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The nature of the business

Epcot82 has called it quits today leaving the Disney blogging community a lot poorer for his loss. As one commenter said, "Disney wins by being the brick wall you hurl yourself against until you
imagine that there must be better things to do with your time." Sorry to see you go Epcot82.

But things do change, albeit slowly and not always in ways you expect. For instance, the Submarine attraction at Disneyland was thought to be gone forever, but it has come back re-imagined as a ride through Nemo’s wonderland. Does it fit the theme of Tomorrowland? Not so much, but is it great to see that space busy again. You bet.

Re-Imagineering looks at how the winds of change have effected Walt Disney Imagineering.

For decades, the relentless expanding and contracting of Walt Disney
Imagineering has been explained away as "the nature of the business."
WDI (formerly WED Enterprises) has existed for over fifty years, and
has been conducting cyclical mass layoffs since the early 1970s. The
most notable layoffs have taken place after the completion of Epcot and
Tokyo Disneyland (1982-1983), after the completion of Disneyland Paris
(1992) and after opening three theme parks in nineteen months, Disney’s
California Adventure, Tokyo Disney Sea and the Walt Disney Studios Park
in Paris (2001 – 2002). Perhaps Disney’s twenty-five year massive
worldwide theme park expansion is taking a breather–providing us with
the perfect opportunity to reevaluate the validity of the oft-used
phrase: "It’s just the nature of the business."

But really what is the nature of the business. As Re-Imagineering points out WDI used to have more ownership of what was installed at the parks, now their existence depends on theme park operations finding a need. So now that a little re-organization has occurred at WDI, perhaps it’s time to take a look at the whole relationship between the theme parks and the creative arm of the company and ask the question, Where Do We Go From Here?

6 thoughts on “The nature of the business”

  1. KINGCRAB

    It’s about time that the Epcot82 blog writer has finally decided to come to his senses and get a life.

    Now, we just have to wait for the equally-bad Re-Imagineering blog people to cave in and start leaving Disney alone.

  2. biblioadonis

    It is sad to see a blog go away–especially one trying to make a difference.

    We can’t all be Disney do-gooders all of the time. We need dissention. It spurs us in the on-line communities. It makes us more passionate. It binds us.

    And hopefully, Disney is watching some of this!

  3. KINGCRAB

    The way I see it… Such blogs are NOT trying to get change to occur. They’re only trying to get Disney to regress and not move forward.

    So, if they go ignored, then they’ll have every reason to ignore them, because of their all-too-high expectations and extremely ridiculous requests.

    Dissention doesn’t necessarily make people more passionate about something. In this case, the dissention is making people more hateful of Disney rather than passionate about it.

  4. biblioadonis

    Good points KingCrab…

    But what do you not like about the re-imagineering blog? When I read the topics, the blog author seemed to be rather intelligent and straightforward about affecting positive change with Imagineering. Or at least getting people to discuss it. Isn’t that the point of Web 2.0 Active discussion and the supposed wisdom of crowds?

  5. KINGCRAB

    I hate that blog because the authors and comments are not intelligent or straightforward at all.

    They obviously do not want change to occur at Disney at all! They want it to get stale.

    Those people are way too negative for their own good.

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