Looks like ITTL, Christopher Lee is going be leaving behind an even more impressive cinematic legacy than in ours.
Incidentally Geekhis, I was wondering if we could make it canon, that he attends the Mort premiere dressed like this:
When you Wish Upon a Frog (Book II of the Jim Henson at Disney saga)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
- Start date
- Status
Incidentally Geekhis, I was wondering if we could make it canon, that he attends the Mort premiere dressed like this:
Thanks again, all, for the kind words and your patience with my travel-related IT issues. Back to usual schedule!
tvtropes.org
Yes, lots of Cameos. Cameos everywhere! Half of UK comedy at least.
Sounds about right.
I put in quite a bit of thought on casting, as I knew that would get a lot of attention. Some, like Spall and Lee, where the first names to come to mind. Others, like Schreiber and Urban and Ledger, took some thought. Some, like Stewart and Grammer, seemed too perfect for any TL. And Thanks again to Mrs. Khan for Pam Grier. As much as I love Halle Berry, she was miscast as Storm.
Yea, some hardcore fanboys will complain like they complained about Jackman (they REALLY complained about the casting before they saw his performance!). Jackman and Schreiber are both 6' 3", and generally Hollywood always makes leading men tall, even when the actors are not (e.g. Tom Cruise). Sadly, general audiences wouldn't take a short Wolvie seriously as a threat (height bias is real...look at how often the taller candidate wins!). So a taller than the comics Wolvie is rather unavoidable.
Of course!
Yes, all 307135. There will be passing mentions of Spider-Man and the Hulk as "threats" by Sen. Kelly in this film.
Probably not Yellow Spandex, but since Marvel is doing it likely truer to the comics. Perhaps Wolvie wears brown leather with yellow highlights (very earthy), cyclops something like navy blue tac gear, Storm flowing African-inspired dresses, etc.
In 1996? Probably pushing it to change the race of fan favorites. One of the reasons why Jubilee was so strongly considered was diversity. Things in that regard can improve as the series progresses, but it does demonstrate how white-heavy even "progressive" Marvel was in the 20th century.
This is true. Lee is actually older than his character here.
And Waltz will be playing someone younger. The makeup will do wonders here.
Williams sounds about right.
Yep. Wolvie was stupid-popular in the 1990s. So much so that he appeared on covers of comics that he wasn't in since they figured anything with Wolvie on the cover would sell.
Wolverine Publicity - TV Tropes
Certain popular characters within a fictional universe (and sometimes in real life) get used in gratuitous and/or inappropriate ways purely to enhance marketing. Superhero teams in comic books constantly change. Characters join and leave so often …
tvtropes.org
Well, people have noted that irony iOTL, so inevitably someone will point it out in theis one.
Could be interesting.
LOL sure, why not.
I was in the convo when he was proposed (not the one who proposed it) - that was the entire point.
(Not being rude here, just pointing something out)
Speaking of Tom Cruise was he too big of a star at this time to be Wolverine?
How about something like this as costuming:
Give me sometime and I can do a more accurate lineup (I hope).
We may have to wait until ITTL's version of the Ultimate Universe to get away with something like this. Could prove a good time to incorporate Harvey's golden age characters:
Not if the X-Men becomes a big hit and the fans want Wolverine to match his cinematic version.
Let's take the X-Men costuming over to the other thread folks.
The Hensonverse Speculation and Commentary thread: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/hensonverse-speculation-and-commentary.529158/
The Hensonverse Speculation and Commentary thread: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/hensonverse-speculation-and-commentary.529158/
Aye-Aye-Yai
Chapter 17: Expansion and Challenges (Cont’d)
Excerpt from The King is Dead: The Walt Disney Company After Walt Disney, an Unauthorized History by Sue Donym and Arman N. Said
By the mid-1990s, with the world economy booming, attendance at the Disney Resorts was growing steadily. With DisneySea opening to immense fanfare in 1995, and with epic and immersive experiences of so many different types that guests found themselves overwhelmed at the breadth of the experience, many found that Port Disney was best enjoyed in pieces over 2-3 days, not something that could be taken in one bite. Despite its unbelievable $5 billion final cost, DisneySea was quickly deemed a smash success, exceeding expectations thanks to the combination of amazing animatronics, immersive oceanic experiences, day cruises, and the anticipation from watching the slow and epic transformation of Port Disney over the years.
DisneySea was, according to Acting Disney President Dick Nunis, the “new crown jewel” of Disney Resorts. And while we will discuss that resort, and the maritime empire that it anchors (no pun intended) another time, suffice it to say that it pulled Port Disney fully into the black and became a stunning and beloved addition to the Disney Resort Empire. A new Tokyo DisneySea, license-built and managed by the Oriental Land Company, was even in development and scheduled to open in 2002.
