Why Can't Disney Get Avengers Campus Right? | Another Failure in Walt Disney Studios Park

[Music] just when i thought that avengers campus couldn't get worse disney went and opened another one at walt disney studios park in paris about a year ago i released a pretty scathing impression video covering avengers campus at disney california adventure and having visited since then my opinion has not changed i compared it then to something that feels like it was dreamed up by six flags and the same holds true here in paris as well i don't know like i knew that this was happening but it still didn't hit me that this was likely going to be as bad as it has now turned out to be seriously i don't understand how company leadership can be this outright stupid is it really that difficult to create an interesting marvel attraction with the most profitable film franchise in the world if you don't know the history of this particular studio park i'll be giving a recap a little bit later what's important to know though is that it has been highly troubled from the beginning and under iger and al chapek a series of incredibly misguided fixes as they call them haven't really made the park any better but have certainly thrown into light how flagrantly disney leadership wastes money on absolutely stupid projects what even was the point of all this if this park is still an embarrassment for the company even after all this investment today we're going to take a look at why this park is in such abysmal shape covering this hilariously poor excuse for a themed land and finally tying it into disney's complete lack of ability to not bungle a marvel project [Music] [Music] so i've already made it pretty clear that i think that this is an overall negative retheme to the former backlot area of this already deeply troubled park however i think it's important to have context as to why this park was so bad to begin with i've already covered this in another video and it doesn't really make sense to rewrite what i've already covered before so i'm just going to insert a clip from that now in order to bring you up to speed [Music] in 1992 euro disneyland opened just outside of paris the story of the failure of this park has been covered time and time again so it's not something i'm going to really talk about here however the primary takeaway is that this was an incredibly expensive flop for the company so much money and time had gone into creating one of the best disney parks possible and yet disney completely misunderstood the western european audience that it was trying to attract because of this the park received a lot of vocal backlash and attracted very little in the way of attendance however disney was contractually obligated to build a second park on the land and so walt disney studios park opened in 2002 using the studio theme as a bland and cheap excuse to construct unthemed buildings this park itself is an absolute embarrassment for the company not only was the park footprint incredibly small but the distasteful and cheap atmosphere in conjunction with just a small handful of rides made the park seem like a discount version of even six flags when bob iger stepped in as ceo in 2005 the park would receive a number of cheaper band-aid fixes this would range from off-the-shelf flat rides like cars race rally to the sparsely themed toy story playland which also consisted almost exclusively of flat rides other additions would include a clone of the watered-down version of the twilight zone tower of terror in an indoor coaster simply called crush's coaster this particular attraction would send you through a minute of lightly themed scenes before dropping you into a gravity portion almost completely in the dark however while these editions did at least give the park more to do its first real substantial addition would be in 2014 with ratatouille the adventure based off of the 2007 film at this point trackless dark rides were still a relatively new novelty and the quality of this ride was far beyond what the rest of walt disney studios paris offered because the rest of the park is so underdeveloped and offers such a hollow experience ratatouille definitely feels like a welcome addition and an e-ticket for the park it's clear to me that while these additions made capacity marginally better it's still an incredibly underbuilt park that's not to mention that these additions just don't really cut it either i've said it time and time again but disney today just isn't building attractions that reach what i considered to be the high bar that they were always looking to push upward in the past it's all about creating rather standard rides and slapping a marketable ip onto them like you know six flags would i don't think that disney has built a truly exceptional attraction since flight of passage and even then if you're not counting it next in line would be expedition everest all the way back in 2006. just so we're clear because i know people will mention it in the comments i do not consider rise of the resistance to be anything special my points on that aren't really relevant to this video so maybe i'll produce another one that breaks down why i feel that way but no i don't think that it really matches the disney standard of anything pre-2006 so with pretty poor investment coming into the park disney finally announced a whole new slate of projects in a major park expansion in 2018. this will include expanding the footprint of the park by excavating a lake that will have a rendition of arendelle with a cloned version of frozen ever after to its left is what appears to be a small slice of galaxy's edge with its worst attraction smuggler's run i was under the impression that even this was cancelled but i suppose we'll see the third and quickest addition would be a rebuild of the backlots turning it into avengers campus as we now see however this poorly thought of studio park also had its own version of the backlot tour from disney mgm even though this park never made any attempt at filmmaking so with re-theming this area what was to happen to that attraction well it closed in 2020 it opened just a year later as carr's road trip which may just be the most pathetic attraction i've ever seen come out of this company it takes the tram route removes the movie props and sticks in some static characters from the car's franchise and by some i mean some because it's literally just the scene where you go by and lightning yells could chow towards the end you also see mater and fillmore next to an eiffel tower made up of car parts oh and there's billboards as well which makes up a good quarter of the experience most notable is the slightly re-themed catastrophe canyon which i think works as a great visual representation of the state of the park to summarize my thoughts before we move on walt disney studios park was pretty bad from its inception being built out of contractual obligation however eiger knew that the park was a disaster and so his solution was a series of half-baked