But no, wait, you say — it’s all out of love for the parks, and disappointment at their degradation. And anyone who actually reads your site in detail would actually see that instead of dismissing it as just whingeing. Sure, it may come off as a little snide here and there, but that’s probably because you’re pretty upset. Well, that’s what happens when you get internet nerds who like to hear themselves type in front of a computer — they (and in case it’s not obvious by now: by “they” I mean “we”) tend to go on.

I happen to like the idea of the potential of a site like “Re-Imagineering” — a site that’s not just obsessive annual passholders poring over the parks with digital cameras looking for flaking paint, like the old Mouse Planet and Mice Age. And that’s not filled with midi files and pictures of the characters and “magic” and “imagination” but not really saying anything. Instead, one for adults who like the parks and aren’t afraid of looking “uncool” (because not much is less cool than being a Disney fan) and can write about them objectively in complete sentences with proper grammar.

What I do hate is the execution and tone, and I’ve written volumes about that already. If you see my posts as nothing more than hatred and typical middle-management exec mentality that’s Ruining Walt’s Dream, then you’re as guilty of not paying attention to what I’m writing as you accuse me of “simply not reading the site.”

Still, that was the damndest computer glitch I’ve ever heard of. In the end I’m glad the comments were removed, for reasons I’ve already stated — I’ve got no business getting in an argument with another website, and I’ve got even less business giving anybody any reason to think I’m speaking for Disney. And I definitely am not going to give anybody grief for making fun of me on their website, after I made fun of them on mine.

I’d just like to hope that you or somebody else on there would take the comments to heart, the ones about being needlessly antagonistic and simplistic between creative types and financial types (for the record, I count as creative, even though I do on occasion have to use a spreadsheet). That, plus keeping a sense of perspective about the whole thing, would make your site a lot better, IMO.

I won’t belabor the point. The writers are indeed Pixar and Disney professionals past and present who are passionate about the parks. The genesis for the site came about since it was announced that John Lasseter, also someone wildly passionate about the parks, would soon have some managerial control over at WDI. A handful of Pixar employees, some of them with very close ties to imagineering, started mulling through the idea of creating a wish-list of sorts to slide under a door here or there at the studio. I decided to just gather up some cohorts and put our (publishable) thoughts online.

Although we are Pixar and Disney people we cannot tout the site as official company sponsored for obvious reasons. Neither can we actually discuss our own ideas for future attractions from a legal standpoint. What we can do is, beat by beat, catalog, argue and mull through the slow degradation of the parks over the years, a degradation tied closely with the Eisner era of penny pinching and empowering management teams with no creative training. Perhaps some of the entries come off a little snide here and there but that’s probably because we’re pretty upset. All of us have had to police a little of our knee jerk impulse to bitch and try to keep the entries professional and well written. But doggone it we don’t love the parks and hate what’s been happening to them over the past few years. And as people trained and seeped in the creative arts, film, writing, designing AND as people who have had an intimate relationship with the parks since, well, the early 60’s, we tend to think we have something to share.

Needless to say, I’ve been delighted to engage with Disney park fans and my coworkers am even more delighted to find that incoming management show all signs of getting it too. That’s so encouraging.

Anyway, I’m certainly not going to get you to love this site. Go ahead and keep hating it. But thanks for reading! I appreciate that.

That’s very lame of them.

I guess y’all will just have to take my word for it that I was polite as possible while still being critical of their site.

“Spreadsheet”? OH SNAP! No you di’int!

From the esteemed Mr. Banks of said Re-Imagineering blog, in response to me:
“Now, Chuck, get back to that spreadsheet you were working on. I think it’s due by the end of the day.”

And I was being polite in my comments. Guess that’s where constructive criticism gets you. You’re welcome to continue reading them with great interest and appreciating their valuable insight; I’m going back to my wanting to beat them over the head with socks of manure approach.

As to Disneyland and its changes, the noly thing I have a fundamental disagreement with is the idea that NOTHING done in the past 20 years is as good as the original, that the place is a museum where NOTHING should be changed, ever, and that it’s ALWAYS the greedy corporate execs who are the bad guys, crushing the dreams of children. Some of the best stuff they’ve ever done has been in the past ten years (like the 50th fireworks show and the new Space Mountain), and some of the worst has been in the past 10 years (like Superstar Limo).

