New Imagineering Announcements & Imagineers Who Criticize Them

This weekend a Disney Imagineering presentation was given at the South by Southwest SXSW Conference in Austin Texas. Thinking that it was a Future of World-Building at Disney presentation given by Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro, I was surprised to see that there were several Imagineers that made up the presentation. Even more interesting was the fact that Josh was accompanied by Disney Entertainment Co-Chairman Alan Bergman, who then brought three key studio leaders, Jon Favreau with Star Wars, Pete Docter with Pixar, and Kevin Fiege of Marvel. Together both Entertainment and Experiences partnered together to talk about major attractions coming to Disney. We bring some important insights from not only this and from other Imagineering activities going on, but we also counter it with some negativity that has been coming from former Imagineers that “The Emperors at 1401 Flower Street are butt naked and don’t know it.” We’ll consider those opinions to better understand what is working and what is not. Join us as we showcase new Imagineering developments and the Imagineers who criticize them.

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The Criticism

Since criticism came before the presentation, it seems reasonable to present it in that order as well. While several Imagineers have picked at some particular issues, no one has articulated it more in one place than Val Usle, a former Imagineer with over 40 years with the Company. Even Eddie Sotto, respects the work and subsequent commentary from this individual. Here’s Val’s statement:

THE NUKING OF THE MAGIC KINGDOM’S RIVERS OF AMERICA

In case you don’t know, Imagineering is on point for the demolition (destruction is a better word) of the Rivers of America at WDW. The waterway, Riverboat, and Tom Sawyers Island are being eliminated to make way for a new Carsland that would sit in their place.

Heritage places in the Parks like Rivers of America are not and never have been pure sacred cows. In Paris, Big Thunder replaced Tom Sawyer’s Island. At Disneyland the night show Fantasmic was set on Tom Sawyer’s Island and entertained those who lined the River. For Galaxy’s Edge we re-aligned the Steam Train, Columbia, and Mark Twain routes to accommodate the new land – but we never nuked it. Elsewhere in the Parks, icons like the Castles get overlays and Main Streets get new shops.

Walt said it best about the Florida property, “Here we are blessed with space.” But WDI has failed to navigate and master plan a path to capture land adjacent to the Rivers of America for the new land.

A lot of Imagineers, particularly those that bleed WED, are more than saddened by this master plan fail. I admit that in other social media circles there’s audience that’s happy with the land being replaced, but in those same circles there is no small community of those who can’t believe Imagineering would do this. It starts to add to a litany of other missteps like the medical building looking Poly DVC, the elimination of the Red Car (the only kinetics on Hollywood Blvd at Disney’s California), the outdoor stage area at EPCOT’s Communicore (the entertainers face the sun and the guest area has no seats – they sit on the concrete in direct sun), the Junior College cafeteria looking food facility just put into Communicore, and the new merch shop between DL Haunted Mansion and Splash.

WED and WDI have never been perfect, but such missteps in the past have been few and far between – the exception being Paul Pressler’s version of Disney’s California Adventure. Now I can list several just in the recent years.

One wonders if Rivers of America can be nuked, what other foundational heritage pieces can be next – Castle, Main Street, Pirates, expensive Steam Trains or Monorails?

To fix such a mess, it has to be recognized as a mess, but I don’t see it happening. The Emperors at 1401 Flower Street are butt naked and don’t know it.

WED lives, just not at 1401 Flower anymore.

Nuking Frontierland with Cars

I believe that in the aftermath of D23 I was the first one to put resistance to the new Cars plans for Frontierland. I did so not so much for what they were doing, but for the fact that they had done something of a switch and bait at D23–at least in not being transparent until after the show about the fact that Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer’s Island might go away. I protested that they would charge a premium on top of an entrance fee to see that D23 event, and then not have the guts to really say what was happening. If they had been transparent that evening they would have probably been booed. They knew that, and that’s why they didn’t. Not that they haven’t done a bait and switch before. It’s just they charged a lot of money to see the carnival side show before they gave it to you.

I for one agree that the modifications made to the Rivers of America at Disneyland would be ideal for preserving The Liberty Belle and Tom Sawyer’s Island, while providing for a Cars and Villains area. I think it generally makes sense to modify rather than “nuke”. And in my podcasts, I have shared how that might happen by increasing traffic with other water craft on the water, and by building a more new dynamic play ground experience on the island—one that might be like the ropes course at Shanghai Disney, or at least more like the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail at Disney California Adventure. 

