Just read the Al DIG update. This is crazy!! :eek: WDI R&D gone?!? That's insane. Now the park is just a cheap "roller coaster tycoon" park. They'll just drop in cheap stock rides to fill up spaces, and that takes NO imaginations, and that's ironic since DL is park of imaginations. Maybe this is the end of DL as we no it.

*sigh* anybody share my frustrations and find this "decision" inexcusable? :( So stupid. :(

I find it mind-blowing. :(

Anyone interested in organizing a petition?

What are they thinking???

I hope this hits the popular press - it could be the bad decision that ousts Eisner. How foolish to throw out all that experience and talent.

Geez. HM and its ER, the cleaver solution to get guests under the RR track. POTC. Indy. That's what we have to remind ourselves of the Imagineers; the Disney-customed rides. Those rides are special because they're "Disney-ized", by the imagineers.

Looks like Indy was the last great ride by the Imagineers :crying:

Here's a touching page of WDI's history. It just makes you realize how great of a lost cutting WDI is :( http://www.wdimagic.com/history.html

a sample...
At the heart of Imagineering's magic has been its unrivaled ability to combine world-renown storytelling with truly innovative technology, and today, WDI holds nearly 80 patents and has more than 20 others pending in such areas as special effects, ride systems, interactive technology, live entertainment, fiber optics and advanced audio systems.

Consequently, the Disney Theme Parks have introduced numerous technological landmarks that have become industry standards, including Audio-Animatronics® (1963), the first computer-controlled thrill ride (1975), and an advanced 3-D motion picture photography system pushed to a new level with Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.

:crying: :confused: :(

Just shy of their 50th anniversary too - for shame.

Originally posted by BJW
Anyone interested in organizing a petition?

Unfortunately, people of Eisner doesn't listen to customers like us. Ironic, without us customers he's out of business, yet he still won't listen.

petitions are useless, public (esp to the media) outcry is far more effective in this day and age

Originally posted by Laffite
Looks like Indy was the last great ride by the Imagineers :crying:


Er... Actually, I think that would be Soarin', since it's ride system was basically a WDI creation.

Soarin' may have been an engineering feat, but c'mon, it's your basic motion simulator ride, only upside down (from a guest's perspective)

Actually, I think the statement about the Soarin' ride system being a Disney creation is flat wrong. I sold metering equipment to the park for a few years. I saw each blueprint for DCA as it was released, studying them to locate a potential meter sale. I was shocked and dismayed that the blueprints indicated that the Soarin' ride system was to be purchased from a vendor in Canada. In fact, I believe that it was built outside the country, stayed in a hanger in Ontario, CA and later in Buena Park right next to Knott's Berry Farm right before final installation at DCA. I fretted to my friends that "just because they slap Mickey Mouse ears on it, does NOT make it Disney!!"

When I think about it, this has probably happened previously and just hasn't been talked about. If Disney had designed the ride system for Star Tours, they would have patented it. That ride system is everywhere (Las Vegas, etc...)

Regarding the firing of the R&D people: I am utterly appalled and disgusted by what I see as a disintegration of what the company has stood for--everything that made it great.

The meaning is blatant: Dry-rot from the top, down. Horrible, out-of-touch management that does not understand the great legacy they have inherited and couldn't even begin to grasp what Disney is. They have hired what has turned out to be an uncreative "creative" staff that also does not understand Disney. The entire company has become less interested in preserving the Disney legacy, in favor of earning a quick buck to line management's pockets. To make matters worse, they are run by a "board" that only cares about "bringing the numbers up".

Now, if you have an absent CEO, a clueless bunch of "managers" running the parks and an incompetent creative force (when creativity is the foundation for your name-recognition), adding in a sickening drive for commercialism at the expense of uniqueness AND a lack of park maintenance when the parks are reknowned for their cleanliness and tidy appearance, what do you think is going to happen? This is the set-up for a company to commit suicide. What does Eisner have to lose?

