D23: Bob Iger is Taking the Walt out of Disney World
You could tell from the look on his face that Josh D’Amaro the Chairman of Disney Parks knew this announcement was going to go over like a lead Hindenburg.
Frontierland at WDW is effectively going to be bulldozed to create Cars Land.
A few years ago there was an “audit” conducted by Disney DEI for sensitivity on various attractions at Disney. It will shock my Darklings to their toenails to learn that American history is racist, sexist, and homophobic.
This audit was the principal reason (or excuse) for Splash Mountain becomingTrash Mountain when Tianna and company were shoehorned in.
Walt Disney had his faults. It is unavoidable when a man is gifted with the kind of artistic drive that he was. He was a demanding perfectionist, easily prone to anger if you stepped on one of his personal mines. If you told him you can’t do that, he’d do it on general principle. But there is no denying he had a deep and abiding love for his country and Rivers of America are a profound expression of that love.
As naturally as a Lemmings follow each other off a cliff, Bob Iger felt compelled to destroy this natural beauty.
The serene Rivers of America expieriance will be drained dry, the riverboat hauled up onto dry land and the pleasing lassitude of Tom Sawyer Island ripped out to make way for yet another fucking IP injection. There’s no question that this is the kind of initiative that pleases Bob Iger immensely. After all, a red-diaper baby, New Yorker from a Jewish family is not going to feel any kind of connection to the American heartland.
So all of that carefully cultivated beauty will be demolished for a Cars experience.
John Lassiter shouldn’t feel too bad about creating the IP that is going to tear Walt’s heart out of Disney World. If it hadn’t been Cars it would have been some other shallow IP.
There is very little question that Liberty Square will be next to go. The only reason it isn’t going now is because Disney literally doesn’t have the money for it. That’s all being sent to Universal so they can build Epic Universe with it. I suppose we should be grateful.
There were other announcements at the D23 of Doom like the Disney Villain’s Land presumably to compete with Epic’s Dark Universe. But since there were no timelines announced with it, that means it’s just Blue Sky designs thrown into the wind to try and make it look like Disney is doing something… Anything to compete with Universal Orlando.
Although from the artwork they plan to bulldoze the Muppets corner of Hollywood Studios to do it, as well as Star Tours. The only part of Disney World that feels remotely like George Lucas’ Star Wars, is Star Tours and now it has a target on it. Officially this is to make way for a new attraction but the truth is Disney hates the fact that everyone keeps saying the 40-year-old Star Tours is way better than the brand-new and ultra-expensive Smuggler’s Run. It’s a constant embarrassment for the company that Eisner’s Imagineering is drastically superior to the Iger-era’s burlesque of it.
There were several movie and TV shows announced and literally all of them were sequels or spinoffs.
They have hired Andrew Stanton of Finding Nemo fame to come back and direct Toy Story 5 since John Lassetter is pretty much out of the question.. The ink must have only just dried on the contract the day before because Pixar used some animation assets very familiar to people who own an Apple Watch. They used the animations of Woody, Jesse and Buzz without dialog from the Pixar Apple Watch face to make those announcements.
The stars of Snow White were present and it became comically obvious that Rachel Zegler hates Gal Gadot. Pity, a movie where Snow White is the one that’s evil and the Witch Queen is secret heroine of the story would be much more entertaining than what we will get.*
At D23 all of the division heads and studio chiefs get a moment to pitch their newest wares. The only one not there was Kathleen Kennedy. Understandable since she has nothing new to announce, although that has never stopped her from announcing stuff before. She’s due to have her contract renewed again next month and I suspect Disney doesn’t want to remind anyone of her continued employment before then.
WDWPro says, his sources are saying she wants to retire but wants to go out on a win. Meaning I suppose that she will be there until she drops dead.
Bob Iger’s tenure at Disney has been an unmitigated disaster and it’s only going to get worse.
The Third Walt has dropped the mask, he is now the Anti-Walt.
*That’s the plot for Snow, Glass, Apples now that I think of it. Okay, forget I mentioned it.
