So I do not mean to be a "buzzkill" here, and I truly admire the amazing artistry and talent and hard work that goes into something like this, but........
RE: The new "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" land in Disneyland that opened yesterday and will be duplicated at Walt Disney World in late August....
Isn't it sorta, kinda, very, very...well, GRIM?
I mean, I just wonder how the generations--mine and those that have come since--who gave us ecology, cleaning up the air and the oceans, and generally had such a bright and optimistic view of our future when, for example, EPCOT opened in the 80's, have come to the point where their vision of the future is, basically, a grey, intergalactic junkyard?
Do we really think the computers and automation and "droids" of our future world will ignore clutter, mess, jumble, confusion, dirt, grime, and have everyone dressing like refugees from a used-backpack-and-cargo-pants garage sale or remainders/outlet mall for Camping World or REI?
Why so GREY and GRIM and even though the graphics of the original movie WERE of the pre-Pacman vector primative type, do they STILL have to be? Is the most creative thing we can come up with as a "future" snack some artificially-colored soy and coconut milk?
I just find the looks I've taken to be impressive in their emmersiveness, but what I'm being dunked into is so downright messy, tawdry, and bleak that it's hardly a magical experience, and part of that, of course, is the problem with making a living 360 environment based on a movie--movies are about SELECTING shots, angles, views. Indeed, the big difference when movies were born compared to stage drama was that a director chose what PORTION of the stage to focus your attention on, cut away from it when it got old (if he was any good) and moved you through a story in a directed and intentionally glimpsed-at-an-instant way. That's what the RIDES do, but gosh the LINE areas? Do the have to be endless JUNK-spattered faux caverns that look like so much "kit bashing" as the original ships were made from old toy model parts?
BTW, that is why, beyond the now so fluid they're alive animatronics, the character host of the Falcon attraction is so capitvating--he's ALIVE and VIBRANT while all around him is so darned dull and grey and humorless.
But again, the idea that our vision of our future as a human race (and others) is so sad, so utterly disregarding of our environment and surroundings, so perfectly complacent with disorder and decay is, well, depressing, not magical.
(And on a side note, one area of the place has walls lined with the faux trophy mounted heads of various mythical beasts with fangs and glazed eyes and grizzled gums and well, isn't PETA gonna **** bricks over that part? I can't wait for the HOWLS of outrage--and at least those will be amusing!)
And of course, when Disney started selling coonskin caps as Davey Crockett became a craze, they were intentionally INexpensive so more would be sold and be brought home to get the other kids happy to watch the shows on TV. Here, you can build a droid/lightsabre (in very clear and hardly innovative replication of the "custom wand" stuff at Universal's Harry Potter areas or the even earlier "build a bear" toy emporia) for ONLY $200 or so, plus accessories.
BTW, it also looks like you put the Morocco stuff from EPCOT, the line-up clutter from Indy Jones, and the twinkly lights from every scifi thing for the last 40 years into recyle mode and, again, added space junk aplenty. I know we build on prior stuff and I appreciate the tendency, but I'm just saying that "plussing" isn't ORIGINATING and there is a big difference that matters.
Okay, enough of my rant. I am, again, impressed, I'm sure I'll enjoy it, I'm sure the attractions are superb, but also kinda bummed by the sheer reverence given to a future of decay and dismay and schmutz. MY future fantasies are cleaner and brighter and better than that. I won't live to see which turns out to be true, but if we are teaching OUR grandkids to revere THIS vision, aren't we stacking the deck against mankind a little?
(P.S. A friend who read this says "but hey, that's how the movies look!" to which I reply (a) see my note above about how movies differ from environments you walk through and (b) then FIX the damn movies! I understand that when Lucas first created this we lived in a world of more fear than hope, and environmental failure instead of progress, and of course, the lingering downs from Viet-Nam made the positively fun WWII-figher-pilot mood of "Star Wars" that much more of an antidote to the then-current reality--but it all IS 40 years ago, folks. Can't the movies progress instead of just repeating?)
