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Walt’s Legacy - The Year in Review

Let’s look at how Walt’s legacy has been doing this past year…

The Resorts
The Disneyland Resort finally blossomed and became much more or a resort than ever before. The entire feel of the area is so much different than it was before all of the construction began. With the surrounding area looking better, a beautiful new hotel in the heart of the Resort, a hot shopping, dining, & entertainment pedestrian mall that ties everything together, the weakest part of the expansion, ironically, seems to be the new theme park itself.

Some folks love Disney’s California Adventure park, and the previews were packed. The problem for Disney is that there are too many people, from Average Joe Tourist, California Jane Local, Annual Passholder Tom, Cast Member Susie, to Imagineer John who think the new park is either way below Disney standards or just not attractive enough, especially at the same price as Disneyland Park. The mainstream news media has documented these sentiments, the crowds have been below expectations (September didn’t help, either), and Disney has changed admission guidelines and offered special deals in response.

Nothing very big happened at the Walt Disney World Resort, as far as additions. But that place is grown so much over the years that the opening of a new hotel seems routine.

Disney’s second studio-themed park is getting close to opening, which will hopefully make Disneyland Paris more of resort destination.

The biggest Disney park opening, I think most people would agree, was Tokyo DisneySea in September. I haven’t been yet, but everything I’ve heard and seen makes me excited about the place. The Tokyo Disney Resort, owned and operated by the Oriental Land Company, has certainly become a more prominent option for Disney and theme park fans that are looking for places to vacation.

The Oriental Land Company decided to acquire the Disney Stores in Japan from The Walt Disney Company, which is a smart move for the OLC, because it will allow better promotion of the Tokyo Disney Resort and a more seamless Disney experience for the Japanese consumer.

Disney is also moving ahead with plans for a fifth site, in China (Hong Kong). There hasn’t been much public talk lately of a third park for Anaheim, or a fifth theme park for Florida, and indeed, with some of the hotel rooms at the Walt Disney World Resort being delayed in their opening or being temporarily shuttered, the tourism slow-down is having an obvious effect on Disney. With fewer large projects under development and construction, fewer Imagineers are kept on board.

The question is, should Disney cut back because tourism is down, and there’s nothing that can be done about it, or should Disney go all-out and forge ahead, taking advantage of the slow-down to get goods and services at a lower cost and create experiences so good and unique that people will come, slow-down or not? Is it possible that cutbacks compound the problem? If so, it is almost like declaring that floggings will continue until moral improves.

I have confidence that the Disney resorts, and not just the one in Tokyo, will prosper again soon. I hope they are able to get there through making theme park experiences that are better and more impressive than what has been done before.

Television
ABC used to be on top, but with the decline in ratings for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the whole network has suffered in ratings. The acquisition of Fox Family Channel will allow Disney to have another cable outlet for content. Mergers and acquisitions of satellite and cable providers could put Disney in a tough situation if they don’t own more of the outlets.

Film
Monsters, Inc. is doing very well, much to the relief of those who feared the Disney/Pixar winning streak would have to come to an end sooner rather than later. It is also a film that is very merchandisable, which means more profit from sales of consumer products. Now that the film has proven itself financially, the big question will whether or not it gets the first Oscar for the new animated feature category. The other candidate at the front of the contest, of course, is the extremely successful Shrek, from Disney’s rival Dreamworks.

The other animated feature of the year, from Disney’s in-house animation team, was Atlantis - The Lost Empire. As evidenced from Jeff Kurti’s companion books, an extensive backstory and setting were devised for this film, which could have translated into all kinds of theme park attractions, merchandise, television shows, and direct-to-video sequels. However, the film didn’t bring in enough money fast enough to be considered a hit in the post-Lion King era. Animation is expensive, and it has to bring in lots of revenue to justify itself to studios. Cheaper films can earn less at the box office and be considered a success.

Disney’s live-action event movie for the year was Pearl Harbor, which was hyped like crazy. It cost a heckuva lot of money to make and promote, the critical reception was mixed, and it didn’t send shockwaves at the box office, but when you look at the combined domestic and foreign box office totals, they aren’t shabby at all.

In just a few days, Disney will try something new… a large-screen version of its critical and financial hit Beauty and the Beast, complete with touch-ups and "new" scenes, will hit IMAX (and other large-format) theaters. This should be interesting, and is exactly the kind of thing Disney should be doing instead of standard re-releases.

Unfortunately, Disney closed down The Secret Lab, a part of the company that was involved in special effects, particularly computer-generated effects and animation. I thought that such an operation had a lot of potential to help distinguish Disney films, attractions, interactive games, and web sites. It was formed, in part, from Dream Quest Images, a special effects company Disney bought a while back. Closing down the operation is another example of something Disney has taken over, tried to change into something else with more potential, and then either closed down or dumped in a severely altered condition. (See: Infoseek, Queen Mary & Spruce Goose… watch out Anaheim Angels!)

All That Other Stuff
Disney still has two cruise ships, a thriving stage presence, a nice World Wide Web presence, a publishing division, lots of stores, and is moving forward in the world of interactive games.