Disney Legend and former Walt Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde has taken to social media to comment on the closing of the DINOSAUR attraction, and DinoLand USA as a whole. Rohde, of course, was the creator of Disney’s Animal Kingdom, including the DinoLand USA land. Here’s a look at what the revered Imagineer had to say about the closure of the land.
Joe Rohde Comments on Closure of DINOSAUR & DinoLand USA
In his comments, Rohde talks about the layers of story that could be found for the curious guest willing to spend some time in DinoLand USA. He also spoke about the DINOSAUR attraction, and how it may not have immediately connected with younger guests, but there was a requirement to create a thrilling attraction.
Rohde teases that he may talk more about DinoLand USA before praising the Imagineers working on the upcoming Tropical Americas project, saying that the “team is doing an excellent job with the challenge at hand”.
So I guess today is the last operating day of Dinoland, USA at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. I have to say that I will miss its sly and droll sense of humor, and the way in which it attempted to take a complicated subject like paleontology and turn it into a series of entertainment experiences.
I will never know how many people picked up on the Venn diagram of ideas in play. The old school professors defending outmoded ideas. The young students with challenging new theories. The corporate financiers and their amoral profit motive. The roadside America entrepreneurs and their simple non-academic love of dinosaurs for pure fun.
But on the other hand, the Land always had some conceptual weaknesses born of the struggle to just get a park open with what was at the time, a relatively low cost per square foot. For example, while the Dinosaur attraction is a thrilling zany zigzagging adventure…it’s not exactly calculated to appeal to the core market for dinosaurs, which is little kids. But if you look at the opening day menu for the park, you’ll see that it was the only thing approaching a thrill ride, and therefore we were obligated to increase the thrill component to balance the park menu. The original attraction name, Countdown to Extinction, probably broadcast that sensibility more successfully than the IP related title, Dinosaur, which, of course brought up associations with the CGI animated film.
In addition, the science of dinosaurs rapidly outstripped the representation of dinosaurs in the park. And since the park has a strong science basis we like to be as accurate as we can. But it wasn’t likely we’re gonna go back and put feathers on all our therapods.
I might spend some time doing a few historical posts on Dinoland in memoriam. But I want to make that clear I have, from afar, been watching the development of the new land, Pueblo Esperanza, and I can assure you that that team is doing an excellent job with the challenge at hand. But for today, have fun, and take lots of pictures.
For everything you need to know about the Tropical Americas retheme project for DinoLand USA, check out our article below!
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