Disney's Animal Kindom
 

Anyone heard about the new "Avatar World" that Disney is going to start making at Animal Kindom in 2013? :awesome:

Yeah, I'm a bit worried about it though... Avatar and Disney just don't seem like they'll go well together, and I just don't want to see it get bowdlerised or have songs worked in everywhere.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...SpaceEpcot.JPG

http://www.greenespace.com/wedding/2...rin_edited.JPG

I'm not worried personally.

I don't see what that has to do with bowdlerisation, but disney do try and market to younger audiences...

Well, they're examples of thoroughly enjoyable (IMO) disney attractions that don't have disney songs sprinkled in all over the place. They only "disneyfication" (made up word) on either of those are the last 10-20 seconds of Soarin'.

Again, it's been several years since I've gone to a disney park, but aside from stores, branding seemed to be fairly minimal at Epcot. I only went to Animal Kingdom once, but well,

lets just say I didn't have the appreciation for nature then that I do now. All I remember about animal kingdom was that it was way too hot, way too humid and I wanted to gtfo of there as quickly as I could.

There's been another thread about this: http://www.tree-of-souls.com/avatar_...ney_parks.html

I'm really nothing but excited about it. On the topic of "disneyfication", I highly doubt anything like that will happen, since Avatar isn't a Disney creation and JC wouldn't be up for anything cheesy (or at least I am confident he wouldn't).
In regards to any other worries about Disney commercializing things or making it kid friendly in a way that's annoying, I'll repeat what I said in the other thread: I'm just happy to have more Avatar stuff. If it doesn't live up to my expectations, I have two options: enjoy it as much as I can, or laugh at it. Avatar should be for all types of fans, even children. All the kids I know love Avatar.
AFAIK, Disney would be one of the only institutions which could come near creating a Pandora area as elaborate as we'd like it. If Disney can't do it, I feel no one else is likely to, and for that reason, I'm glad it's at least being attempted :)

Crickett, your picture of Mission Space has a big fat "HP" on the front :P Not the best example, but I still agree, branding is inconspicuous for the most part (the most blunt probably being the GM Test Track).

Well, I was referring more to the Disney brand than sponsorship.

Gary Sinise doesn't have mouse ears and Mickey isn't your co-pilot on Mission Space or anything like that.

Oh yeah, well I don't think "Disney" can be placed on something which is of separate origins. Not even any of the Star Wars stuff has any of those kind of labels.

I guess... still doesn't seem right to me though. I'm not against it, just worried about how it could turn out; not knowing how it will yet.
That said though, I don't think it matters that Avatar isn't Disney's, since they do market their theme parks to a young audience, and might want to do whatever for that reason.