Maelstrom

This was a post long overdue. I put this on my list of things to write about months ago when the rumors first started to circulate. But I'm always bad about posting anything, and only get to a post every few months anymore it seems. But the feelings have really built up inside of me tonight living the last night of Maelstrom through those who were there to tweet about it and post as many pictures as they could. I'm extremely thankful for them sharing those last moments with us who could not be there. The replacement of Maelstrom with Frozen comes with a lot of mixed feelings that are going to be hard to organize and actually write. I'll try to start with my personal history about Maelstrom and when I began to appreciate it.

Everyone has an attachment to different rides for various reasons, and many have an attachment to Maelstrom. I don't want to be accused of joining the bandwagon of people who suddenly couldn't live without Maelstrom when it was announced, but in the defense of those people, you don't always realize how great something is until it's being taken away. Anyway, I first rode Maelstrom after many trips to Disney. I'm not sure if my parents even knew it was there before we were walking around World Showcase one year and saw it. I at least had not heard about it, and often times my parents weren't the ones to wander. When there's a family with three young kids, I'd imagine you tend to be more objective and wander less. (I had a similar experience with Rio del Tiempo, finding it when wandering and not sure how I missed it on previous trips.) My mom still does not like World Showcase to this day because she finds it to be too long of a walk with too few things to do. I have missed out on plenty of things by following my parents' vacation patterns and not exploring myself. So first ride, it was neat. Not that I had some crazy obsession with the ride, but I enjoyed it. I was always the kid who also liked only very mild thrills, so the backwards part of Maelstrom was fun for me, and it wasn't too scary for me either. I also felt like I had discovered something hidden that other people didn't know about, far from the truth, but it made me feel special. This was probably about 2004/2006 when I rode it for the first time, so I would have been about 8 or 10. Fast forward to the summer of 2013, the summer of my most recent trip, and I experienced Maelstrom all the same. Fortunately, we had a lot of extra time this trip, so I got to ride it more than once and didn't feel rushed. Unfortunately, we did not stay for the film because my parents weren't interested in that. So I never got to watch it. At this point, the only presence of Frozen in the parks was the big sign near Animation courtyard and a few pieces on concept art (that had already been released online) were in the showcases in the animation building. After that trip, I also discovered podcasts. I became obsessed with Wedway Radio, which if you don't already listen to, please start. So weeks after the trip I distinctly remember listening to the Wedway episode pertaining to Maelstrom while staining my deck. That episode was really what made me appreciate Maelstrom. Because of my inherited vacationing habits, I had never really taken time to realize things like how great the theming of the unload area is, and I still never noticed voices or anything, though I remember that being discussed in the episode. Maelstrom was one of the things I was looking forward to going back and completely re-experiencing on my next trip.

Now for the less personal reasons to be frustrated with Maelstrom closing. Most of this is probably just the same as tweets we've all read or thoughts we've all had ourselves, but it feels good to write it out yourself. First off, Frozen does not belong anywhere near World Showcase. World Showcase needs to be character free, with few exceptions. (I would prefer for the Gran Fiesta Tour to return to it's previous state, but I'm not overly upset with the Three Caballeros there, and at least their films are more cultural.) The characters of Frozen do not lend themselves to the Norwegian culture or learning at all, and a Frozen attraction will eliminate any learning or experience of Norwegian culture, even if it is the point of the pavilion. Regardless of whether Frozen fits in the pavilion or not, I honesty don't think the ride layout lends itself to it. From what I've read, the new ride will be more of an overlay, and not an overhaul. I don't see how the lift in the beginning or going over the falls will lend itself to the story of Frozen, assuming the ride will be a retelling of the story, I'm not sure what else it will be. I've also seen concern for the overlay to be done cheaply and quickly, which is obviously a problem that doesn't need to be explained. It doesnt help that Frozen is showing up all over, and I have been sick of the movie since about January/February after it was released. It's already in Magic Kingdom and MGM, it doesn't need to be in Epcot. It also shows that the company is now willing to compromise the theming and purpose of it's parks just to make quick money. Not that Disney compromising any experience of the guest for money hasn't been apparent when looking at things like MyMagic+ and MagicBands, but what has made parks like Epcot great is now being ruined. I always wish I was old enough to have experienced Epcot in it's prime. I only have faint memories of Wondercycles and Goofy About Health. I cannot recall hydrators or much of the original The Seas, I never experienced Kitchen Kabaret/Food Rocks (not sure which was the last or when it closed), and the closest thing to a memory of Horizons I have is seeing that a new attraction was coming in it's place, not even realizing what was there beforehand. After realizing I've missed out on things like World of Motion and Horizons, I would love to hang on to the remains of older Epcot. Spaceship Earth, Maelstrom, and Living with the Land are about as close to the EPCOT Center as I'll ever get, but that seems to be fading for more thrilling experiences instead of culture or learning. I wouldn't be surprised if Living with the Land closed, considering I haven't seen a line for it in years, though I hope that doesn't happen anytime soon. I realize I'm getting a little off the point, but Maelstrom was one of the few connection to EPCOT Center that I had. It was fun, it had enough thrill for me, it didn't include any characters, yet it still made me feel great, and I can't necessarily recall specific facts about Norway (I should've stayed for the show) but it gave me a little sense of culture that made me feel like I was in another part of the globe and getting a better idea for the history, sense of adventure, and fantasy (specifically the trolls) of the Norwegians. I had more thoughts right about why this is all wrong before writing, but I forgot to ride it down. Hopefully I'll remember and be able to add on to this later.

