Pirates on Tom Sawyer Island is still a backward idea, no matter what the movie people toss into the next sequel. Frontierland's island should reflect the nation's pioneer history. It may be adapted, not desecrated.

First off, I agree with OnceUponaDream- Tom Sawyer is as American as apple pie...Pirates of the Caribbean- well, they're from the Caribbean.  They'd fit better in Adventureland- wait- they're already there!  
What if Disney had promoted either (or both) "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" or "Tom and Huck" better- then kids these days would have a better appreciation of this particular attraction.

I was looking forward to the Figment re-do.  I haven't personally seen the old version (any old version), but I know about DreamFinder, and I know that so many people miss him and the old version.  It's not the non-execs' fault (regular Imagineers) that they were forced to change the attraction.  Did WDI do surveys of park guests and asked their opinion on the ride before the first re-do?  It's unfortunate that the situation has come to this.  I hope eventually that the ride, although I'm a fan of it, can get back DreamFinder and its orignal glory.

Maybe after John Lasseter has been working for WDI for a while longer he'll feel more comfortable standing up to the exec bullies?  Does he have the power to fire them?  What good is having John Lasseter in charge if he's really not doing his job (being in charge)?  Sounds like he's just a yes-man.  Tisk, tisk.  

I hadn't heard about that "Cars" ride that Jim mentioned, but I had been looking forward to the Indy 500/Autopia re-do with the "Cars" theme that will probably never see the light of day (at least I haven't heard about it in months).  

I'd be interested in reading an article about "mistakes" that WDI has made over the years- attractions that were built that just stank and had to be closed, or attractions that were going to be built that had been long in the planning stages that got shelved...how many of those kids of things were the faults of the suits?  It's a terrible situation, and I hope that Lasseter can get tough enough to stand up to these suits.

Yes, yes we know ... John Lassiter is evil. First he made that horrible Cars movie and now he's letting the poor people at Imagineering down.

What terrible thing will John do next, I wonder?? Maybe leave the toilet seat up or some equally horrible faux pas!

Please ...........

There's a cycle that WDI follows that's being missed here.  For each resort, there generally is one "major addition" every 5-7 years (E-Ticket) and a "plus" every 2-3 years (C/D-Ticket, show, upgrade, etc.) with a new park or major land every 15-20 years.  I've been a mouse fan for years and studied the trends and this always seems to hold true.  If an attraction development timeline is five years and the cylce mentioned above is more-or-less true, that means we are a LONG TIME away from seeing Lassiter's real impact.  It's like hiring a new coach for a college football/basketball team... you don't really get a sense of the coach's worth until after her/his first real recruiting class reaches its senior year.  I think Lassiter has more than earned our trust as we go through this frustrating period of transition and waiting.

"Existing management has actually become more emboldened in their former attitudes. (Imagine what the Bush administration would be like if the Democrats hadn't taken over Congress)."

Oh, please. What a pitiful analogy. The nightmare is that the Dems HAVE taken over Congress, and already one of those Dems has proposed bringing back the draft and another wants to - you guessed it - raise everyone's taxes and give the money primarily to people who keep giving birth to children they can't afford to raise (which will win them a free house from Habitat for Humanity, for starters) and to people who Dems have labeled "underprivileged" because they're not the right skin color (talk about a bigoted attitude). And of course the Dems' primary goal -  if indeed they have goals at all - is to declare that the United States military can't defeat a bunch of murderers and criminals in Iraq and should run like hell. That analogy blew your contact's cred, Jim, so I have no worries regarding Lasseter's involvement in WDI. Your contact probably is ticked because he didn't get a raise or something.

After that thing with "Frog Princess", and taking this article at face value, I'm beginning to entertain the notion that WDWacky may have a point.

From the day they announced JL being WDI's creative advisor, we kept hearing that the post was "largely ceremonial."  Now we're apparently mad because JL hasn't been shaking things up adequately.