When Val says “WDI has failed to navigate and master plan a path to capture land adjacent to the Rivers of America for the new land.”

The “we have plenty of space” issue is true but is still somewhat problematic. Yes there is space. But beyond environmental considerations it makes more sense to add to the offering at the studios (where it needs to be bigger) and to Animal Kingdom (where the large space needs more offerings) before adding to Magic Kingdom. Disney’s concern is about equalizing its offerings among all four parks (whose tickets all cost the same) as well as increasing capacity. For instance, Winnie the Pooh replaced Mr. Toad. That’s not a modify. That’s a nuke job. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Ariel’s Undersea Adventure would ultimately replace 20K. That is a bigger nuke job. Indeed, nuke jobs aren’t new to the Disney portfolio from Camp Minnie-Mickey to Pandora and from The Backlot Tour to Toy Story Land and Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge.

Since D23 I have done a great deal of work to better understand that attraction. I detailed that in a previous podcast along with a map of how that looked to happen. In truth I do agree that I would prefer Beyond Big Thunder as the location rather than Besides Big Thunder. But I also see that there is some advantage to probably having a very different Frontierland than Disneyland’s. Although I think the location here in the middle of Florida is more conducive to creating for that.

I will also say there’s something to be said about the walkability of a park. One thing I notice when I’m at Disneyland is that the number of guests back in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge is seemingly much less than those in the back of Disney’s Hollywood Studios. That may be in part that Disneyland has a bigger array of offerings. But Disneyland also has a higher attendance. I think that the idea of shortening the river and throwing Cars and Villains to the back may be a little much of a pedestrian reach. So unduly adding more geography well beyond the Rivers of America will create some additional challenges to that balance not to mention costs. 

Former Imagineer Jim Schull quotes the following from the presentation.

“This new ride doesn’t take place in Radiator Springs, but instead it will be a thrilling rally ride though the mountains.”

Then he states: “The quote confirms guests won’t be getting radiator Springs but an invented location while losing Rivers of America. Can someone explain this chain of reasoning.”

Let me explain. I think Disney is finally waking up to the reality that the more they differentiate the Disneyland experience from The Walt Disney World one they more guests will go to both. That’s probably why there is no Premiere pass allowing people to pay one price to go to both. They finally know that annual pass holders or DVC folks will willingly pay top dollar to go to the other side of the country to check out something that’s different. To simply replicate Radiator Springs at Magic Kingdom is to take away a major carrot bringing folks on the East side of the country out West. I for one am glad that they are doing something very different. And I think their idea for doing something different like Piston Peak instead of Radiator Springs is important.

With all of this the bigger challenge for Imagineers is, “what is Frontierland?” The answer has traditionally been associated with Cowboys and Indians. Miners and bears and flume logs have been added over the years but the answer to that question has been locked in a time period between post-civil war and early 20th century. Curiously, Adventureland has had no time frame and no geography other than tropical. The challenge is that cowboys and Indians is somewhat problematic and limiting. This problem has been known for some time. So much so that Hong Kong Disneyland opened with no Frontierland, and today has barely any essence of a Frontierland (it’s a ride and counter service kiosk, not a land) and Shanghai Disneyland and has no Frontierland whatsoever. Imagineers are trying to address this issue by suggesting that it’s a “western” terrain more than it’s a time frame. Cars allows that approach. They have a very cool technology to create a Cars like experience. I think that it’s very courageous to try a completely different Frontierland layout than Disneyland’s moving forward. I think it will increase the percentage of people who will go to the other side of the country to check out something different, or at least return to something that was nostalgic and memorable.

Let me say one more thing: Pete Docter. He gets the parks and he’s helping to make this new attraction work. I trust that.

My point in all this is that I have to make some assumptions that there are more issues than capacity on the river or nostalgia for such. I still don’t buy how they presented it, but I do understand the context for why they are doing what they are doing.

Missteps or New Steps

Val went on to name a litany of other missteps like the medical building looking Poly DVC, the elimination of the Red Car (the only kinetics on Hollywood Blvd at Disney’s California), the outdoor stage area at EPCOT’s Communicore (the entertainers face the sun and the guest area has no seats – they sit on the concrete in direct sun), the Junior College cafeteria looking food facility just put into Communicore, and the new merch shop between DL Haunted Mansion and Splash.

