Disney has revealed new storyline particulars for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the reimagined Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom and Disneyland. This shares the entire particulars, ‘company’ idea artwork, and commentary in regards to the backstory of the attraction and Imagineering’s use of storytelling.
As beforehand shared, the reimagined experience shall be named Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and can carry company into the world of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ movie The Princess and the Frog. According to the corporate, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will open at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World and Disneyland in California in late 2024.
During the D23 Expo in Anaheim final 12 months, Walt Disney Imagineering shared extra particulars in regards to the reimagined experience, together with a mannequin showcasing how Splash Mountain can be reworked. See our Photos & Video of the Tiana’s Bayou Adventure Model, which gives a complete have a look at the brand new exterior, queue, and on-ride particulars that’ll be added to the attraction because it turns into Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. (Note: that’s particularly the Disneyland model of Splash Mountain. Minor adjustments, just like the queue and log experience autos, are anticipated to vary.)
The newest backstory that Walt Disney Imagineering has shared issues the queue for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. At a younger age, Tiana developed a deep ardour for cooking, and started to dream of sooner or later proudly owning her personal enterprise. Her father, James, taught her that good meals brings of us collectively. During Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, we’re going to see the place life has taken her following the success of Tiana’s Palace, a restaurant she had dreamed of proudly owning and labored onerous to perform.
Walt Disney Imagineering is creating an authentic, subsequent chapter story for Tiana. Within the queue, company will uncover that she continues to develop her enterprise with Tiana’s Foods, which is an employee-owned cooperative. Combining her abilities with these of the area people, Tiana has reworked an growing old salt mine and constructed a beloved model.
The endeavor started when Tiana bought the salt mine and the world surrounding the big salt dome from which it operated. With the assistance of her mom Eudora, Naveen, Louis, and fellow house owners of the cooperative, Tiana revived the previous salt mine and the encircling land. In so doing, she grew a big selection of greens, herbs, and spices for her recipes.
This elaborate enterprise has turned the growing old salt mine into an area that has come alive. Complete with a boutique farm and each a working and educating kitchen, Tiana’s Foods is the place Tiana and her colleagues create all types of latest merchandise that they’re bringing to the world, together with a line of authentic sizzling sauces.
Tiana desires to provide an enormous because of her household and pals and all the neighborhood for all of the assist they’ve given her by throwing a tremendous celebration throughout Mardi Gras season. When it turns on the market’s been a little bit of a mix-up with the celebration preparations, Tiana invitations us to satisfy her at Tiana’s Foods to assist with the lacking ingredient for the celebration.
When we arrive, we might even see that Tiana spruced up the corporate’s amenities with vibrant artwork from native artists. Food for the celebration is being ready and beignets are being loaded into crates for the celebration. All sorts of preparations are underway for the journey into the bayou with Tiana, together with new and acquainted pals from the animated movie.
Tiana’s Bayou Adventure picks up the place the film’s story left off. Tiana continues bringing individuals along with Tiana’s Foods, one other treasured assembly place to spend time collectively and rejoice a various neighborhood. Tiana can be working with cooperative members to show gardening and cooking to kids of all ages, and provoking different ladies to run profitable companies because the model grows nationwide.
With the Tiana’s Foods backstory of the reimagined experience established, let’s flip to commentary providing our ideas on how this units the desk for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, plus numerous ranting in regards to the obsession with story and so forth…
Our Commentary
I’ve a love-hate relationship with backstory. I like that Imagineering writes extensively to tell their storytelling, and yow will discover pages upon pages of inner lore and details about sights previous and new. Based on what I’ve seen, this phenomenon started in the course of the Eisner period–yow will discover backstory for Pleasure Island, Typhoon Lagoon, and different additions from the late Eighties and early Nineties.
Although followers may assume in any other case, Imagineering’s obsession with story just isn’t a brand new factor. Fans merely have larger entry to it, and normally earlier than ever experiencing the attraction, as a result of it’s used as advertising within the lead-up to new rides debuting. Perhaps WDI is using extra present writers because of this; I don’t know. It’s nonetheless nothing new.
When backstory turns into one thing for company to come across in queues, all through lands, and elsewhere, it may be a fantastic enhancement to the expertise. At its finest, backstory informs what’s already there, offering added texture and richness to what might be readily understood by context cues, visuals, and many others. This kind of backstory is principally icing on a cake that tastes fairly nice with out icing–which means that it wasn’t mandatory to start with.