I also feel forced to point out that, in an article that keeps reminding us what a nest of vipers WDI is, that all the main sources are the vipers themselves.  Can't have it both ways, y'know.

PS:  Oh, shuddup, gigglesock.

gigglesock...America prefers Democrats to the lying, expensive (the most expenisve Congress in HISTORY), and GOP-edophilc  republicans.

Lest we forget, gw bush was in the White House when terrorists attacked on 9/11, with ample proof (yes, FACTS) that he knew something was up, and yet did NOTHING AT ALL to attemp to stop it.  He started an unecessary war in Iraq, and has left American Taxpayers holding the bag, while he runs to "daddy" for help.
Meanwhile, the Taliban is taking Afghanistan back, and the opium harvest is larger than it's ever been.   North Korea AND Iran nearly have nuclear technology.

And the surplus is gone.

America is ashamed of bush.  And rightfully so.

Thank GOD Democrats will bring BALANCE and FAIRNESS back to Washington.

It is really 2 bad that such a company that has the ability to do so much wonderful things is being destroyed by its own management. I don't think a Lassater interference is enough.. A big bad old reorganisation; throw the whole company around. That should do the trick.. Bring it back to a house of creativity, instead of war.

John Lasseter is the head of creative, not the head of WDI. It is his job to make sure that the ride designers are coming up with the best ideas, that the rides are top notch, and they are finding new ways of entertaining guests. It is not his job to approve budgets or come up with a strategic plan for all of the parks. It's more like, "Hey John, here's this idea I had for an attraction," and John says, "Sounds great, but it could be better if...".

Hey, Scroobiedrool, GOP-edophilic is clever but untrue, and the Dems won Congress because Bible-thumping Bush and the Republicans were acting like socialists anyway --- AND insisting on a pointless war. So I think that analogy works perfectly. Still I take Jim's stuff with a grain of salt: a steady diet of Disney with a heap of rumors. Sometimes true, usually not, and probably with an agenda of its own. If it helps Lasseter get his act together and make better decisions, great.

"Yes, yes we know ... John Lassiter is evil. First he made that horrible Cars movie and now he's letting the poor people at Imagineering down.

What terrible thing will John do next, I wonder?? Maybe leave the toilet seat up or some equally horrible faux pas!

Please ........... "

LOL

What everybody failed to mention for a long time is that, with all this fighting overseas, our original intention was to get back at the Al-Qeda organization that was involved the 9/11 debacle, which was engineered primarily by Osama bin Laden. But because the government was focused on "finishing" something less rated to the current War on Terrorism, but more in relation to the Iraqi War more than a decade ago, we now have a whole mess of enemies who want to kill us regardless of whether we quit this Vietnam-ish War in Iraq.

As for WDI, it can't be as bad as they're saying it is. A recent article indicates that attendance in the theme parks are on the upswing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15642243/

The only thing I agree with about today's article is that the waiting game is excruciating. But who said there WASN'T going to be some hurdles along the way? A lot of cool ideas for both animation and imagineering are naturally going to be set aside for a while as they have to focus on making better ideas for current projects. And the lot of us animation fanatics are still waiting for the imminent return of Disney's hand-drawn animation, which is still months and years off, as they (re-)tool the current works-in-progress into potentially stronger offerings.

As much as we hate it, Disney's road to recovery is not an overnight process.

