Ahead of his formal induction as a Disney Legend, legendary Imagineer Joe Rohde sat down for a Q&A interview where he reflected on his career. Of course, Rohde is a legend among Disney theme park fans, but he will be part of the class of 2024 inducted at the D23 Expo this Sunday, August 11th.
From Legendary to Legend
As the creative leader for Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park and countless projects before and after, Joe Rohde carved a career that will be enshrined in Imagineering history as permanently as the animals that can be found in the Tree of Life. When asked about his upcoming status as a Disney Legend, Rohde called it an “unexpected honor”.
Frankly, it was an unexpected honor. All the work we do is done by teams and I always thought of myself as part of a team—kind of the like the team editor. So, it wasn’t top of mind that I was going to be honored in any way. But it is humbling and delightful at the same time to be thought of as an integral part of the history of The Walt Disney Company.
NăHTăZū!
The most consequential project of Rohde’s famed career was the creation of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. When asked about his impact on the creation of the park, Rohde said that it was “bit of an overstatement to say that there would be no Disney’s Animal Kingdom without me”, noting that it was Michael Eisner’s idea, but Rohde did paint a picture of what his role in the project was.
I think it’s a bit of an overstatement to say that there would be no Disney’s Animal Kingdom without me. It was Michael Eisner‘s idea, and from day one I worked with partners to see it come to life. I think the part that I can take credit for is that I was the chief spokesperson and negotiator for the project, the one who had to do the talking not only to explain it but to enlist supporters, advocates, and advisors.
Rohde talked about some of the challenges that the team faced when getting Disney’s Animal Kingdom off the ground. Notably, the team had to simultaneously convince people that the park was more than a zoo while also contradicting many of the rules that made traditional theme parks work.
Here is something that was important about the development of the park and that had impact on the rest of my career. We had to overcome two hurdles. One was that people thought they already knew what it would be—just a big zoo—and that this would not work. We needed to reboot that thinking. And more than that, even if we convinced people it could be a theme park, we still needed to contradict many of the rules that made theme parks work.
So, once people understood that it might be something different, the problem was to prove that it was feasible. More than showing that it could be exciting, our chief challenge was proving that it could be done.
Everest to Eywa
Two of the most popular expansions at Disney’s Animal Kingdom also were guided by Rohde (who we hope has a hand in the Tropical Americas project as well). In the interview, Rohde talked about how much of a personal joy Expedition Everest was for him to work on given his love of the Himalayas.
It’s no secret to those who know me that I love the Himalayas. I’ve been there many times, and would go back in a heartbeat, so working on Expedition Everest was a particularly personal joy. It’s common with projects that some of my fondest memories are from the moments right before we open when the project is nearly complete; [it’s] an entire world unto itself, but not yet up and running, so you can wander through it wandering through your imagination. Everest was like that. Almost every space in that attraction is stunningly realistic, so walking around in it is like walking around in my memory of being in the Himalayas.
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Of course, traveling to the Himalayas with the team research trips and on our conservation expedition, Mission Himalayas, was one of the great adventures of my life, from the moment we threw our duffel bags out of a hovering helicopter along the Kali Gandaki River and jumped out onto them to be met by a horse team taking us into the fortified town of Kagbeni, it was my dream come true.
Rohde also spoke about Pandora – The World of Avatar and how he was terrified of the project when it began. Rohde talked about how he tried to convince Disney not to acquire rights to Avatar because “it was so impossible to build out of real material in the real world”. Of course, what Rohde and team created not only achieved the impossible from an engineering perspective, but also from an emotional and storytelling perspective.
Pandora was another thing altogether. I was terrified of this project when it began, and certain that it would be the disastrous end of my career. It’s a matter of public record that I wrote multiple memos to the company advising them not to acquire the property because it was so impossible to build out of real material in the real world. Then, of course, we had to do it.
It ended up being one of my favorite projects. I very much enjoyed working with the irreplaceable Jon Landau, whom I will miss terribly, and had wonderful long conversations with [Disney Legend] James Cameron, often about stuff that had nothing to do with the project at all—just history, science, and nature.
When talking about his memories of the project, Rohde says two moments stood out to him. Going back to the theme of technology and emotion, Rohde said that the first moment was when the team realized that the Shaman of Song Audio-Animatronic was technologically capable of creating deeper and more convincing psychological performance than originally thought. Rohde said that this led the team to “redevelop the entire script” of the attraction to take advantage of the figure.
Another moment Rohde recalls is when the team realized that the Avatar Flight of Passage simulator would be a much more emotional experience than previously thought.
I have several great memories here. One of them was the day we realized that the robotic shaman figure was capable of a deeper and more convincing psychological performance than we had realized. That led us to redevelop the entire script to take advantage of the remarkable performance quality of this figure. The other moment was one day in the simulator building, long before completion of the attraction, that we realized that Avatar Flight of Passage was going to be a more emotional experience than we had imagined and that we might have something here that was a real game changer, far above the technical achievement of getting it done—something like a real work of art. And lastly, as always, those days before we opened when I could wander around the landscape of Pandora as if it was a real national park of some kind, forgetting that it was all of us who had made it so.
Rohde’s Legacy
As Rohde reflected on his career, he talked about his legacy and how he wanted his career to be remembered. It’s clear that Rohde is proud of the fact that he brought a lot of original concepts to life, going as far as calling out the fact that there are not a lot of classic IPs in his portfolio. Ultimately, he said he wanted to leave behind a body of work that shows how much more and how much else Imagineers are capable of beyond just IP.
Most of my career was occupied with projects that did not touch upon fantasy or animated characters. Even before Disney’s Animal Kingdom, my work tended to be focused on exploration of what else Disney could mean. Pleasure Island and The Adventurers Club were just part of years of work on urban entertainment centers. Disney’s Animal Kingdom was an experiment expanding what a theme park could be. [Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa] was a collaboration with indigenous Hawaiians. Les Villages Nature Paris was a sustainable eco resort. There’s just not a lot of classic IP in my portfolio. If I have a legacy, I suppose it is that… to leave a body of work that shows just how much more and how much else Imagineers are capable of.
And further, I hope that I have established a sense of discipline, deep study, and gravitas to the work. Over the years I have come to believe that what we do is far and away the most complex and technically sophisticated art form in the world. No film, no opera, no theatrical or architectural enterprise comes close. It deserves intellectual sophistication that is equal to its technical sophistication.
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