Over the weekend on WDWMagic forums, @len made this bold statement:
“I’m hearing the initial plans for Villains’ Land have been scrapped. Imagineers have been told to think of bigger, bolder ideas. Budget secondary. Not sure if this is “new players, new game” re: Josh as CEO.”
Now, usually if Len says it, it has a very good chance of happening. The only thing that sounds strange about this is “budget secondary”, because of how many announced attractions have we lost because the bean counters at Disney thought the project to be too expensive.
True…BUT, Disney has gotten a lot of flack in recent years for cheapening out on attractions. With the next-level of Epic Universe, and the negative responses Disney has gotten, perhaps they are starting to realize that making a “cheaper” version doesn’t necessarily translate into “beloved”.
I’ve seen comments from a couple of people along these lines … Not saying Brayden is the most reliable source, but logically it makes sense to me that Len could have caught wind of news from a year ago. The land is already fairly along in the clearing, permitting, site prepping, etc. phase.
In the past, I’ve found Brayden to be quite reliable most of the time. But lately, he’s all but abandoned his YouTube channel. I suspect his “real job” is getting in the way of staying on top of things like he once was. This isn’t to say he is no longer as realiable…only that we don’t get enough sampling from him any longer to judge him on!!!
Yeah I have nothing against him, but he is just a guy. He has provided some reliable information in the past, but I have not done an analysis to determine accuracy. I would also say Len is a reliable source, though! Brayden and Len’s information is compatible if you adjust for the potential of Len’s data point being stale.
All this to say, I would prefer to have at least 2-3 reliable sources converging on the same answer before coming to a conclusion. Like if Joe Rohde made a comment.
Yeah. Quite true. It could even have been a minor case of misunderstanding…where someone meant that where things are today is because there was a request for a change to think bigger…but that the “request” was made two years ago!!!
oh, that’s interesting.
What else should it have included.
I do think it is an underrated facade/queue. It is one of my least favorite movies, but I think the outside is stunning.
My understanding is that the original design was a suspended ride system like Peter Pan where the ride vehicles would “descend” under the sea and move through scenes in a way that was more immersive than the current ride system.
This is off topic, but you mentioning Peter Pan made me remember this. But while watching a vlogger at a different DIsney park, their Peter Pan ride had boats with TWO rows of seats instead of one like at WDW. Given how popular PP is, and how long the wait gets, I thought it would be cool if Disney would replace the current ride vehicles with two seaters. It wouldn’t double capacity, but it would come CLOSE to doubling capacity.
Okay. That’s all. Sorry for this brief interruption.
They spent gobs of money several years ago to expand the queue and make it “interesting” to wait in (since the line is always so long). If they increased ride capacity by increasing number of riders per ship, they can rework the queue to accommodate wheelchairs!!! (The only reason they NEEDED to update the queue like they did was because of how long the waits are!!!)
Yes, I was trying to post about what Len said on the podcast about this before I went into a meeting but I couldn’t correct some typos so I just deleted the whole thing
Oddly enough the Theseus Ship analogy came up in the Uncensored Thread this past weekend! What are the odds?
I enjoyed this discussion and appreciated the additional background Len gave. Obviously this rumor has meat to it and is not just a case of delayed information making the rounds.
Construction is absolutely going forward but what he said (or implied might be a better word - he was very careful with his verbiage) is that they are reworking the elements of each ride / restaurant within the footprint already established. They want guests to “love” (not “like”) the new land and spend money for 10 years on LLSP and prix fixe dining.