The economic boom of the mid-‘90s was also being felt elsewhere. Attendance to Disneyland Valencia in particular was skyrocketing. Cruise ships were docking at Dénia and other nearby ports, including the Disney Atlantic, soon to be replaced by the larger, more stylish Disney Imagination. Hotels were filling up. Profits were growing. Visitors from Northern Europe flooded in during the winter months as an escape from the cold, wet winters or ice and snow of Scandinavia. Increasingly, visitors flooded in from Eastern Europe and the USR as well. As attendance increased, it soon became reliably one of Spain’s Top Three attractions and led to a small economic boom on the Alicante coast. The debut of an ICE express train from Marseille and Paris to Pago in 1995 further boosted attendance by drastically shortening the travel time.
But Valencia would soon face an existential challenge when Six Flags opened a Warner Brothers Movie World near Paris, ironically on the very location where Disney had once considered placing their European Disney. Backed by French government loans, and learning from the mistakes on Disneyland Valencia, Warner World Paris would ultimately cost just over $2 billion and finish on time and open in the spring of 1997. Disneyland Valencia would, needless to say, suffer an immediate hit to its attendance, particularly in the summer months. However, earlier fears at Disney R&R about losing attendance at the Paris location in the winter months proved prescient as it was soon found that Europeans were far less willing to stand in line in the chilly winter rains than were their Japanese counterparts, who keep winter attendance numbers at Tokyo Disneyland high. As such, Warner World Paris saw steep declines in attendance during the winter months, including the critical holiday travel season, while Disneyland Valencia’s winter numbers remained high. Instead, Warner World Paris dominated the hotter months while Disneyland Valencia dominated the colder ones.
The Dénia port would be expanded in 1998 and soon cruise lines became a primary source of visitors to Disneyland Valencia, helping to keep attendance numbers up. And yet Disney’s projected five- and ten-year revenues in the early 1990s had neglected to consider the possibility of a competing park in Paris, and as such Disney stocks suffered as R&R consistently had to downgrade its projected profits.
Warner World Paris also began to chip away at attendance in Disneytown London, though the small park and the adjacent Chessington World of Adventure both continued to do well based on attendance by Londoners and other British visitors alone. Still, profit margins for the combined park dropped noticeably after Warner World opened.
To combat this new rival in Paris, R&R Head Judson Green suggested that they move into Berlin, assuring the board that the German Federal Government was anxious to support the resort. Two sites were investigated: an old industrial site near Potsdam and the Brand-Briesen Airfield, an old Luftwaffe base near the small village of Brand roughly 30 miles to the south of Berlin. Both sites had their advantages and disadvantages. The Potsdam site required a lot of environmental cleanup and had limited room for expansion, but it also was close to downtown Berlin and the Disney Plaza would hypothetically benefit from frequent visits by the local population. However, many advisors were skeptical that the Germans would be as enamored by the “Mall like” approach, nor really see anything special about a fake marketplace when every town in Europe had a real one.
The Brand site, meanwhile, would have the advantages of open space, the potential year-round operation of the hardened hangars, and even its own runway, but Disney was learning that Europeans in general did not like to travel more than ten to twenty miles from home. It was determined that to support the 1.2 million visitors that hotels would likely be needed, making the hypothetical Disneytown a destination in itself rather than count on day trips from Berlin. This meant that a larger and by extension more expensive resort would be required.
At first, a hybrid approach was considered. They would experiment by putting a Disney Store, a Madame Tussauds, a Club Cyclia, and one of the new ImaginationLand virtual reality and gaming centers[1] at the Potsdam site as a test bed. Groundbreaking began in partnership with local German contractors chosen by the Berlin City Government. However, the environmental cleanup proved much more difficult than initially anticipated, exacerbated by the discovery of some unexploded munitions from World War 2. Furthermore, inefficiencies in the Berlin municipal government and allegations of funds mismanagement were causing the costs to increase. By the time they reached $50 million and had only built the Disney Store and Cyclia, it became clear that a full Disneytown at the location would be cost prohibitive even with the German Government covering much of the construction. When the small seed plaza opened in the spring of 1998 it underperformed to expectations with Club Cyclia in particular not able to compete with Berlin’s many trendy Discotheques, some of which had already copied the Cyclia model. The Disney Store did well enough, as did the Madame Tussauds, but the ImaginationLand was not quite clicking with Berlin’s youth to the level hoped with home gaming being the preferable alternative.
