[Idea] the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

[mkcoastie]

Well, hello all! I'm writing this as the first in a series I'm calling my Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza’s! The general Idea is that I'm taking some of the best concepts and inspirations from throughout the Disney universe and coming up with my own ideas that I will implement on the off chance that I am crowned king and dictator of WDW (some of these require far more capital than I would have access to as a mere President or CEO). My first stop is EPCOT. We have all been captivated by Carsland over at DCA recently. One of the BIG aspects of Carsland is that stunning mountain range that serves as a backdrop. Over in WDW, we have a couple mountains....but not a whole mountain range. I think that could really be awesome.....but where to put it? There have long been rumors of a Japan pavilion mountain roller coaster......no, I don't think I'm going to go that way. Instead I'm going to do something unexpected, and in the process possibly break a few taboos (). I'm going to do the ALPS! Now, as required by armchair Imagineering law, I have produced a Google map with crude colored outlines:


]

The Alps run through a number of European countries, Including Germany and Italy. That big blue box is where my incredibly beautiful mountain range will go. I must admit, I am a little concerned about how this will look from the rest of world showcase...they are going to dominate the landscape. The purple box represents a new pavilion, Switzerland!(another country along the Alps). Just a note here: France is technically an "alps country" but both it's location in World Showcase, and my desire not to mess with the Eiffel tower, mean that I am going to ignore this fact. So what is in my giant mountain range? Snow! Lots of it. It will actually snow inside the mountains, and be noticeably colder. I picture a little mountain village and lodge (probably near the Swiss side) containing a small restaurant. The range will also contain a ride. It will be a slower sled type ride (mostly dark ride with a couple of mildly fast areas). Not wanting yet ANOTHER yeti ride, it will instead feature this little guy:



He is a Barbegazi. It's a Swiss folklore about a type of mountain dwarf. They are generally friendly and have been known to help people, and warn of avalanches .

Now as for the outdoor Switzerland pavilion, I picture something like this:


I'm also currently torn on whether or not to use that expansion pad on between Germany and Italy for another country. Of the Alps countries, Austria is the biggest. I think, however, that it is too close to Germany in culture. Maybe a small nation like Slovenia? I also thought about a small "mountain train" (it would be a single car tram-like thing). It would leave from a small train station behind the current German train garden and travel through my mountain range to Switzerland. I just don't know if there is room left in my mountain range to accommodate for this. So what do you think? Have I ruined EPCOT? Will I find myself being deposed in a violent coupe lead by the folkes here on MiceChat? Let me know!

P.S. I'm also changing the name back to EPCOT Center.

[goofy donald]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

first off, no you have not ruined WS, congratulations lol. the alps was a risky move but if you put the cut off points in the right spots so that it will not affect other countries it could work well. theres also the point that the part of italy shown in the pavilion is the south and the Alps are in the north but we don't need to nit pick i like the concept. you cant really build anything like a small country in that expansion pad 1) because of the american garden theater prep building and 2) because of the miniature trains that are just awesome. as for the swiss addition i think its great but there are some issues your going to have to deal with here. for one that expansion pad is easily big enough for 2 countries so i would cut the alps a little shorter and fit in a Russia or Brazil on then end next to the bridge by china. second although i like the idea of the alps ride and the construction could easily hide the buildings its currently going to be on top of, how do you account for all the access roads this thing is going to cover now, especially because you built it up right against a canal. other then that, great proposal!

[mkcoastie]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

Thanks for the imput! Hope you can do the same for my animal Kingdom Idea's

you cant really build anything like a small country in that expansion pad 1) because of the american garden theater prep building and 2) because of the miniature trains that are just awesome.

Agreed, The miniature trains are awesome.......we shall leave that be.

as for the swiss addition i think its great but there are some issues your going to have to deal with here. for one that expansion pad is easily big enough for 2 countries so i would cut the alps a little shorter and fit in a Russia or Brazil on then end next to the bridge by china.

I Like this Idea. Russia, I think.

second although i like the idea of the alps ride and the construction could easily hide the buildings its currently going to be on top of, how do you account for all the access roads this thing is going to cover now, especially because you built it up right against a canal. other then that, great proposal!

To be honest, I went with a build this because it's cool, figgure out the operational logistics as we draw up the blue-prints.

[mkcoastie]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

[goofy donald]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

Thanks for the imput! Hope you can do the same for my animal Kingdom Idea's

Agreed, The miniature trains are awesome.......we shall leave that be.

I Like this Idea. Russia, I think.

