Disney announced a bunch of new details for the Cars-themed mini-land coming to Magic Kingdom. This area is now officially named Piston Peak National Park, and there is a ton of new concept art as well as some information directly from Imagineers about this new project. This post will take a look at all of that, discuss the timing of the closure of Rivers of America and see whether our minds can be changed about this project as a whole.
Piston Peak is NOT Radiator Springs (which we already knew) but IS connected to the Cars "universe" (a term I'll use loosely here) as it was a setting in Planes: Fire and Rescue, which in and of itself is an offshoot of Cars (got all that?). The version in the movie was influenced by Yosemite and Yellowstone, but the version being built in the park is more like Rocky Mountain National Park, with plenty of peaks, rivers and geysers.
I'm not great at visualizing how things will actually look from concept art, but I'll do my best here. I'll also take the word of Imagineers on what they plan on doing. One of these things is extending the "geyser field" from Big Thunder Mountain into Piston Peak, which will feature rainbow pools and a large feature geyser called "Old Tank Full" that will erupt periodically. The main attraction in this area will be the rally racing ride, and it will race around Old Tank Full.
There is also a new animatronic being built as a central character in Piston Peak. He is named J. Autobahn Woodlore (inspired by old Donald Duck shorts). He will be part of the rally racer ride's preshow and discuss the folklore of the area (a good Imagineering staple). It will be a full sized animatronic, similar to Mater in Disneyland's Radiator Springs Racers. There will be a secondary, family friendly ride in this area as well but Disney said that details on that are to come later.
One of the biggest questions asked about this new land is how it would impact sightlines from elsewhere in the park. Imagineering seems to be very aware of this, and spoke about "carefully managing" these sightlines. A large waterfall (seen in the lower left corner of the art at the top of this page) will effectively block guests in Liberty Square from seeing cars racing around Frontierland.
The cartoon-like concept art shared so far really gives a lot more depth than what had been shown previously, and there were some major changes from the original concept art. My guess is that Disney heard and felt the fan backlash loud and clear - people were very down on this project taking over the serene landscape provided by Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island.
To be clear, this is still not as "good" as simply leaving well enough alone. But unless you were a real cockeyed optimist, once Disney announced this land, there was no chance they were going to go back on their word. So take what I'm about to say with that caveat, and realize that sometimes you have to hope for the best given the circumstances, even if it isn't what you or I might choose to do in this case.
Okay, with that being said, here's my "hot take", sure to anger many of my fellow Disney nerds - this land actually looks good. I love all the water features shown here, so while it isn't exactly like Rivers of America, this is probably as close as you could get. The trees, the rock formations, the water (did I mention that already) ... overall, this could really be nice if done properly.
I add that asterisk at the end simply because there's a long way to go from concept art to finished product and things can change for any number of reasons (the festival center at Epcot might be the most recent and painful example). So until this ACTUALLY comes to fruition, there's always a possibility that it gets scaled back and/or materially altered so that it isn't the lush, beautiful landscape that it presents as today. If that's the case, I will certainly be at the forefront of the haters club.
But as it stands, this is a nice way to "modernize" this land, while still keeping the natural beauty that guests had hoped for. Dare I say, a best of both worlds? I sure hope so. Piston Peak was naturally going to be compared to Radiator Springs in Disneyland, but it actually owes a lot more to Grizzly Peak, given its strong National Park theming. I'm definitely way more enthusiastic about this project than I was a few months ago.
Rivers of America was always going to be closed once this project was announced, and to that end, Disney also noted that Rivers, Tom Sawyer Island and the Liberty Belle will close starting July 7. Construction walls will go up a few weeks later. No opening date has been announced for this land, though it's surely at least a couple of years away. There's also the matter of the Walt Disney World Railroad, which will operate in "shuttle mode" beginning on July 7, operating only between Main Street and Fantasyland. It will not be able to operate as a full loop until Villains Land is completed (!) so assume you're looking at five years at the least in this case. At least it won't fully be down during this time, but it won't be fully operational either.
For the purists, this doesn't make up for the Rivers of America closure, but Piston Peak seems to, at the very least, address the many issues fans had with this new land. Imagineers held a forum for select guests (sadly, I was not one of them!) to discuss these types of concerns, and it seems to me that they understand where the complaints were coming from and will do their best to integrate them into this new land. Let's hope that they can deliver, because it's happening either way.
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