Tag Archives: Disney

The Disney Channel

Posted on by renmiked

I recently returned from a trip to Disney World in Orlando, and while there ended up watching far too much Disney Channel.  I have a two year-old, so the morning shows, such as Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, are great.  Unfortunately, after about 10 AM it’s all tween garbage, except Phineas and Ferb.  There is nothing on either The Disney Channel or Disney XD for younger children after the early morning.

Having two networks you would think they could devote one to the under 10 crowd and the other to the tweens, but this is not the case.  The young kids are thrown to the wayside  for nauseating tween programs like The Suite Life On Deck and Hannah Montana.  I’m sure these are fine shows for certain ages, but why is the under ten crowd completely abandoned?  It’s more likely that a 3 -4 year-old will be home at 11am than a 12-year-old, isn’t it?  So why not show cartoons until early afternoon? Seventy-five episodes of The Suite Life, each day, are just not necessary.

At home we don’t have The Disney Channel, so I never really notice until vacation.  After experiencing the programming, I have no interest in adding it for my son.  I can buy a few DVD’s of the shows he likes, and avoid hours of Hannah.  I would like to see Disney add a network for younger kids, that minimizes tween comedies and focuses more on cartoons.  I don’t know if this will happen, since even in the Magic Kingdom they are abandoning young kids by ripping out Mickey’s Toon Town Fair to put in Pixie Hollow.  I’m sure Pixie Hollow will generate more money by selling things to 10 – 12 year-old girls, but if you keep pushing the youngest kids away eventually you will begin to lose them.

Tron Legacy: Why?

Posted on by renmiked

The original Tron was released when I was nine and didn’t really have a grasp of the concept of the film.  I have watched the original just recently, and in my opinion Tron did not age well.  Films like the original Tron, Episodes 1,2 and 3 of Star Wars and Avatar, that rely far too heavily on cutting edge graphics with only a minimal story become dated much more rapidly than other movies.  The original Star Wars trilogy has held up terrifically, while that had incredible graphics for the time, they do not seem as cheesy as dated computer graphics.

I have not seen Tron Legacy and probably won’t.  I’m really not sure why a sequel was even made at this point and while the original is a cult classic, it is by no means a main stream hit.  Reportedly Tron Legacy cost upwards of $320 million dollars, that is insane.  $320 mil for a sequel to a film that flopped nearly thirty years ago at this point seems like a ridiculous decision.  If I were to say lets do a sequel to Big Trouble in Little China, and we’ll spend a couple hundred million on it, you would think I was crazy.  But I would argue that BTiLC is just as much of a cult classic as Tron.  It certainly has held up much better than Tron but thankfully no one is rebooting that.

I just hate to see this kind of money wasted on another forgettable movie, that I believe will bomb.  $300,000,000 could go a long way to producing several well written, well acted films that may have as good a chance of being a hit as Tron Legacy.  Maybe I’m just tired of shitty movies and rehashed ideas and the the public will prove me wrong by eating this up and making TL a huge success. I don’t see that happening but it could.  Tron legacy just seems like one of those projects that you look at and say WTF?  We will find out soon enough if the huge gamble by Disney will pay off this time or if history will repeat itself and the Legacy will bomb as hard as the original.

Thoughts From My Latest Disney World Trip

Posted on by renmiked

First off I will give a few places to escape the heat for a few moments, especially in the summer:

EPCOT

Morocco: If you enter the Morocco complex and look to the left you will see a set of double doors.  Inside of those doors is an exhibit and best of all, cold AC.  There is also a bench with an electrical outlet behind it if you need to charge your phone.

Journey to Imagination: Generally, there is a short line for Journey to Imagination and it is air conditioned.  Also after the ride there is an area for kids to explore as well as a shop.

Magic Kingdom

Carousel of Progress: This attraction has seen better days and is never crowded.  Hop on in and enjoy the air and a quaint look back at the 20th century while you cool down.

Pirates of the Caribbean: While Pirates can have a bit of a line mostly it is inside and is dark as well as cool.

Hollywood Studios

The Great Movie Ride: Another out of date attraction that can be used to cool off while little wait on a steamy summer day.

Animal Kingdom

I don’t have any for here so if you do feel free to chime in.

Here is a list of attractions I would make minor changes to to bring them up to date or make them more comfortable for guests:

Tomorrowland Speedway: All they really need to do here is get new fiberglass bodies for the cars that look like Lightning McQueen, Doc Hudson, Chick Hicks, etc and change the name to Motor Speedway of the South.  Those things along with other minor theming tweaks would completely change the experience of this ride. Cars is Disney’s biggest cash cow for merchandise and to have such a small presence in the parks is disappointing.

Country Bear Jamboree: The sound is so poor in the theater that if the audience claps along you can’t hear the performance.  Re-record the entire show, exactly as it is, with current artists or no-names and add a better sound system.  You don’t need to rip the whole thing down just some minor changes and upgrades.  the attraction is almost forty years old and needs some help.

Fantasyland: Add fans (a lot of fans) to the lines for Peter Pan, Snow White and Winnie the Pooh.  While these lines are under cover they can be stifling because so many bodies a jammed together and there is no airflow.  This upgrade cannot cost enough to not do it.

The Great Movie Ride: It has been twenty-one years and only a few new scenes have been added to the ending montage, its time to add more clips of more recent “classics”.  Leave all of the stuff inside but change the trailers shown in the queue and the clips shown at the end.  It would at least breathe some life into a dead ride.

Overall I still enjoy WDW quite a bit but these are a few of the things I noticed while there on a recent trip.  Let me know your thoughts and suggestions for these lists.

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