By contrast, the German Federal Government seemed anxious to spin up the larger Disneytown in Brand, hoping to stimulate the poor rural area and hopefully speed reunification, which was not going as smoothly as originally envisioned. The CargoLifter company, that had been leasing the site and were constructing a large airship hangar, was struggling financially, but Disney determined that the sight of the airships flying in and out of the impressive new shiny silver hangar would be an interesting attraction all on their own. And should CargoLifter go bankrupt, which many were predicting, then Disney could hypothetically claim the entire hangar for free as a climate-controlled place for a Land, though some feared that the hangar-based land would pull in winter visitors that might have hypothetically chosen to go to Valencia instead. Furthermore, the old Soviet Hardened Aircraft Shelters and other buildings could be hypothetically converted into shops, supply warehouses, and even small attractions. “From a place of war to a place of Magic!” as Chairman Jim Henson put it.
To support the future park, the German Government promised to put in a dedicated express train line and an extended autobahn to serve the site. This proved the deciding factor, with the Potsdam Disney Plaza idea reduced to a vestigial area of shops and restaurants that never became christened as a Disneytown and instead became primarily a place where one could catch a free shuttle to the Disneytown to the south. Two Marriott-built-and-managed hotels would be constructed at Disneytown Berlin, the futuristic Clear Skies Resort and the family-focused Mickey’s Garden (or “Mickeygarten”).
The Brand site instead broke ground in 1999 with the very first “Land” to follow the Tomorrowland 2055[2] concept. The “Green Optimism” of the design would, it was felt, appeal to Germans of all stripes, speaking of rebirth and a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow of clean skies and peace and togetherness. Solar and wind farms were carefully placed to both be conspicuously visible but also functional[3] (nobody wanted an embarrassing repeat of the perpetually-still wind farm at WDW!). Later a small Cryogenic Energy Storage facility was added, which the engineers and maintainers were admonished to stop calling a “Walt’s Head”. Exhibits spoke of the potential of renewable and energy efficient technologies, including the potential of modern airships as a low-carbon option for air travel and transport, which became rather embarrassing when CargoLifter went bankrupt in 2002. Furthermore, the Hardened Shelters and other old military buildings would be converted into the various shops and stores and stages of the Disney Plaza, soon renamed Der Disney Markt, in what Henson dubbed “Swords to Plowshares”. For a German people eager to move on to a future where Germany was at the center of a new world of peaceful coexistence rather than military expansion, the Tomorrowland 2055 offered a fresh form of futurism that was shorn of old Fascist-associated imagery and the Swords to Plowshares theme equally appealed to those anxious to put a militaristic past behind.
And when CargoLifter finally went under in the early 2000s, Disney would claim the hangar, converting it into the Steam Romance flavored Adventures in Space, a sort of hybrid Discoveryland/Adventureland where guests could ride airship-themed sky trams piloted by crusty old captains or old fashioned trains or boats to visit any of the several mythic locales within, each based upon an outdated concept of a different planet: desert-like Mars, tropical Venus, the lava fields of Mercury, the floating cloud cities of Jupiter and Saturn, the icy world of Uranus, the watery world of Neptune, and the dark, cold world of Pluto. Each was filled with unique aliens[4], with the design of the Plutonians based in part, as a joke, on Mickey’s eponymous dog. Pre-war Fritz Lang design and Post-war Science Fiction on both sides of the Iron Curtain was mined for inspiration, such as the Perry Rhodan series and The Silent Star and the writings of Stanislaw Lem. The result became a unique “kitchen sink” of various retrofuturistic visions of the future, all carefully chosen to eliminate anything that was too closely evocative of Nazi Futurism (including modifying the rockets to not be too resembling of the V2).
And to cast aside any doubt about where Disney stood on the issue of Nazism, one of the converted hangars at the Disney Markt spoke about the Holocaust and played Maus on a loop.
Disneytown Berlin would perform well enough. The Tomorrowland 2055 approach offered a unique experience compared to most European parks. The eventual Adventures in Space attraction inside the old CargoLifter hangar became a huge hit as there was literally nothing else like it in the world when first completed in the mid-2000s. But the ultimate costs would be high and early visitation was hobbled as the German Autobahn Expansion and Express Rail projects both suffered massive cost and schedule overruns. While the efforts were a part of a larger government scheme to spur economic growth and integration in the former East Germany, the German public increasingly saw it as their government spending their tax dollars to help out an American corporation bringing American culture, which offended left and right alike, particularly as “Die Mickeybahn” continued to face cost and schedule overruns as the construction company doggedly stuck to their original plans even as these proved increasingly impractical. Their problems even affected local German politics, seeing a rise in Green Party voting and allowing the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) to gain ground against the Christian Democrats in the region.
