September 9th (yesterday as I write this) was the day of the Destination D23 Conference’s Disney Parks Panel. I did not realize that until after the Panel was finished, which is pretty telling of itself. For one thing, the odd-numbered years for D23 (“Destination D23”) are generally the off-years for parks announcements. However, the very disappointing announcements at the 2022 D23 Conference (which should have had major announcements, especially due to Universal’s investment in parks) kept me from seeking out information about the Parks Panel this year before it actually happened. Mickey Views’ video sums up the updates from the Parks Panel but also expresses the disappointment of the announcements: I share the disappointment. Now granted, there were some announcements that were not on my radar. However, many of the things that were announced are still far from starting construction on, so they seem to still be rather “blue sky.”
The biggest update was on the current Dinoland U.S.A. at Animal Kingdom. The announcement in 2022 was rather blue sky–a Moana-themed land but really just concept art. Apparently Disney Imagineering has modified its plans in the past 12 months. Now the land will be themed to “tropical Americas” and house rides such as an Encanto dark ride (replacing the defunct Dinorama coaster) and an Indiana Jones jeep ride (like Disneyland but replacing Dinosaur). In addition, the plan is to re-theme the “It’s Tough to be a Bug” in the Tree of Life to a Zootopia-themed show. There is disagreement as to whether those IPs belong in Animal Kingdom; I tend to agree with those who say that it is not keeping with animal and habitat conservation efforts as is the major thrust of Animal Kingdom (for example, Encanto would better work as a Colombia pavilion in Epcot and Indiana Jones would work better in Hollywood Studios). However, the plans could have been more disruptive to Animal Kingdom’s theme if, for example, Zootopia had received an urbanized land like what Shanghai Disneyland is opening soon. The other major news that I took from the announcements is that Test Track at Epcot is going to be rethemed thanks to the partnership with Chevrolet. It sounds like it will incorporate some of the “edutainment” (i.e. educational and entertainment) elements of the original pavilion World of Motion. There were other small announcements for the various parks, but I will not discuss them here as they are not anything that excites me significantly. In short, I feel a little better about the 2023 Destination D23 announcements than the 2022 D23 ones. However, I stated last year (click link) that anything short of major announcements would be troubling for Disney. Since there were not really any major announcements this year, I would say it is time for Disney to step aside and let Universal take over the lead company on theme parks.
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