To be honest, I went with a build this because it's cool, figgure out the operational logistics as we draw up the blue-prints.

any time! ill be sure to take a look at AK next.

the operational side is the one thing I would be worried about here because it would be very hard to get supplies to the individual pavilions if those roads were closed off.

[Darth Goofy]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

Dig the World O Color idea for AK and finishing of Expidition Everest. Definatelly on board with the demise of Chester and Hester's Dinorama...however in the last view of "Mystical Village" behind it/above it would be nice to see "Indys Adventure Village." (Maybe a better name would be more fitting) This area would include a themed village from scenes from the movies with shops and a resturant, an Indy stunt show, Imported, (Cloned Indy ride from DL. Yep I know, two similar ride styles at one park but MK has 2 omimovers) and a variation of the mine train (cloned from Disney Sea). This would turn this Animal Kingdom into a fully themed "ANIMAL":yea:

[brianpinsky]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

For the next intallment tell about the Magic Kingdom...Tomorrowland. Maybe do Disneyland's Tomorrowland

[goofy donald]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

Hello everybody! It’s time for my next installment. I’m taking my inspiration here from a couple of different places, all to improve Animal Kingdom! First off, we travel to Asia. Now before I begin, my plan will necessitate the finishing of Expedition Everest. By this I mean theming the back side. As long as I’m doing all this work on Everest, the Yeti will be fixed. Now, here is my map:

This is a great place to start with any AK imagineering thought. they do have offices in there, hence the windows and such, but that could easily be refinished to hide the fixtures and make it look more like a mountain all the way around.

The Grey area is a small Chinese village (since we are in Asia) with a boat ride featuring Chinese animals and culminating with a massive Chinese style animatronic dragon. If I need more space for this, I will extend the area up past the road. The purple section is actually a viewing area for a World of Color style show that will take place on the lake. The orange will be a new resort, Disney’s Asian Resort. This resort will feature a walking path to a back entrance to DAK (like international gateway in EPCOT). The last area is the big brown one. You might recognize this space as containing Chester and Hester’s Dinorama. It will be demolished. With glee. In its place will be a new Dino area. This main portion of this will be a “nature trail,” Like the ones featured in Africa and Asia. This trail will have life sized, ultra realistic animatronic dinosaurs. The trail will feature rope bridges and high overlooks as well as ground level viewings. The Dinosaur! Ride will stay, but the story line will change. This will now be the method in which dino’s are collected for the exhibits here. The problem will occur when the good doctor sends us far too close to the meteor impact to collect the one dino he has never been able to. All of this will require the re-routing of a service road and finding a new spot for whatever it is in those support buildings, but I think we could do that.

to start, I love the China or east asian concept here. it really adds great flow to the whole Asian land starting in india and moving literally across the continent to china/japan/korea (and a great tie in opportunity for TDL/WDW synergy lol). I would say right off the hop the grey area would need to be bigger if you were going to do a boat tour type attraction especially one with animal exhibits. I personally had my eye set on that type of attraction for a south american rainforest expansion to go between asia and rafiki's planet watch though as I think it would work better there. Personally i would focus on the legend of the dragon as you mentioned earlier and make a big e-ticket out of that concept, I'm thinking like a huge, everest meets harry potter style ride, all indoors as to not mess with the ambiance, also including the new flying dragon tech disney has to add the cherry on top. this would quickly make AK a much bigger draw then they currently are right there and you could put the show building north of the grey area beside everest so it helps hide a bit of the unthemed side (obviously maintaining a certain height so it doesn't take away from the size of Everest). then I would add asia's second animal trail east of the chinese village and north of the resort concept, including many Himalayan and Chinese animals, culminating with a showstopper giant panda exhibit hopefully. this would be an addition I could REALLY get excited for.

here comes the negative though unfortunately. the purple area is a heck of a lot more work then just an addition as the area you selected is the maintenance and storage area for the currently not in use discovery riverboats and you know a lot of water lol. therefore to use that area, the entire zone would have to be drained with the stream remaining to connect it to the other lake which you want the show to be on. then the boat maintenance
would have to be moved to the other side of the discovery island in the lake thats in the center of the main backstage area. then build a canal over the land currently there to allow boats to get back into discovery island with a bridge for the backstage road and then you would be done. this would actually work better overall as the boats could run double duty for the AK lodge as well in your exclusive resort boat travel concept, but again its a lot of work. once you do that you could do the world of color concept which i think is the best case scenario for an AK night show.

