Announced several years ago, following the success of rival Universal's Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Pandora draws upon what was then the biggest box office draw in American movie history — James Cameron's science fiction epic, Avatar. Cameron's working on multiple sequels for the 2009 hit, raising hope that the movie will become the franchise that Disney would love to inspire a generation of fans to visit Disney's Animal Kingdom. We'll see.
So why Avatar? And why in Animal Kingdom? Essentially, Avatar uses fiction to try to send a message that Animal Kingdom has been trying to deliver since its opening: Protect our environment, because if you just try to use it for your own good, you'll lose it for everyone. And everything.
So thematically, Avatar works in Animal Kingdom, even if the practicality of getting us from Earth to a moon in the Alpha Centauri system is dismissed with a simple walk across a bridge next to Tiffins.
Once through that portal, Pandora greets visitors with a (reported) $1.4 billion display of the most ostentatious decor in the history of the theme park business. This is nature, amplified and filtered to capture the attention and interest of even the most jaded traveler.
Dive deeply into the land, and you will find all the ways that Creative Director Joe Rohde has devised to educate us on the challenges facing Earth's ecosystem. Skim this land superficially, and you will discover the most awesome spots for vacation selfies in Orlando. (Those fake plants look amazing, don't they?!? It's like visiting Tom Sawyer Island on acid.)
Like so much in life, you get back what you put into it.
And Disney's investment in this land paid off with Flight of Passage, a flying theater-style ride that accomplishes everything that fans of Soarin' long have pretended that experience did. No other theme park attraction so wonderfully recreates the feeling of flying than Flight of Passage does. I'd long adored Bolliger & Mabillard's flying coasters as the maintainers of this standard, but Flight of Passage exceeds those rides by supplying a delightful menu of visuals that heighten the thrill of cutting through the air.
Supposedly, we've been linked with an avatar that's actually doing the flying atop Pandora's Mountain Banshees. But the conceit of that linking is that the physical experience seems real to our consciousness. It's all earnestly explained in the queue, but — again — you can take or leave it as it is given. Either way, the experience of straddling your ride vehicle, feeling it breath between your legs like a horse, and gliding through the air in front of leaves you giddy. As the Pandoran sunset burst into a light stream that broke the connection and brought us "home," I felt something I hadn't in a long time upon the conclusion of a theme park ride — sad and disappointed that the experience was over. I wanted more. So I rode again.
The land's other ride is the Na'vi River Journey, a family boat ride that features what might be Disney's most expensive Audio Animatronic, the $10 million Shaman of Songs.
While I love to see Disney, or any other park, build a new family boat ride, I hate to see parks forget to include the very necessary story element in the process. Na'vi River Journey is an exercise in aesthetics — a voyage through Pandora's bioluminescent forest, following the path of the Na'vi. It's visually amazing, but there are no conflicts, no stakes, nor even a well-defined journey for us to follow. Nothing to bring the wonderful sights in the ride fully to life. If the rest of Pandora advances theme park design, Na'vi River Journey returns us to the world's most expensive Tunnel of Love ride.
Ironically, Pandora the land also falls short of accomplishing one of Avatar the movie's grand thematic goals — empowering those with physical disabilities to find a way to feel as physically able as those around them. In the film, Sam Worthington's Jake Sully did that through his connection with an avatar. In the land, however, those in wheelchairs are required to transfer from them in order to experience either of the rides. In Disney's idealism for a better world through understanding of nature, it missed its opportunity to create that better world for some of the fans who support it.
That's a shame, because what Disney has done with Pandora can be exhilarating. Everyone should get the opportunity to share in that. Disney has reached great heights with Pandora. But the problem with raising your game is that you raise your audience's expectations, as well.
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Although Disney spend great money on this addition and a lot of work and attention to detail went into building it, I cannot say it creates the need for me to come visit.
I think the area looks neat, but during daytime never evokes the feeling of being on another planet. To me it somehow looks like the expensive environment of a well made zoo, not an alien planet. The floating mountains appear bulky and heavy. Since this is an outdoor area, a lot of the vegetation used is known to us, the various alien additions look forced and don't blend all that well with the real plants in my opinion. Surely at night it will look different, but most of the visiting time will be during daylight.
For the two rides, I watched some onride videos of this expensive Tunnel of Love Ride and the next screen based Soarin' like attraction and was left with the feeling: that's it? I am sure the experience of Flight of Passage will be amazing, but it doesn't convince me that this is something new and never before seen or experienced.
I always questioned the decision to use a foreign planet as a metaphor to point at the environmental issues here on earth. Does that come across at all when you are in this new area? The idea feels forced and fakey. It works well on screen because everything there seems real and can be made to fit the storyline. In the real world I think I'd rather visit the other areas of Animal Kingdom and experience real animals and learn about their habitats and endangerment than trying to imagine how bad the people behaved on Pandora towards nature and the Nav'i.
So I am glad you had a great time and I am sure this new area will draw a lot of visitors. However, I won't be one of them in the near future so I am happy to leave my place in the queue to someone more enthusiastic of Pandora ;)
Keep up the good work and maybe you want to take a look at the change Disneyland Paris made in their press releases about what the planned investment will be spend on. Now it looks like till 2024 there will be no new additions in the park …
Not really anonymous poster. Justice League is piggy-backing on a license that is already bought and paid for (though there was probably an additional fee for each new application of the license across the chain). Disney had no relationship with 20th Century Fox/James Cameron, so licensing costs are likely pretty significant to secure Avatar and to also provide Disney the creative and financial freedom to profit from the licensing deal.
Also, as far as more "technologically advanced", I'm not sure about that. Oceaneering dark ride vehicles are pretty much industry standard these days and have been around since 1999 when Spiderman debuted at IOA. The combination of the dark ride with shooting gallery has been around for over a decade now developed by Sally, so there's very little technology on Justice League that's truly new. Not only that, there are already 3 other versions of the ride open around the country (including a 4th in Mexico), though I will note that supposedly the SFMM version is to be slightly longer. The projection technology on Flight of Passage is nothing out of the ordinary, but from what's been revealed about the ride vehicles, they employ technology never before incorporated on a theme park attraction. Add to that the advanced animatronics (Avatar in the queue of FoP and Shaman on River Journey), and there's no way you can argue that Justice League is more advanced technologically than the PtWOA attractions.
According to a Six Flags press release, the Justice League ride going into Magic Mountain will be different than the other similarly-named rides in their other parks. Although not longer in duration, a third of its scenes will be different than other versions of the ride and there will be at least one additional animatronic character involved in the adventure.
I find it very encouraging that Disney is now willing to spend whatever it takes to create something great. I applaud them for heavily reinvesting in their parks, and it will be worth every penny in order to stay on top of the family friendly parks business.
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That's a key thing, how much it pays off. I do remember how blogs went wild on Sea World's great detail for the Antartica section...and then it did pretty much nothing for business. Disney and Avatar should work better and hard to bet against them.