And with so many international projects coming on top of the many scheduled expansions and renovations stateside, Imagineering was spread increasingly thin. To take up the excess, CEO Frank Wells authorized the formation of a dedicated Imagineering International Division which would specialize in working to non-US rules and standards (such as metric and EU regulations) and work to make inroads with non-US construction firms. Headquartered in Dénia near Disneyland Valencia, Imagineering International, or II, hired heavily from non-US populations the world over, with various European, Asian, African, Australian, and Latin American Imagineers soon greatly outnumbering the US ones. Soon R&R needed to expand its own International Resorts Division to match! As II evolved, it gained its own culture, more global, jet-setting, outgoing, adventurous, and, of course, international. II became known for being culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse, and by extension religiously diverse. II even designed its own mascot, Ayne the Aye-Aye, to help it stand out further from the Figment-themed Imagineering USA. In addition to the pun on their acronym, it was felt that the strange ugly-cute gremlin-like appearance of the Aye-Aye made it particularly evocative of the “exotic and unique” feel of II. In addition to, and in part because of, II’s diversity of employees, II also increasingly attracted a diversity of experience, soon evolving into a place where no idea, however seemingly outlandish to some, was rejected without due consideration on the assumption that the innovator might just know something that you didn’t! And almost like an unstated initiation ritual, II employees, increasingly called the “Aye-Ayes”, would be expected to be open to new experiences and local culture, wherever they went, however bizarre or off-putting.
What's not to love? (Image source Duke University)
“Imagineering was always a place of wild and open ideas,” said Imagineer Joe Rhode, who helped spin up II, “But the Aye-Ayes were insane! They bonded over strange foods from ridiculously hot chilies to revolting things like durian fruit and baluts that I don’t even want to talk about. If you had a conservative bone in your body, culturally speaking, you were in for a tough time. They loved me, of course!”
The Disneytowns were in general doing well, in the US and abroad. Disneytown London was a success for both Disney and Pearson. The Disneytown in Sydney at White Bay had opened and was proving a major success, and thus began expanding into a small Port Disney. A Disneytown began construction in 1997 in Hong Kong with the People’s Republic footing the up-front costs for the dredging and construction. They did so for diplomatic and political reasons, hoping to assuage fears of a Beijing crackdown on Hong Kong post-unification. Talks progressed with the Saudi Royal Family for a Disneytown in the kingdom, and talks began with the USR for a potential Disneytown in Odessa. Disneytown Ontario, the “Mouse Trap”, opened in 1997 and was performing to expectations, though the ferry service was losing money. Discussions about the possibility for a Disneytown in Latin America or the Caribbean echoed through the halls at Disney R&R.
But in the US, while the Disneytowns in Chicago and Seattle excelled and the Disneytowns in Philadelphia, Denver, and San Antonio performed to expectations, the Disneytown in St. Louis, the beloved salute to Marceline and Walt, was hemorrhaging money. Constantly undercut by the large and growing Six Flags/Warner World Park across the river, Disneytown St. Louis just couldn’t compete.
Left with two bad options of either trying to compete against the larger park or massively expanding the Disneytown into a full Disneyland – the latter a move that looked to most like throwing good money after bad – the board met to make a fateful decision. After several years of running massive losses, the board reluctantly called it quits on the Disneytown they most wanted to see succeed. All reached the sad conclusion that the location, chosen for love rather than financial realism, was doomed to failure for anything less than a major resort able to compete directly with Six Flags.
In the fall of 1995 Disneytown St. Louis was closed for good, the first Disney resort to actually fail despite a few close calls. Anything that could be salvaged was salvaged, including facades in many cases, leaving a sad little skeletal ghost park that became a popular destination for graffiti artists and urban explorers before ultimately getting demolished and turned into an industrial park in the 2010s.
[1] Similar in nature to DisneyQuest, if you recall.
[2] Hat Tip to @Denliner.
[3] Brand isn’t the perfect place for wind power compared to the Baltic/North Sea Coast, but it’ll be good enough to see turbines spinning.
[4] Hat tip to @El Pip.
Excerpt from The King is Dead: The Walt Disney Company After Walt Disney, an Unauthorized History by Sue Donym and Arman N. Said
By the mid-1990s, with the world economy booming, attendance at the Disney Resorts was growing steadily. With DisneySea opening to immense fanfare in 1995, and with epic and immersive experiences of so many different types that guests found themselves overwhelmed at the breadth of the experience, many found that Port Disney was best enjoyed in pieces over 2-3 days, not something that could be taken in one bite. Despite its unbelievable $5 billion final cost, DisneySea was quickly deemed a smash success, exceeding expectations thanks to the combination of amazing animatronics, immersive oceanic experiences, day cruises, and the anticipation from watching the slow and epic transformation of Port Disney over the years.
