Incredicoaster & Pixar Pier Coming Summer 2018
As previously announced, Pixar Pier will open at Disney California Adventure in Summer 2018, replacing Paradise Pier. The re-imagined land will feature the Incredicoaster based on The Incredibles, at least one new(?) spinner attraction, and newly themed attractions, food spots, and merchandise locations throughout.
Pixar Pier will be a permanent land on what is now the California Screamin’ side of Paradise Bay, and will replace what is now one cohesively themed land with several, disjointed neighborhoods that thematically make zero sense in a park named Disney California Adventure.
Disney Parks Blog released new info today on the redesign after the previous announcement over the summer at the D23 Expo raised more questions than it answered. While today’s article answers a lot of those questions, it also raises plenty of questions of its own. Namely, WHY?! (Also, does this mean we’re saying “bye” to A Bug’s Land?) We’ll cover the details of the announcement, plus some speculation and commentary of our own in this post…
The first of the four themed neighborhoods guests will find is based upon The Incredibles. This will be anchored by the Incredicoaster, which is a permanently transformed version of California Screamin’. The Incredicoaster will feature a mid-century modern loading area, new character moments, and a new look for the ride vehicles.
It appears that there might be an enclosed section of the attraction (perhaps with a show scene?) at the ride’s finale.) To prepare for this transformation, California Screamin’ will permanently close on January 8, 2018.
It stands to reason that King Triton’s Carousel will be reskinned to something based upon The Incredibles, but no details were given on that front. If the concept art is any indication, it could be more enclosed than how it appears at present.
The next neighbor is just an extension of Toy Story Mania, and it seems doubtful will add anything beyond what’s already there.
The third neighborhood will be inspired by Inside Out, and will be found on the western side of the boardwalk. Curiously, Disney announced that this will also add a new family-friendly attraction, scheduled to open at a later date.
Inside Out is Pixar’s one exceptional film from recent years, and an imaginative trackless dark ride would make the rest of this half-baked “transformation” forgivable. So of course, we’ll probably get a reskinned version of Francis’ Ladybug Boogie instead.
The fourth neighborhood will be a celebration of many of your favorite Pixar stories. In other words, this is a catch-all. In this neighborhood, Mickey’s Fun Wheel will have a new look, with each of the 24 gondolas featuring different Pixar characters. Fortunately, the iconic face of celebrated Pixar character Mickey Mouse (wait what?) will remain on the Paradise Bay side of the wheel. The Games of the Boardwalk and shops in this area will be Pixarified, too.
We’re up to what, neighborhood 5? That’ll be re-branded versions of Ariel’s Grotto restaurant and the Cove Bar. It’s unclear whether these will have characters added to them or not. Seems slightly ‘off brand’ to have family-friendly characters pitching booze, but I propose Cove Bar becomes Crush’s Bar. I’ve never pegged alcohol as Crush’s vice of choice, but this is California, so perhaps some modifications can be made to this bar to accommodate.
The remaining areas of the land that is now Paradise Pier, including Paradise Gardens, Silly Symphony Swings, Jumpin’ Jellyfish, Goofy’s Sky School, Golden Zephyr and The Little Mermaid ~ Ariel’s Undersea Adventure, will become a new land called Paradise Park. It sounds as if none of this will be touched.
As for my reaction…what’s the point? Both in the reaction and in doing this project in the first place? This all strikes me as a rather pointless exercise. California Screamin’ is a fairly beloved attraction that is popular among tourists and locals, and I have a tough time seeing how this change will move the needle one way or the other after the initial surge of people wanting to see what’s changed.
The rest of what’s happening in these neighborhoods appears to be fairly trivial renaming and re-skinning. Hard to see that being any sort of being a big draw. A carousel with King Triton at the center is more or less going to draw as many people as one with some Pixar carousel. People are going because it’s a carousel, not because it’s the pinnacle of attraction storytelling.
Above all else, I keep coming back to why?! It seems like this brings little-to-nothing of substance to the table, while being a serious blow to the thematic cohesiveness Disney worked so hard at giving to DCA just ~5 years ago. Part of that project actually consolidated lands, and made the park more seamless. Now, the goal here is to undo some of that?
Moreover, the next time you see some video of a celebrity Imagineer touting how important “story” is to their creative process, and really going that extra mile to pat themselves on the back about their latest masterpiece, ask how much of that really matters to Disney, and how much of it is simply slick marketing.
I know to some Disney fans, it’s heresy to criticize anything the brilliant Imagineers do, but they are keen on publicly praising their own work, and in so doing open themselves up to such criticism. (This isn’t to say some of their projects aren’t praise-worthy–most are, but fans should not just eat up whatever Imagineers spoon feed to them.)
If story and thematic integrity were paramount, projects like this wouldn’t happen in the first place. Paradise Pier was not a perfect land, but it was an idealized version of California’s seaside parks, and fit perfectly in Disney California Adventure. It could’ve used some placemaking and an strong attraction anchoring it (to further distance itself from the seaside parks it romanticized), but it was thematically apt for the park in which it existed.
