I wrote a blog post after the second challenge of the “So You Want to Be An Imagineer?” Season 20 (see tundraland-and-weird-als-version-of-living-with-the-land.html). In this post, I will recap the rest of the season. Once again, the competition is similar in style to Survivor–it started with 2 teams of 8 (which got re-shuffled after several challenges) until the merger of the final 10 players. Those who make it to the merger but fail to make it to the Final 3 get to make up the Jury, who get to vote for the ultimate winner. This season was called “All-Stars” (invite only), and it was also revealed that it will be the final iteration of this competition (although there will be other competitions going forward). Well, I only made it one more challenge after my previous post. Challenge 3 was to design a Pandora: Avatar of Water land for Disneyland’s Tomorrowland area. I hadn’t seen the movie up to that point, so I went and watched it on my day-off (the guy who took third place did the same thing). It was to be a double elimination (so one player on each team would be eliminated from the competition). I was one of the two on my team nominated for elimination. I had a PoMVP (basically an Immunity) that I could have used to save myself and force someone else to be considered for elimination. However, I was going on my annual retreat the following week, so I decided not to use it. The decision essentially came down to not wanting to eliminate someone who would have been able to contribute more at that point of the game. I was officially eliminated in 13th place. Some of the players had picked me to go far, to even possibly win it, so it was a bit of a shocking elimination. But I had peace with it, and it allowed me to focus on my retreat and work without feeling tied down by the game. My role became more of a casual observer–watching the podcasts when they would come out after each project (with the subsequent elimination) A video summary of the projects (along with jokes) can be found below. You will note early on my concept art for the Southern Lights show in Tundraland. Other projects that the remaining players were able to design were the following: a musical, a dark ride for Dollywood, a business at Downtown Disneyland, a Nickelodeon Land replacing Toon Lagoon at Islands of Adventure, a Creepy Pasta (i.e. a type of film) themed area, E-ticket “mountains” for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Nintendo Sci-Fi land, a World Showcase holiday event, and a museum/theme park.
There were a lot of great players in the competition, most of whom I had met previously. One of the previous winners of the competition left in 15th place. One of the most active Imagineers on the forum, spacemt354 decided to leave (i.e. he was not eliminated by the judges) on a high note (in 9th place) after the attraction-heavy Nickelodeon Land project. Another stalwart, Disney Dad 3000 (my pre-season pick to win it all), also left the game (in 8th place). Brer Panther, known for his cartoon characters that work their way into projects, finished in a very respectable 7th place. The remaining eliminations were very difficult. PerGron (aka Dark PerGron), known for his writing and nature focus, finished in 6th as part of a double elimination. The Final 5 was whittled down to 3 with the two main judges each getting a pick as well as the Jury. This left AceAstro (an all-around player) and monkey92514 (known for his comedic projects; he would have probably been eliminated in 13th place had I used the PoMVP) finished in 5th and 4th, respectively. Two of my original top 3–Tegan pilots at chicken (#2), and Pi on my Cake (#3)--made it to the Final 3. The Cinderella finalist was OSUPhantom, who had not been in an Imagineering comp for something like 13 years. I have yet to study their final projects, but after a Tribal Council, the 7 Jury members got to vote for the winner. Tegan, getting one vote from the Jury, finished in 3rd place. Pi and OSUPhantom both received 3 votes. So Tegan, on “live TV,” got to cast the deciding vote giving it to the player who had the most remarkable–Pi. As I have said before, everyone on the Forums and in the Comps are very creative. I’m glad to have them as acquaintances, and I look forward to more Imagineering (including Comps) in the months and years ahead!
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