Okay, I want to know what medical building Val goes to, because I only wish mine looked as good as the new Poly DVC Building. While I’ve not stayed at that tower, I’ve toured that building and I’m dining there tomorrow (dining review to come on our Patreon site). I will tell you that I think it’s far better than the original hanging garden tower thought of by Welton Beckett’s team, who also designed the Contemporary, and attractions at the New York World’s Fair. In fact, while the location, grounds and amenities are far, far better at Aulani, I really don’t think the tower space in and of itself is altogether better or at least that really distant in design aesthetic than the new one at Walt Disney World.

Hollywoodland is looking to be nuked (needfully so) and that puts the trolley car without half of its track layout. But this nuking comes with a major Pandora experience that could be over the top. And it’s needed as you mention, since this comes from the original Paul Pressler concepts of Disney’s California Adventure.

I would agree that the outdoor stage at CommuniCore is not good. Not sure that turning it the other way around would have improved it. In fact, let me just say that if I have one gripe about Imagineering in general is that it seems to do its designs in the comfort of California weather with little regard to the heat and humidity of Florida. It seems the first thing you want to eliminate is air conditioning.

I think it’s petty to liken Connections Cafe to a Junior College cafeteria. Please show me one on par. Big open windows, a huge mural, open kitchens, and inspirations of Walt’s original EPCOT laid in the tile. This is worst than Electric Umbrella? Really?

Meanwhile, the best part of this area of Epcot is Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana. This is wildly popular, interactive, kinetic (which you emphasized) and much easier to enjoy in the heat and humidity of Florida. No mention is made of this.

Beyond this, there are many great things Imagineering has pulled off in the last half dozen years despite Covid from Rise of the Resistance, to Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, to Fantasy Springs, to the Skyliner, to renovations at Toon Town with Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway and more. None of these are mentioned. I think these projects were done by people who bleed WED as well as you do.

But rather than just go through previous projects, let’s see how well the “butt naked emperors of 1401 Flower Street” are doing on other projects.

New Projects Presented at SXSW

Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge has its fans and critics. People love Rise of the Resistance. Making your own lightsaber or meeting up with stormtroopers have been big parts of the experience. Still, people miss the old regiment featuring Lord Vader and Luke Skywalker. And while the architecture seems Star Wars like, it isn’t a familiar place like the Planet Endor or Coruscant.

Work was presented by Leslie Evans, Asa Kalama and Disney Legend Jon Favreau to address some of that. Already announced has been that Luke would be coming to Disneyland. In this session they focused on BDX droids that unlike animatronics of the past, can learn and teach each other through a process called reinforcement learning. These droids, along with an Anzellan named Auto who can tune up the droids, will not only be coming to all the parks, but show up in next years The Mandalorian and Grogu, emphasizing a more seamless connection between Disney’s studios and what’s happening at the parks.

Even better, Smuggler’s Run, as mentioned at D23 will not only feature The Mandalorian, it will when it opens at the same time as the movie Memorial Day weekend 2026 be taking you to places guests have been familiar with for decades such as Cloud City on the planet Bedpan, Tatooine, and a revisit of the second Death Star in orbit around the planet Endor. All of these are also contributing to new content with Epic Games so that the park experience is connected to your gaming experience at home.

At South by Southwest, Pete Docter and Michael Hundgen also highlighted the new coaster loading system for Monsters Inc. “We have never done anything like this before,” Hundgen said of the new attraction. “It’s Disney’s first suspended coaster, it’s our first vertical lift. We’re designing this experience to be as memorable and as fun as the film itself.”

Bruce Vaughn, President and Chief Creative Officer for Walt Disney Imagineering and Kevin Feige, producer and president of Marvel Studios shared info on the two attractions coming to Avengers Campus. Because of Covid and budgets, the Marvel campus has been criticized for feeling like a dead space, because it wasn’t completed with the first phase (Galaxy’s Edge got the same hate mail when Rise didn’t open on time). Finally shared is Avengers Infinity Defense, which will have guests assemble the Avengers to battle King Thanos across multiple worlds. That includes fighting alongside Black Panther, Ant-Man, and the Hulk, among other heroes.

“I think it is by far the largest collection of heroes we’ve ever put into an attraction,” Feige said.