blackcauldron85 said:
"First off, I agree with OnceUponaDream- Tom Sawyer is as American as apple pie...Pirates of the Caribbean- well, they're from the Caribbean.  They'd fit better in Adventureland- wait- they're already there! "
---
More importantly, the momentary "Pressler's Disease" fit of Current Movie Tie-In Fever has passed, and designers have forced themselves to try and look at non-movie ideas to keep their attraction idea but save face...As usually happens with bad attraction ideas that publicly hit the fan.  Next step in recovery is traditionally either to water the change down to a harmless idea, or drop it completely and just fix up a rehab.
====
mawnck said:
"I also feel forced to point out that, in an article that keeps reminding us what a nest of vipers WDI is, that all the main sources are the vipers themselves.  Can't have it both ways, y'know."
---
It's a general rule in journalism that the more (ahem) -colorful- your source's opinions are, the more personal the grudge is likely to be, and the more suspicious that he's so willing to talk to anybody in print--Good investigation lets baloney alarms ring on both sides.
And yeah, the cheap political-bait non-sequitir as icing on the cake didn't exactly HELP.
====
"'Why would these Imagineering managers do that?,' you ask. Well, quickly stepping around the whole "Cars"-didn't-do-nearly-as-well-as-Disney-execs-had-hoped-it-would issue
you'll see that there have literally been dozens of ambitious projects (EX: The "Dick Tracy Crimestoppers" thrill ride, The "Island at the Top of the World" E-Ticket, the "Babes in Toyland" dark ride) that were tabled when senior management suddenly lost enthusiasm for the productions that these projects were supposed to be based on."
---
Uh, thought that had to do more with the "Dick Tracy, Island, Toyland, Atlantis and Reign of Fire-didn't-do-nearly-as-well-as-execs-had-hoped-they-would" issue?
(So, either the Cars ride being axed was a "conspiracy", or the boardroom still second-guessed the movie as a "flop", one of the two, I'm confused here!!)

Can we just please give Pixar its own land in the parks and be done with it already?

I had such hopes back when JHM posted the article that DreamFinder might be returning to Journey Into Imagination because of Lasseter. And I know Tony Baxter would have to be chomping at the bit to take on the 4th redo. Putting a little more money into a park's major character makes more sense to me, but then I'm baised!

I find Jim to be correct most of the time AT THE TIME HE IS REPORTING.  Lots of times things change a few days or weeks or months later.  He just keeps us up to date.

As for the political depate, the Democrates won, the people spoke, now lets see what they do.  Give them and Lasseter both a chance to get things in better shape.

Pitch of the century! to WDFA.......... Failed Eagle scout (voiced by David Spade) tries to redeem himself and earn his engineering badge by creating a time machine...and travels back in time to the Court of the Borgias.  A Machiavelian fish-out-of-water story.

Que Sera...Sera.....Let's give Mr. Lassiter more credit and allow him time to assess the
situation as he sees fit.  Talent wins out over intrigue in the end....doesn't it?  huh?

mawnck and gigglesock agreed on:
"I also feel forced to point out that, in an article that keeps reminding us what a nest of vipers WDI is, that all the main sources are the vipers themselves.  Can't have it both ways, y'know."
"I have no worries regarding Lasseter's involvement in WDI. Your contact probably is ticked because he didn't get a raise or something."
---
That's still a real point:
If the news story of the day was that WDI was backing off of POTC Island and going back to semi-Tom, that's news, and hooray for it  :)  ...But everything else comes from volunteered e-mail, and that's what a newspaper would double-check more faithfully--

In the worst-case scenario, what we -could- imaginably see in the future is in-house Disney employees who overestimate the "Cars-bashing Jim" complaints from last summer, blow it up into legend, and use it as their OWN safe-clearinghouse for in-house smears--Since they would be overconfident that Jim would take any bad news about Lasseter's performance in the boardroom too much at face value and not investigate the counterstory too deeply...
Basically, a sort of Life Cereal situation:  "Are you going to publish this retaliatory smear rumor on the Net and jeopardize your job if you're found out?"  "IIII'm not going to publish it...Let's get Mikey!  He'll believe anything!  :) "
Not necessarily saying that's what's happening here with the "insider e-mails that just came in this morning", but it -COULD- happen any given day to any site that doesn't watch its public reputation carefully.  And admittedly, we don't know how WDI insiders see Jim's site, and there -is- a lot of over-mythologized public reputation to live down.
[Required Disclaimer:  The above post was meant to explore third-party perceptions of how outsiders view and might potentially exploit the site, and is not meant in any way to be interpreted as personally directed toward the webmaster or a reflection on current site content versus past articles.]   :)

For some reason, I don't buy this.  
I don't think of John Lassiter like others do as some sort of Disney messiah, but I have the utmost respect for him and don't take him for a fool either.

