Beyond Blue Sky: In Search of the Perfect Disneyland Video Game

Disneyland was designed and constructed as something like a movie brought to life in three dimensions, so that you could walk through it and experience it as your own story. The ground at the entrance resembled a red carpet (at first), emerging from the entry tunnel is like a curtain lifting and revealing the scene, the Main Street windows feature “credits,” etc. But while a theme park can include a lot of movie-like content, visiting one can never really be comparable to watching a film. The audience of a film is entirely passive; the story on the screen unfolds as it will no matter how the viewers feel about it, or even whether they are paying attention. Outside of a few avant-garde experiments, there is nothing interactive about a movie.

But theme parks are inherently interactive. Even if you just wander around and don't actively engage with the attractions, you still choose where and how you wander, plotting the “story” in the process.

My point, I suppose, is that the reason Walt Disney and the Imagineers thought of the Disneyland concept as a living movie is that video games hadn't been invented yet. Exploring even the most cinematic theme park is a lot more like playing a sandbox-style video game than it is like watching a movie.

Think about it. You start the game/enter the park and get your overworld map. If you need “quests,” you can talk to an NPC (park employee) and find out what is available to do (attractions) and the difficulty of succeeding (wait times). At Disneyland itself, most of the area themes have ready counterparts in many games, especially classic platformers—you can visit the jungle level (Adventureland), the desert level (Frontierland), the outer space level (Tomorrowland), and the zany level (Mickey's Toontown). Most “levels” have atmospheric music playing non-stop. There's even a “final battle” at the end, although in this case, instead of an evil overlord, you're fighting human foot traffic.

Given all that, wouldn't it be cool if there were a Disneyland video game? Well...there have been some. A half-dozen or so—not bad for something that is usually seen as an adaptation of works of media, rather than a work of media in its own right that can be adapted. (Although I should note that only one of these games actually takes place in Disneyland itself. Likewise, only one of them takes place in Orlando's Magic Kingdom. The rest of the time, the game's designers meld the two parks together into a genericized “Magic Kingdom”¹ containing salient features of both.) Perhaps the most interesting thing about them is how different they all are. To the best of my knowledge, none of them was ever an overwhelming success...perhaps Disney Interactive is still searching for the perfect template for the perfect theme park-based game.

That's okay. So am I.

Imagineering Theory: The How and Why of Dark Rides

In this Imagineering Theory article, we’ll explore that staple of Disney theme parks, the animated film-based dark ride. We’ll see what makes them effective, what doesn’t make them effective, and how this information has typically played into actual Imagineering decisions about which films to turn into rides.

For starters, what is meant by “dark ride”? While any ride taking place in an enclosed building can be considered a dark ride (even if the scenes are actually well lit), for the purposes of this article we’ll consider only the “classic” type: a ride involving a simple, relatively slow-moving, electric-powered vehicle that transports guests through a sequence of blacklit scenes that tell a story. Disney’s dark rides are an elaboration of the “haunted house” type of attraction found at many amusement parks dating back to the early 20th Century. These primitive precursors provided the ride system and the basic special effects, but tying it all together with a story was Walt Disney’s own innovation.

However, while the story is the thing that sets Disney dark rides apart from their competitors, it is not the most important factor in creating each unique experience. Indeed, most dark rides do not do a very good job of summarizing their respective films. Notable scenes may be whittled down to a single image and line of dialogue, placed out of order or eliminated altogether, while less plot-relevant sequences may be given disproportionate attention. This is because the job of a dark ride is not to simply tell the story, but to allow the riders to experience it for themselves by transporting them to the fantastic settings depicted in the film. Place, not plot, is the most important factor.

Beyond Blue Sky: The Plaza Hub as a Magic Circle

Welcome to Beyond Blue Sky, where I pull out all the stops and share my very wildest and wackiest ideas and observations. Attention, Bobsled riders: thar be squalls ahead and there's no turning back now!

