Progress City, U.S.A.

A recent story on MiceAge detailed the problems that continue to plague the rollout of Disneyland’s new Mark VII Monorails. Since the delivery of Monorail Red last December, a series of mechanical and operational issues have repeatedly pushed back the attraction’s opening date far past its original February timeframe.

In fact, it had been projected that by summer of this year all three refurbished trains would be fully checked out and in service. While the second new train has indeed been delivered to Disneyland from its Canadian factory, neither of the Mark VII vehicles have been cleared for guest use and it has been left to the lone remaining Mark V train - itself nearly falling apart at the seams - to continue monorail service to the Disneyland Hotel.

The problems plaguing the Mark VIIs come down to a few issues, many of which stem from poor cooperation between WDI, corporate management at Team Disney Anaheim, and the Canadian fabricators. The most glaring initial problem facing the cars was that their new design led to a number of issues with track clearance. Due to discrepancies in Disney records, the new chassis design did not allow enough room to clear a number of turns on the monorail track; this resulted in the monorail’s body scraping against the beam and a great deal of damage to the monorail’s chassis, body, and the beam itself.

While some of these problems with the suspension and chassis have been solved through various modifications, other issues linger and delivery of the remaining two trains was delayed by the need to retrofit them with the design fixes. A number of operational issues then began to show themselves, key among them the inability to open the monorail car windows more than a few inches. Disney lawyers and California safety officials, keen to absolve guests of any responsibility or common sense whatsoever, felt that the Mark V cars allowed guests too much access to open windows and mandated the change in design. Overlooked was the fact that the reason the windows on the Mark V trains were allowed to fully open was that the train bodies did not have enough space for adequate air conditioning equipment in the car and ventilation was necessary to keep guests comfortable. Now that the lawyers have sealed the windows, temperatures in the cars soar to intolerable levels even on seasonable days. It remains to be seen how WDI will solve this issue.

Sadly, the problems facing the Mark VII rollout could have easily been avoided by a little something which seems sorely missing at WDI these days - institutional knowledge. This is something that has concerned me for a while, and the monorail fiasco has only brought the issue to the fore.

When Walt founded WED Enterprises in 1952, he pulled his best designers and technicians from the studio to begin work on his concepts for Disneyland. These artists and engineers began a process that lasted decades, with each successive creative step building upon the lessons learned in their last project. From studio work like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea they proceeded to Disneyland, which led to the 1964 World’s Fair, Walt Disney World, and eventually EPCOT and Tokyo Disneyland. Along the way they accrued a great deal of experience which allowed them to avoid mistakes - of which they made many early on - and push Imagineering to greater heights.

The 1980s proved the last hurrah for many of that first wave of Imagineers, as retirement and age began to claim many of their ranks. The huge staff that been needed for the construction of EPCOT and Tokyo Disneyland were faced with layoffs, and following Eisner’s loss of vision in the post-EuroDisney panic even more Imagineers were let go. The 1990s saw wave after wave of creative staff leave for other companies as Eisner and his lackey Paul Pressler decimated the WDI ranks.

While some of the old guard remain, and some have returned following Eisner’s departure, there still was a great deal of common sense and lessons learned that were lost during those purges. This is not to slag on the new generation of Imagineers - anyone familiar with Disneyland’s disasterous debut knows that even the the most legendary of Walt’s creative team learned their lessons the hard way. It’s just that after thirty or forty years of experience, those mistakes had been cut to a minimum and WDI had enough organizational shorthand within its ranks to avoid issues as pedestrian as forgetting to have enough air cooling in a southern California ride vehicle.

The new generation will learn in time; it’s just that we’ll have to experience the growing pains with them. Hopefully the one thing we can take from all of this, and never let management forget (and eventually, no matter what, they will), is to never let this happen again. Never let Disney sell out its legacy and purge its Imagineering ranks for the benefit of middle management and the detriment of creative personnel. Keep the knowledge in-house, avoid outsourcing (a futile hope, I fear), and hopefully some day all we’ll have to worry about is when the next amazing E-ticket will be opening and not whether the darn thing will even move or not.

