall of Presidents is, for the most part, a film. The ending scene with all the presidents has never changed except to add Audio-animatronics. Changing it basically involves during a revised film.

However, AA is synchronised combination of audio-animatronics with a film. There is a very complex system from moving scenes and animatronics under the stage. From what I remember seeing on TV about it, it is the complex system like it at any theme-park. That's why I agree with Wizz that changing this attraction would probably have prohibitive costs.

[Wizzard419]

I forgot about the sheer complexity of the movement, how tightly packed are things under the performance area?

Since we are on the topic of this show, it does feel long and waiting for it in the lobby is a total bore since you can't go upstairs either, how long can a show be before people will just get up and leave mid show or walk out of the lobby?

[jlpeaches255]

I have only seen AA once and sadly, being a product of a pretty crappy public school system, I learned a lot.

[Wizzard419]

You can blame texas for that (they are one of the major dictators of public school textbooks)

[Amy]

I forgot about the sheer complexity of the movement, how tightly packed are things under the performance area?
Since we are on the topic of this show, it does feel long and waiting for it in the lobby is a total bore since you can't go upstairs either, how long can a show be before people will just get up and leave mid show or walk out of the lobby?

Things are pretty packed! We saw a good portion of the AA's being worked on when we took our behind the scenes tour and it was quite interesting to see how close the scenes actually were. They move in and out of place on their platforms under the main stage and some of the clearances seemed pretty close.

[Wizzard419]

Yeah, when you don't need people to move stuff you don't need the wide births.

[Amy]

Yeah, when you don't need people to move stuff you don't need the wide births.

You would hope there would be some level of precision when dealing with AA's. It looked like it might be a nightmare to have to do maintenance on them though...

[mindflipper]

I forgot about the sheer complexity of the movement, how tightly packed are things under the performance area?
Since we are on the topic of this show, it does feel long and waiting for it in the lobby is a total bore since you can't go upstairs either, how long can a show be before people will just get up and leave mid show or walk out of the lobby?

Things are pretty packed! We saw a good portion of the AA's being worked on when we took our behind the scenes tour and it was quite interesting to see how close the scenes actually were. They move in and out of place on their platforms under the main stage and some of the clearances seemed pretty close.

I saw the understage area on TV show about the engineering of Disney rides and it was very impressive, but I can only imagine how much more impressive it would be to actually see it in person!

[Amy]

I forgot about the sheer complexity of the movement, how tightly packed are things under the performance area?
Since we are on the topic of this show, it does feel long and waiting for it in the lobby is a total bore since you can't go upstairs either, how long can a show be before people will just get up and leave mid show or walk out of the lobby?

Things are pretty packed! We saw a good portion of the AA's being worked on when we took our behind the scenes tour and it was quite interesting to see how close the scenes actually were. They move in and out of place on their platforms under the main stage and some of the clearances seemed pretty close.

I saw the understage area on TV show about the engineering of Disney rides and it was very impressive, but I can only imagine how much more impressive it would be to actually see it in person!

That, along with actually getting to see the Utilidors, had to be the highlight of the tour for me!

[Mr.ToadWildRider]

Hall of Presidents is, for the most part, a film. The ending scene with all the presidents has never changed except to add Audio-animatronics. Changing it basically involves during a revised film.

However, AA is synchronised combination of audio-animatronics with a film. There is a very complex system from moving scenes and animatronics under the stage. From what I remember seeing on TV about it, it is the complex system like it at any theme-park. That's why I agree with Wizz that changing this attraction would probably have prohibitive costs.

Look, I'm not saying they need to add a whole new scene with AA figures; they can do something else like a movie or what they do for the Civil War with the photos. You may ask "Well how is that any better/different than their montage?" Well because they're actually giving more significance to certain eras and events rather than some video collage that mixes really tragic events (JFK's death, 9-11, I think the Challenger explosion?) with joyous ones.

At the very least make the transition into the Golden Dreams montage more seamless. It literally goes like this right now:

ROSIE: "Cheer up Jane, maybe we'll all be together for next Christmas"
DARKEN SCENE, DROP MOVIE SCREEN
MONTAGE BEGINS

Huh? That's one heck of an intro for 60+ years of history. It just feels cheap and shoddy. It was like they made this really awesome show with these amazing figures and then they hit WWII and they were like "Uh - oh we can't afford more" and they decided to sort of abruptly end it with the Twain/Franklin scene on the Statue of Liberty's Torch to conclude the show; then some where down the road someone came along and said "Uh-oh, we're missing a LOT of stuff over the past half century. Let's do a montage! Cue the screen!" and it feels even more abrupt and thrown together.

EDIT: And not to beat a dead horse, but I think part of it may just be I think the WWII scene was a poor choice too. Rosie the Riveter is an important, FICTIONAL, representation of the home front women who took up hammers to help keep us going while our male workforce was overseas and important. But I almost feel like a speech by someone like FDR or Eisenhower or Patton would have been more inspirational and more apt. I'm not looking for a battlefield, just some important figure in the whole conflict standing there and talking about determination and drive or something. I feel it'd be more powerful, especially as an intro to the montage/final scene than "Cheer up Jane, maybe we'll all be together for next Christmas"...

[pixiesparkles]

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