I'll try to finish off by having a slight bit of optimism and try to understand Disney's decision. Yes it does seem like a quick money grab on their part. But I'm hoping that they will use Frozen to lure more people into the pavilion, and then use the characters to actually teach the guests about Norway in an entertaining fashion. I'm not sure how it would even be possible to teach Norwegian culture with a snow queen, a dorky girl, a talking snowman, and a guy who talks to and for a reindeer, but I don't want to say it's impossible. And part of being in entertainment is giving people what they want. I feel like there's a Walt quote about that somewhere that I'm too lazy to find (or maybe there isn't). And while people will argue that there is a limit, and the consumers might not know what they want or that using a quote like that is a poor excuse for making such a bad decision (I actually mostly agree with those statements), that's business. I enjoy when people (not sure if I should mention the specific handles or not) retweet other's tweets about Epcot being boring and sucky. It's kinda funny for a second to look at those people and say wow they don't understand the park, but the sad part is that's how a lot of people feel, especially the younger people who will soon be the next generation of parents choosing where to take their kids on vacation. My personal opinion, Frozen is not the way to make the park more entertaining and get more guests to come to the park. But if Disney is having funding issues with the pavilion (no, I don't know the whole story or politics of the Norway-Disney funding situation), Frozen is an extremely popular franchise at the moment, and it does have some ties (although loose) to Norway.

I realize there's a lot left to be said about Frozen in the parks and Maelstrom in particular, (there could have been other options than killing Maelstrom, how important Maelstrom is to the pavilion cast members, Frozen's popularity may wane in the next few years) but I'll leave that for an addition to this (should I ever get to actually writing more about this). I just want to end with the fact that I haven't experienced a ride closing like this before since I'm still fairly new to the Disney online community, but I think that this was a very wrong move on Disney's part. There was backlash from fans when the rumors first started, yet they went ahead with the decision. It made me extremely sad (much sadder than I thought I'd be) to follow the people at the park as they rode Maelstrom for the last time, watched the Spirit of Norway for the last time, and watch the doors close. I never got to say goodbye or really pay attention to all of the details that I was looking forward to on my next trip, and even if I didn't run around before the Frozen announcement and tell how much I loved the ride, I still had feelings for it and hate to think it won't be there when I return. I wish Maelstrom could be saved, but I cannot see Disney backing off from such a big announcement now, and I'm just hoping they realize there errors and are able to return to bringing culture to people through World Showcase. If we're all lucky and people complain about this years from now the way they do about Horizons (that sounds like a bash but it's not), maybe Disney will be able to bring something similar to Maelstrom (and better?) in place of the Frozen attraction in years, should the Frozen ride be done cheaply and not be worth much in a few years after the popularity of the movie has died down.

Avatar in Animal Kingdom

Disney finally broke ground for Avatarland (is that the official name?) in Animal Kingdom this week, just after closing Camp Minnie Mickey. I know Disney fans are complaining a lot about Avatar being in the parks, and I am kind of with them, but you have to look on the bright side too, right? So I thought I'd just share my thoughts/opinions/feelings on the franchise invading the parks.

I do have to say there is some obvious good out of this. Animal Kingdom is my least favorite park, because I am not fond of the attractions there (granted I still haven't tried a couple of them) past Kilimanjaro, Festival of the Lion King, and the Nemo Musical. Avatar will bring at least a couple new attractions to the park that will get me to stay a couple hours more. As well as the later park hours. The addition of night life to Animal Kingdom will help it become more of a full day park than the half day park I have always treated it as. I do know the park has some very wonderful and beautifully done theming and attention to detail, but usually I'm with people who want to leave the park because it seems so dang hot anyway. And they aren't ones to wander or walk around unless on the way to a shop, restaurant, or another attraction. And if Avatar lends itself to anything, it is to a nighttime experience because of all the luminescent, glowing plants and such that were in the movie. 

On the other hand, I get where the complainers are coming from. I saw the movie once. It was beautiful, yes. But the story sucked. And the movie did not captivate me the same way franchises such as Star Wars and Harry Potter have. Who knows how popular the movie will be in a couple years? Hopefully the sequels will give rise to the fan base of Avatar but to me it doesn't seem likely. Yet, movies like Star Wars, the last one not having been released for almost 8-10 years(?) still have huge fanbases. People love the books, comics, video games, the conventions, etc. I also don't think that Avatar really fits into Animal Kingdom. I guess it kind of does because of the whole nature conservation message and the "mythical animals/beings" thing. I know the excuse has been made that Beastly Kingdom was supposed to include dragons, which aren't real animals, but I think mythical animals such as that fit in better than weird, tall, blue people. 

The thing I'm most excited for is the 'nighttime spectacular' being added. While I don't think that this is directly related to the Avatarland/brand (correct me if I'm wrong), this may have been brought on by the addition of Avatar. I think that the spectacular could have been added before without a new land needing to be added at the same time, but I guess I'll be happy to have it either way. I'm also really excited about the environment because the visuals were pretty amazing in my opinion, and I'd love to see that brought to life.

I do want to take a second to complain about the time to start it though. It's been I think 2.5 years since the announcement? I know they didn't have all the details worked out then, and I can't complain because I'm not an Imagineer, nor do I know how much time  it takes to create and develop rides and do it with an outside brand that may have it's own little caveats or ideas of how things could go. But it still seems really long to me still.

Anyway, that's my disorganized ramble opinion about Avatarland. Feel free to tell me what you guys all think, and thanks for reading!