Frozen Attraction Coming to Epcot - Replaces Maelstrom

[Disney Doll]

Man, we've got some negative nellies here.

We don't even know what this will be yet. They may do an amazing job. It's one ride not the entire pavilion and let's be honest, the current Maelstrom ride is way outdated. I have this sneaking suspicion that there is more to Norway than cruise lines, fishing, trolls, and early 80's hairdos. Maelstrom is not the best way to teach your kids about their family ancestry. It's an entertainment attraction and it's old. I love it, I really do. It's been around since I was a kid and the nostalgia is strong, but logically I know this is a good move for Disney. I will be sad to see Maelstrom go, but I am looking forward to a new Frozen themed ride next year.

[BrerGnat]

Man, we've got some negative nellies here.

We don't even know what this will be yet. They may do an amazing job. It's one ride not the entire pavilion and let's be honest, the current Maelstrom ride is way outdated. I have this sneaking suspicion that there is more to Norway than cruise lines, fishing, trolls, and early 80's hairdos. Maelstrom is not the best way to teach your kids about their family ancestry. It's an entertainment attraction and it's old. I love it, I really do. It's been around since I was a kid and the nostalgia is strong, but logically I know this is a good move for Disney. I will be sad to see Maelstrom go, but I am looking forward to a new Frozen themed ride next year.

This is the most logical argument for this change I've seen and I totally agree with you. Maelstrom is laughably outdated and irrelevant as a testament to Norwegian culture. At this point, Norway (the country) doesn't even seem to have any interest in their pavilion at Epcot, so why not turn it into a Frozen attraction. The basic ride won't change much, just the scenery.

In any event, if in the future, Frozen becomes irrelevant, it will be easy for Disney to transform the ride into something else. This will refresh that pavilion and bring more guests over that way, and that will end up being good for WS as a whole.

[MizMissy]

I'm sad to see it go, but at least I have the limited edition commemorative t-shirt to remember it by.

[Melanie]

This will refresh that pavilion and bring more guests over that way, and that will end up being good for WS as a whole.

Not sure if refresh is the word I'd use, but it does seem to be the go-to word from Disney PR right now.

And while I don't appreciate being called a 'negative Nelly,' I get it. Like I said before, only the diehards care, and we are very much the minority. But we do have a right to express our opinion. The pavilion will be mobbed, no doubt, and of course I'll check it out. But the majority of the time, I'll be on the opposite side of WS with my Carl's Combo listening to Off Kilter. Wait, what's that? Lumberjacks. Gotcha.

[Melanie]

Can we just ask not to be dumped from Arrendelle to PERFUMELAND. I have to beg every time I get off Maelstrom to be let out at the entrance and explain that perfume store makes me physically ILL. Seriously, that store is so small, and that smell is SO strong. I love the ride, I love the trolls, I would love to spend time in the rest of the store with my family, but that perfume just wafts over Fills my head and makes me want to ... well you get the idea. I will take a ride that ends in a crowded room of a meet and greet ANY DAY over smelly perfume!

I TOTALLY agree. There are times it's given me a headache.

The Lion King is over 20 years old now and it's live show in Animal Kingdom just received a nice new pavillion, even when the Animal Kingdom opened it was 4 years old.

But it's been there, and it's popular, and it's in AK. I'm only referring to incorporating characters into the World Showcase attractions.

[PirateLover]

World Showcase is pretty popular for almost half of the year now. Food and Wine and now Flower and Garden which has become mini food and wine keep that place hopping with adults. In fact this board has seen many complaints of drunks and how they don't want their kids in a party atmosphere. I'm sure those types of complaints will only increase. Future World needs the help more desperately, IMO. All I can hope is that other parts of Epcot will also receive some love soon.

Frozen is here to stay whether certain people like it or not. In fact it seems to me that it's only continuing to gain popularity. I know as a kid I hung onto my love for the 90s flicks like Little Mermaid(technically that was 80s)
and Beauty and the Beast for many, many, years. In fact I don't know that I ever stopped loving them. I was just as excited to meet Gaston and participate in Story Time with Belle as the 7 year olds

[PirateLover]

Although one joke I like to needle shallow, posing fans with is, "You liked Frozen so much? Okay:
Explain why.....WITHOUT fan-quoting one of the song lyrics. No "For the f*rst t*m* in f*r*v*r", no B**ld*ng of Sn*wm*n, and on pain of death, no, no, NO, uttering of the Three Vile Words. One lyric, and you're disqualified."
(Oh, but that's because you were struck by the story and characters so much, it'll be easy for you! It's not because of anyone being a Broadway fangirl obsessed with karaoke'ing the CD soundtrack, or anything!)

