Friday, January 23, 2009

Pins give sneak peek into changes at Small World in Disneyland

The L.A. Times has an article showing some pins that Disney inadvertently released which give a glimpse into some of the changes coming to It's a Small World in Disneyland (see image below, courtesy of The LA Times). Disney fans will recall that Imagineering planned to subtly insert classic Disney characters into different parts of the attraction. Purists were aghast and even Mary Blair, the original artist who created the IASW dolls, pleaded with Imagineering to cancel this idea.



Well Disney decided to move forward with the concept, and personally, I'm glad they did. Based on some of the pin designs, it seems that the Imagineers really did try to make these additions as subtle as possible - almost like a hidden Mickey. I think this will re-invigorate an old attraction. Sure, there is a certain amount of nostalgia when it comes to the originals (though IASW isn't an opening day attraction). But remember this, Walt always said that Disneyland (and Walt Disney World) are ever changing. Walt would have approved of something like this. He never would have wanted any attraction to become set in stone and unchanging.

I just hope these changes make their way to IASW at WDW. I, for one, would actually look forward to riding IASW instead of feeling like my daughter is dragging me onto the attraction.

What do you think? Should Disney update Walt Disney World's IASW like Disneyland's?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

On one hand, I don't like that they are updating a classic attraction and ruining the sense of "nostalgia" that it carries
On the other, if the pins are any indication, it looks like they are very very subtle things that people really wont notice unless they are really looking for them. And to be honest, they do look kind of cool and faithful to the original ride design

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