I just have this gut feeling that John is taking it all in, letting everyone do what they want and keeping the status quo.  Probably taking note of folks that are responsible for the all the crap, and also making note of the good folks.  Then, when people least expect it and think nothing truly is going to change, he will make his move. yes, sounds overly dramatic. yet, I wouldn't doubt it for one second.

though I will say it, that Jim Hill has never really come off as a big John Lassiter supporter (of course that is just coming from his writings and I am NOT trying to offend Mr. Hill).  So, for this article- I have my doubts.  

Real change... and big change takes time.  Maybe we all need to stop expecting it to happen overnight.  The bigger the problem, the longer it takes to fix.  

Manwyck, shut up your own ignorant self. Same with you, Scoobie-drool.

The Dems got in because they kept whining and puling and undermining and second-guessing the war (while offering no ideas of their own) and I guess enough voters identified with that attitude to put them in power. As for the Repubs, let's see, unemployment at 4.7 percent, inflation low, interest rates low, millions of jobs created - right, them Repubs sure weren't doing their jobs while in power. Give me a break. As for the war, Bush listens to his generals and moves accordingly. Go ahead, let's see you guys start dissing the military. Wouldn't surprise me.

(Better yet, let's -not-, and assume that the original insider's own attempt to use politics to explain Disney mostly came out of cheap-sensation fodder, and not meant to have meaningful bearing on actual discussion outside of being applied to WDI context.
It'll save a lot of page space from equally lured-in posters who do...A LOT of space.)

Not sure what to make of all this, just some random thoughts.  

I think that John wants to bring back the glory days of Disney on every level-who wouldn't if they truly care about the product they are associated with?  John's not about the money-he doesn't have to be.  I think he truly loves, and respects all that Disney has done, and is excited about what it can do.  But it's a much bigger job than even he considered, I'm sure.

Things might be moving along faster if "Cars" had done ten fold business, then again, maybe WDFA suits would hold him to his original agreement that he "fix" the film division before doing anything else.

Things are changing daily in the world from too many animated pictures to the ongoing war, and no one-not even John knows what's going to happen in the long run.

When Walt ran things the Company was a a twentieth of it's present size, and a lot less complicated in general, and folks wondered how he stayed on top of it all back then (many times he didn't or couldn't).  Cut he guy some slack already!

I believe that John really is a truly nice guy, an dmaybe overly trusting.  I'd like to know how Steve Jobs figures into all of this.  My gut feeling (hope) is that things will change for the better across the board for Disney with John and Steve flexing more muscle.

I have a friend who will be interviewing John for an upcoming book very soon, so we'll see what (if anything) that brings.

John is failing - everything he does is just a disappointment.

But wait - off in the distance - what's that?

A blogger will save the entire company !

"Well, after today's article, perhaps that will change."

I'm sure John can't wait till next Monday to find out how to save the entire Imagineering division.  Stay tuned!

No big fan of Lasseter either, just as Jim, but I'm a little confused.. Wasn't he supposed to be a 'creative director' instead of a 'babysitter' for the management of WDI? Isn't it Iger's job to solve the problems with WDI's management?!

Very interesting article, Jim.

You should probably be more specific about one important detail, however.  As you know, there are two types of management executives at WDI: Creative executives and Project Management executives.  They are very different from each other, with very different agendas concerning the running of WDI.  

Whichever executives you are referring to when you claim that they are manipulating and lying to John is a pretty crucial point.  We expect that Project Management execs might be trying such a thing, but it would hopefully be a different story concerning Creative execs.

Shut up, Gigglesock.  You too, Scoobiedrool and Onceuponadream.  Election's over.

mawnck: back off there, bud. Take the loss in stride and let people comment without bullying people who do. My election comments were made in the context of this article.