Quiet

[KeithS]

Wow, it has been fairly quiet around here lately. I guess with members on holidays and Harry Potter over and done with, there's not much to talk about until everyone gets back.

Of course, there will be the big media announcement days in October where we will hopefully get some sort of Disney Parks roadmap for the next couple of years - maybe we will get some official attraction announcements?

And what did people think of the name change from Disney-MGM Studios to Disney-Hollywood Studios? It surprised me, I thought it would mention Pixar for sure. I personally thought the name change was a bit lame, but those marketing people must have liked it!

[ajp]

Keith, I was thinking the same thing myself, how quiet it was.

Pixar in the name somewhere was an expectation, but reading the reason why they didn't use it, makes perfect sense. In fact after reading the announcement article and thinking about it, Pixar in the name would have been rather silly. I'm glad though, because with Disney owning Pixar now, to start separating it within the parks as an inidividual entity would have watered down the future of Disney and Pixar animation. This way they can use Pixar anywhere in the parks and it is still Disney.

The other interesting bit of speculation I read was the use of the name Walt for DCA. Calling it Walt Disney's California Adventure and theming it with Walt's journey into SoCal and what he did on the way and using the era's in the theming as well, I reckon is a good idea. Let's hope that WDI move forward with it and get the approval. The highlight would be if they got approval for a replica of the railroad he had on his property. They mentioned they may need to upsize it for safety, but that would be a treat regardless.

[mushu mama]

Well, I'm not a fan of change for the sake of change.
Personally, as a general rule, I think you weaken the links to the past when you change names and I like the 'Golden Era' of Hollywood connection.
I think there is too much 'Look at me now' stuff that goes on in Corporate America.. they'd do well to remember where they came from.


Having said that, its their park they can do what they want, and this didn't fuss me overly.

( rant over )

~ Lisa ~

[arielbelle]

I personally don't mind the change, I think it makes more sense than MGM, as all the other parks have themes in their title that refer to the park's focus like "Magic", "Animal" rather than another company name, so this now fits better with the other park names. I still would have preferred Walt Disney Studios or something like that. I think change is good, hopefully this will also inspire some new attractions, I know many people feel this park is the weakest out of them all, I don't personally agree but then again it's different when some people visit the park multiple times a year as opposed to once every four years or so. I may just be biased as it has my favorite ride - the Tower of Terror. I think all it needs is one ride to replace the backlot tour, an update of Star Tours, the Magic of Disney Animation to be more like Disney Animation in California Adventure and of course the new Toy Story Mania.

[KeithS]

I think it makes more sense than MGM

No doubt about it - the MGM tag was okay when it was a working studio, but since MGM was taken over by Sony, it didn't seem to make much sense remaining on the theme park (given the cool relationships between Sony and Disney!)

I know many people feel this park is the weakest out of them all, I don't personally agree

It is difficult to gauge a comparison between the parks (either between the four at WDW, or in fact all the parks worldwide). When we returned from the world tour, people always asked which is the best park - and none of us could answer All were number one in certain areas, and all of them failed in other areas. Disney-MGM is no different - in fact, I can't think of many aspects it failed in.

[sandie]

I'm back - I'll try to post more - had no luck at all getting internet access whilst away - probably lucky as Disney quite upset me this trip and the last thing any of you needed was to hear me rant!!!!!

I will explain why in a new post soon