As for the asian resort, I love it particularily the international gateway style entrance the only thing i would say about it though is that it should be far enough back from the AK night show that you cant see it over say the bamboo/forested background. a large asian style hotel would really take away from the experience of such a well themed land. the one last point i have on the area, tying it in to the dinoland part, is that there should be access to dinoland from the new asian area. on the opposite side of the nemo theater just because if you don't do it there would be an insane bottle neck at the foot of everest.

moving on to Dinoland. I kind of like chester and hesters as its really the glue that ties the whole area's theme together. however if you want to go in a new direction this is as good a way as any to go. keep in mind though, if you make this change you also have to change restaurantosaurus and other themed areas in the land as well to match the more scientific, Jurassic park style land. they have a trail with dinosaurs right now but they are rally just statues that have smoke coming out of them. this under utilized space in front of dinosaur the ride could be used for something as well if you could think of anything. the concept though is awesome. the service roads aren't too affected by these concepts and really the only major backstage movement would be the boat maintenance so again great job.

Next up we go to the area of the park where Avatar is supposed to go. It will not be built. Instead we will be getting Scottish highlands like village called “Mystical Village.” This is in the green section of the map below.
It will contain a dark ride about gnomes, trolls and other mystical forest creatures. (as much as I would like to include general fairies, this would just cause confusion with the tinkerbell variety.) There will also be exhibits with real bears and Highland cattle, probably in a Stonehenge like setting.

moving to the other side of the park, I will be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the Scotland concept. its a bit more boring then some of the other concepts available and i think a little too heavy on the make believe as the country has little of its old wildlife remaining. what i think would be a better idea for an addition in this area would be Australia. you could repurpose the lion king theater to do a show of aboriginal stories with tons of pyro and multi media additions, create an Ayres rock to serve as a housing to a dark ride of some kind and a view blocker for the outside of the park, and add in a trail with an exciting twist of a nocturnal animals building of some kind and a kangaroo walkabout. the main area with the shops would be themed to an outback shack town of some kind and a new full service/counter service restaurant would be added, even with the possibility to lease out to Outback Steakhouse. this will be important later on in the next paragraph.

The dark blue is the area I will be expanding that lake to. This will be mystic lake. It will have boat transportation between Animal Kingdom Lodge and Animal Kingdom. The light blue are takes its inspiration from the many sub rides Disney has treated us with. It will be a sub ride in search of a mystical lake monster (obviously resembling the legendary Loch Ness).

going on with the australia concept, the dark blue area could easily be a great barrier reef style attraction instead of loch ness. as for the boat transport, i think its something they should have done from day one. IMO three rainforest cafe style restaurants at WDW is too damn many so i would vacate the rainforest cafe, an average experience you can have anywhere else in the world, and bring the boat docks right on to its footprint. if our going to make a unique resort experience, make it a worthwhile experience so now guests don't have to walk a million miles to the bus stop if they don't want too. a pretty extensive canal would have to be built (a little over half a mile's worth) but it would be totally worth it. overall still some great ideas here. i think to sum up, the best course of action for AK additions would be 1) china/night show, 2) dinoland upgrade, 3) Australia, 4) Amazon rainforest north of asia, 5) Planet watch addition and upgrade.

[mkcoastie]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

moving to the other side of the park, I will be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the Scotland concept. its a bit more boring then some of the other concepts available and i think a little too heavy on the make believe as the country has little of its old wildlife remaining. what i think would be a better idea for an addition in this area would be Australia. you could repurpose the lion king theater to do a show of aboriginal stories with tons of pyro and multi media additions, create an Ayres rock to serve as a housing to a dark ride of some kind and a view blocker for the outside of the park, and add in a trail with an exciting twist of a nocturnal animals building of some kind and a kangaroo walkabout. the main area with the shops would be themed to an outback shack town of some kind and a new full service/counter service restaurant would be added, even with the possibility to lease out to Outback Steakhouse. this will be important later on in the next paragraph.



going on with the australia concept, the dark blue area could easily be a great barrier reef style attraction instead of loch ness. as for the boat transport, i think its something they should have done from day one. IMO three rainforest cafe style restaurants at WDW is too damn many so i would vacate the rainforest cafe, an average experience you can have anywhere else in the world, and bring the boat docks right on to its footprint. if our going to make a unique resort experience, make it a worthwhile experience so now guests don't have to walk a million miles to the bus stop if they don't want too. a pretty extensive canal would have to be built (a little over half a mile's worth) but it would be totally worth it. overall still some great ideas here. i think to sum up, the best course of action for AK additions would be 1) china/night show, 2) dinoland upgrade, 3) Australia, 4) Amazon rainforest north of asia, 5) Planet watch addition and upgrade.

