If You Haven’t Seen “Avatar” on the Big Screen, Now’s Your Chance

by Beth Keating

News

DisneyBizJournal.com

September 15, 2022

 

The first time our boys rode “Flight of Passage” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, they hadn’t seen the 2009 Avatar movie that the ride is based on.  And while, strictly speaking, you can thoroughly enjoy this amazing ride without having seen the movie, it certainly helps to have the origin story for the spectacular land of Pandora.  (Seriously, don’t miss Flight of Passage… it is arguably one of the two best rides at Disney World.)

 

If you want the opportunity to see the Avatar movie on the big screen, now’s your chance.  Avatar will be back in select theatres in 4K High Dynamic Range on September 23, and will run through October 6. Avatar is rated PG-13.  It’s the top-grossing film of all time, at $2.84 billion in ticket sales, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

Avatar was written and directed by Academy Award winner James Cameron, and stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver.  The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director; and won three Oscars for Best Cinematography, Production Design and Visual Effects.

The four – yes, four -- sequels to Avatar are currently in production, and will no doubt bring even bigger crowds to the already popular land of Pandora at Animal Kingdom.  The first of the sequels, Avatar: The Way of Water, is expected December 16, 2022, having been previously pushed back several times.

 

In addition to “Flight of Passage,” where guests take a 3D ride on the back of their very own mountain banshee through the Pandoran landscape, the land also includes the slower moving “Na’Vi River Journey,” a boat ride that takes visitors past the bioluminescent flora and fauna of Pandora in search of “the Shaman of Song,” an animatronic that is so lifelike many guests mistake her for an actual cast member.  The rest of the Valley of Mo’ara, especially at night, wows visitors with plunging waterfalls, floating mountains, and, if you are lucky enough to be there after dark, a stunning glowing landscape.  Stop in at the Satu’li Canteen, the former “mess hall,” for some of the coveted cheeseburger pods, or grab a glass of Hawkes’ Grog Ale, a green shaded draft beer brewed just for the land of Pandora.

 

If you missed the movie in the past, now’s your chance to catch up before the storyline continues on… or just so you know what’s happening at Animal Kingdom.

 

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Beth Keating is a theme parks, restaurant and entertainment reporter for DisneyBizJournal.

 

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From Test Track to Flight of Passage - Like I Was There

Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating – Episode #44: Like I Was There – Whether it’s Test Track or Avatar Flight of Passage, how to transport customers. 

The “Daily Dose of Disney with Ray Keating” podcast serves up a Disney or Disney-related quote each day, with DisneyBizJournal’s Ray Keating offering brief, additional thoughts on how each dose ties in to life, career, business, entrepreneurship, creativity, storytelling, work, or just plain fun.

Don’t Spoil Flight of Passage by Actually Seeing Avatar on Disney+

by Ray Keating

Commentary

DisneyBizJournal.com

November 1, 2019

Disney+ tweeted today that Avatar will arrive when the Disney+ streaming service launches on November 12^th. The tweet read:

“You heard it here first: @OfficialAvatar will be streaming on #DisneyPlus when it launches in the US, Canada, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand starting November 12.”

Many people are excited about all kinds of things arriving on Disney+, but – dare I write it? – Avatar probably tops the list of very few people. 

Let’s face it, the film was a plodding, politically-Left story, but it had incredible special effects, for the time. So, people spent big bucks to see those effects. And then Disney spent big bucks creating an Avatar-inspired land and rides in Animal Kingdom. And make no mistake, “Flight of Passage” ranks as one of the great rides among all of the Disney parks.

So, what I’m intrigued by is the idea that many people who have been on “Flight of Passage” no doubt have never seen the movie. If they watch Avatar on Disney+, what will they think? I’m guessing, again when compared to the ride, they’ll be bewildered and disappointed.

My advice: If you love the ride and have never seen Avatar, don’t spoil the ride by actually seeing the movie. Heck, there’s going to be plenty of other quality material available on Disney+.

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at  raykeating@keatingreports.com.

Which Reality Does Disney Prefer?

by Ray Keating

Analysis

DisneyBizJournal.com

May 23, 2019

Which “reality” does Disney prefer? When looking at a company that deals in fantasy, sci-fi, animation and storytelling in general, such a question could mean a lot of different things. But in this case, it’s about which real-world technology best sweeps people away into a fantasy – virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR)?

Zeroing in on the technology, PCMag.com offered a nice comparison of VR and AR, summing things up this way: “Virtual reality and augmented reality accomplish two very different things in two very different ways, despite the similar designs of the devices themselves. VR replaces reality, taking you somewhere else. AR adds to reality, projecting information on top of what you're already seeing.”

Applying the terms to theme parks, virtual reality basically is about the use of some kind of goggles or headsets to place people in a completely separate reality. In contrast, augmented reality – at least as far as Disney views it – is more about using technology, surroundings and scale to create an immersive experience that is still attached to the real world, if you will.

CEO Bob Iger has made it clear where Disney is on VR vs. AR, including comments at the 6th Annual MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit last week (May 14). 

Iger was asked: “I guess the question is, as AR/VR become more commonplace, how do you manage the parks differently, right? How do you think about where AR is more prevalent or VR is more prevalent?” 

Iger actually had a good deal to say in response, making clear that Disney very much favors AR.

He answered: “I think the first thing that you have to consider about our parks and the Avatar experience, the Star Wars experience, the Cars experience, I think they're all great examples of this, is we're not trying to fake immersion into a place, into a land or into an interaction with characters. We're trying to make it as real as possible, with as much scale as possible. Because we think that as you enter one of these lands with rock formations that are multiple stories high and characters – real characters walking around that you can actually interact with – and experiences that you can travel through, that there's a wow factor there that is much greater than we could ever achieve with VR. Because VR, while you can have a compelling experience in terms of what you see and, to some extent, what you feel, it's never going to be as great as actually being in something.”

He went on to add: “I was just at Galaxy's Edge on Saturday morning, walking through it, and it's just staggering what we've done. We actually give you the feeling of being in a place at the outer edge of the galaxy. And you can go into a bar, that's the Cantina, and order a drink with characters walking around that you’ve seen in the movies. And I just think, personally, it's hard to drink when you have VR glasses on. They're dangerous.”

Iger, however, did note: “And on AR, I think there are opportunities there to augment reality with technology, and we'll do it in a variety of different ways. Whether it ends up in the case of Avatar and the Flight of Passage, which is the banshee experience, you're wearing 3D glasses, and it's not quite I guess, in a way that's AR, it gives you augmented reality that's 3D, and you feel more immersed in it with those glasses on. There are more opportunities for that in our parks.”

Clearly, Disney’s concern, as declared by Iger, is not producing something that’s “fake,” but instead wanting to make sure that visitors come away with a Disney “wow” factor. Iger declared, “And I think just when you think about the brand equation of the Parks and Resorts, and people coming in and just thinking ‘wow, how did they do that?’ Or, only we can do that. That's a big part of the value equation. And we do not want to stray from that or abandon that.”

When you consider undertakings as diverse as Cars Land, Pandora and Galaxy’s Edge, it’s hard to argue with Iger and Disney’s take on the VR vs. AR debate.

Ray Keating is the editor, publisher and economist for DisneyBizJournal.com, and author of the Pastor Stephen Grant novels. He can be contacted at  raykeating@keatingreports.com.

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