Imagineering Theory: Princess's Interesting Dark Ride

Last week, I noted that there are actually very few Princess rides in the Disney theme parks (because it's hard to make a good ride out of a love story) and then did a little analysis of the two that do exist in the Disneyland Resort: Snow White's Scary Adventures and The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel's Undersea Adventure. This week, I thought it might be fun to follow up on the first bit. Which Princess movies would make good dark rides? How best to translate the themes and settings of a given movie into a quality ride?

It promises to be an interesting intellectual exercise, at any rate, so let's get going!

After-Action Report: A Tale of Two Dark Rides

Much to the delight of little girls (and often the chagrin of their parents), Disneyland features what might charitably be called a lot of Princess content. There’s the Castle, of course, with its walkthrough attraction. Several shops focus exclusively on Princess merchandise from dolls to costumes to stationery sets, the Princess movies are favorites for abridging into stage shows, every parade has a Princess unit, and the Princess character meet-and-greets eventually got so popular that an entire sub-district of Fantasyland was built around them.

But you know what the Disney Princesses don’t get very many of? Actual rides. And this is true not just of the Disneyland Resort but of Disney theme parks as a whole. Seriously, how many rides centered on a Princess character can you think of? Like, three, right?

This may be because for all their popularity and grandeur, the Princess movies are not ideal for conversion into rides. Remember the cardinal rule of good attraction design: Put the Guests in the Center of the Action. Most of Disney's Princess films actually don't have a lot of action per se, focusing more on an internal journey (falling in love, discovering self-worth, etc.) than an external one. Show someone a movie, letting them spend upwards of an hour getting to know the main character, and you can usually get them to go along with an internal journey. But a theme park ride rarely affords its participants more than about ten minutes to absorb its content—nowhere near enough time to develop a sympathetic bond with a character, even if they weren't distracted by the physical presence of it all.

Nowhere is this clearer than in comparing the two Princess rides that can be found in the Disneyland Resort. One the one hand, we have Snow White's Scary Adventures, the classic that does it all right, bizarre points and all. On the other, we have The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel's Undersea Adventure,* the newcomer that falls flat in so many ways.

Armchair Imagineering: Disneyland Merch That Should Exist

On this blog, perhaps more often than I should, I sometimes wind up speculating about Disneyland merchandise that I wish existed, from LEGO sets to plastic figurines to more LEGOs. Considering that I really can't justify purchasing a lot of the totally awesome goods that already do exist,* it's probably gross folly for me to keep imagining more, but you know, I just can't help myself. I'm not a terribly ambitious person, but if I can prompt just one person to post that Futurama meme—you know the one—it will be a point of pride.

Thus far, I have focused on Disneyland-based toys that I wish existed, because a) I am a giant nerd who never really outgrew toys, b) toys are usually not very expensive, whereas collectibles intended for grown-ups can be prohibitively so, and c) Disneyland and toys go really well together. The park sells gobs of plush animals and action figures and pretend weapons and children's costumes, some of which are even specific to Disney theme parks. For this post, I plan to branch out from that, but I'm kind of freewheeling it, so we'll have to wait and see what all I come up with.

It Came From the Fandom: Little Big Planet 2 Custom Levels

Well, folks, I’ve been sick this week. I haven’t had the energy and focus necessary to think of a good topic to write about, much less put in the actual work. So instead I’ve decided to roll out a new post category: It Came From the Fandom. As fandoms go, the one for the Disney parks is not the most productive in terms of creating content like fan art, fanfiction, etc….but it’s out there if you know where to look. Since I do know at least some of the places to look, from time to time I’ll share my findings with you.