I hate backstory when it’s mandatory to clarify away deficiencies, and engages in storytelling that may come as a shock to the typical customer. If the backstory causes a reevaluation of the experience or land, it’s not good–it’s dangerous. That means the factor itself can’t stand by itself, or is at odds with its backstory.
The notorious instance of that is Dino-Rama, with its “lipstick on a pig” backstory. As I’ve ranted dozens of instances, that land just isn’t good, it’s a dumpster fireplace. Some followers simply find it irresistible as a result of they’re a part of the in-group that supposedly “gets” Dino-Rama and why it’s “actually” good. (It just isn’t.)
This is one thing I cowl at size in Tom’s Top 7: Backstories at Walt Disney World. I received’t belabor the purpose right here–when you’re thinking about good and dangerous backstory at Walt Disney World, that article covers it.
At this level, the backstory for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure may go both approach. I don’t learn the above particulars about Tiana’s Foods and assume, “this is brilliant, I cannot wait to see how the story is resolved!” The factor is, I’m completely high-quality with that. Splash Mountain had/has a really lengthy queue, and I feel the case might be made that though lovely, it handed up stage-setting alternatives that might’ve enhanced the attraction. (Not that it wanted to do that–it was a traditional attraction, regardless.)
One of the issues I cherished about Splash Mountain was the entire critters, completely unrelated to the story being instructed, that inhabited Chickapin Hill. Why have been they there? What was their deal? They weren’t simply nameless animals that spontaneously gathered to look at Brer Rabbit’s try kidnapping.
In reality, the alligator band–The Swamp Boys–had a live performance poster within the queue. It would’ve been nice to know extra about these critters, even when wholly immaterial to the attraction itself. While wholly pointless, it will’ve been added shade, world-building particulars for the keen fan. (I additionally vividly recall inspecting the entire birdhouses as a child, questioning who/what lived inside.)
I can’t say the Tiana’s Foods backstory does a lot for me. To the opposite, I actively dislike it and want it have been one thing completely different that really “hooked” me. However, I’ve additionally discovered to not criticize backstory prematurely. In this web period, followers are thirsty for a relentless trickle of knowledge, and Disney largely obliges us. In the Eighties and Nineties, backstory leaked out after the very fact, and was judged towards the completed attraction, land, and many others. Now, it comes out forward of time and is judged by itself.
My massive lesson about prematurely judging backstory got here through the latest reimagining of Jungle Cruise. I’ll admit that I rolled my eyes at loads of the backstory for that, and I used to be frankly involved that Imagineering was getting approach too heavy-handed with story for the sake of story on a experience that actually didn’t want it. My worry was that it will bathroom down the attraction, overwhelm company, and are available throughout as contrived. There was simply a lot story within the lead-up to the reimagining.
The finish consequence with Jungle Cruise was very completely different from that. Those backstory particulars are peppered across the queue, and there for the invention of company. That’s an asset, because it offers company one thing to have interaction in that beforehand primary and typically very lengthy standby line. You can uncover nuggets of knowledge that illuminate and connect with different adventurous experiences, however aren’t in the least essential to having fun with the attraction.
As for the experience itself, the massive change to Jungle Cruise is that they added a plethora of primates. It may as effectively be known as Jungle Cruise: Monkey Madness. I’m sorry, however when you dislike that, you’re distinctly unpatriotic. Monkeys doing ape antics are superior, and that’s only a reality. For the entire hand-wringing about altering Jungle Cruise, the tip result’s principally simply that–extra monkeys. Other stuff did change for ‘contemporary audiences,’ however the massive discernible factor is the monkeys. It was an enormous win for lovers of simian shenanigans, which must be everybody.
With Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, the element I’ve zeroed in on is the road that “there’s been a bit of a mix-up with the party preparations, Tiana invites us to meet her at Tiana’s Foods to help with the missing ingredient for the party.” I might be improper, however this strikes me as an apparent MacGuffin. For those that aren’t followers of Alfred Hitchcock or Pulp Fiction (why not?), a MacGuffin is an seemingly-significant merchandise that advances the plot and motivates the characters, however finally ends up being irrelevant or unimportant. Muppet Haunted Mansion additionally makes use of this gadget, cleverly calling it The Great MacGuffin.