band-aid fixes now though the park is planning major expansion by coining some underwhelming rides from other disney parks which leads us to the opening of the absolutely embarrassing avengers campus as with california this version of avengers campus is vaguely themed around a former industrial complex founded by howard stark i believe that part of the backstory here is that peggy carter also wants to use this for a european shield complex however today it is a european outpost for the avengers and is maintained by tony stark as far as the aesthetic is concerned there's not much to really say other than it's absurdly generic there's nothing really distinguishing it from any real-life industrial park which i'm pretty sure was done because disney wanted to present a whole new land on the cheap if the park is still a mess though why bother cheaping out when they had the opportunity to really build something incredible with the most profitable film franchise in the world well i think we should take a look at this comments from the opening ceremony and i think that our guests are going to be astounded by the detail and the creativity at avengers campus as they explore and become a bigger part of that universe and for the first time in europe guests will get to experience the thrills and real-life adventures just like the ones that they've seen in their favorite comics on the big screen and of course on disney plus ah there we go so this was all about driving subscriptions to disney plus through brand synergy which to be up front is not very strong here if i knew nothing about marvel and visited this land i would probably be turned off to it because this is as bland and generic as it gets i think it's amusing how he highlighted the lens details and storytelling of which i can find none that's a great segue into exploring what this land offers which to be fair is quite little when walking down the strip you'll see pym's kitchen on your left when i covered this land in california i did make notes that i actually thought that there were some interesting and clever elements here in both its theming and in how they served mismatched portion sizes to fit in with the shrinking ant-man theme however here in paris they somehow managed to screw up the execution by replacing the one interesting practical effect of the restaurant with an overhead screen i mean was it really that difficult or expensive to place in a charming practical effect that was even appealing to a cynic like me how much money could they have possibly saved from excluding this you removed the one thing that i actually liked about avengers campus that's all that's the only reason i made this video don't forget to like and subscribe no but in all seriousness it's just so oddly unnecessary to remove this element when pym's kitchen was otherwise just a sterile hospital cafeteria it helped make it unique even if not particularly compelling in and of itself i've spent too much time on this though so let's move on to the other eating establishment the stark factory set in a repurposed warehouse you're greeted first with a static statue of the hulkbuster which is kind of cool i suppose otherwise the theme is just industrial because again it's clear that disney only wanted to spend money on a bare bones building and thought that they could justify this as being in theme with tony stark or something there is one room that seems to preserve peggy carter's desk from the 1940s for some odd reason but otherwise you can sit and enjoy your view of concrete as you eat your food wrapping up the dining options you can also visit a food truck and a diner you can see they really got creative here before we move on to the attractions i would like to mention that there's an obligatory retail space known as the mission equipment store [Music] important to note is that this merchandise is as uninteresting as they possibly could have made it in my previous avengers campus video i did make comparisons to universal's marvel superhero island and while certainly tacky with its 90s comic book theme the merchandise offered throughout its shops is far more dynamic and varied than these target t-shirts and toys i hope i've clearly illustrated how shallow the retail and dining is here so let's move on to what you've been waiting for the rides the attraction lineup of avengers campus wouldn't be complete without character meet and greets and it's my understanding that different characters will premiere and walk throughout the land as new installments in the marvel cinematic universe debut however unlike in california paris does have its own interior meeting space known as the training center inside you'll currently be able to meet both spider-man and iron man while taking photos in a more controlled environment rather than you know in the corner of a building somewhere i'm not sure if these characters will change over time or if more are currently offered but i think it's safe to assume that this will remain dynamic if you're looking for rides though the land does offer two the first is a clone of spider-man web slingers and other than some small cube changes appears to essentially be exactly the same if you're watching you probably already know that i think this attraction is nothing but wasted potential especially considering how high a bar universal set with the amazing adventures of spider-man all the way back in 1999 24 years later and the best that disney could do with the world's most popular superhero is creating less interesting version of toy story mania i don't really need to repeat what i said about it in my previous avengers campus video but i do have one new point to make because this is an exact clone as far as i can determine the scenes you visit are set in the california version of avengers campus that means you'll be visiting the collector's fortress which obviously isn't present in the land here amusingly disney decided that spending the money to retheme this version of the tower of terror wasn't worth it even though they already cover the cost of the r d as the two versions of the ride are almost identical between paris and california it's a really strong testament to just how incompetent disney leadership is at this point the park is in such a mess that i don't care if the attraction gets rethemed or stays because who could really get invested in a place this poorly mismanaged speaking of mismanagement that will allow me to segue into the second attraction offered here known as avengers assemble flight force this ride is a retheme of this park's version of rock and roller coaster and while that was a pretty low bar to clear it still manages to stumble anyways entering the queue you'll notice that the aesthetic is metal panels with some lights thrown in i think that the idea is that this was supposed to be an avengers facility but it's just nothing other than some generic sci-fi aesthetic i don't know whatever in one section of the queue a video will play deliberating exposition that the