Quick Bites

Come now—you didn't think you were going to get rid of me that easily, did you? I have no intention of abandoning this blog quite yet! Things are happening again, and I have things to say about them...I just don't have the brainspace to develop full posts about them. So here's a sampler platter.

After-Action Report: Star Wars Land/Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge/Batuu/Black Spire Outpost

What a mouthful! As Jenny Nicholson points out, the latest addition to the Disneyland map has no less than four names in common usage, representing, in this order: 1) An informal description of the area; 2) The official name of the area; 3) The fictitious planet represented by the area; and 4) The specific location on said fictitious planet. That's a lot of lore to absorb, just in what the place is called.

It kind of lets you know what you're in for with the land itself.

After-Action Report: Pixar Fest

It's very rare that I manage to see new developments at the Disneyland Resort within the first week or two of launch. The San Fernando Valley isn't quite close enough to Anaheim for a casual hop over, and I don't actually own a car. So my trips need a bit of advance planning, and the timing doesn't often seem to work out for experiencing something while it's brand-new. This was an exception—I had some time off of work, and my sister had a day off, and so we managed to hit the place up on a Wednesday.

The weather was perfect, the crowds were as light as they are ever likely to be anymore, and...Pixar Fest had just started up the previous weekend.

Man, they don't make summer events like they used to, do they?

Like I've said before, I've got nothing against Pixar. They produce quality movies.* Coco was one of the best things I've seen in years. But as I've also said before, Pixar is not a theme. There is not much uniting the Pixar movies apart from them all being made by the same studio; objectively speaking, a summer celebration dedicated to Pixar is no more coherent than if they tossed all of the films in the Disney Animated Canon into a hat and drew fifteen at random.

But it is what it is. So what is it? How is it? Is it tolerable?

Eh, I guess.

Imagineering Theory: Thinking Beyond “Rides”

This is probably going to be a controversial opinion, but I think theme park fans get too hung up on rides.

No, not attractions. It's not a theme park—or any kind of leisure destination—without attractions. I do mean rides. I think many theme park fans obsess too much over, specifically, the sorts of attractions that physically move you around, to the point where the other sorts are rarely even discussed in the context of worthwhile things to do during a visit. Sometimes it goes further, to a veiled assertion that the more extreme the movement, the objectively “better” the ride is, but for now I'll stick to the simple dichotomy of ride vs. non-ride.

Isn't that nuts? To care only about rides and not about the many other kinds of attractions boasted at Disney theme parks? These places are known for so much more, but when was the last time you saw an Armchair Imagineer (besides me) attempt to design a parade or a show or even just a nice little nook to rest your feet?

Is it just that the potential variety of rides is more obvious? Do people have a hard time thinking up new twists to put on the other categories of attractions? Well, what kind of Dilettante would I be if I didn't have some ideas in that regard?

Armchair Imagineering: Halloweenland

Disneyland has been in the Halloween business for less than a decade.

Oh, sure, there were bits and pieces. We've gotten a few jack-o-lanterns on Main Street for as long as I can remember. Seasonal character plush has a long history, Halloween included.* Haunted Mansion Holiday—which is treated like a Halloween overlay, even though it really isn't one—started in 2001.

But the first big, park-wide Halloween blowout wasn't until 2006.

It's kind of ironic, because other area theme parks have been doing Halloween events for a lot longer. Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights and Six Flags Magic Mountain's Fright Fest both date back to the early Nineties, and the first instance of Knott's Scary Farm was in 1973. So why was Disneyland so late to the Dead Man's Party?

Because of image, basically. Theme parks are entertainment venues. “Halloween” plus “entertainment” usually amounts to the horror genre. There are many ways of doing horror, but none of them are usually considered “family-friendly,” and since that's what Disney trades on, a typical theme park Halloween experience—strobe lights and haunted mazes and “scare-acters” leaping out at people and loud rave music—was right out. It was all part of the dichotomy that held sway throughout the Eighties and Nineties, in which Disneyland was considered “tame” and safe for families with young children, while all the other parks positioned themselves as the hip, edgy, teen-oriented alternative. Disneyland didn't need a big to-do for Halloween—in the theme park realm, it had a virtual monopoly on Christmas.

All this is so much rambling. The upshot is that Disneyland has not really been doing Halloween in a large-scale way for very long. And if you ask me (which hopefully you do, since you're reading my blog), the Powers That Be haven't really mastered it yet. Halloween Time still has a ways to go before it's really polished to Disney-caliber perfection. The seasonal decorations and themes are too sporadic throughout the park. I really think the place could benefit from a systematic, land-by-land makeover during this time. There are many dimensions to Halloween in the current era—a park as diverse as Disneyland could indulge them all.

So without further ado, here is my vision of Halloweenland!

After-Action Report: Disneyland Forever

What do you think of my spiffy new banner? We can thank my sister for the artwork on that. Go, appreciate more of her Disney art! And maybe buy something from her on Redbubble!

Disneyland's Diamond Anniversary has hit the ground running, with special decorations and souvenirs, a new parade, and a new fireworks show (and that's just in Disneyland itself). Last week, I designated the Paint the Night Parade as the “Diamond” for the year 2015 on the grounds that of the big 60^th Anniversary offerings, I like it the best. But I didn't say why I like it the best, in particular why it wins out over the fireworks show, “Disneyland Forever.”