As for sending them a comment, I did, and wish I hadn’t. Partly because I got the expected “what Walt REALLY meant, that you don’t understand” response, and partly because of the whole “who represents Disney?” question. I don’t represent the company in any shape or form, and I don’t make any claim other than that I’m a fan of the parks who happens to be working for them at the moment.

But this site, because it’s so long-winded and boring, only gets read by my friends and people on misguided web searches. Their blog gets read by a lot more people, in fact anybody with an axe to grind against the theme parks. And I’d like to avoid a) giving anybody the idea that I speak for Disney, and 2) getting fired.

By the way, I’m not copping to name-dropping, either. For one because Marty Sklar was such a big name in Imagineering for so long that his name-recognition is right up there just below the Disneys and Michael Eisner. And two because he’s not really in charge of Imagineering anymore, so writing him and e-mail would be pretty fruitless.

And I really don’t get their site as arrogant. Long-winded, yes, but—ahem–yeah. So, if you work for Disney in some capacity, but not as an Imagineer, you can’t bitch and moan about the parks? I don’t have a problem with saying “That’s not our job, that’s Imagineering’s” if that’s the truth.I don’t think that’s a cop out. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to complain that something sucks and not have a step-by-step plan to make it better, if it’s not my job to make it better. I’m paying to enjoy something, and if what I am enjoying is getting–in my opinion–worse and worse–then I have a right to complain about it.

I can’t speak about what these guys do. I have no idea (except for the one who says he’s a story editor for Pixar in his profile). If they were all in the heart of Imagineering, complaining about the parks anonymously, but then just doing what they were told at their day jobs, I’d be annoyed. But I don’t know if that’s the case. I do know I like the fact that they aren’t complete yes-men for their company, and I will continue to read their opninion with much interest.

We’ve always known that we disagree about Disneyland and its changes. I can’t change your mind about that. But I do find it endlessly ironic that this whole thing is essentially complaining about a bunch of complainers. Have you sent them any email, or left any comments on their site, voicing your opinion? You make a strong argument that would be a good addition to their site. (They don’t delete all dissenting comments–there are dissenting opinions in the Tiki Room thread.)

Even for a company as big and profit-driven as Disney, anybody who puts profit forward as his main motivation is going to get booted out pretty quickly. Unless, of course, he knows how to spin THE HELL out of it. What really happens (and this isn’t insider information any more than what I’ve seen at low-level meetings at EA, Lucas, and very very low-level meetings at Disney) is that everybody starts with the idea of guest experience.

And THEN financial and other concerns push back on that and you start having to go from blue sky to reality. If you’re really good at understanding and presenting your idea, and you know why it’s cool and how to modify it without ruining it, then it can survive the process intact. Sometimes it comes out better. If you’re an inflexible ego-maniac, then all you end up with compromises, which you can then blame on other people for compromising your grand vision.

And that arrogance is what bugs me about the site. If they just want to be Disneyland “fans” and complain about what’s wrong, then that’s fine. I think true fans would give constructive criticism instead of just whining, but hey, whatever floats their boat. But they’re pretending to have more insight than the “common” fan, which is a lie. There’s nothing on that site that suggests they have more insight than any annual passholder with out-of-control nostalgia and a copy of a Disney biography from which to draw quotes.

And no, they can’t do both. I don’t know how to say it without repeating myself — if they’re going to bitch, they need to lose the pompous tone and the implication that they’re somehow “connected.” If they’re going to provide constructive criticism, then they need to put some effort into it instead of just wearing the Ghost of Walt on their shoulders and pointing to him whenever anybody points out a flaw in their idea.

It might be interesting if they allowed some dissension on their site, too. From what I’ve seen, anybody who disagrees with them either has their comment “moderated” away, or get responses like “Walt fired people who thought like that” or “That’s not our job, that’s what Imagineering does.”

As for “crapping the new onto the classic,” well everything “classic” was new at one point. The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay of the Haunted Mansion has been a huge success — definitely financially, but I’d say artistically as well. And once again, the Pirates of the Caribbean movie is based on the ride, using characters that appear in the ride and its queue.

No, of course the changes don’t always work. Sometimes they do, and I think any real Disney fan who’s more interested in what makes the parks cool instead of just massaging his own ego, would acknowledge not only where they fail but where they succeed, as an example of what to keep doing. And any Imagineer who isn’t always looking for ways to re-invigorate the park and bring new experiences for the guests just isn’t doing his job.