Armchair Imagineering: Four Concepts For Area Themes That Disney Should Absolutely Try

I've been getting more wildly speculative with my Armchair Imagineering posts lately. This is largely because I've had this blog for three-and-a-half years, with a pretty consistent weekly posting schedule, and I'm just plain running low on what you might call “standard” material. I've gotten all the Strong Opinions about rides past and present out of my system and I have to reach deeper into my imagination for topics.

The topic of this week's post is something I've touched on before but never devoted an entire post to: ideas for area themes that haven't been tried before, at least not by Disney. I don't have a proposal for a park to fit all these into, but for what they are, I hope you find them as intriguing as I do.

Superhero City

Hollywood's superhero freight train shows no sign of slowing down any time soon, and of course Disney can largely claim credit for the current dominance of the genre through its Marvel IPs. However you might feel about the Em Cee Yu in and of itself, you can't deny that it's a remarkable achievement in the world of film franchising. One or two Marvel-branded attractions have already been introduced in the parks, with larger “Marvel Land” projects in the pipeline, but I expect these upcoming areas to be both too broad and too narrow for what the concept deserves. Even within Disney properties, there's more to superheroes than Marvel (and vice-versa).

So rather than Marvel Land, I'd like to see Disney try a themed area based around the idea of superheroes in general. The default setting for superhero adventures is a large (American) city, which is unsatisfyingly mundane for a theme park, but two tweaks could make a lot more colorful even before you get to the rides: 1) giving it an ultramodern, “Next Sunday A.D.” aesthetic, and 2) having evidence of superhero/supervillain activity everywhere. Collateral damage to buildings, TVs tuned to a news station covering a battle in-progress, ads for in-universe businesses with superhero endorsements, all that sort of thing.

Obviously Disney could tap the MCU for content, but also The Incredibles (equally obvious) and Big Hero 6*...and for subtle, jokier references, let's not forget about those classics, Super Goof and the Duck Avenger! Beyond that, I would love to see them devise a cast of theme park-only superhero characters reflecting different eras of the genre—100% earnest Golden Age heroes, gonzo-silly Silver Age heroes, and gritty, Nineties anti-heroes with superfluous pouches all over their costumes. Make it clear that the area is about superheroes as a concept, not just additional media featuring those superheroes whose licenses are owned by Disney.

Pet's-Eye View

They don't usually make the Top Ten lists so people tend to forget about them, but Disney has actually produced quite a few “pet adventure” movies, both animated and live-action, and at least some of them are memorable enough to warrant more than the cursory theme park acknowledgement that is all they ever receive. Granted, it's hard to make an enticing theme park setting out of movies which literally take place in the world as we know it—our homes and neighborhoods—seen from a slightly different perspective. But maybe that slight change in perspective could make all the difference.

Imagine an ordinary suburban neighborhood as a smallish-medium dog must see it: all the houses and other features are bigger by comparison, things nearer to the ground seem more prominent, and interesting sounds and smells are more noticeable than they would be in a human-focused neighborhood. The sensory aspect is especially intriguing—it's not technically possible to create the experience of perceiving things that humans can't actually perceive, but perhaps some sort of synesthetic equivalent could be attempted. If objects representing things that would smell strongly appeaing to a dog or cat (e.g. a hot dog cart) were painted in bright colors, while less interesting smelling things (e.g. a flower bed, for maximum irony) were given muted or gray tones, how many guests would get it?

In any case, if you've got the perfect concept for an attraction based on Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, or Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and have been stymied only by the lack of somewhere to put it...this is for you.

Ancient World

Disney is not what you'd call even-handed in its depiction of time periods. The contemporary era—whenever that is for the film in question—is well represented, as are the Victorian and Edwardian periods and the “once upon a time” vagueness that spans from the late medieval period through the early 1800s. Everywhen else tends to get short shrift...even the era often referred to as the “ancient” or “classical” world, encompassing ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Roman Empire, which otherwise looms so large in our perception of world history and is lovingly addressed by other film studios. This time period figures prominently in a few Epcot rides past and present, but the only Disney film projects I can think of that take place during/allude to it are Hercules, Fantasia (the Pastoral Symphony sequence), maaaaayyyyybe Aladdin, and...“The Small One.” Oh, and “Donald in Mathmagic Land.”

Whereas the previous two suggestions are, more-or-less, to provide a natural setting for content based on entire collections of movies that otherwise wouldn't have one, I suggest this one because there aren't so many potential IP tie-ins. It would be an opportunity for WDI to develop some original attraction concepts in an immersive, evocative setting. Due to their status as the “foundation” of Western civilization, the art, architecture, and mythology of the “ancient world” are familiar, yet still distant enough from our everyday lives to be exciting and magical.

Discworld

(If you just sat up and took notice, we need to talk. If you didn't...we still need to talk but the conversation will be different.)

For those not in the know, Discworld is a series of fantasy novels written by the late and deeply lamented Sir Terry Pratchett, known for the extensive cast of unique characters, extremely well-crafted plots, and especially the setting: a magical flat world on the back of a colossal turtle swimming through space. Most fantasy at least tries for some detailed worldbuilding, but rarely is it so vividly successful. The Discworld itself (not the turtle) (but also the turtle) is as much a character in the novels as the various humans, dwarves, trolls, and assorted other fantasy creatures, and as such it would make for a superb theme park experience. With numerous distinct nations and cultures (even if most of them riff on familiar things from our own Roundworld) and entire magical ecologies, it could be the basis for an entire park, not just a single land. A Discworld park could even forgo rides altogether and try for something in the vein of Evermore, which I covered last week.

A handful of Discworld novels have been adapted for film and/or animation, so there's plenty of supplementary material to help with visual design. None of them are by Disney, but—this is awesome—one almost was. Even absent that connection, if Universal can claim the theme park rights to the Harry Potter franchise despite those films being made by competing studio Warner Brothers, then Disney could potentially snap up the hypothetical rights to Discworld.

Homework Assignment: Come up with your own idea for a unique area theme and describe it in the comments!

* Big Hero 6 is Marvel—it's got the logo and the Stan Lee cameo and everything—but it's not part of the MCU. It's part of the Disney Animated Canon. So as adorable as it would be to see Hiro Hamada, Peter Parker, and Princess Shuri form a Teen Tech Geniuses Club, it probably won't happen.