Disney made lots of announcements about what will be coming to Disney World in the coming years at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event.
The announcements included new lands such as a Cars Land and a Villains Land coming to Magic Kingdom, and a Monsters, Inc. Land coming to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We also learned about the retheming of DinoLand U.S.A. to Pueblo Esperanza and the addition of an Indiana Jones and an Encanto ride in Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
There was one big trend that stuck out to us among all of these announcements. We noticed that every single ride is IP based, or based on existing intellectual property of the Walt Disney Company. We did not hear of any original themes for rides that aren’t drawing from existing titles.
The rides themselves will still be new experiences, but only to a certain extent. For example, we haven’t seen an Encanto ride yet in any of the Disney parks. However, the ride is still based on the Encanto movie and will be drawing characters, songs, and maybe even storylines from the movie.
We have noticed this becoming more and more of a trend over the years. When Disney World first opened it was filled with lots of original rides including Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and Jungle Cruise.
Now you may be thinking, but wait, I have seen movies of all those rides. And while that is completely true, all of those movies were inspired by the rides. The rides existed before the movies came about. When guests first rode these attractions they weren’t based on any films or shows, they were new concepts and they were so popular that Disney ended up making movies based on them.
We have seen lots of IP based attractions coming to the Disney parks in recent years. Recently, we have seen Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Toy Story Land be built based on existing IP. TRON Lightcycle / Run was built in Magic Kingdom and is also IP based. Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, Journey of Water — Inspired by Moana, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure were all also based on existing IP.
There is something to be said about taking stories that we love and making them into attractions, but there is also something exciting about riding an attraction that isn’t based on anything else. Rides like Kilimanjaro Safaris, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Spaceship Earth, and “it’s a small world” are just a few examples of rides that aren’t based on IP.
As much as we love Disney movies and getting to experience them in a new way, we still miss being able to experience completely novel attractions that are based on IP. We have been seeing the trend towards IP based attractions happening for a bit now, and we will be curious to see if the trend stays.
If you want to catch up on all the announcements from D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, check out our video covering ALL the announcements:
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What do you think of all the IP based announcements? Let us know in the comments!
I don’t think they know how to be original anymore, same with movies lately it’s all reboots. They redesign rides but nothing unique or imaginative.
And this is the biggest reason I’m so bummed about losing DinoLand U.S.A. 🙁
I hadn’t thought about it, from that angle. The new lands/rides etc will be great, I’m sure but I feel like in many ways (since the pandemic at least) Disney seems to be a step behind, or a day late and a dollar short. There doesn’t seem to be a company wide plan, everything has been kinda piecemeal over the last 4-5 years. I’ve been using the rudderless ship comparison. The new lands will be Magical I’m positive, but Disney doesn’t have a monopoly on well themed lands anymore. I just feel like the D23 announcements (although VERY exciting) seem only reactionary to counter the competition. It just feels kinda late.