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Yeah in retrospect it was very ââ90sâ and definitely could never have lasted to today. Instead they neutralized it with earth tones, which is a better fit with existing circulation spaces. The original design was a VERY bold opening act⌠like, more saturated than Disneyland. Hahah
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"Maybe THIS will be the time that people flock to a land with no anchor attraction!"
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Which is also going away thanks to the new hotel. It took till 2027+ but we may actually get permanent post-9/11 security infrastructure at southern California parks! đ¤Ł
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Hereâs Martha Schwartz Partnersâ page on this project if youâre interested in learning more or want to see their other projects across the globe! msp.world/projects/dis...
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So weâll see whatâs next, but in the meantime, kinda cool to be able to step into living history and actually look carefully at a space most of us have spent 27 years just passing through like a neutral zone.
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But just because this area A) didnât resonate and B) wasnât in the park doesnât mean it wasnât a carefully-curated space designed by real artists and architects! A first impression for generations(!) of entering guests! Kinda wild!
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Yeah, the âHyper-Highwayâ didnât really jive and didnât feel artistic or fantastical in the right way, and then just 3 years after it debuted 9/11 basically required it to be all be retrofitted with tents and bike racks and gates anyway.
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27 years later, a lot of the âartistic intentâ has been lost, colors muted, patterns changed, and operational uses shifted⌠Which is needed, because clearly this space didnât have the âtimelessnessâ of the Esplanade or even Downtown Disneyâs âvineâ motif.
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The point here (and at the west shuttle stop) was to create a space that immediately differentiated pedestrian flow areas from vehicular ones, while also being incredibly saturated and vivid. This was a transition space between the real world and the Esplanade â âform and functionâ.
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Past a âBaroque-inspiredâ hedge entry, MSP developed the transportation plaza around the concept of the âHyper-Highwayâ â a highly stylized caricature of transportation motifs. Giant safety cones, exaggerated crosswalks, and âhighway lights,â all echoing a swirling hedge maze.
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Iâve already decreed it shall not change and I wonât have my will disobeyed. parklore.com/vault/rename...
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And apparently preserving ground level access from Harbor. I also dig that (at least here) theyâre apparently drawing on the DTD west mid century aesthetic. Would be nice to unite both entrances with the same architectural language and mid century fits Disneyland really well.
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Also, did someone just forget to illustrate Tomorrowland, or it is being enclosed? đ
Should I go full conspiracy theorist and say that this art originally showed a New Tomorrowland and they just obscured it because theyâre not ready to announce?
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To be fair, I don't think "racing" is the conceit here. It's "off-roading" on a tour through the landscapes. It may or may not have some speedier sections, but this is meant to focus more on climbing and navigating rough terrain as opposed to speed.
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I mean, with legacy Six Flags, a "2025 coaster" would either open in late September 2025 or June 2026, so it wouldn't surprise me.
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Agreed! It wouldâve been Disaster except that RRR opened the year after. Quite a streak for IP free things! Hahah.
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This is so true and I wrote a whole thing about it. đ I call it the era of the âDisney+ Parksâ. Itâs not just about IP infusions, itâs a total shift in what Imagineering is about: content curation instead of creation. parklore.com/vault/disney-plus-parks
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Yep, that appears to be our current era.
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It kinda depends on your threshold. Was âAlfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Moviesâ themed to an intellectual property? The short lived tram tour? Animal Actors? Itâs difficult at a studio park, like people saying Rip Ride Rockitâs IP was the Universal Music Group. Lol.
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I use Buffer (@buffer.com)!
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I rode an installation of this elsewhere and it definitely takes work to flip, especially if the ride cycle is short (which I assume it is at UE â Itâs a VERY low capacity ride for a destination park. Even four copies wouldnât be enough.)
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UPDATE: They donât spin and never will oops
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I kinda started one and itâs so hard đ
it has some real fundamental things to work around but Iâm trying!!
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Thank you! You're the best!
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Ahhh thatâs so cool hahaha! I will say I got so into this one that I actually was sad coming back down to earth and realizing it wasnât real. Crazy behavior.
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This got me. Sad but great. Hope you have a great time.
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I have distinct memories of seeing the Trident among the nautical stuff as a kid and being like "omg... that's THEE Trident. Like, the real thing!"
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The bigger point around these remakes in particular is that no one â even at Disney â thinks these things will supplant the originals or become anyoneâs preferred version. They exist purely to make a billion dollars, reinvigorate the core IPâs retail & licensing, and never be thought of again. đŹ
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I'll go to my grave wondering how you can just remove a row from a TOP SPIN, aka the ride where balance, symmetry, and weight distribution are literally the entire thing. And it's not like they somehow carved out the middle row.
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Discovery via the diverging paths and great circles, innovation with the âcul-de-sacâ lands. This is the first real post-WWOHP park, and the organizing principle of portals diverging from a massive central land thatâs a harmonic garden of mythic celestials is genuinely so captivating to me.
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I don't know why the image is so compressed and low quality. đŽâđ¨ Here's another try.
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Sure, but like, the Mario coin, the Time Turner, and the two-planet mobile on the Chronos feel like things that should flip and add kinetics. Idk.
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Essentially one "world" size, one "sub-world" size, and two that are "attraction" size.
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Obviously, shout out to @alicia.social and @bioreconstruct.bsky.social whose multi-year coverage of this park belongs in the Library of Congress.
Now, I get to do just what Universal Creative is doing... to start to fill in those expansion pads. đ¤ New Park Lore Build-Out is coming soon...!