DisneySea was, according to Acting Disney President Dick Nunis, the “new crown jewel” of Disney Resorts. And while we will discuss that resort, and the maritime empire that it anchors (no pun intended) another time, suffice it to say that it pulled Port Disney fully into the black and became a stunning and beloved addition to the Disney Resort Empire. A new Tokyo DisneySea, license-built and managed by the Oriental Land Company, was even in development and scheduled to open in 2002.
The economic boom of the mid-‘90s was also being felt elsewhere. Attendance to Disneyland Valencia in particular was skyrocketing. Cruise ships were docking at Dénia and other nearby ports, including the Disney Atlantic, soon to be replaced by the larger, more stylish Disney Imagination. Hotels were filling up. Profits were growing. Visitors from Northern Europe flooded in during the winter months as an escape from the cold, wet winters or ice and snow of Scandinavia. Increasingly, visitors flooded in from Eastern Europe and the USR as well. As attendance increased, it soon became reliably one of Spain’s Top Three attractions and led to a small economic boom on the Alicante coast. The debut of an ICE express train from Marseille and Paris to Pago in 1995 further boosted attendance by drastically shortening the travel time.
But Valencia would soon face an existential challenge when Six Flags opened a Warner Brothers Movie World near Paris, ironically on the very location where Disney had once considered placing their European Disney. Backed by French government loans, and learning from the mistakes on Disneyland Valencia, Warner World Paris would ultimately cost just over $2 billion and finish on time and open in the spring of 1997. Disneyland Valencia would, needless to say, suffer an immediate hit to its attendance, particularly in the summer months. However, earlier fears at Disney R&R about losing attendance at the Paris location in the winter months proved prescient as it was soon found that Europeans were far less willing to stand in line in the chilly winter rains than were their Japanese counterparts, who keep winter attendance numbers at Tokyo Disneyland high. As such, Warner World Paris saw steep declines in attendance during the winter months, including the critical holiday travel season, while Disneyland Valencia’s winter numbers remained high. Instead, Warner World Paris dominated the hotter months while Disneyland Valencia dominated the colder ones.
The Dénia port would be expanded in 1998 and soon cruise lines became a primary source of visitors to Disneyland Valencia, helping to keep attendance numbers up. And yet Disney’s projected five- and ten-year revenues in the early 1990s had neglected to consider the possibility of a competing park in Paris, and as such Disney stocks suffered as R&R consistently had to downgrade its projected profits.
Warner World Paris also began to chip away at attendance in Disneytown London, though the small park and the adjacent Chessington World of Adventure both continued to do well based on attendance by Londoners and other British visitors alone. Still, profit margins for the combined park dropped noticeably after Warner World opened.
To combat this new rival in Paris, R&R Head Judson Green suggested that they move into Berlin, assuring the board that the German Federal Government was anxious to support the resort. Two sites were investigated: an old industrial site near Potsdam and the Brand-Briesen Airfield, an old Luftwaffe base near the small village of Brand roughly 30 miles to the south of Berlin. Both sites had their advantages and disadvantages. The Potsdam site required a lot of environmental cleanup and had limited room for expansion, but it also was close to downtown Berlin and the Disney Plaza would hypothetically benefit from frequent visits by the local population. However, many advisors were skeptical that the Germans would be as enamored by the “Mall like” approach, nor really see anything special about a fake marketplace when every town in Europe had a real one.
The Brand site, meanwhile, would have the advantages of open space, the potential year-round operation of the hardened hangars, and even its own runway, but Disney was learning that Europeans in general did not like to travel more than ten to twenty miles from home. It was determined that to support the 1.2 million visitors that hotels would likely be needed, making the hypothetical Disneytown a destination in itself rather than count on day trips from Berlin. This meant that a larger and by extension more expensive resort would be required.
At first, a hybrid approach was considered. They would experiment by putting a Disney Store, a Madame Tussauds, a Club Cyclia, and one of the new ImaginationLand virtual reality and gaming centers[1] at the Potsdam site as a test bed. Groundbreaking began in partnership with local German contractors chosen by the Berlin City Government. However, the environmental cleanup proved much more difficult than initially anticipated, exacerbated by the discovery of some unexploded munitions from World War 2. Furthermore, inefficiencies in the Berlin municipal government and allegations of funds mismanagement were causing the costs to increase. By the time they reached $50 million and had only built the Disney Store and Cyclia, it became clear that a full Disneytown at the location would be cost prohibitive even with the German Government covering much of the construction. When the small seed plaza opened in the spring of 1998 it underperformed to expectations with Club Cyclia in particular not able to compete with Berlin’s many trendy Discotheques, some of which had already copied the Cyclia model. The Disney Store did well enough, as did the Madame Tussauds, but the ImaginationLand was not quite clicking with Berlin’s youth to the level hoped with home gaming being the preferable alternative.