Well, it’s been a while. I feel as if I’ve broken some sacred covenant of the blogger with my handful of beloved readers. Nevertheless, when life in the outside world gets too interesting, exhausting or downright busy, it seems that the blog is the first thing to suffer. Perhaps I needed a small break from all things Disney; I must admit that I’m a bit behind on all the cutting-edge gossip from the last few weeks. My politics addiction has taken up all of my available blogging time, but I guess a change in scenery is good now and again. It recharges the linear induction motors.

Unfortunately, when life moves at near-relativistic speeds time dilation occurs, and even though it seems that little time has passed you might return to the Internet to find that hundreds of news cycles have come and gone. So although I have a lot of catching up to do, now that grants are submitted and life is settling down our world will once more be a World of Motion. In the meantime, here are a few Disney-related thoughts from recent weeks:

- There’s lot of park news dribbling out that I need to catch up on. Plans for DCA continue to be refined, with some elements being cut and some being plussed. I’ve yet to cover this expansion in depth, and my feelings about it are mixed. On one hand, you have a massive and highly-themed rehab coming to one of Disney’s poorest-designed parks. On the other hand, I really can’t get behind “Carsland” as the theme of the centerpiece of a park ostensibly themed to California. The fairly recent decision to cut the new version of The Walt Disney Story is also a major disappointment.

- It looks like Florida’s Magic Kingdom is going to get a clone of DCA’s Little Mermaid attraction. This is great news for a park that has not received an E-Ticket addition in sixteen (!) years, but unfortunately for fans, the clone wars continue…

- Florida’s Hollywood Studios have been allowing guests to test out the new Toy Story Mania. Reports seem to be good so far; some friends of mine have ridden it and quite enjoyed it. The park has long needed more dark rides, and this adds a touch of excitement to an increasingly stale park. Still, the nattering nabobs like myself continue to have issues with the theming of the attraction and its placement in DHS…

- More park rumors: new stuff to come for DHS, Star Tours 2.0 in the works at last, possible DAK expansion… and for some reason, certain parties insist that plans for the so-called “Night Kingdom” fifth gate continue to be developed. I’m really not certain what to think of this project, as there’s certainly a market for high-end experiences but how many families go rock climbing together? Meanwhile, Ed Grier drops word that planning continues for a third gate in Anaheim… make this one count, WDI…

- I saw Prince Caspian last week - sadly it was a bit of a letdown. In fact, it was a major letdown. It’s bad when a sequel makes you doubt the goodwill you held for the original film. Caspian had a major case of the blockbusteritis that plagues many large movies these days, including the vastly disappointing new Indiana Jones movie. The film is entirely exposition and action - it never stops moving. Things like character and motivation are swept aside for spectacle, and one misses the smaller, more meaningful moments that gave the earlier films that extra bit of soul that made them worthwhile.

There’s one exception to this: the scene in which Tilda Swinton’s White Witch appears and tries to trick the protagonists into releasing her back into Narnia. The scene is kind of dropped in there, and doesn’t really have any relevance to the main narrative, but it’s fantastic and by far and away the best scene in the entire film. Of course Tilda Swinton could probably read the phone book and it would still be bizarrely fascinating, but if the rest of the film had the feel and import of this one scene it would be far more memorable.

Also, Aslan was kind of a prissy jerk. No one wants a diva for their messiah figure.

On the positive side, the film was spectacular, well filmed, fairly well acted, and featured some magnificent effects and production design. The action scenes, aside from the glaringly poor editing and pacing of the castle siege, were top notch. I was afraid the final swordfight between Peter and Swarthy McEvilKing was going to just be a by-the-numbers Gladiator ripoff but it wound up being a very nicely staged and interestingly filmed duel - a rarity in the day of the quick edit. Also, no one has even been let down by a movie with a schoolgirl wreaking cold-blooded havoc with a bow and arrow.

I’ve not given up on Narnia - there wasn’t really anything bad in the film, it was just missing some important elements - but it will be nice to get some new directorial blood in the next installment.

- Speaking of movies, WALL-E continues to look amazing. I am seriously so excited about this film I might drink myself into a coma so I don’t have to wait the few weeks until its opening. We’ve also seen a bit more about the short which will accompany it, and it looks about as great as you’d expect.

Anyway, I suppose I should get to work as I have a month of Disney news to catch up on, as well as some larger stories I’d like to write. Thankfully my fellow Disney bloggers have continued to crank out great work whilst I’ve been away, so I have lots of interesting reading to do. Stay tuned!