Great Stuff! Thanks for the feedback! I'm getting a lot of pushback on the Scotland-ish area. While I love your concept for Australia (and the tie in to the great barrier reef was brilliant), I was actually looking to do Austrailia in the much larger expansion area up above Asia. I think it has a lot of possibility and needs a large footprint. I think I am convinced to do something different here....I'm just not sure what yet. I'm now actually thinking the submarine ride might be better suited looking for some giant squids and sea bottom creatures.

I love the Rainforest Cafe Idea, and completely agree.

Now is as good a time as any to go on with my next Idea. This one is a little simpler, I call it the Tinkerbell Initiative. This will be based on the classic Disney Character, and her modern incarnation.




The general Idea behind the Tinkerbell Initiative is: "Small things make a BIG difference" (yes, it has a tag line)

The Tinkerbell Initiative consists of the following:

- Ensuring that the cleanliness and upkeep of the parks is made a priority. Disney used to have the reputation for being the cleanest and best kept places in the world. This Portion of the initiative is designed to bring back that reputation. Guests should never see a burnt out bulb or flaking paint....in short, the parks should sparkle.....just like our fairy friend.

- Tinkerbell is a Tinker Fairy. She fixes things. It is in this light that the Tinkerbell initiative will be funded to ensure that if things are broken, they get fixed. In addition, and in the spirit of the "lost Things" Tinkerbell fixes, an attempt will be made to identify and fix things that have been "lost" of forgotten due to continued disrepair.

- Tinkerbell may be small, but her contributions effect the seasons themselves. In this Light, the Tinkerbell Initiative will set to complete smaller "place making" projects to various areas of the parks. New Signage, Gardens, and details that will help make the parks a little more magical.

[goofy donald]

Re: the Unrealistic Imagineering Extravaganza!

Great Stuff! Thanks for the feedback! I'm getting a lot of pushback on the Scotland-ish area. While I love your concept for Australia (and the tie in to the great barrier reef was brilliant), I was actually looking to do Austrailia in the much larger expansion area up above Asia. I think it has a lot of possibility and needs a large footprint. I think I am convinced to do something different here....I'm just not sure what yet. I'm now actually thinking the submarine ride might be better suited looking for some giant squids and sea bottom creatures.

I love the Rainforest Cafe Idea, and completely agree.

I was thinking surprisingly that the Amazon would work better above Asia, however if you want to put Australia up there then why not but the Amazon down in the Scottish area? it certainly would be nice to go by in the boat and it ties in well with the Oasis. as well the water ride could be an amazon boat ride there however it would require a bit more work then previous ideas would have.

Now is as good a time as any to go on with my next Idea. This one is a little simpler, I call it the Tinkerbell Initiative. This will be based on the classic Disney Character, and her modern incarnation.


The general Idea behind the Tinkerbell Initiative is: "Small things make a BIG difference" (yes, it has a tag line)

The Tinkerbell Initiative consists of the following:

- Ensuring that the cleanliness and upkeep of the parks is made a priority. Disney used to have the reputation for being the cleanest and best kept places in the world. This Portion of the initiative is designed to bring back that reputation. Guests should never see a burnt out bulb or flaking paint....in short, the parks should sparkle.....just like our fairy friend.

- Tinkerbell is a Tinker Fairy. She fixes things. It is in this light that the Tinkerbell initiative will be funded to ensure that if things are broken, they get fixed. In addition, and in the spirit of the "lost Things" Tinkerbell fixes, an attempt will be made to identify and fix things that have been "lost" of forgotten due to continued disrepair.

- Tinkerbell may be small, but her contributions effect the seasons themselves. In this Light, the Tinkerbell Initiative will set to complete smaller "place making" projects to various areas of the parks. New Signage, Gardens, and details that will help make the parks a little more magical.

totally agree with all of this. i think as Eric suggested, disney should adopt the universal points program to ensure the upkeep of rides. obviously with the florida humidity its a little hard to keep the paint perfect on everything but it would just be nice if they looked like they tried. lots of broken lightbulbs and trash everywhere says point blank "i don't care". I would add one more thing to the initiative which would be more holiday decoration and celebration through all parks and more inclusiveness for all guests. don't entirely do away with the private parties but make them more worthwhile and still give a little something to regular guests as well.