By contrast, the German Federal Government seemed anxious to spin up the larger Disneytown in Brand, hoping to stimulate the poor rural area and hopefully speed reunification, which was not going as smoothly as originally envisioned. The CargoLifter company, that had been leasing the site and were constructing a large airship hangar, was struggling financially, but Disney determined that the sight of the airships flying in and out of the impressive new shiny silver hangar would be an interesting attraction all on their own. And should CargoLifter go bankrupt, which many were predicting, then Disney could hypothetically claim the entire hangar for free as a climate-controlled place for a Land, though some feared that the hangar-based land would pull in winter visitors that might have hypothetically chosen to go to Valencia instead. Furthermore, the old Soviet Hardened Aircraft Shelters and other buildings could be hypothetically converted into shops, supply warehouses, and even small attractions. “From a place of war to a place of Magic!” as Chairman Jim Henson put it.
To support the future park, the German Government promised to put in a dedicated express train line and an extended autobahn to serve the site. This proved the deciding factor, with the Potsdam Disney Plaza idea reduced to a vestigial area of shops and restaurants that never became christened as a Disneytown and instead became primarily a place where one could catch a free shuttle to the Disneytown to the south. Two Marriott-built-and-managed hotels would be constructed at Disneytown Berlin, the futuristic Clear Skies Resort and the family-focused Mickey’s Garden (or “Mickeygarten”).
The Brand site instead broke ground in 1999 with the very first “Land” to follow the Tomorrowland 2055[2] concept. The “Green Optimism” of the design would, it was felt, appeal to Germans of all stripes, speaking of rebirth and a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow of clean skies and peace and togetherness. Solar and wind farms were carefully placed to both be conspicuously visible but also functional[3] (nobody wanted an embarrassing repeat of the perpetually-still wind farm at WDW!). Later a small Cryogenic Energy Storage facility was added, which the engineers and maintainers were admonished to stop calling a “Walt’s Head”. Exhibits spoke of the potential of renewable and energy efficient technologies, including the potential of modern airships as a low-carbon option for air travel and transport, which became rather embarrassing when CargoLifter went bankrupt in 2002. Furthermore, the Hardened Shelters and other old military buildings would be converted into the various shops and stores and stages of the Disney Plaza, soon renamed Der Disney Markt, in what Henson dubbed “Swords to Plowshares”. For a German people eager to move on to a future where Germany was at the center of a new world of peaceful coexistence rather than military expansion, the Tomorrowland 2055 offered a fresh form of futurism that was shorn of old Fascist-associated imagery and the Swords to Plowshares theme equally appealed to those anxious to put a militaristic past behind.
And when CargoLifter finally went under in the early 2000s, Disney would claim the hangar, converting it into the Steam Romance flavored Adventures in Space, a sort of hybrid Discoveryland/Adventureland where guests could ride airship-themed sky trams piloted by crusty old captains or old fashioned trains or boats to visit any of the several mythic locales within, each based upon an outdated concept of a different planet: desert-like Mars, tropical Venus, the lava fields of Mercury, the floating cloud cities of Jupiter and Saturn, the icy world of Uranus, the watery world of Neptune, and the dark, cold world of Pluto. Each was filled with unique aliens[4], with the design of the Plutonians based in part, as a joke, on Mickey’s eponymous dog. Pre-war Fritz Lang design and Post-war Science Fiction on both sides of the Iron Curtain was mined for inspiration, such as the Perry Rhodan series and The Silent Star and the writings of Stanislaw Lem. The result became a unique “kitchen sink” of various retrofuturistic visions of the future, all carefully chosen to eliminate anything that was too closely evocative of Nazi Futurism (including modifying the rockets to not be too resembling of the V2).
And to cast aside any doubt about where Disney stood on the issue of Nazism, one of the converted hangars at the Disney Markt spoke about the Holocaust and played Maus on a loop.
Disneytown Berlin would perform well enough. The Tomorrowland 2055 approach offered a unique experience compared to most European parks. The eventual Adventures in Space attraction inside the old CargoLifter hangar became a huge hit as there was literally nothing else like it in the world when first completed in the mid-2000s. But the ultimate costs would be high and early visitation was hobbled as the German Autobahn Expansion and Express Rail projects both suffered massive cost and schedule overruns. While the efforts were a part of a larger government scheme to spur economic growth and integration in the former East Germany, the German public increasingly saw it as their government spending their tax dollars to help out an American corporation bringing American culture, which offended left and right alike, particularly as “Die Mickeybahn” continued to face cost and schedule overruns as the construction company doggedly stuck to their original plans even as these proved increasingly impractical. Their problems even affected local German politics, seeing a rise in Green Party voting and allowing the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) to gain ground against the Christian Democrats in the region.