Me, I can explain why I liked Wreck-It Ralph--because, of course, there weren't any songs in it--I can explain why I liked Tangled, because I've forgotten all the songs that were in it, and I'm reasonably comfortable that I can explain why I liked, say, Aladdin, and how it took me on a whole new.....erm, thing.

Oooh kaaay.... I like Wreck it Ralph too. I like Frozen but I don't defend it as the be-all end all. Parts of the story were weak. Characters were under developed. But for me, the songs DO make or break a Disney movie. And when I say it's here to stay I'm mainly talking about the kids and the marketing. Not a commentary on the quality of the film. I have little cousins who just can't get enough after a year of this. As an adult I grew to love some of the movies in a different way, but as a kid I didn't care. It was all about the characters and the songs for me.

[Tekneek]

...but as a kid I didn't care.

If the parks were going to be built based off of what I liked most about Disney films at that young of an age, it would have been one massive tribute to Kim Richards with Doc Terminus and Hoagy peddling their snake oil in Passamaquoddy-land.

[Imalismom]

I like Frozen so much, because for the first time, the "princess" did not have to depend on the "prince" - the "princess" did it all on her own. And.. every girl needs to know that they can indeed "make it on their own".

[brownie]

And now I'm kicking myself for not riding Maelstrom when we were there in August.

[princessgirls]

Too bad Frozen wasn't a thought on their radar when they redid the New Fantasyland, and instead of the Journey of the Little Mermaid, and they could have done a beautiful Frozen attraction there. Fresh and new, with all the themeing that we have come to love.

Just my opinion though....
I do enjoy the Little Mermaid attraction, just kind of think a Frozen attraction belongs over in Fantasyland.
Julie

[AgentC]

Although one joke I like to needle shallow, posing fans with is, "You liked Frozen so much? Okay:
Explain why.....WITHOUT fan-quoting one of the song lyrics. No "For the f*rst t*m* in f*r*v*r", no B**ld*ng of Sn*wm*n, and on pain of death, no, no, NO, uttering of the Three Vile Words. One lyric, and you're disqualified."
(Oh, but that's because you were struck by the story and characters so much, it'll be easy for you! It's not because of anyone being a Broadway fangirl obsessed with karaoke'ing the CD soundtrack, or anything!)

Me, I can explain why I liked Wreck-It Ralph--because, of course, there weren't any songs in it--I can explain why I liked Tangled, because I've forgotten all the songs that were in it, and I'm reasonably comfortable that I can explain why I liked, say, Aladdin, and how it took me on a whole new.....erm, thing.

Okay, I'll guess I'll play this one too though I have a feeling we may have discussed this over in the movie forum

First, since Frozen more than many Disney films is a musical (check the singing to dialogue ratio in the first 1/2 of the movie), its a bit unrealistic to say that liking the music isn't a valid reason to like the movie.

I'll agree with PirateLover that there are plot issues and character development problems. There is a feeling on incompleteness due Elsa being changed from a villain to a heroine.

However as Imalismom stated it is a movie that celebrates girls/women as actual heroines not accessories to men. Even in Tangled (one of my absolutely favorite movies), Rapunzel is saved by Flynn's action not her own. Additionally it adds the message of not hiding who you really are. These are powerful messages that resonate with many girls and women. Part of the movies success is that it struck an emotional chord in people.

But for some it didn't and that is fine. That's why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

[missymouseworld]

I must admit that I liked the music more than the movie. When watching the movie, I felt like they were recycling a lot of prior characters/movies from Disney past. I kept saying to my family, doesn't that remind you of this movie, etc.

I was also thinking that the area in Norway where the ride is located is pretty small for all those lines/people that will be heading there. We were there in July with crowds and I can't imagine how it will be with the Frozen ride in there.

When telling my husband that they are putting the ride there and about the expected crowds, he said good, then the other attractions at Epcot won't be so crowded. Bring it on.

[Septbride2002]

Well, she was supposed to be a villain in the early storyboards--Or, at least, the tragic antagonist whose complexes and refusal to give in to the heroine threatened the entire kingdom.
But then, when they made her more sympathetic, that left the story without an actual Villain-villain, and story doctors had to come up with one out of thin air....And boyyyy, did they ever.



Although Brenda Chapman's little personal choo-choo going off the rails during the production of Brave hasn't exactly put a good light since on "Female animation directors appealing to both halves of the audience"--Which seems to be one of the main complaints with the Y-chromosome crowd that tends to concentrate on, y'know, the story and stuff.

Up to now, some of us hadn't really noticed whether Jennifer Lee's screenwriting was too "skewed", since Tangled came off without a hitch, even with the whole teen-girl "Moo-mm!" theme of the story.
But now, it's starting to reflect suspiciously on just how much Lifetime Networking we were getting in Lee's other films--The whole subplot of Vanellope and the Mean-girls in Wreck-It Ralph, for instance. (Only a female screenwriter could have come up with the "I'll have you all executed! " joke.)