P.S. Since this is my first post in a while, I’d like to give a shout out to my dear Swingin’ Teddi Barra… Welcome to the ‘ohana!

I feel that I am perhaps the last individual in the Disney blogosphere to post any sort of public comment about the recent controversy surrounding the rumored changes to Disneyland’s version of it’s a small world. This is due to a number of reasons, but mostly, as a grizzled veteran of Eisner’s last decade at the helm of the Walt Disney company, I have attained a degree of scandal fatigue. Quite simply, I have seen so many desecrations and obscenities foisted upon the art of themed entertainment and design that I have become inured to such grand disappointments.

I fought in the Toad Wars of 1998, had the first website devoted to saving Horizons and wrote a letter so incensed by Journey Into YOUR Imagination that I got a call at home from the then Vice President of EPCOT Center. I watched Disney built a park with amazing theming but little to do (Animal Kingdom), minimal theming and nothing to do (California Adventure) and no theming and nothing to do (Disney Studios Paris). I consider Hong Kong Disneyland something of a gated botanical gardens. After wands and hats and Pop Century, I had no store of indignation left.

Young revolutionaries on the barricades - the last Toad-In, September 7, 1998.
I seem distracted.

But just as things looked bleakest, there was a ray of hope. Paul Pressler left to destroy another company. Michael Eisner left to hang out with Bette Midler and trade baseball cards. John Lasseter and the Pixar squad rode in on their white horses to give the triage badly needed by a dying WDI and dead Feature Animation department. Even Bob Iger, Eisner’s hand-picked successor, proved me wrong and wound up not being a proxy for the departed CEO but a fairly bold new leader who embraced a far more progressive view of new technologies than his predecessor. Surely, everyone would live happily ever after.

Still, all was not well. The management purges and noxious politics of the last decade had left Imagineering paranoid and factionalized, split between the embattled creatives who had managed to survive in the hope of better days ahead and those who, bolstered by political maneuvering and their ability to “play the game” successfully had risen through the ranks. Not since the Augean stables had an organization so desperately needed a flushing out of the dross and a complete rebuilding.

While change came, however, it came slowly. Sub-par attractions still filtered out into the parks, and more alarmingly, newly announced attractions started to have a noticeably Pixar-centric tilt. The “toonification” of the parks amped up in earnest, and areas that once whisked guests away to adventure in fantastic but real-world settings became new venues for promoting the Franchise of the Month. It seemed that at our moment of greatest triumph, the folks from marketing had won after all. The parks were going to become ads for character merchandise, and the days of the great non-”property” rides like Pirates or Mansion might never return.

Oh noes.

There remained reasons for optimism, though, and obviously a great deal of wonderful, devoted and creative staff continue to try their best to keep the company living up to Walt’s ideals. I’ve tended to cut them slack even in times of irritation, and even though I might disagree with their choices I’m usually eager to see where they’re going in the hopes that the ship will eventually get turned around completely. So, for a while, my crusading came to an end.

Recently, though, rumors emerged of something so strangely unnecessary, blinkered and contrary to both good taste and Disney legacy that I felt that old activist drumbeat once more. Something had been planned so purely based in concepts of “marketing” and “brand awareness” and intended to move merchandise that it can’t help but to raise the hackles of fans. Something that strikes right at the nexus of several “sacrosanct” movements in Disney park history, and something that was neither asked for or needed.

So why not? Once more into the breach, dear friends. Start your petitions and phone calls, emails and letters. Grab the pitchforks and light up those torches, because they’re going to screw around with it’s a small world.

(more…)

Yes folks, I’m back. I apologize to the small but valued handful of “regulars” here for taking a powder without notice, but c’est la vie. A too-short holiday in the mountains, a backlog of “real” work, some downtime as my web host moved its servers, March Madness (go Heels!) and the general azalea-blooming weather lately has been a distraction. More importantly, though, is the fact that most of the news out of the House of Mouse lately hasn’t been very inspiring.

Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t 2001 and we aren’t facing the constant strikeouts of the Eisner-Pressler regime. But perhaps my hopes got the better of me with the management change and I expected more than the singles and weak doubles we’ve been seeing lately. I certainly expected a damn sight more than this, but there will be more on that later. The point is that while many things in the Disney empire are OK on the micro level, at the macro level there’s a distinct lack of vision. Things are continuing to slide, and that’s a problem.