And with so many international projects coming on top of the many scheduled expansions and renovations stateside, Imagineering was spread increasingly thin. To take up the excess, CEO Frank Wells authorized the formation of a dedicated Imagineering International Division which would specialize in working to non-US rules and standards (such as metric and EU regulations) and work to make inroads with non-US construction firms. Headquartered in Dénia near Disneyland Valencia, Imagineering International, or II, hired heavily from non-US populations the world over, with various European, Asian, African, Australian, and Latin American Imagineers soon greatly outnumbering the US ones. Soon R&R needed to expand its own International Resorts Division to match! As II evolved, it gained its own culture, more global, jet-setting, outgoing, adventurous, and, of course, international. II became known for being culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse, and by extension religiously diverse. II even designed its own mascot, Ayne the Aye-Aye, to help it stand out further from the Figment-themed Imagineering USA. In addition to the pun on their acronym, it was felt that the strange ugly-cute gremlin-like appearance of the Aye-Aye made it particularly evocative of the “exotic and unique” feel of II. In addition to, and in part because of, II’s diversity of employees, II also increasingly attracted a diversity of experience, soon evolving into a place where no idea, however seemingly outlandish to some, was rejected without due consideration on the assumption that the innovator might just know something that you didn’t! And almost like an unstated initiation ritual, II employees, increasingly called the “Aye-Ayes”, would be expected to be open to new experiences and local culture, wherever they went, however bizarre or off-putting.
What's not to love? (Image source Duke University)
“Imagineering was always a place of wild and open ideas,” said Imagineer Joe Rhode, who helped spin up II, “But the Aye-Ayes were insane! They bonded over strange foods from ridiculously hot chilies to revolting things like durian fruit and baluts that I don’t even want to talk about. If you had a conservative bone in your body, culturally speaking, you were in for a tough time. They loved me, of course!”
The Disneytowns were in general doing well, in the US and abroad. Disneytown London was a success for both Disney and Pearson. The Disneytown in Sydney at White Bay had opened and was proving a major success, and thus began expanding into a small Port Disney. A Disneytown began construction in 1997 in Hong Kong with the People’s Republic footing the up-front costs for the dredging and construction. They did so for diplomatic and political reasons, hoping to assuage fears of a Beijing crackdown on Hong Kong post-unification. Talks progressed with the Saudi Royal Family for a Disneytown in the kingdom, and talks began with the USR for a potential Disneytown in Odessa. Disneytown Ontario, the “Mouse Trap”, opened in 1997 and was performing to expectations, though the ferry service was losing money. Discussions about the possibility for a Disneytown in Latin America or the Caribbean echoed through the halls at Disney R&R.
But in the US, while the Disneytowns in Chicago and Seattle excelled and the Disneytowns in Philadelphia, Denver, and San Antonio performed to expectations, the Disneytown in St. Louis, the beloved salute to Marceline and Walt, was hemorrhaging money. Constantly undercut by the large and growing Six Flags/Warner World Park across the river, Disneytown St. Louis just couldn’t compete.
Left with two bad options of either trying to compete against the larger park or massively expanding the Disneytown into a full Disneyland – the latter a move that looked to most like throwing good money after bad – the board met to make a fateful decision. After several years of running massive losses, the board reluctantly called it quits on the Disneytown they most wanted to see succeed. All reached the sad conclusion that the location, chosen for love rather than financial realism, was doomed to failure for anything less than a major resort able to compete directly with Six Flags.
In the fall of 1995 Disneytown St. Louis was closed for good, the first Disney resort to actually fail despite a few close calls. Anything that could be salvaged was salvaged, including facades in many cases, leaving a sad little skeletal ghost park that became a popular destination for graffiti artists and urban explorers before ultimately getting demolished and turned into an industrial park in the 2010s.
[1] Similar in nature to DisneyQuest, if you recall.
[2] Hat Tip to @Denliner.
[3] Brand isn’t the perfect place for wind power compared to the Baltic/North Sea Coast, but it’ll be good enough to see turbines spinning.
[4] Hat tip to @El Pip.
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As a person who loves Aye-Ayes, I approve.. II even designed its own mascot, Ayne the Aye-Aye, to help it stand out further from the Figment-themed Imagineering USA. In addition to the pun on their acronym, it was felt that the strange ugly-cute gremlin-like appearance of the Aye-Aye made it particularly evocative of the “exotic and unique” feel of II. In addition to, and in part because of, II’s diversity of employees, II also increasingly attracted a diversity of experience, soon evolving into a place where no idea, however seemingly outlandish to some, was rejected without due consideration on the assumption that the innovator might just know something that you didn’t! And almost like an unstated initiation ritual, II employees, increasingly called the “Aye-Ayes”, would be expected to be open to new experiences and local culture, wherever they went, however bizarre or off-putting.
