My Afternoon With the Blue Catpeople: Thoughts on Pandora: the World of Avatar

I have to start by saying it feels really weird to be finally writing about Pandora: The World of Avatar now.  It feels like I'm extremely late to the party, and that the conversation in Disney Theme Park Internet World has moved on.  To a Galaxy far, far away in fact, and if anyone is talking about Pandora, it's judging it as a sort of test run for Star Wars: Nothing But Star Wars: Here, Have More Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.

And comparing it to Harry Potter over in the competing park down the road.  That too.

I really don't want to do either of those things.  Instead, let's back up.  A long time ago, a terribly long time ago it feels, it was announced that a whole new Land was going to be built in a Walt Disney World theme park: Pandora, the World of Avatar.  I was generally more enthusiastic than, uh, everyone else it felt like.  You can read my initial thoughts here.  But that was many years ago and I've only got the chance to visit Pandora myself last month.  Everyone in the Disney Blog-verse has an opinion about the new land and here's mine:

I really like it.

I'm a sucker for a good, truly immersive, "You are in an imaginary land turned real" experience.  This delivers quite nicely.  The overall effect of the land is stunning, but I mostly appreciate all the smaller details.  And goodness, I wish I'd had more time to explore the land at night.

For now, Pandora has two rides.  I want to give some love to the Navi River Journey, as it tends to live in the shadow of Flight of Passage, the big state of the art headliner.  I'm just happy River Journey exists, because we've been losing so many slow-moving atmospheric rides lately.  Rides like The Great Movie Ride that you can enjoy with your grandmother.  "Grandma Rides", if you will.  If this is a genre, River Journey is an excellent standard for them.

And then, there's Flight of Passage.  I have no words, man.  This is damn near everything I always dreamed of in a flight simulator.  It's good and long, too!  It's also notoriously difficult to acquire Fastpasses for and has a standby line you could pretty much watch "Avatar" in while waiting.  Still, everything I've ever wanted from a flight simulator.

Plus it turns out I make for a pretty cute catgirl!  Look at my Avatar, look at her!  Dang, she even has the same "They're taking my picture! Oh, please don't blink..." look!

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Art of the Day:

Fishies!

Drop Everything and watch "Imagining Zootopia"

So... I'm postponing my long Chronological Disney Canon review of "Zootopia" until it's out on home media.  This is partially because everyone already knows that it is an excellent movie and there isn't much I could add to the current conversation.  It's mostly because I really want to do a Live-Tweet commentary (I need a name for these; Twitmentaries?*) of it because this cute Disney cartoon movie where animals wear clothes and talk and do people things is freakin' packed with interesting stuff to talk about. 

Which brings us, in the meantime, to this very cool and good Fusion channel documentary, "Imagining Zootopia".  It is not only reminiscent of the "Making Of" documentaries the Disney Channel used to air in the immediate wake of their new animated film releases, a tradition I dearly miss, it also demonstrates just how much careful consideration was taken into the film and the issues it tackles.  You'll get to see different, generally darker and weirder early versions of "Zootopia", great demonstrations of the intersection of art and science, moving personal stories from the writers, and it really is just awesome to see the current team of Disney animators at work.  It was posted on YouTube a few days too early, and is officially marked as unlisted, but you can watch it here.  Note that there are spoilers with regards to plot and theme, so watch this after seeing the movie.

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Art of the Day!

By far the most controversial part of "Zootopia" is the traditional Disney end-credit scene, cause it's just John Lasseter pointing at the audience, laughing at us, and saying, "Ha ha, you are all Furries now!"**

My Fursona would totally fall for the Pawpcicles.



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* - Speaking of Twitmentaries (I like that name; I'm keeping it), I really need to do "Frozen" as part of the Princess Project one of these days, huh?  I'd really like to do "Inside-Out" sometime too.  I've also been sitting on this rental DVD of "The Good Dinosaur" for days, and "E.T." was just added to Netflix Instant -- boy-howdy, that'd be an awesome one to analyze.  In the meantime, adults, watch "E.T." with a kid you know cause I feel like there's a generation who missed out on being thoroughly freaked out by it.

** - I'm going to get weird comments from humorless people about this aren't I?

Inktober Day 24 - Magic and Wonder are Waiting for You!

I've a busy weekend, so I looked at lists of drawing prompts.  One of them was "Draw an Anthropomorphic Character Realistically".

Welp.



This looked better in my head. :/