According to MiceAge, construction commenced:
http://micechat.com/25943-moroccos-spice-road-table/
Send your construction pics to content_at_themeparxdotcom
According to MiceAge, construction commenced:
http://micechat.com/25943-moroccos-spice-road-table/
If James Cameron walks out on the Imagineers, that's a good sign! Because Cameron is a perfectionist, I think he is testing peoples limits. The Imagineers saw limits, so he walked out on them. He wants the best possible experience for the visitors of the park, I am sure. I like such guys. No shyness to start a conflict for the sake of a better result!
Avatar update!
Said Bruce Vaughn, Chief Creative Executive of Disney Imagineering, “Obviously, I think you all have heard that we are working with James Cameron and his group at Lightstorm, as well as Fox Film and Entertainment, to bring the world and characters of Avatar to life. And we’re going to do this in a grand style. The world of Pandora and the other worlds that Cameron is currently inventing for the next movie are very rich, magical places. The Na’vi are an incredible group of characters. Let me tell you, these are going to be very challenging but very exciting for us to bring to life.”
Vaughn went on to say, “The world itself is very vibrant and magical. The connectedness that I think people saw in that movie of the Na’vi and to that world, we want the guests to experience this and we are going to do it. So we are very excited about that.”Source:There was a single photo shown of Cameron and others looking over a model. Vaughn remarked, “Now I can’t really talk any more about it, because we’re very early in the creative process. But what I can tell you is that what we’re looking at here now has already evolved to a whole new place and I was just reviewing it last week and I am personally incredibly excited. And the fit at Animal Kingdom couldn’t be better given the themes of Avatar, which is living in harmony with nature, which is a perfect match for us at Animal Kingdom, so we’re very excited about that.”
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/12/08/update-on-walt-disney-worlds-avatar-land?abthid=50c2ad8a70c38b7103000081
Source:"We've gotten more excited about Avatar as we've gone through development. Because we are finding that really playing around with this notion of allowing guests to visit Pandora can be very magical," Staggs said during a brief interview after a grand opening event for "New Fantasyland," which will remain under construction until 2014. "We're not in construction yet. We're still in development. And we're still honing exactly what we're going to do. But it's going to be big."
When Disney first announced the project in September 2011, company officials signaled they would spend between $400 million and $500 million. Asked if Disney still intends to invest the same amount in Avatar Land, Staggs responded, "Yes."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/the-daily-disney/os-disney-staggs-avatar-cars-land-next-gen-20121206,0,5691004.story
Thanks for all the updates.
Screamscape report!
From http://screamscape.com/html/wdw_-_animal_kingdom.htm#Avatar
From: http://screamscape.com/html/wdw_-_animal_kingdom.htm#AvatarI wasn’t sure if I was going to post these right away, but since other sites have also obtained most of these same pictures, I’ll show my hand as well. What you see here is supposed to be early layout plans for the 3D flight simulator ride planned for Avatar: World of Pandora. From studying the plans myself for a few days, which seems to indicate three different floors in the building, I can verify the 3D aspect of the attraction plans, as the lower floorplan, which also shows off a boat ride layout for a C-Ticket attraction, has one room in the center of the four theaters labeled as the room to clean the glasses, complete with a pair of “chutes” up to the next floor, which seem to link up with what looks like pre-show rooms. This same second level piece of artwork, which I have yet to see anywhere else, also shows off the layout of the attraction’s themed queue which would be built on top of the indoor portion of the C-Ticket Boat Ride.
What has been bothering me post is the layout of the individual theaters, as they seem to feature a large circular screen, but also two more screens above the main screen that appear to have a gap of some kind in between them. Putting a “hole” in the middle of your view screen seems a bit crazy to me, at least in terms of a normal simulator style ride experience, so this may be something a bit out of the ordinary.
For one possible idea I came across that would perfectly fit into this concept very easily was something shown off at IAAPA 2011 by a company called Simtec called HEXaFLITE. It was their own take on creating a more dynamic version of the Soarin’ style flight simulator experience, but kind of flipping everything around, top to bottom. While you would load in the horizontal position, as you do in Soarin’, your seats were connected to the floor instead of inverted coaster style. Then at the start of the ride, your entire theater platform would move forward and drop into a vertical dive posture… as if you were going over the edge on a vertical drop coaster, except your seats would roll forward with you to keep you level and upright. Best to see the concept art that Simtec was showing off to really get a firm idea of what I’m talking about. Simtec said that the they could customize the system to have everything from a very mellow and simple (ie: Soarin’) range of motion, up to a fully dynamic 6-DOF full range of motion controls.
Now while I have not heard about any official connection between Simtec and Disney regarding this project, the similarities in the ride’s overall design style are close enough to lead me to believe that I may be on the right track here by pointing out this Simtec design. I also find if very interesting that Simtec has a rather humble website that doesn’t even attempt to flaunt this amazing new ride system concept on the front page, but instead has opted to bury it deep in the back end rather than try to promote it to the world. Could an exclusive use deal with Disney be pending? One has to wonder…
Source:
http://screamscape.com/html/wdw_-_animal_kingdom.htm#Avatar
Screamscape's Lance Hart reports about Avatar Land:
That said, it does seem as if Disney may have selected their primary E-Ticket attraction for the land, which would some kind of new open simulator style ride using a large circular multi-story screen. While this may sound a bit like Soarin’ at first, I’m hearing that this is likely to be a different kind of beast, able to take advantage of the new style digital 3D system Disney used on Star Tours 2, and while it may be about flying around Pandora, I think we’ll see a more active and adventurous motion system used here, as travel through the World of Pandora will not involve the same mellow friendly skies we experienced from Disney’s Soarin.
Attached to this E-Ticket ride structure, which will apparently feature four different theaters to deal with the capacity problems, will be a second C-Ticket level adventure ride that will feature both indoor and outdoor scenes. I’ve heard that it may be family friendly boat ride experience (Small World of Pandora?) though I’d also got a hunch that it could be a land based dark ride system as well as it seems the early proposal may feature 6 to 9 passenger vehicles, using 3 rows of seats.
For those hoping for a little more action and adventure, I’ve also heard that Disney has drawn up some plans for a second E-Ticket ride that could use the same Vekoma MotoBike based coaster system that they are putting to use in Shanghai as a Tron Light Cycle ride. Budget is the primary factor here, as adding the launched coaster to the land would increase the budget by good number of digits. Hope to have more information to share about The World of Avatar soon… so stay tuned.
Source:Now onto the good news. New rumors have begun circulating that Cameron has finally signed off on Disney’s plans and things are once again full steam ahead. So what’s in the plans? A pair of blueprints for the park’s layout have leaked that reveal two possible rides: a 3D simulator and some kind of water ride. Check out the images below.
These are all slight variations of the same space which, according to Stitch Kingdom, will take over Camp Minnie-Mickey at Animal Kingdom. The entire left side of these blueprints, if you zoom in, features four huge theaters with two screens apiece. Below that, you can see there’s a Glasses Cleaning area. Putting two and two together and it’s likely some kind of 3D simulator along the lines of Star Tours, but on a larger scale, like Soarin’. Across the way, in the upper right corner, you’ll see a track that looks like some sort of water ride, maybe along the lines of Jungle Cruise.
http://www.slashfilm.com/leaked-avatar-land-blueprints-reveal-possible-3d-simulator-and-water-ride/
Source:Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York, Rasulo said that after Fantasyland in Florida is upgraded, "The next project of size in Florida will be Avatarland in Disney's Animal Kingdom."
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/walt-disney-company-stock-shares-cars-land-california-adventure-372420