Disney Parks boss says Avatar Land for Animal Kingdom still in development

kpjb said:

edit: Okay, so my memory was a bit hazy:

http://i113.photobucket.com/albums/n222/jabxxp/IMG_3845.jpg

Holy. Crap.

Did you happen to already have a photo of those or did you dig out two-year-old receipts and snap a pic for us?

Either way, you win the internets, sir.

You don't save all your beverage receipts for 10 years?

Either that, or I took the pic for a trip report that never materialized.

Oh, it's not having the reciepts. It's actually finding them that wins you the internets.

If it were needed, one could find nearly every reciept I've gotten since 1996...but, I'm not gonna do it.

If you already had the pic, then that's just Boy Scout level preparedness. Good for you. Semper Fi.

TimChat2 said:

The New Fantasyland features "LeFou's Brew" Disney's not-so-subtle attempt to replicate the success of Butterbeer.

And it fails. It's not even remotely as tasty, is a little too sweet, and just doesn't quite have the magic. I think that because it's apple juice-based, it tends to have too much of a juice box flavor. And not the good kind, either.

I didn't think that Le Fou's sucked. But, butterbeer is a lot better.

On the other hand, the pork shank at Gaston's Tavern is actually quite a bit better than the Disney Smoked Turkey Leg (tm). And, the chair in Gaston's is worth the price of admission by itself.

Thanks for the link about Wall-E way up there, Tek. I found that very interesting. Sometimes I'll watch a movie and know that there was something more to it than I could consciously comprehend. That's one reason I love movies so much.

Like any form of art, you might take something different away from it, or think that whatever the artists intended is crap.

Kinda like a seemingly impartial forum post may actually reveal a not-so-subtle implication of one's true feelings, depending on how it's read. :)

Lord Gonchar said:
I'm just giving you a hard time. It's been a while. :)

-3D TV's sales figures have been notoriously low. From what I understand the percentage of homes with one is still under 5% - and that includes people who simply bought a TV in which 3D was a feature that they have no plans on using.

In fact, that is how 3D is going to permeate the market - as an afterthought. It'll just be a standard feature built into most TV's and listed as a checkmark on a long list of features and specs. Kind of like how all TV's are HD capable now, you don't even think about it - of course they are. All TV's will be able to display 3D content.

-The physical media thing, however, is just a me thing. I know they sell. For the life of me, I can't figure out why anyone has a DVD player anymore. The second HD became mainstream, the DVD became obsolete and by the time Blu Ray really dropped in price enough to become an 'everyman' product, there were plenty of on demand, subscription and streaming services delivering HD content - usually at better prices. Watching a movie on a disc seems as weird as listening to music on a disc.

-Avatar. smh.

I will never trust buying movies over the Internet and just storing them on a device, just like I don't trust a reading tablet to not lose all my books, etc. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are both Blu-Ray players as well. Hence, we still have many movies on Blu-Ray. I, along with some other fossils, still trust media I can touch. As long as we don't have a house fire and lose our library. *laugh*

Well, you wouldn't be storing them. You'd be paying to watch them once (assuming a one-off rental).

Or if it's a subscription-based service, you'd be paying for access to a gazillion movies stored somewhere else.

That's the whole beauty of it, you don't need physical media - discs, hard drives, nothing. It exists somewhere else and you access it at will. Even if your house burns to the ground taking everything with it, you'll still have access.

Once DRM dies, it will be silly to handle or own physical media. All of the music I own is "in the cloud" now with Amazon. I have most of the MP3's at home, but if my house fell into a sinkhole, it wouldn't matter. I'd still have the music.

I think the idea of 'owning' gets replaced by the idea of 'accessing' in the long run too.

It's the same thing, really, but there's a subtle distinction there.

Still have trouble with change to non-physical media. I don't know what it is...some things I jump right on board with, but not media...I think because I have, on more than one occasion for no reason (that Apple could figure out) lost over 200 songs and have not been able to retrieve them. Ever. I've been diligent about updates and backup since then, but still! That is a ridiculous amount of money to have spent and just lost because of some random issue. I'm not ready to fully convert yet.

Of course, I'm the same one who fought tooth and nail against getting a cell phone until about a year before iPhones came out because I thought people have no cell phone etiquette and text messaging was stupid when you can just call a person. Now I'm just as rude as everyone else and will basically only talk on the phone if my friend or family member stubbornly insist. I guess I'm pretty technology resistant when I think about it.

Except when it comes to roller coasters. In that case, keep the classics, but bring on any new tech you can as long as it rocks!

I was against cell phones too, but then I broke down and got one for a short while. I got rid of it when I realized that I hate to talk on the phone, and I didn't use it much anyways.

About physical disks, I just love collecting my favorite movies. I love the artwork, and being able to just pop it in and watch it whenever I want. I am now starting to replace my DVDs with Blu Ray.

Yeah, my husband is an artist, so a lot of movies we own are super special editions with artwork books and special cases, etc. It does take a lot of room in the house (IKEA loves us), but it is just such a habit and a little bit of an obsession.

The artwork is about the only legit reason for owning physical media anymore. The other one being the sound quality of a real vinyl record.

As Jeff pointed out, DRM combined with studio executives that are stuck in the past are really the only obstructions to digital media anymore. The executives will come around sooner or later once the current ones die off and get replaced by younger blood. DRM might be the harder fight, as there's a lot of money behind it at the moment.

...and even the DRM isn't that big of a deal in practice. Yes, I'm locked into Amazon as my digital reading platform. So what? The encryption is even trivial to break, but I don't bother breaking it, because I can already read those books on every device I own. iTunes is a little more locked down, but still not that restrictive.

Wow, I guess we haven't talked about it since December. Despite the acquisition of Lucasfilm, it sounds like they're still intent on building this Avatar nonsense:

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-09-24/business/os-disney-mymagic-avatar-20130924_1_disney-internet-mymagic-walt-disney-world