But I’m back, and here are a few tidbits to get the pump primed:

Thankfully the EPCOT Central blog is back at work, and have a post about EPCOT’s current state that touches on the themes I mentioned above.

Alain Littaye hits us with a slew of concept art - from Disney’s America (with props to me!), California Adventure before its budget was slashed, and the Disney-MGM Studios (1, 2). He also has some interesting photos from the Carousel of Progress.

The Hallmark Channel has acquired a 99-film library of classic Disney films to air on their network. According to the press release, the deal includes:

Disney’s “The Shaggy Dog,” “Flubber,” “Old Yeller,” “The Parent Trap,” “The Incredible Journey,” “The Princess Diaries,” “Freaky Friday,” “The Santa Clause,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” “That Darn Cat,” “The Love Bug,” “The Shaggy Dog,” “Mighty Joe Young,” “Babes in Toyland,” “The Cat from Outer Space,” “Gus,” “Return to Snowy River,” “Snowball Express,” “White Fang,” “The Apple Dumpling Gang” and “Swiss Family Robinson.”

While it’s great that people are going to be able to see these films on television, and they’ll be made available to a new generation of fans, I can’t help to think that it’s sad that Disney doesn’t have their own cable outlet to show their classic films. Why, maybe someday there could be an entire “Disney Channel”, so to speak, that could show Disney material 24 hours a day! Oh I know, it’s just a pie in the sky dream… but wouldn’t that be a great idea? Man, I know I’d watch that channel all the time! But what do I know? I’m old enough to drive so Disney doesn’t really care what I think…

Old EPCOT geeks like myself will remember SMRT-1 from the glory days of CommuniCore. The Paleo-Future blog has a nice piece of concept art I’d never seen before, but the point of the link is the blog itself. You should definitely check it out, as it’s one of my favorites.

Page down for some nice side-by-side comparisons of scenes from Enchanted.

Indeed.

And finally this. Change your life, it will:

I’ll be back soon with more…

I was extremely saddened to read on Blue Sky Disney this evening that artist and illustrator Dave Stevens passed away yesterday. Stevens, 52, had been fighting a long battle with leukemia.

A masterful artist, Stevens specialized in styles reminiscent of the 1930s and 40s. He reveled in the lost art of the pinup girl, and his drawings crackled with art-deco style and film serial excitement. He wasn’t prolific; a notoriously slow artist, he did things with pen and ink that most artists could not achieve with an array of brushes and paint. I’ve always been fascinated by artists that work in pen and ink; such simple tools can yield amazing results in the hands of someone as meticulous as Stevens.

Sadly, many might not even know of Stevens’ work, or what place it has on a Disney blog. In 1982, Stevens created the Rocketeer in the pages of Pacific Comics’ Starslayer #2. Over the next thirteen years the Rocketeer would make occasional appearances in print but his connection to Disney comes through the 1991 film adaptation, The Rocketeer. This film, perhaps more than any other, is the most underrated film in the entire Disney canon. Directed by Joe Johnston and with a fantastic cast and score by James Horner (portions of which are still played at EPCOT Center’s “Fountain of Nations”), The Rocketeer deserves far more attention than it has received.

Improperly marketed by Disney, and opening the same weekend as Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Rocketeer underperformed at the box office and plans for a sequel were scuttled. This was a character that deserved a franchise, and one of my personal obsessions is the idea of creating a ride based on the film for the Hollywood Studios park. Oh, what one could do with a KUKA robocoaster and The Rocketeer…

Unfortunately, Stevens rarely returned to the character himself, and plans to continue the Rocketeer’s adventures after 1995 never came to fruition. We only have a handful of stories scattered amongst different publishers by which to remember Cliff Secord, the Rocketeer. Thankfully Stevens himself continued to work, but not on comic projects. Mostly it seems he spent recent years doing art by commission, and selling his famous pinups at comic shows across the country. Perhaps someday the Rocketeer will continue in some form - it would be a fitting tribute to an artist lost far before his time.

Read an excellent remembrance of Stevens at The Beat
Contribute to the American Cancer Society, because… screw cancer.
More at The Comics Reporter

UPDATE: Thanks to Pat in the comments, who pointed out that Stevens’ mother has requested that fans donate to the Hairy Cell Leukemia Research Foundation.