So one Dumbo spinner is OK, but two are wrong?
One spinner as a last ditch effort with limited funds in the relative technological backwater of 1970 to give the guest more to do is OK (note use of "OK," not "100% Disney Magic"). Two spinners that at one time represented 67% of new WDW ride installations while the company is spending billions in the technological wonderland of the New Millenium to give Disney something to hang their plush carts and carnival games off of is much worse (note use of relative term "worse," not absolute term "wrong").
You know, I saw your post about others acknowledging shades of gray, so it's particularly disappointing when you turn around and reduce what I say to black-and-white.
I understand that there are shades of gray and we all judge those shades differently. I am not advocating some precise shade of gray as Magical, I'm just saying if Magic is black and ordinary is white, we should expect from Disney grays that are consistently and significantly blacker than what we're getting.
My points nearly exclusively deal with the underlying creative infrastructure of Disney's products, not the enjoyment anyone gets out of the products. Less-than-good intentions and processes can produce good results, it just happens that way sometimes... and good intentions and processes can produce less-than-good results, in the same way. I agree with you in that, nothing's black and white.
But I believe good intentions and good processes will produce results judged as "good" by more people, more consistently, than will the less than good intentions and processes. Therefore, the "gooder" the intentions and processes, the better the expected results.
I don't believe one can go in and produce "results" out of whole cloth... one uses tools (processes) to make ones goals (intentions) real enough to send into the world... then the world tells you what the "results" are. So I don't think saying "make a popular ride" is a meaningful business directive. I believe that saying "improve our tools and raise the bar on our goals" _is_ a meaningful business directive, and is the best way to improve one's chances for successful results, and, now that I think about it, is about as good a defintion of "Disney Magic" as I've ever accidentally stumbled across while writing my posts.
My complaints about the intentions and processes used in creating Aladdin are not intended to precipitate that ride's removal and destruction... what's done is done and if people like it, great.
I just think that if Disney continues to commercialize their intentions and budget cut and outsource their processes to death, they will continue to struggle as they turn out products that people, on the whole, fail to judge as "good."
What I'm suggesting is positive action on the end where it might make a difference. You may feel free to disagree with that plan. But taking my point, removing its heart and reducing it to "one spinner = Magic, two spinners = evil" only makes me wonder whether you didn't understand my point or if you just ignored it.
That just goes to show that a cheap piece of crap could become one of the most endearing rides in the MK. So how do we explain that?
What's to explain? It's human nature. Sometimes crap sells and is enjoyed. I have an entirely unhealthy love for the cheap crap known as the McDonald's cheeseburger... I just don't harbor any illusions about the quality of the ingredients or the care in the preparation, and I don't feel the need to be defensive about liking something that's obviously crap: it's cheap fast food, and you get what you pay for.
I think Aladdin is the Disney ride version of Fast Food. Disney built its reputation with rides like Pirates, the Disney ride version of a multi-course meal. Particularly now that Disney is struggling, I think it's a good idea to go "back to basics," which means, in this analogy, making the full course meals upon which the brand was built.
I have nothing against fast food per se, my only personal problem is that the full course meals I grew up on and crave are now only available as leftovers, and my only business-related problem is that the customers don't seem to be buying the fast food (which I attribute at least partially to the sacrifice of Disney's brand association with the full course meals), putting the company in a bad position.
Dumbo is fine, Dumbo is fun. Dumbo just isn't the compelling reason that people on the whole go to Disney World. I think Disney needs more compelling reasons for people on the whole to go to Disney World.
I don't know whether you consider "compelling reasons... to go to Disney World" white or black, but I'm saying it's better if our shade of gray moves in that direction, and the more it moves that direction, the better off Disney is likely to be.
-WFH
PS: Hopemax, interesting about Dumbo being a C at DL and a B at WDW. Does anyone have any WDW tickets earlier than '76 lying around? Did Dumbo WDW begin life as a C and get lowered, or was it always B?
It's surprising to me that some DL rides gained a ticket by growing a couple years older. Although I suppose if you're running a ticket book system for ride passage, then you _do_ have to swap ticket around based on the rides' relative popularity, if only for controlling lines. I wonder if that's where the "ticket rating = line length" equation originated. Of course, that would mean today's A tickets are the walk-on Pirates and Spaceship Earth and the E tickets are the half-opened counter service restaurants...
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