Here's what shaping up: It appears that Disney's looking at something that might be described as a cross between Soarin' and the Carousel of Progress. The core Avatar attraction would comprise multiple 3D projection theaters, with visitors in some ride vehicle that would give the impression of flight (like Soarin's "hang gliders" do). What I'm not certain of, given all I've heard, is whether visitors will ride from one theater to the other, as on Carousel of Progress, or if the additional theaters are there just to provide extra ride capacity, as on Soarin' or Universal's The Simpsons Ride.
The Carousel of Progress option excites me more, but it raises the question of why Disney would need multiple theaters if the attraction's based on a 3D movie. After all, a screen's a screen. If you're spending the money to move people into different theaters, one would presume it would be because you had different, essential physical elements in each theater, such as props or animatronics.
Of course, ride vehicles moving from 3D screen to 3D screen is Universal Creative's big thing. (Think Spider-Man, Harry Potter, and Transformers.) So I'd be very interested to see Disney's take on that concept.
Lemme throw in one more twist. Last week, Al Lutz sparked a rumor that Disneyland would build an Iron Man ride in the Innoventions building in Tomorowland (bottom of the linked article). That's the old Carousel of Progress building, so people are putting two and two together and wondering if Disneyland's Iron Man might be a smaller-scale version of the Avatar ride at Walt Disney World. (The Innoventions building accommodates two stories, while Avatar is said to be a taller, three-level theater, a la Soarin'.)
Mouse Unlimited seems to have heard the same rumors I have, but they throw in an additional element: a "C-Ticket boat ride (or at least what appears to be a boat ride)" that will be part of the Avatar development, too.
Clearly, progress is happening. The buzz is loud enough that I'm convinced construction on the building for these attractions will begin soon. But let's not forget that attractions can change substantially in development. In our interview last year, Universal Creative's Mark Woodbury revealed that Universal was making substantial changes to its design of Islands of Adventure's Harry Potter ride until pretty late in the development process. So much can change. Still, Avatar's moving forward.
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Disney seems hell-bent on making sure I never again visit Animal Kingdom.
Logically the Avatar ride will be a 3D movie based ride bacause the movie itself is 3D and Disney will need to go beond what they have done with the e-ticket Cars ride to represent the world of Pandora. There are 2 ways of traveling trough the air in the movie, by gunship or by flying dragon. This beeing Disney it won't be the gunship so we have the even more movable dragen beast. It's also more fitting to Animal Kingdom. How they pull it of is beond me. Boarding a ride vehicle looking like a dragon would be awefull. The motion sim would place you trough the scenes and 3D movie screens and you will have something that is done excelent by Universal... Still looking forward if this is getting build at all.
The cherry on top is the speculation about an Iron Man attraction at Disneyland.... the hits just keep on coming!
It is good to be a theme park fan these days!
Although they've had one under construction for quite some time at Euro Disney. (Ratatouille)
But on the positive side, that's really good news I mean "many" of us know that AK needs the help... Badly!!
The Iron Man thing, now, that would be "GREAT" if they would ever build such a thing!! Finally a post about Disney for the people not interested in attractions for (girls only) or 8-15 years old segment mentally...
Really good news!! But I do have to say, I'm really interested in this, I hope they do something a la Harry Potter-FJ, or Spiderman, Transformers, because I know people love Soarin, I don't...
-Francisco
-Francisco
Universal waits until after Halloween Horror Nights for its (presumed) Transformers announcement on Nov. 1. Which just so happens to step on the media blitz for Disney's Fantasyland Expansion. So just after Universal announces its announcement, Avatar leaks begin to appear.
It really makes it look like Disney and Universal are trying to one-up each other. Which is great for theme park fans. When Disney and Universal compete, we get more and better theme park attractions, and the Orlando theme park market grows. Win for everyone.
To quote Yoda: "Begun, the theme park wars have"
My biggest question is how will they disguise such a massive show building?
Also I cant believe people are complaining about iron man. We're getting a great transformer fighting e ticket instead of Innoventions. Innoventions! Ya that building that hasnt really been used for years except to show off honda and microsoft products! Give me the e ticket please!
I guess I will have to watch Avatar at some stage then....
Good catch.
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