I'm not going to get into a whole off-topic battle-of-the-sexes discussion about "5 Mistakes Female Viewers ALWAYS Get Wrong About Snow White" ( ), but there seems to be a lot of "We're not damsels in distress!" battles being fought, long after they....really need to be, by audiences who still want to fight them. Yeah, I remember back when it was cool to use Disney as a symbolic all-purpose social whipping-boy too, but I grew out of it, and so did their films.
(I remember back when we were having this EXACT SAME symbolic championing of Merida as Feminist-Warrior Symbol, and those coming to the defense of Disney pointed out just how much spunk some of the "classic" princesses had, despite being pasted with an unfairly negative Snow White stereotype, by those whose private personal issues wanted to paste them with it: Just think of half the things Jasmine, Rapunzel, Esmeralda or Pocahontas accomplished in their films, and they still ended up with their prince at the end of the film...C'est l'amour, and it ain't all that bad as a subplot.)

As we both note, the loony sudden gear-switch of having You-Know-Who suddenly out of nowhere turn out to be a baddie-waddie is due to some emergency last-minute script-doctoring, but that still doesn't excuse the low-comedy humiliation the Duke is forced to endure near the beginning of the film (his toupee falls off because he's old and he's a dance-date from hell, oh, the symbolic hilarity!), or Kristoff forced to be the unthreateningly-emasculated parody of the Grungy Lonely Single Guy, so that he'll be "safe" (ie., flawed) enough to be a funny romantic interest.
Walt used to be a stickler for making sure that his stories appealed to EVERYONE, because of the story, and I'd make a safe bet that in Walt's day, this movie's gender-agendas would've gotten Jennifer fired from the studio faster than Brenda was. And no, I'm not talking about Brenda's "Evil Male-Hollywood Conspiracy".

There were plenty of bombs on Walt's watch.
Sleeping Beauty was considered a flop. And truthfully the story is a real snoozer - the only saving grace being Maleficent.

[AgentC]

Walt used to be a stickler for making sure that his stories appealed to EVERYONE, because of the story,

Okay, this is getting way off topic and I am not going to visit any of the paths you are wandering down except to say I don't recall saying anything negative about the classic princess movies and it is highly unlikely that you will find me complaining about a romantic subplot.

What I said was it struck an "emotional chord". Good storytellers know the importance of building an emotional connection with the audience. There lots of books over the last few years that were phenomenally successful not because they were extremely well written books but because readers connected to them.

But that is really off this topic and much better suited the the Movies board than this one so if you want to talk movies feel free to come on over.

As far as what Walt trying to make his stories appeal to everyone, there is very little that appeals to everyone no matter how hard you try and the movie market is certainly different in 2014 than it was in 1937, but I bet Walt would appreciate a story that made people feel.

So back to the topic at hand. I'll miss Maelstrom. I've always had a soft spot for the trolls though I admit I skipped the movie most of the time. Does Frozen fit? I don't know. I'm assuming they aren't going to make major changes to the exterior which keeps the feels and they do already have the Princess meals next door. I just hope it is a good ride not a lame ride!

[Septbride2002]

Although one joke I like to needle shallow, posing fans with is, "You liked Frozen so much? Okay:
Explain why.....WITHOUT fan-quoting one of the song lyrics. No "For the f*rst t*m* in f*r*v*r", no B**ld*ng of Sn*wm*n, and on pain of death, no, no, NO, uttering of the Three Vile Words. One lyric, and you're disqualified."
(Oh, but that's because you were struck by the story and characters so much, it'll be easy for you! It's not because of anyone being a Broadway fangirl obsessed with karaoke'ing the CD soundtrack, or anything!)

Me, I can explain why I liked Wreck-It Ralph--because, of course, there weren't any songs in it--I can explain why I liked Tangled, because I've forgotten all the songs that were in it, and I'm reasonably comfortable that I can explain why I liked, say, Aladdin, and how it took me on a whole new.....erm, thing.

I can tell you exactly why I like Frozen - aside from the sound track and a cast that I think is phenomenal. Alan Tudyk - I'll watch anything he is a part of. That includes Wreck it Ralph which BTW I like as well - but more for the secondary characters then the squeaky voiced main character. However I doubt my reasons for liking the movie would persuade anyone into changing their mind.

I'm hoping they don't just stick Anna and Elsa in at random moments during the attraction (like Pirates). Hopefully it is a total refurb. Including the songs as Disney hasn't had this talented a singer since Jodi Benson voiced Ariel and prior to that it was Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins.

Maelstrom was an okay attraction. Honestly we walked by it more then we rode it. I'll be interested in seeing the changes.