Which Part of Magic Kingdom needs the most fixing/changing?

[Captain Schnemo]

i would say he left it better than he received it...

No surprise that I don't agree here. Frankly, WDW might have been a lot better off if Disney had been carved up and sold to various companies that excelled at their various specialties. Imagine what Epcot would look like if the Oriental Land Company had bought the US parks.

...hmmmmmmm...I'd better not imagine too hard or I might need a new pair of shorts...

[meticulus9]

def dont agree. what you are asking would not have been realistic.. OLC was not one of the prospective buyers. Dont know if Disney would have been better if sold off into pieces. I would state that eisner was a good force earlier in his career (see splash mountain addition to both parks, timekeeper, etc). In the late 90s and 2000s he sucked.

[Captain Schnemo]

It didn't have to be OLC, I was just making the point that it's very likely that nearly any other company would have done a better job with and had more respect for the parks than the Eisner incarnation of Disney, particularly if it focussed on the parks.

If I could trade in Eisner's so-called "saving" of the company for breaking it all into bits (I could give two poops about the cruise line, Touchstone Films, ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Disney Stores, etc.) and sparing the parks Eisner's curse of "synergy", I'd take the devil I don't know in a heartbeat.

Maybe everyone else would have sucked too, but Eisner has pretty much killed the parks dead to me.

[lebeau]

The other thing is that Eisner didn't "save" Disney singlehandedly. There were a lot of other people involved. Not the least of which was Frank Wells. Things started going bad for Eisner when his relationship with Wells began to wane. They went from bad to worse when Wells died tragically.

Also, let's not forget Roy Disney and Stanley Gold who helped put Eisner and Wells in power to begin with. When Eisner got to Disney, he planned to close feature animation. He was interested in the kind of cheap overseas animation he employed for the direct-to-video sequels.

Even Eisner credited Roy with saving feature animation. In my opinion, that was the only thing that kept Disney from being just another entertainment conglomerate.

Among the numerous other people deserving credit for turning Disney around is Jeffrey Katzenberg. Katzenberg started off as little more than an Eisner toadie. But he came to appreciate Disney animation and the legacy he was carrying on. Reportedly, once he got into the vaults, he became a champion for feature animation. And there's no denying the success he had from Little Mermaid through the Lion King.

Eisner got paranoid about Katzenberg asking to be names as his successor. As he did many times over his tenure, Eisner turned on Katzenberg and chased him from the company. Then he refused to give Katzenberg the bonus in his contract which lead to an infamous and ill-advised lawsuit. Eisner didn't have a leg to stand on. But he kept refusing to give an inch. Katzenberg became a very rich man off of that lawsuit and went on to form Dreamworks.

Things just continued to get worse for Eisner at Disney. For the whole, sordid tale, read Disney War. But be prepared to be outraged.

[meticulus9]

good pt about others. didnt mean to imply that he saved it by himself. it was def team effort. things began to get shirty when Wells passed on and his ego got outta wack (e.g. not trusting katzenberg, etc).

I disagree with CPT regarding the devil you dont know. I prefer the devil I do know to the one I dont. Yes he went overboard with syngergy. But I love Pixar- they make great films. Some of what Eisner oked worked really well- Splash mountain, tommorowland rehab (at least the idea of retro future), timekeeper, original pleasure island and typhoon lagoon, the IDEA of a MGM (not the acutally park which isnt that great)....etc etc.

Yes it wasnt him making the idea, but he oked them, if he didnt want it for the parks, it prob would not have happened

[Captain Schnemo]

Not to simply say the opposite of what you've said, but only to make it clear why I have the opinions I do...I don't go to the WDW parks any more.

Just not interested. There's no place inside any park where I couldn't see something that would annoy me to the core, and being annoyed on vacation is no fun.

So, as far as I'm concerned, they couldn't be worse in any significant way. They don't exist to me, so if they were replaced with Wal-Marts or taco stands, it wouldn't make a scrap of difference to me. Well, OK, maybe if they had chicken tacos. Those are tasty.

I hate the Tomorrowland retro future cop-out, I hated Robin Williams in Timekeeper, hate the ideas of both Pleasure Island and a studios park...all of those are horrible decisions, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, just posting to give you some insight into my position, not to argue with you or try to make the case that your opinions are wrong.

[meticulus9]

no prob. everyone is entitled to his/her opinions. sorry you dont enjoy the parks anymore

[lebeau]

Eisner was actually approached about buying Pixar in its infancy. Way back before Toy Story when the price tage would have been peanuts. He declined. Although I give him a pass on that one because there was no way to know at that stage just how successful they would be.

The reason Disney was thinking about buying Pixar at the time was for thier technology. Even without knowing how successful Pixar would be creatively, it was probably a good buy just for the tech. The reason Eisner was not interested is that he had a flawed view of Disney's future.

Einser believed strongly that whoever controlled media outlets would ultimately succeed. He was less interested in producing entertainment product than the means by which that product was delivered. That's why he was so interested in buying ABC, Fox Family (renamed ABC Family) and Go.com.

