Armchair Imagineering: Make Mine Marvel

The construction walls have been up at California Adventure for several months at this point, as “a bug's land” is torn out and replaced with...I hesitate to say a Marvel land, since I don't know yet what all will be there. Let's go with Marvel stuff. “a bug's land” is being torn out and replaced with Marvel stuff. WDI is being pretty tight-lipped about the details, but apparently we have an Avengers attraction and a Spider-Man attraction on the way, which in combination with the Guardians Tower of Galactic Terror—Mission: Breaktime! Breakneck! Breakout! amounts to...one heck of a missed opportunity.

There are two problems with IP-mania, as I see it. There's the simple fact of it, the trend of attractions and entire lands based on popular film properties completely overtaking original concepts. I've been over the reasons this is a problem on multiple occasions, so I won't go into it now. The second problem is that IP-based attractions are rarely executed in a way that does justice to either the source material or the larger themes of the park/land where they are placed. We see a lot of “book report” rides, as well as attractions that literally just put character images on otherwise unexceptional rides.* There tends to be too much emphasis on popular characters, rather than on making guests feel like part of an exciting world.

And that's what I'm worried about with the new Marvel stuff. Mission: Brakepads! is already a subpar execution, because they forced it to occupy infrastructure designed for another ride entirely. There's almost certainly a good Guardians of the Galaxy ride out there in the realm of possibility, but deciding to make one where the premise is that the Collector literally took a traveling exhibit of his stuff to the literal California Adventure, simply because there was a convenient tower there to squeeze it into...well, it's not what I would have done. (For the record, this is what I would have done.) A GotG attraction should take advantage of the exotic interplanetary setting and make us feel as if we, like young Peter Quill, have been abducted by aliens and introduced into this hyper-advanced, multi-species society. To the extent that a Guardians of the Galaxy ride needs to focus on its wacky stars, we should at least get to see them guarding the freaking Galaxy, yeah?

Getting back to the upcoming additions...I don't have high hopes. The Avengers and Spider-Man are certainly fun characters, but their “standard” adventures take place in...ordinary cities in the real, modern world. You don't watch an Avengers movie to see what fantastic realm they're going to visit, because they (generally) won't. You do it to see what sort of over-the-top baddie they have to face this time, and how they'll use their over-the-top powers to win the day.

I don't know about you, but I live in an ordinary city in the real, modern world, and it's boring as hell. Which is why I go to theme parks.

The sad irony is that there are several MCU properties that could provide that sense of wonder and participatory adventure that the Avengers and Spider-Man are (probably) not quite up to. Let me throw out some ideas.

(Just as a note before we begin, I haven't actually seen all of the Marvel movies. I should probably get around to it one of these days, but it would be something like 40+ hours of cinema to sit through. So I'm going off what I have seen.)

Armchair Imagineering: Halloween Adventure

Many moons ago, I outlined a vision for a Disneyland Park going as hard (if not harder) for Halloween as it typically does for Christmas—unique decorations throughout every land, seasonal area music loops, nighttime attraction overlays, live entertainment, the works. None of it has actually come to pass, of course, but Halloween remains a highlight of the year, both at the Disneyland Resort and in the larger culture.

So now it’s the other park’s turn.

Like its older sister, California Adventure does a fair amount for Spoopy Day already, but there is tons of room for improvement, in terms of both refining what is there and adding more. One interesting aspect here is that the Halloween offerings only really kick in at nightfall, which is...certainly thematically appropriate! I might just let that stand.

Conversely, the one thing I find pretty irritating is the designation of Oogie Boogie as the park's official Halloween mascot. There's nothing wrong with a Halloween mascot per se,* but not only are there no specific links between California Adventure and The Nightmare Before Christmas or its characters, they don't actually do anything with this supposed mascot. His silhouette appears over the entrance gates and there are occasionally booming announcements in Ken Page's fabulous voice. That's it. There's no Oogie meet-and-greet tucked into an unassuming corner, no Oogie-based attraction overlay or stage skit.

So if we must have a mascot, then a) it should be a character with some legitimate connection to the park (such as perhaps?) and b) you should be able to tell that they're the mascot.

Anyway, let's get to the land-by-land breakdown. I admittedly have fewer solid ideas for this park than for the other one, mostly because...I was already an adult when California Adventure opened. I didn't grow up thinking about it; it doesn't live in my bones the way Disneyland does.

But let's see what I can do.