Some of you who live near there may already have been aware of this, but I just heard about this yesterday. And I have mixed feelings about some of the things they’ve done with it. All the characters are done in that small world puppet style. Some are very subtle (Aladdin & Jas, Alice, Simba, Timon and Pumbaa). Others, not so much (Dory, Nemo, and Flounder, look exactly the same which means they dont blend in as well. Plus woody and Jesse look a little creepy to me).
One more thing is I dont know why they stuck Ariel in the South Pacific. Based on what was in the movie, I’d say Ariel lived somewhere near the Mediterranean. Maybe near the south of France. It seemed like just an excuse to use her.
I heard rumors about this, but I was secretly hoping that they wouldn’t go through with the renovation. Alas, I was wrong!
This is the future, folks: When Disney changes everything (or, at least, signifcant things) that some remember from their childhood. Personally, I always liked the fact that no Disney characters were present in the “Small World” attraction – it stressed the unique aspect of the ride and transported you to a world of an entirely different atmosphere; I never really felt like I was in Disneyland when I rode it, and that never bothered me for a minute. Now, however, one can’t seem to escape the likes of Donald or Simba. Not that that’s a bad thing. I simply wish that Disney would leave such attractions alone, as it was the original, enticing environment of the ride that made it so (for lack of a better word) special.
That said, I’m sure I’ll enjoy the ride anyway the next time I visit Disneyland. The addition of the new characters and the replacement of others is fairly subtle, and doesn’t bother me too much. (I will miss the Hawaiian surfing boy, however.) Nevertheless, that doesn’t make me like Disney’s current, often brain-washed decisions any more…
I hope they have Hercules, Meg, and the Muses to represent Greece!
This should be something more like “A Whole New World” type experience…
I don’t know that much about it, but here’s my guess on how it’ll be like…
Africa=The Lion King
Hawaii=Lilo and Stitch
China=Mulan
Greece=Hercules
Arabia (Agrabah, to be more precise): Aladdin
Finding Nemo=The ocean (and Austrailia?)
Pochahantas=Earlier America
Ratatouille[if included, though probably not]=France
I wish they could also include other worlds besides our own in there, like Atlantis, Treasure Planet, Monsters, Inc., and Neverland, because those were Disney, too!
Then again, because Atlantis and Treasure Planet are too underrated and unpopular to become an attraction, and there’s already a Monsters, Inc. attraction and a Peter Pan one, then that probably won’t happen…sigh
Mitch- I gotta say I lean more and more toward your feeling as well. The whole point of the ride is to celebrate the common traits we share with other cultures, which has nothing to do with Disney characters. I too felt no need or desire to see characters on this ride, because I was under the impression it wasnt meant to be a character ride. On one hand it’s okay I guess, since most of them do seem to blend with the rest, but on the other it seems like they over-commercialized it. (It’s like when they put Iago and Zazu in the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disney World, only not as bad )
It differently change. I recently went to disneyland and went on the ride to see the changes. I noticed they did put certain disney characters in part of each land.
like for example; Lilo and Stich in hawaii, I did find nemo and dory and Marlin under the sea somewhere on the ride. Mulan and a cute mushu in china. I did spot pinococo too. The three amigos (donald duck, and those two other birds). I also spotted Ariel too.
lennonluvr9 - Yeah, it just seems like they’re trying too hard to advertise their characters and “familiarize” their attractions. Again, perhaps I’m just too over-concerned about this. The characters do seem to blend in well with the ride, from what I’ve seen in the video that you provided, but I still prefer the “original” version…
They inserted Iago and Zazu into the “Enchanted Tiki Room”?! Gosh, that’s terrible… (snigger)
Yeah they did, and it was baaaaaad. Although I hear there’s rumors of them bringing back the original show to WDW for the 40th in 2011, which would be nice.
It didn’t bother me that they added some characters in. The restoration was needed, and they did a great job. It’s basically the same, only it looks like new.
Go see it…it was the first time we ever stood in a long line for it, too!
Well…it’s a little cute, I saw Alice and for some strange reason, she reminded me of my LDD’s…shrugs I don’t know but the only thing is that song…it’s so catchy that it just gets annoying and to add to that, it’s in more than one language…oh dear…
In and of themselves, the characters are cute. But they’re a distraction from the original theme of the ride, which was the commonality between everyone in the world. There was no star to the attraction, all the dolls were equals, but now the characters are the stars.
I believe the characters were the price to be paid for the refurbishment (which otherwise looks great) - they’re there to function as toy advertisements to appease the executives. My solution is to remove them from the ride, and place them in displays in a refurbished Small World Toy Shop, as a sort of a post show.
Also, the new America scene they added reminds me more of Kuzco’s Doodles from the Emperor’s New Groove than it does of Mary Blair’s distinctive 1960’s faux-naif style in the rest of the ride.
I agree. But I could live with the characters being in there if they didnt devote an entire room to one country, that is, America. I can understand maybe wanting to add America in somewhere, since I dont think it was represented, but I dont think there needed to be a whole room about it. It would make more sense to me though, to put an America part in with a ‘small world’ ride that’s not in the US. To me its similar to having a small world ride in say, Disneyland Paris and devoting an entire room just to France.
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