The decision to buy ABC is debatable. But ABC family and Go.com were tremendous failures that cost Disney astronmical sums of money. Eisner paid top dollar for both without realizing their limitations. For example, he didn't realize until after buying ABC family that he could not re-program the channel due to contractual obligations.

As far as the parks, Eisner wasn't especially interested. He showed up and took credit for the "Disney decade". But he felt theme parks were beneath him as a creative Hollywood exec.

He did eventually take an interest largely due to his love of architecture. He insisted on building EuroDisney in Paris and once again didn't do his research. They used projections based on attendance and weath conditions in FL which are obviously very different from Paris.

His rather eccentric taste in architecture can be seen at the Swan and Dolphin resorts. These were designed by his favorite architect and were definitely pet projects for Einser.

Eisner believed in doing things cheap. Whenever he got involved in the parks, he slashed budgets (with the exception of EuroDisney where he spent extravegently).

There is an infamous story about the re-design of Journey into Imagination. Eisner insisted on keeping the budget at the bare bones. When it was ready to open, he brought a bunch of executives and share holders down to see it. It was a complete disaster by all accounts.

Eisner insisted on a Draconian chain of command at Disney. If someone began to shine too brightly, he cut them down. He instituted layers up on layers of management and no one was allowed to accumulate too much power. No idea saw implementation until it had been stripped bare by accounting and marketing. The result was that more money was spent on gift shops, restaurants and new hotels than on the actual attractions themselves.

Also, Einser did not work well with others. He famously alienated Steve Jobs at Pixar to the point where their partnership would have ended had it not been for Einser's removal. At the same time, he ended the long-term partnership with the Weinstein brothers at Miramax.

And for those of you wondering why Star Tours hasn't been renovated, I understand a big part of that is the strained relationship between Disney and George Lucas. Yeah, he didn't like Einser either.

[meticulus9]

on the other hand: he did allow a large budget for splash mountain and TOT. he allowed a new park or two to open (given barebones) in WDW, mult themed resorts. spent a bunch of $$ on tommorowland....

again he came with pos such as above and many negatives as already pointed out. I just disagree with pointing out nonstop negwhen there are some postives. ANyone think Roy disney would've stayed quiet until 2000s if he thought the companywas in trouble earlier??! He does deserve some credit not much, but some.

[Captain Schnemo]

I would gladly erase the Tower of Terror and Splash Mountain from history to see what Future World and Tomorrowland would look like if someone with some respect for the parks had been in charge.

[lebeau]

on the other hand: he did allow a large budget for splash mountain and TOT. he allowed a new park or two to open (given barebones) in WDW, mult themed resorts. spent a bunch of $$ on tommorowland....

again he came with pos such as above and many negatives as already pointed out. I just disagree with pointing out nonstop negwhen there are some postives. ANyone think Roy disney would've stayed quiet until 2000s if he thought the companywas in trouble earlier??! He does deserve some credit not much, but some.

There were definitely some positives. But things like Splash Mountain and Tower of Terror happened in spite of Einser. Not because of him. At the time those projects happened, the parks were below his radar.

One thing that always bothered me was how long the board remained quiet about Eisner. Given his early successes, it took them a long time to admit that he was doing the company harm. And then many of them were too afarid to confront Eisner.

He actually began using a never-before-used but always-on-the-books retirement clause to force board members to retire if they questioned him. If the retirement clause didn't apply, he found other creative ways to do it.

Frankly, the board shares some of the blame for Einser for having been very slow to react. But then again, Einser had spent years stacking the board with his cronies and intimidating them into backing down. Still, they should have stood up to him much sooner.

Your point about the positives is noted. Then again, it is said that a certain dictator got the trains to run on time.

[meticulus9]

hmmm comparison to dictators are over the top.....otherwise you're argument is also "noted"....lol

seriously i am not an eisner fan, think he should've been fired years before he was, but i do appreciate some of the ideas he allowed the immagineers to pursue. i hate how he caused friction with Jobs and put off the buy out of pixar, how he barebones AK and cali adventure....about how he choose france instead of spain b/c he liked it better.....

just wanted to clarify how i really feel

[lebeau]

hmmm comparison to dictators are over the top.....otherwise you're argument is also "noted"....lol

seriously i am not an eisner fan, think he should've been fired years before he was, but i do appreciate some of the ideas he allowed the immagineers to pursue. i hate how he caused friction with Jobs and put off the buy out of pixar, how he barebones AK and cali adventure....about how he choose france instead of spain b/c he liked it better.....

just wanted to clarify how i really feel

That's cool.

I specifically didn't name a dictator because I didn't want go too far over the top. But as I said when the subject of Eisner first came up, I tend to start ranting when his name is mention

Hope I didn't come across as confrontational. I definitely see your points about his early successes.

[meticulus9]

nope not confrontational

[abrcrmbegrl20]

I said Tomorrowland. I love it but it could for sure use to foxing up to do and could be more about the future.