RE: The new "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" land in Disneyland that opened yesterday and will be duplicated at Walt Disney World in late August....
Isn't it sorta, kinda, very, very...well, GRIM?
I mean, I just wonder how the generations--mine and those that have come since--who gave us ecology, cleaning up the air and the oceans, and generally had such a bright and optimistic view of our future when, for example, EPCOT opened in the 80's, have come to the point where their vision of the future is, basically, a grey, intergalactic junkyard?
Do we really think the computers and automation and "droids" of our future world will ignore clutter, mess, jumble, confusion, dirt, grime, and have everyone dressing like refugees from a used-backpack-and-cargo-pants garage sale or remainders/outlet mall for Camping World or REI?
Why so GREY and GRIM and even though the graphics of the original movie WERE of the pre-Pacman vector primative type, do they STILL have to be? Is the most creative thing we can come up with as a "future" snack some artificially-colored soy and coconut milk?
I just find the looks I've taken to be impressive in their emmersiveness, but what I'm being dunked into is so downright messy, tawdry, and bleak that it's hardly a magical experience, and part of that, of course, is the problem with making a living 360 environment based on a movie--movies are about SELECTING shots, angles, views. Indeed, the big difference when movies were born compared to stage drama was that a director chose what PORTION of the stage to focus your attention on, cut away from it when it got old (if he was any good) and moved you through a story in a directed and intentionally glimpsed-at-an-instant way. That's what the RIDES do, but gosh the LINE areas? Do the have to be endless JUNK-spattered faux caverns that look like so much "kit bashing" as the original ships were made from old toy model parts?
BTW, that is why, beyond the now so fluid they're alive animatronics, the character host of the Falcon attraction is so capitvating--he's ALIVE and VIBRANT while all around him is so darned dull and grey and humorless.
But again, the idea that our vision of our future as a human race (and others) is so sad, so utterly disregarding of our environment and surroundings, so perfectly complacent with disorder and decay is, well, depressing, not magical.
(And on a side note, one area of the place has walls lined with the faux trophy mounted heads of various mythical beasts with fangs and glazed eyes and grizzled gums and well, isn't PETA gonna **** bricks over that part? I can't wait for the HOWLS of outrage--and at least those will be amusing!)
And of course, when Disney started selling coonskin caps as Davey Crockett became a craze, they were intentionally INexpensive so more would be sold and be brought home to get the other kids happy to watch the shows on TV. Here, you can build a droid/lightsabre (in very clear and hardly innovative replication of the "custom wand" stuff at Universal's Harry Potter areas or the even earlier "build a bear" toy emporia) for ONLY $200 or so, plus accessories.
BTW, it also looks like you put the Morocco stuff from EPCOT, the line-up clutter from Indy Jones, and the twinkly lights from every scifi thing for the last 40 years into recyle mode and, again, added space junk aplenty. I know we build on prior stuff and I appreciate the tendency, but I'm just saying that "plussing" isn't ORIGINATING and there is a big difference that matters.
Okay, enough of my rant. I am, again, impressed, I'm sure I'll enjoy it, I'm sure the attractions are superb, but also kinda bummed by the sheer reverence given to a future of decay and dismay and schmutz. MY future fantasies are cleaner and brighter and better than that. I won't live to see which turns out to be true, but if we are teaching OUR grandkids to revere THIS vision, aren't we stacking the deck against mankind a little?
(P.S. A friend who read this says "but hey, that's how the movies look!" to which I reply (a) see my note above about how movies differ from environments you walk through and (b) then FIX the damn movies! I understand that when Lucas first created this we lived in a world of more fear than hope, and environmental failure instead of progress, and of course, the lingering downs from Viet-Nam made the positively fun WWII-figher-pilot mood of "Star Wars" that much more of an antidote to the then-current reality--but it all IS 40 years ago, folks. Can't the movies progress instead of just repeating?)
