With DisneylandForward winning approval from the City of Anaheim, Disneyland fans now are looking forward to August’s D23 event to hear some specifics about what Disney is planning to build at the resort.
The only commitment that Disney officials have made so far is CEO Bob Iger’s promise that an Avatar attraction will be part of the new construction at the resort. In addition, Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro has teased that an Anaheim installation of Hong Kong Disneyland’s World of Frozen land could be included, too.
Having seen that land in person, I would love to see World of Frozen come to Anaheim. It’s a beautiful setting that features my favorite attraction type, an indoor boat ride. The company’s concept art for a new Avatar attraction looks enticing as well, even more so if it is based on the magnetic boat ride system first used on Shanghai Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle of the Sunken Treasure, as the concept image seems to suggest.
But if all DisneylandForward delivers are clones of existing lands and ride systems from other Disney parks, it will go down not just as the biggest investment in resort history, but also its biggest missed opportunity.
Disneyland deserves not just something different from its DisneylandForward projects, but something extraordinary and innovative. For decades, Disneyland has set new standards for the theme park industry. The park itself established a new model for a hub-and-spoke layout that included differentiated lands based on multiple themes — a model that parks around the world would copy.
Disneyland’s Matterhorn Bobsleds was the world’s first tubular steel roller coaster, a development that would unleash a new era of roller coaster development — and popularity. The Enchanted Tiki Room brought the first use of Audio-Animatronic figures. Star Tours showed the world how a flight simulator could become a thrilling motion theater show. Then Indiana Jones Adventure took the next step with that technology, delivering a motion base dark ride.
Fantasmic created a new industry template for multimedia night-time spectaculars. More recently, Disney’s Imagineers have introduced Stuntronics with the Spider-Man stunt show at Disney California Adventure and free-roaming robot characters with its BD units in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge.
I cannot think of another single theme park anywhere in the world that has introduced the number of technical innovations that Disneyland has over its nearly seven decades. Creatively, Disneyland is where Disney launched its most popular and enduring theme park franchises, including Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
That’s a legacy that Disney should honor by ensuring that Disneyland remains a destination of choice for launching new ride systems and technology in its parks. I am not saying that Walt Disney World and the international parks should not get the opportunity to debut new tech and franchises of their own — just that Disneyland should continue to get its share of “firsts,” as well.
It’s time to push Disneyland forward, to keep leading the theme park industry.
Robert Niles
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