In any case, “the missing ingredient” might be an excellent MacGuffin as a result of it will permit Tiana and company to come across a bunch of various animals–the present critters in Splash Mountain, like The Swamp Boys, that have been created for the attraction and are completely divorced from the supply materials–and sing or do no matter with them. Given the quick turnaround time and idea we’ve already seen, I’ve already gone on report to say that I feel quite a lot of what’s inside Splash Mountain is staying up, and I’m going to double down on that right here.
We already know that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure will decide up the story of The Princess and the Frog after the ultimate kiss, becoming a member of Tiana and Louis on a musical journey as they put together for his or her first-ever Mardi Gras efficiency. During this celebration, company will hear authentic music impressed by songs from the movie. Tiana is main the way in which and company will be capable of encounter previous pals and make new pals alongside the way in which as effectively.
Encountering “new friends” strongly suggests to me that at the very least among the authentic characters from Splash Mountain shall be making appearances. In order to make that work, the attraction essentially must be set after the film. Regrettably, The Swamp Boys weren’t featured in The Princess and the Frog.
Of course, that’s merely hypothesis on my half, and might be completely improper. Even whether it is, my perspective on this nonetheless stands–that the lacking ingredient is almost definitely a MacGuffin. The Tiana’s Foods angle might be performed up within the queue for the astute observer, however wholly immaterial to the experience itself.
Given the “musical adventure” making ready for Mardi Gras whereas encountering pals setup, that looks like a robust risk. Otherwise, there may be going to be loads–an excessive amount of–story being instructed all through the experience. As a lot as Imagineering loves “story” as of late, I don’t assume they’ll make that mistake.
Many followers have questioned why Tiana’s Bayou Adventure isn’t merely revisiting the story of The Princess and the Frog, its villains and music. After all, that might make sense with the present ‘pacing’ of Splash Mountain and its climactic raise hill. This is a good level, and undoubtedly looks like the much less dangerous method.
With that mentioned, I vehemently (however respectfully) disagree with these of you who assume that. I’m very glad that Tiana’s Bayou Adventure just isn’t merely a “book report” type attraction. Retelling the film in CliffNotes style typically falls flat, and makes the visitor really feel like passive observers reasonably than energetic individuals.
This is one thing Imagineer Tony Baxter has ranted towards for years, and also you’ve in all probability heard his ideas on it when you’ve heard him converse at a D23 occasion or on a podcast. If he’s really an advisor on Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, I think he would’ve pushed onerous towards the reimagined experience doing that.
Personally, I’ll take the potential gamble of the “missing ingredient” narrative gadget and one thing contemporary. This method does have greater potential danger than merely retelling the film, nevertheless it additionally has larger potential reward.
Ultimately, it’s attention-grabbing to listen to particulars about Tiana’s Foods and the way that’ll play out within the queue for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. Even although the broad strokes of this story does completely nothing for me, it additionally doesn’t fear me. There’s quite a lot of backstory that I wouldn’t look after if solely studying a synopsis, and but, works effectively in its precise setting and for the needs of creating a backdrop or leaping off level for the attraction itself.
My hope is that that is the case with Tiana’s Foods. I’d personally favor the queue turn out to be a Spinal Tap-style documentary about how Princess Tiana met The Swamp Boys, helped reinvent the group, and so they all grew to become the primary female-led boy band. (The plot of the experience might be a caper about their disappeared drummer!)
That is, sadly, not what we’re getting. The Tiana’s Foods setup not interesting to me at this level additionally doesn’t imply it’ll be poorly executed or uninteresting. I’m in full ‘wait and see’ mode with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. It’s a excessive stakes challenge, and each Imagineering and firm executives undoubtedly perceive this and are going to do all the things of their energy to make sure that the tip consequence delivers.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on the Tiana’s Foods backstory for the queue? Disappointed that the backstory isn’t a Spinal Tap-style documentary about The Swamp Boys and Tiana? Do you agree or disagree that the lacking ingredient is probably going a MacGuffin? How a lot of the present attraction (e.g. random musical critter AAs) are you anticipating to seem within the reimagined model? Excited for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure? Expectations concerning the Splash Mountain reimagining timeline? Think they will end it by late 2024? Keep the feedback civil, as this isn’t the place for politically-charged arguing, tradition wars, antagonism, private assaults, or low-cost pictures. We shall be heavy-handed in deleting any feedback that cross the road, no matter viewpoint. You aren’t going to alter anybody’s thoughts through the feedback part on this weblog, nor are you going to alter Disney’s priorities. If you want to shout your outrage into the web abyss, that’s why Facebook was invented.