Boy, those Disney marketers sure love to spam the word magic, don't they? (Also dreams and wishes and believe, but magic is our focus here.) Disneyland is the Magic Kingdom, even if the name officially belongs to its Orlando counterpart. Advertising invites you to “experience the magic.” Or “share the magic.” Or “bring home the magic.” The short street running alongside the main parking area for the resort is called Magic Way. The year 2000 brought us the 45 Years of Magic Parade and the fireworks show “Believe...There's Magic in The Stars.” The holiday fireworks are still called “Believe...in Holiday Magic.” “Mickey and the Magical Map,” currently showing in the Fantasyland Theatre,” draws full audiences (and deservedly so—I'm not claiming that the mere presence of an overused word automatically taints anything associated with it). We're due to have the MyMagic+ system imported from Florida, thereby allowing guests to reserve time on attractions, appointment-style, with their Magic Bands. And that's just what comes off the top of my head.

That's a whole lotta “magic.” And the irony is that those marketers are probably completely unaware that the very geography of Disneyland hearkens back to ancient traditions of real magic, in the sense of mysticism and spellcraft.

Armchair Imagineering: Adventureland Amphitheatre

This is an idea for a revamped theatre attraction to go in the space currently occupied by Aladdin’s Oasis at Disneyland. The Oasis is suffering from gross under-utilization of its space and facilities, having gone over the years from a “dinner and a show” experience in the vein of the Tahitian Terrace that it replaced, to a mere backdrop for a character meet-and-greet. It’s time to shake things up and return a taste of the theatre to Adventureland.

After-Action Report: The Jungle Cruise

My last After-Action Report was about something very new at Disneyland, namely the Fantasyland Theatre show, “Mickey and the Magical Map.” This one is about something very old at Disneyland—maybe the oldest thing, depending upon how you define “oldest” and “thing” and for that matter “at Disneyland.”

A common trivia item among Disneyland fans is that the Jungle Cruise is the “first” ride. This seems to mean not that it was the first one to open—it shared Opening Day status with 17 other attractions, many of which are still in operation—but that it was the first thing Walt Disney conceived of and decided that he definitely wanted for his park while it was in the early planning stages.

Imagineering Theory: Animating the Parks

Or: Matching Film Settings to Area Themes

The Walt Disney Company is known for two things above all else: its high-quality animated films, and its equally high-quality theme parks. From the earliest days of Disneyland, these two product lines have been closely intertwined: rides based on the films were built in Disneyland, and Disneyland’s landmark castle (itself named after a movie but not actually based on the appearance of the castle in said movie) was used as the basis for the animation studio’s logo. In recent decades, “synergitis” has only intensified the relationship between Disney animation and Disney parks, and almost any animated film with the Disney name attached might find a presence in one of the company’s resorts.

But we can probably all agree that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. The purpose of this article is to get a handle on the right way, for the benefit of Armchair Imagineers who combine a love of the Disney animated canon with an eye for immersive and cohesive theming.

Armchair Imagineering: International Land

At Disneyland Park in Anaheim, the borders of Tomorrowland and Fantasyland are occupied by a series of attractions that don’t quite fit. Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, the Matterhorn, “it’s a small world”…these iconic rides were installed in their locations to take advantage of available space, or because they belonged there once, but by now the surrounding area or the ride itself has evolved in such a way as to take it out of theme. What do cartoon fish have to do with the future or even science-fiction? The growling Yeti notwithstanding, the Matterhorn Bobsleds are more contemporary than fantastic. The whimsy of “it’s a small world” seems perfectly suited to the childlike wonder of Fantasyland, but the theme of international peace and multiculturalism belongs, one would hope, firmly in the real world.

In addition, there is a large swatch of land between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland that suffers from underutilization—formerly the site of the Fantasyland Autopia and Motor Boat Cruise (neither of which was very appropriate to Fantasyland either), it currently provides extended track for the remaining Autopia in Tomorrowland…yet another ride that doesn’t do justice to the imagery of its land. It’s almost like this part of the park is rebelling against the adjacent areas and crying out for a theme of its own. Hence the proposal contained herein: International Land, where the world itself comes to Disneyland.