The same cannot be said for Pixar Pier and its various neighborhoods, all of which only exist to help explain away why all these disparate movies (plus Mickey Mouse) are being crammed into one incredibly small space. It probably does not need to be noted, but Pixar is not a theme. It’s a filmmaking division.
The one item of interest here, and what was conspicuously not announced but is visible in the concept art, is that there’s a “new” spinner ride in the old plot of the Maliboomer. Our guess is that this is Flik’s Flyers, and the reason it was not mentioned in the press release is that Disney is not ready to announce details about the closure of A Bug’s Land. This certainly would fit with the rumors about Marvel Land replacing A Bug’s Land.
It’s certainly possible DCA is adding another spinner of exactly the same style, but that seems highly unlikely. More likely is a splashier announcement at a future date about Marvel Land, followed by another announcement of further additions to Pixar Pier. If this is the case, it’s possible a couple of the A Bug’s Land attractions will be relocated to Pixar Pier. (Hence our depressing “joke” above that Inside Out will probably have its first attraction be a spinner, rather than something truly befitting of that exceptional film.)
Beyond that, I don’t really know what to say. Incredicoaster could be fun in isolation, especially if there’s a show scene towards the end, but it does not exist in a vacuum. And California Screamin’ is already a very strong attraction, so why mess with it? The relocated attractions from A Bug’s Land also make some degree of sense, although I hope they don’t absorb this land’s expansion pad (once rumored to be for the “Museum of the Weird.”) The rest of this all seems like a waste of time and a step in the wrong direction. I guess we shall see.
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Your Thoughts
Do you agree or disagree with our take on the addition of Pixar Pier to Disney California Adventure? Are you excited, angry, or indifferent? Any questions? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts or questions below in the comments!
I have to say I agree with everything in this post! My thoughts exactly. It will be interesting to see how it pans out but it’s a risky move – I loved how cohesive everything was when we visited – it does look from the recent re-theming that they’re moving away from the cohesive theming, which is a bit of a pity, especially as you say, given that it’s only been 5 years since the park’s last facelift.
Sigh. It looks like we may have made the wrong decision when we opted to go to DLR in February instead of WDW. We’ve never been to WDW. Two reasons we decided on DLR for this trip were 1. we want to go before Star Wars Land packs the parks, and 2. my daughter wants to ride California Screamin’ with her dad. The last time we were at DLR was the first time she was big enough to ride and my husband was so sick he stayed at the hotel the entire time. Clearly she won’t get to ride with him this time either.
Out of all the roller coasters in Southern California, which is the most similar to California Screamin’? We may make a trip to some other theme/amusement park for a roller coaster fix on one day of our trip.
I didn’t find DCA ‘flows’ all that much now at all. It’s already disjointed, and Cars Land broke the flow even more.That addition of Cars Land really changed the whole vibe of DCA. These changes will extend that, and eventually this park becomes Disneyland Hollywood Studios, essentially. Star Wars is attached to the wrong park!
A Bug’s Land needs to go, but if replaced with Marvel land – that’s a huge flip to a older fan group. So these changes, particularly Inside Out, Incredibles and Toy Story stuff, seem geared younger. The area isn’t themed much at all now, other than loose thematic stuff that really belongs in Magic Kingdom.
Thanks for your insights! California Screamin’ does work for a California-themed Disney park; it’s a great coaster, even if the name change is bad. I suspect this simply makes the Cali-theme “PIXAR’d” (yes a verb) for this section of DCA, for no real reason other than a new Incredibles movie, etc. I believe you when the spinner will be an INSIDE OUT theme over a ride from Bugs Land. None of this is super cohesive (ferris wheel – – ), but I look forward to going and hope for pleasant surprises – especially if the coaster has some additional animatronics / theming. (insert worried emoji here)… Definitely a long way from the original Mali-Boomer days of DCA 1.0, but this portion of the park could use a berm in addition to these – ahem! – “upgrades.”
Having been there recently on a mission to explore as much as I possibly could those things I’d never done before, I can tell you that I had zero interest in trying any of the carnival games and even found the shops along the area to be lackluster. MAYBE I would have been more interested in them had they been Toy Story themed, and consequently spent some money there. Yes, the theming for Paradise Pier makes more sense, but for me it needs to be somehow way more detailed and immersive and fun to become unique and memorable enough to draw me there. Midway mania and Screamin’ are the only reasons I want to go to that area at all, so I can see how a re-theming could be a good thing. Having said that, I agree with you, Pixar is not a theme. There are many Pixar movies I love, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense to cram Merida into a “land” next to Flik or Carl Fredickson just because of the studio they have in common. I also feel that, although I believe the changes made to the exterior of Guardians are improvements to the building, the visual transition is jarring, and I would hope that they find a more smooth visual transition for Pixar Pier.
Thought I would point out that the carousel isn’t going to be Incredible’s themed. If you look at the concept art there is a wall with an Incredibles symbol, but then Jessie is standing next to the entrance of the carousel. The carousel will be themed to Toy Story. I guess as the one “new” addition to Toy Story neighborhood.
Overall the change doesn’t bother me. Yeah, it isn’t anything impressive. But it doesn’t hurt either. I do wonder why there was no mention of the Pixar Theater or Bing Bong confectionery that were both shown in the original concept art.