Wish Upon a Blue Sky, The Top 30 Disney Attractions Never Built #25: The Asian Safari and the Animal Kingdom Dilemma

Warning: this is the longest article you've ever read in your life. It might be better for you to engage in a shorter activity, like fully exploring Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. This is an article about Animal Kingdom. It literally is EVERY thought anyone's ever had about Animal Kingdom. Don't say you haven't been warned. It's about cloning, and more safaris, and C-Tickets, dorms (don't ask), and disco. And it's about what could be done to make Animal Kingdom fresher than ever! To be absolutely fair to you, the reader, I've constructed a full Table of Contents for your upcoming journey, to help you navigate the Light and Dark Worlds. Let the century begin.

Animal Kingdom in More Words Than You’ve Ever Wanted

I.               A Discussion on Clones

1.    Types of Clones

2.    Best Clones

3.    Worst Clones

4.    Secret Clones (Clone Variations)

II.             The Second Safari

A.    The Asian Safari

B.    The Ride Itself

III.           The Animal Kingdom Dilemma: A Full Critique

A.    The Ambition of Animal Kingdom

B.    Animal Kingdom’s Lovers and Haters

C.    Land by Land

1.    The Oasis

2.    Discovery Island

a.     Tree of Life

b.    It’s Tough to Be a Bug

3.    The Shows

a.     Festival of the Lion King

b.    Finding Nemo

4.    Kilimanjaro Safaris/Africa

5.    Conservation Station

6.    Everest

7.    Asia/Kali River Rapids

8.    Dinoland

a.     The Theming

b.    Dino-Vomit

c.     Countdown to Extinction (NOT Dinosaur)

D.    Where Are the People?

1.    The Half-Day Park

2.    The Nahtazu

3.    Attendance

E.    Theming and Message

1.    Reality vs. Escapist Theming

2.    Hypocrisy

3.    Naïveté

4.    Negativity

F.    What Would You Do?

1.    Consistent Message

2.    Enjoying the Park

3.    Headliners/E-Tickets

4.    Dinoland

5.    Characters, C-Tickets, Immersive Theming, Phase II Expansion

6.    Extras: Dining, Behind the Scenes, Nitghttime Fun

IV.           Fin

A. Post-Show Video

Clones, and the Attacks of Said Clones

It is strangely and inherently paradoxical that Disney fans (and casual visitors) seem to at once welcome and disdain duplicated attractions. It’s one of the many ongoing battles that designers fight with executives on, that fans write to executives on, and that fans argue with each other on. Over the internet age, Disney fans have taken to call this subject the “cloning” phenomenon. Each interested party has its own views on the subject, frankly in a rather black-and-white perspective. “Cloning sucks/is terrible/is bad” is what many old-school Disney fans say. “Cloning is best for business” is what executives say. Yet in this day and age of discussion boards and online forums, there are honestly few areas contention that should be less black-and-white than the cloning question.

Disney, and other theme park chains/franchises/what have you are part of the cloning business. It comes with the territory. Ever since Walt proclaimed that his new planned community would have, at the head of Phase 1, a theme park similar to Disneyland, cloning has become part of the lexicon of the theme park business. This implies, since we’ve been doing this for almost 50 years now (yes kids, WDW’s 50^th is right around the corner, not that Disney would actually do much of anything about it), that there are many, many examples of cloning within the theme park ranks, and there are. But when it comes to sound business decisions, especially when branded entertainment is involved, cloning goes only so far. Hitting the “Expand Forever” button does not work, as the Six Flags overexposure of the early 2000s would suggest. So, like many other business decisions, it’s important to straddle the line when cloning is involved.

It's good to see Jay Rasulo's team finally got some sun

With this sort of subject, one that is not necessarily black-and-white, it is not what is done but rather how it is executed. Execution, for the most part, is everything. I have yet to meet a person who is so religiously against cloning that he or she despises the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, or Tokyo Disneyland. These are, after all, clones, are they not? Yet even the most pants-on-head devout who would so much microwave his own spleen before being subjected to another clone thinks MK and TDL really isn’t so bad, all things considered. So the question is, just where exactly is the line of demarcation? At what point do the “Exploitation!” alarm bells sound?

Thanks Disney

At both ends of the spectrum, it’s easy to see where both sides are coming from. The hardcore fans do not like clones. Setting aside the aesthetic and metagaming reasons here, clones are duplicated at different parks, and since hardcore fans are frequent visitors at multiple resorts, they do not like to see a “new ride” being touted at Disneyland when it is “just an old ride” from WDW. “Why should I go see Winnie the Pooh at Disneyland when I’ve already seen it at Disney World?” the thinking goes. That’s hard to argue. Cloned attractions lower the uniqueness, and therefore the value, of a particular park or resort. The executives, of course, love cloning. If a particular attraction is popular at one resort (and more importantly, gets more merchandising revenue), of course it would make sense to duplicate that popularity at another property. As Kirk Wise would say, “If they laughed at one banana peel, they’ll laugh twice as hard at two banana peels!” A cloned attraction all but guarantees success without paying as much overhead for more design and R&D, and as a result the attraction’s budget would be greatly reduced. It’s less risky and has a built-in audience, like a movie sequel. It’s executive nirvana. The casual visitor, stuck in the middle, doesn’t really care that much either way. The casual visitor doesn’t visit multiple Disney resorts, so a SoCal local will be thrilled that she finally gets to ride Tower of Terror (too soon?)

Of course, this brings the question to the casual visitor, as to everyone, on whether the cloned attraction was properly executed. After all, some attractions are far more popular on one coast than the other. A cloned attraction done improperly can ruin the impact. There are several ways to both succeed and fail in instituting a cloned attraction, and Disney has tested every method under the sun in its 45-year cloning history. 

The easiest way to hit a home run with a clone is to simply take the original attraction and expand on it; either give it some additional scenes, construct more elaborate sets, or build more sophisticated vehicles. Probably the best examples of this are the Walt Disney World versions of Splash Mountain and the Haunted Mansion. Both took the baseline model of the original, enhanced it, added new scenes that augmented the story and did not detract, and literally upgraded every element possible. In my opinion, this is the best way to execute a clone.

Another equally valid implementation of a clone is to twist the original design due to space limitations, while still retaining the original scope and scale (and budget) of the original. Notice how most instances of the first method I mentioned were applied at WDW (where there is space aplenty), and most instances in this second method can be found at Disneyland, where space considerations come into play. The best examples of this second method are Disneyland’s Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear attractions. In each, space (no pun intended) was much more limited, and the attractions had to be fit into much smaller buildings (DL’s Space Mountain dome is famously set on top of a warehouse, unlike the massive WDW cone that contains the entire ’75 attraction). However, the scope of each attraction (the E-Ticket Space and the C-Ticket Buzz) was kept appropriately, and each attraction was redesigned but not condensed. Both are great examples of cloning done well, and artistically creative to boot.