I knew 10-15 people within my circle of family and friends who bought annual passes yearly for DL. Everyone has stopped buying them because of the decline. That's a loss in the thousands for the park. I was the final hold-out, keeping mine when everyone else gave up. But no more. My pass ran out last month and I have not renewed. And I won't until things change. Why keep contributing to that mess? Your money is not going to the park. It is going to the salaries of upper management, who are just putting it into further decline.

Disney's name has been hijacked, for that is not the Walt Disney Company I knew. And Disney would be rolling in his grave if he knew what was happening to his company.

Has anyone noticed that almost everything sold on Main St. is made in China and is also sold everywhere else in the park and ALWAYS has to have Disney's name on it? (I saw a Snow White figurine not too long ago that was actually scary. It looked like merchandise you would buy in Tijuana from street vendors while waiting in line to get back into the US) Does anyone notice the peeling paint all through the park and the trash being kicked around in the walkways? Does anyone notice the lack of specialty stores like they used to have, the disappearance of sit-down restaurants, the poorly planned attraction closures and the destruction of so many outstanding, classic rides (in favor of cheaply thrown-together attempts at "amusement")? Does anyone notice that there are really only 2 rides in Tomorrowland (if you can call Star Tours a ride)? Does anyone notice characters don't come up to you throughout the day and goof around with you when you are standing in line waiting to get on a ride (like they used to)? Does anyone notice that there is no cohesive "Hollywood-quality" narrator in the park--and that every last utterance spoken has to be translated into Japanese and Spanish in the interest of being PC? Does anyone notice that patriotism has all been taken out of the park (whatever happened to the "patriotic grand finale" and "To honor America"-- messages that were so important to Disney)? Is anyone really fooled into believing that the park has the guest in mind when they make the guest ride an open-air tram (reeking of diesel exhaust) from a grey, shabby, uninviting parking structure that resembles a crypt? and on and on and on. I could list the problems for hours. Maybe I'm the only one who sees these things, but when they start ripping out the Audio-Animatronics, something is very wrong folks.

Hey hey, Star Tours is a great ride!!!! But I agree with what you're saying here. What's going on within the disney company is sad indeed.

I think what Disney should be doing is investing in the future. However, most of their stock is held by retirement companies who are interested in the "here and now" gains.

I wish Walt had never gone public with Disney stock. Other than smoking, it was his biggest mistake.

Michelle

LA Times has a front-page article today (9/21/02) on Marty Sklar, and Imagineering.

Actually, yes, I believe Soarin' was designed by WDI.. I remember seeing on the Disney Channel those Imagineer 'shorts' between shows, and they talked to the Imagineer who invented it.. He prototyped it using his kids LEGO's.. And they showed it.

It's very possible, though, that Disney didn't build the large device, but they most definetely designed it.

Diesel tram?!

The trams are ethanol or some such... definitely not diesel. While it may smell like Elmer's glue, I don't think the fumes are dangerous.

>>I wish Walt had never gone public with Disney stock. Other than smoking, it was his biggest mistake.<<

Walt didn't want to go public, but had no other financial options given to him in the lean 40's.

The other biggest mistake was committed by Walt's heirs: selling the name and likeness of Walt Disney to the company in the early 80's. It had been copyrighted for his family so they could control its use, and therefore continue to influence the company.

I hope that winery was worth it - - they only got 10 million or so (the biggest bargain of all time).

By the way - - when Feature Animation imploded earlier in the year, many dismissed it as a market correction. This is the kind of increnmentalism I was talking about. The suits have it out for all the remaining creatives - - that spoil their bottom line with useless overhead. Soon Disney will just be a copyright holding division of ABC Inc., in the manner of today's MGM or Hanna-Barbera, rather than a functional studio.

At this rate, the Walt Disney library and Disneyland might be better appreciated and served by a corporate breakup, with the assets going to a company that will protect and exploit this rich history.

Originally posted by Kevin Yee
The trams are ethanol or some such... definitely not diesel. While it may smell like Elmer's glue, I don't think the fumes are dangerous.