What's not to love? (Image source Duke University)
“Imagineering was always a place of wild and open ideas,” said Imagineer Joe Rhode, who helped spin up II, “But the Aye-Ayes were insane! They bonded over strange foods from ridiculously hot chilies to revolting things like durian fruit and baluts that I don’t even want to talk about. If you had a conservative bone in your body, culturally speaking, you were in for a tough time. They loved me, of course!”
"Instead, Warner World Paris dominated the hotter months while Disneyland Valencia dominated the colder ones." - should be interesting to see how Berlin disturbs this tread.
I can see ITTL me visiting Disneytown London but not likely to visit the continental ones until the Steam Romance flavored Adventures in Space opened as it really does appeal to me- such a fun sounding mashup of influences.
Imagineering International Division - the “Aye-Ayes” - one can just see Ayne with a pirates hat somehow....
"in addition to, and in part because of, II’s diversity of employees, II also increasingly attracted a diversity of experience," - sounds like a fun place to work.
"The Disneytowns were in general doing well" - seems like it. Some great expansion going on there.
I can see a Disneytown in Rio.
Fun overview chapter there @Geekhis Khan
I can see ITTL me visiting Disneytown London but not likely to visit the continental ones until the Steam Romance flavored Adventures in Space opened as it really does appeal to me- such a fun sounding mashup of influences.
Imagineering International Division - the “Aye-Ayes” - one can just see Ayne with a pirates hat somehow....
"in addition to, and in part because of, II’s diversity of employees, II also increasingly attracted a diversity of experience," - sounds like a fun place to work.
"The Disneytowns were in general doing well" - seems like it. Some great expansion going on there.
I can see a Disneytown in Rio.
Fun overview chapter there @Geekhis Khan
The names Sue Donym and Arman N. Said have been shown a lot. I get the pun with Sue Donym, but what's with Arman N. Said?
It really deserving that title. Absolutely beautiful.
Great news for Alicante, I hope that means the region will stay stable and wealthy in the future.
So no Disneykiller? Predictable.
I'm glad both found their niche.
Great research btw. That's the authentic large German construction site experience.😂
It's the better deal tbh. Like a little Disney mall in the middle of Potsdam wouldn't never pull the numbers.
Cool and educational and yeah the Airships were a pipe dream from the start😅
Given how prevalent Soviet imagery is in East Germany I'm not surprised that they love the Swords to Ploughshares imaginary.
Also personally I would write Disney Markt as two words because Disney is a last name.
My cousin would probably hate this change but I'm super in love with the concept. Hoping on the Dimension Jumper right now.
Great great great! I love the idea of a mixed future with both art deco, Soviet scifi and retro futurist ideas.
Also Perry Rhodan is a great fit given that they already have their own mouse (beaver)
Well nothing can be perfect. Although can't say that I'm heartbroken about the CDU losing ground.😅
II sounds like a fun place to be at, a true melting pot of cultures and ideas.
Also a mascot that you would expect from the Skeleton Crew.
We'll see about that.
The Disneytowns are doing great. Can't wait to see how these projects will proceed.
Like Saudi Arabia could be a problem eventually.
Great chapter @Geekhis Khan
Thanks again, all, and thanks to @Denliner and @El Pip as always for the parks assist.
And I forget who first brought the Brand-Briessen airfield and hangar to my attention, but hat tip there as well.
More Parks fun tomorrow, folks!
El Pip came up with that general idea, so thanks to him. It's a brilliant one.
El Pip has some personal experience there, LOL.
And Denliner mentioned some of the German SciFi authors including Rhodan, I believe.
And I forget who first brought the Brand-Briessen airfield and hangar to my attention, but hat tip there as well.
More Parks fun tomorrow, folks!
Can't help but hope that at least one person tried to push the idea of keeping the airships from the company too for a high-ticket air tour near the site, maybe over Berlin, and back as a possible attraction.
I'm definitely not saying that purely because that's one of the only ways you'd ever get me to cross the threshold.....
I'm definitely not saying that purely because that's one of the only ways you'd ever get me to cross the threshold.....
Ah, ok. I was pronouncing it as "sed", like when someone "said" something
Poor guy
You probably mean people who worked on Rhodan since he's not a real person.
And yeah it's fun it has everything from Murans to gigantic spaceships to psychedelic brain odysseys.
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