cree wants to drop warheads on earth for whatever reason later another video just shows tony stark conversing with friday and starts to fake panic because he can't contact captain marvel and no other backup is available to help him fight the cree rocket appears and just straight up tells tony that he doesn't care because he's not on earth tony then yells at friday to find some other backup and she replies that captain america is currently fighting generic video game robots with miss marvel as the screen cycles through a list of heroes that are conveniently unavailable friday suggests that tony send out the visitors in the q line instead because why not later everyone will be funneled into a pre-show room and while it does have one obligatory animatronic it doesn't make up for how stupid everything feels at this point in the experience in order to stall for time until guests can move forward to the right platform the next minute or so consists of tony blundering around with friday as they shout out generic phrases like sensors recalibrating or systems check and nothing of substance actually happened once the pre-show actually starts it's just another minute or two of tony now finally getting into contact with captain marvel and them explaining to the guests that they're going to jump into space vehicles to draw away the cree warheads while they go around and destroy them i guess they never actually make it clear what their actual plan is or what they intend to do to rectify this issue if you know nothing about the version of rockin roller coaster that was in this park then let me know show you that it was significantly less themed than the disney mgm version while the coaster itself has the same layout it removes the cutouts instead replaced them with flashing colored lights and strobes that's pretty bottom of the barrel and theming and it's pretty difficult to get any lower than this unless you made a conscious effort to do so surely flight force no matter what it did would be an improvement over this previous ride right well i have the pleasure of informing you that disney absolutely broke my hilariously low expectations and now the ride is instead 75 darkness the other portions consist of small screens where tony and captain marvel yell things like great job and more incoming if you'll take the time to notice they're not actually really doing anything other than shooting projectiles and verbally patting themselves on the back finally the coaster returns to the station somehow leaving you pining for what you thought was already one of disney's worst attractions i mean what can even say about something like this rockin rollercoaster was at such a low point that i had to imagine that literally anything would have been better yet instead it's 25 nonsense 75 darkness it's really quite astounding that disney has yet to create any kind of compelling marvel attraction considering the investment that they could have put into this if they had bothered to make an effort i have discussed disney's absurdly lazy marvel attractions in the first avengers campus video but now with everything that has opened since let me really lay it all out for you [Music] disney's first marvel project was the iron man experience which rethemed star tours in hong kong disneyland and opened in 2017. while it's not terrible by any means it's just some bland generic thing that is completely unappealing to me i'm not a huge fan of the new version of star tours but even that would be an improvement over this however the iron man experience was intended as the first step in gradually retheming this park's version of tomorrowland into an avengers campus or at least a significant portion of it as a continuation the park's version of buzz lightyear astro blasters would then be re-themed into ant-man in the mosque nano battle which opened in 2019 i was quite excited to see this open and once i finally watched a video i was utterly confused how something this boring could have come out of disney imagineering at that point in time i was skeptical of disney's pivot towards ip attractions but still optimistic that something cool would come out of them yet i think that this was one of the fundamental building blocks leading to my cynicism towards iger and i know i've been throwing around the word embarrassing throughout the video but i can't think of any other way to describe this for all the creativity that went into the first ant-man film that could have certainly been present here yet it's just generic static walls and screens even a place like motiongate wouldn't have built an attraction this poorly i will admit that guardians of the galaxy mission breakout at california adventure was a pretty great addition in 2017 but like most things disney these days made absolutely no thematic sense for its park it would of course be incorporated into avengers campus in 2021 and you already know what i think about that especially with how remarkably stupid it was to design a ride like web slingers we then had guardians of the galaxy cosmic rewind open at epcot this year in 2022 i think it is by far the best of the marvel attractions but obviously makes absolutely no sense at epcot and really doesn't do anything to help the marvel brand it's essentially just a new generation of space mountain and if you removed the guardians of the galaxy not much would really change as a marvel themed attraction i think it fails in that particular aspect because of how inconsequential the characters are to the overall experience it exists as an excuse to double down on marvel merchandise and epcot which is mostly just overpriced plastic crap anyways finally we have avengers campus in paris and i hope you share my sentiment that disney has yet to build any sort of interesting or compelling marvel attraction maybe if concrete as a substance was popular with general audiences disney would really be knocking it out the park right now but no universal's 24 year old land is still holding up far better than what disney is throwing at its park goers let me state it one more time this is embarrassing as someone who once loved disney because they were the gold standard of the theme park industry even with their many blunders i really recognized something systematically wrong here creating dud after dud isn't an unfortunate coincidence disney leadership has reached the point where their investments into the parks are doing more long-term damage than good i'm interested to see how this plays out over the years and as they continue to screw everything up expect more commentary from me as always if you enjoy my video essays and attraction breakdowns feel free to give the video a like as it helps provide a lot more exposure i also recommend subscribing and hitting the bell icon as well so as to be notified when new videos are released [Music] you

Channel: Poseidon Entertainment

Views: 180,496

Keywords:

Id: tsDkByRDiOY

Length: 22min 17sec (1337 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 17 2022