I thought it was CNG, wasn't it?

I love the fact that the front page of the front section of the LA Times ran a gigantic fluff piece on Marty Sklar today - which obviously Disney PR had in the works for months - which shoehorned in a dismissive two-sentence annoucement that "two dozen" jobs in Imagineering R&D were cut as part of ongoing "streamlining" of the company.

What an embarassment, both to Disney and to the Times, considering a large focus of the piece is the creativity of Imagineering - including R&D. Which kind of is baffling to me, as the thrust of the piece is obviously Flik's Fun Fair. Am I misunderstanding something? I thought Flik's Fun Fair was made out of rides that weren't designed by WDI and that they just dressed up off-the-shelf stuff.

They did seem to mention the details of the giant green clovers disproportionately.

Oviously im missing something, i know disney would never cut imagineering.
whats going on, i dont get it,:confused: i feat the worst is here:crying:

Originally posted by PXSgeek
Oviously im missing something, i know disney would never cut imagineering.
whats going on, i dont get it,:confused: i feat the worst is here:crying:

According to this morning Los Angeles Times, they eliminated about two dozen positions from WDI's R&D group. The article said that Imagineering still employs around 1,600 people.

Admittedly, the article also notes that is down from a peak of around 2,500 in the late 1990s. They have completed four new parks in the last several years, though, so it is reasonable to expect that they would need to scale back staffing.

-Jeff

Some people have expressed views on this other thread (http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showthread.php?threadid=9870) started by "someone in the know" before the news officially broke. It's a sad decision.

Originally posted by JeffG


Admittedly, the article also notes that is down from a peak of around 2,500 in the late 1990s.

Um, that would explains Indy in 1995, since they had 2500 people working on it in 1990. Don't they see? It pays to have a full staff, and now we're getting nothing....at least for a long while.

Hey Germboy, thanks for taking the time to say what I wanted to say (well, most of it), but too heart broken to say :(

Man, is there anybody on the "inside" that realize this is the suckiest decision ever? If so why didn't anybody say something? :confused:

They spent money building the world's largest parking structure, and cut out WDI? How are they going to fill up that parking structure now? :confused: Eisner's dumbness is amazing. I want to go TP his house and throw rotten eggs at him for a starter. Heck, I'm sure I can round up about 1000 people to do it with me. There are plenty of Disney geeks and sites out there.

Originally posted by Laffite
Um, that would explains Indy in 1995, since they had 2500 people working on it in 1990. Don't they see? It pays to have a full staff, and now we're getting nothing....at least for a long while.


Do you honestly believe that WDI assigns their entire staff to any single project?

The staff grew to that level because they had 4 new parks in various stages of development and construction. Now that all 4 parks have opened, the staffing obviously doesn't need to be kept at that level. The L.A. Times article did mention that WDI staffing is likely to ramp back up a bit as the Hong Kong project proceeds.

-Jeff

While the TP and egg idea sounds like fun, is there anything tangible small Disney investors can do?

I saw the petition idea floated on this thread. I agree with the reply; petitions, especially the email variety, are pretty worthless.

However, might it be possible for smaller Disney investors to come together as one voice? I'm not talking about people who own one share as a novelty, but rather people who own shares that number in the hundreds and on up.

I invested in Disney because I believe the company has great potential and unsurpassed brand recognition. And yes, also because I'm a Disney nut who views Disneyland Park as a very special place.

I may be dreaming fantastically here, but might it be possible to come together and take out an ad in a major newspaper which features an "open letter from small investors", or something?

I suspect Disney would just ignore a letter-writing campaign, but that may also be an option. Each of the letters would have to be original, hardcopy, snail-mailed, and yet make similar points. Whenever people just mail pre-printed form letters, they are just ignored, like email petitions. They would also have to target specific Disney executives, rather than just addressing "To whom it may concern".

So, any thoughts? Or am I just a mad-man in the Rockies?