But the second attraction Stark Flight Lab, will give considerable kinetics to Avengers Campus. With the help of Robert Downey Jr. visiting the conference, Vaughn noted that Downey Jr. will be reprising his role in the attraction, which takes you inside Tony’s workshop filled with cutting-edge tech. That includes a massive robot arm that reaches down, grabs a guest’s pod, and lifts them off the track, where they will make several high-speed maneuvers inspired by Iron Man and some other Avengers. After your flight, the arm sets you back on the track and you zip away again.

In Downey Jr.’s own words, ““The curiosity, the passion, the inventiveness, the occasional flair for the dramatic, most of all a drive to put something good out into the world to make life better, at the minimum more fun by a mile, ” Downey told the crowd. “It’s the privilege of a lifetime to be invited to participate.”

He goes on to say: “What I didn’t know was how stealth and exclusive Walt Disney Imagineering headquarters was,” Downey Jr. said. “It’s the Area 51 of Fun.”

Perhaps they’re paying him a lot of money to spend time with “butt-naked emperors”, but maybe there is something really good coming out of 1401.

Not shared at South by Southwest that happened earlier was an earlier conference called Maya and the Mouse. It was a multi-day event that allowed Mayan archaeologists, filmmakers, Imagineers, other others to discuss how the new Tropical America’s land with its Indiana Jones Adventure might assimilate with an authentic Mayan look and feel. Rhode noted at the conference:

“I was down at Walt Disney World for a week mostly at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. It’s nice to see that the park is still much as it should be, a credit to Imagineer Kyle Price and his team and to the maintenance and operations folks whom I joined for an early morning tour to talk about finishes and patina.”

Also , referencing the work Joan Hartwig was doing leading the tropical Americas team on this new project, Rohde noted:

The team working on the new Tropical Americas land was able to attend and Team leader Joan Hartwig presented the conceptual development of the upcoming Maya temple along with an exceptionally intelligent explanation of its intended symbols which I am proud to say was met with thunderous applause. 

I know Rohde is capable of picking things apart. But I think that a company investing time and effort when they easily could have done a copy and paste of the original Disneyland ride, one has to consider whether Imagineering is in a bad place.

Is WED Dead?

Val noted WED lives but just not at 1401 Flower Street? He then went on to say: “To fix such a mess, it has to be recognized as a mess, but I don’t see it happening. The Emperors at 1401 Flower Street are butt naked and don’t know it.”

Jim Schull shared the following:

“Disney used to Dream and Dream Big. It’s missing today at DisneyWorld and Disneyland. People want hope and Promise.” [Attaches an image of “it’s a small world from New York World’s Fair]. It’s followed by a spread of very negative and pessimistic comments by others.

What I heard at the South by Southwest conference was a team of individuals who whenever possible shared how Disneyland had meant so much to them growing up. They are proven in their work and I don’t see a mess. Moreover, I see a better effort to partner with film entertainment than has ever happened before. Face it, the ability for film and television to talk to Imagineering and for Imagineering to talk to film and television has not been all that impressive. It’s been hit and miss. Here we see three very clear cases for that kind of partnership.

On top of that we see Imagineering working with archeologists and museumologists and filmmakers to create a new experience at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

With these posts have come a video done by a fan Tyler Dean McDowell, about his disappointment in the Disney parks. You have to be a pretty big fan, or a pretty savvy social media guy to create that kind of video. It’s called What Walt Would Say. He asks “Bob [Iger] What Are You Thinking?” Tyler has video of him walking around the park all depressed, with cutaways of a painting that at the end would show Walt slumped in a chair all sad.

Are there misses at the parks? Yes. But that comes with taking chances. It certainly isn’t anywhere near the dour presentation found in the video. No. The video represents a Walt Disney disappointed in portrait form. But I think that if Walt had an opportunity to see what has come about to The Walt Disney Company from international parks to phenomenal cruise ships; from a broad portfolio of product from Marvel to Star Wars and more, he would be fairly amazed—and excited to do even more. After all, there’s a great big beautiful tomorrow.

Souvenirs for Your Organization

• It’s good to think critically and offer critical thought. But is being critical of individuals really helpful?
• Have you articulated all the reasons why something works or doesn’t work, or are you simply making a one-statement shutdown?
• Is it reasonable to assume some positive intent on behalf of the peers you have worked with?
• If you really want a great organization, shouldn’t you offer a half-full perspective rather than a half-empty one?

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