Woes of a Disney purist

For the first time since 1998, Disney World might get an expansion.

Walt Disney Company’s Parks and Resorts division chairman Tom Staggs recently released prospective concepts and model plans for an expansion on Walt Disney World Resort’s Animal Kingdom park in Orlando, Fla.

Starting next year, however, the park will make way for much more than animals and plants as Disney pairs with director James Cameron to bring the world of Avatar to Disney.

This is the second wave of non-Disney films to be referenced in Disney parks, including the “Star Wars” inspired attraction, “Star Tours.”

As a Disney purist, I can’t help but think Walt is rolling over in his grave.

Walt Disney World and Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., are reserved spaces to pay tribute to and display the creative genius of the Disney company from the past six decades.

This new trend of creating attractions for films completely unrelated to Disney is something the company has never attempted, and rightfully so.

I thought we all had an agreement about what went down in Central Florida.
The Disney resorts handle all stories and attractions related to Disney itself, while every other movie recreation is stuffed into Universal Studios.

It’s worked well, offering both options to the public, and Disney has continuously remained on top.

The reason to add movies like “Avatar” into the Disney parks is most likely profit, but with Disney perennially pumping out hit movies, animated or not, it doesn’t seem necessary.

The Walt Disney Company maintains the licensing to hundreds of films, including 102 Disney Channel Original Movies, 555 Feature Films, more than 40 animated feature films and 53 Wonderful World of Disney television movies.

With all of these you’re telling me we couldn’t find one of them to provide the inspiration for an expansion?

And if it isn’t about profit, and the company just likes the idea of an extra-terrestrial, fantasy world spin on Animal Kingdom, Disney easily could have used scenes and mockups from “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” and kept the expansion in the family.

It may seem like a harmless addition, but this opens the door for many foreign concepts to enter into one of the few tangible examples of Walt Disney’s life work.

The argument that Disney would want anything that could make the park successful is applicable only to a certain point, and this exceeds that realm of possibility.

Disney felt so strongly about his and his company’s exclusive use of Mickey Mouse that when approached in 1945 by producers of the film “Anchors Away” about the use of Mickey in the movie, he responded that Mickey Mouse would never appear in an MGM Film.

I don’t think Disney would feel any better about 21st Century Fox moving onto his namesake’s property.

The guy gave us hundreds of classic songs, movies and characters, not to mention five theme parks.

I think the least we can do is make sure his parks are maintained in the essence of how he imagined them in 1950.

If James Cameron signs on to work with Disney, this is only the start of a multitude of unrelated attractions to take up valuable space in these beloved theme parks.

So before Jack and Rose find their way into “It’s A Small World,” let’s strap on our mouse ears and stick to true Disney ideas and products as inspiration, the way Disney intended it to be.

­— cnmcelwa@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Claire McElwain on Twitter @clairemc_IDS.