Look – it wouldn’t be the first time dinosaurs went extinct.
Since 1998, Disney’s Animal Kingdom has played host to an entire land dedicated to the ancient reptiles that once walked the earth. From day one, Dinoland, U.S.A. has been an oddity – a meticulously designed in-joke philosophically exploring humanity’s relationship with creatures we’ve only encountered through fossil evidence and feature films. But arguably, Dinoland has always fallen a bit flat… Anchored by a swing-and-a-miss attempt to relive the glory of one of Disney’s best rides ever, then accentuated by a fan-frustrating carnival, Dinoland has never truly entered the pantheon of great Disney projects.
And now, things are changing once again. With the recent news that one of the land’s few attractions will never open again, Dinoland’s looking more desolate than ever. So what if Disney were drawing up plans to replace Dinoland entirely? Today, we’ll take the trek through the history of Dinoland and toward the conclusion many Imagineering fans have already drawn (sometimes literally)… Could Animal Kingdom’s land of ancient animals become a land of ancient adventures? Here’s our in-depth assessment of how we got here…
Prehistory
To understand why Dinoland may be endangered, we have to remember why it exists at all.
Picture it: in the early ‘90s, plans for Disney’s Wild Animal Kingdom were already underway. A response to (and maybe, a rejection of) the era of the “Studio” park that had preceded it, Animal Kingdom would be “a new species of theme park,” dedicated to “animals real, ancient, and imagined,” with the latter two in particular ensuring that guests would recognize this new fourth gate as “Nahtazu,” but so much more.
By nature of reading this Editorial, you undoubtedly already know that the latter two of those lands – featuring “ancient” and “imagined” animals, respectively – were supposed to be the concepts that would most clearly and succinctly demonstrate that Animal Kingdom was worthy of Disney-level admission prices despite its admitted on-paper similarities to regional zoos. Which means you also know that as the park’s budget ballooned with back-of-house infrastructure, then-CEO Michael Eisney allegedly got cold feet about the ultra-ambitious park and its nail-biting costs in a post-Disneyland-Paris company.
Dinoland was famously greenlit, leaving the Possibilityland: Beastly Kingdom a mere legend in our library. But… why? What gave Dinoland an edge over its mythological sister?
Frankly, Dinoland, U.S.A. was born of a ‘90s pop culture convergence that was too good to pass up.
- First came Jurassic Park. The 1993 Steven Spielberg film was a billion dollar earner before such feats were commonplace (the highest grossing film ever at the time of its release), rocketing to become a cultural phenomenon and landmark film.
- Then came the Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland. The E-Ticket attraction (and still one of the world’s best) debuted a brand new ride system technology – the Enhanced Motion Vehicle – that combined a dark ride and simulator in one… and the team working on Animal Kingdom’s Dinoland assured Eisner they could cut costs by duplicating the hit ride’s technology and layout, simultaneously bringing the new tech to Florida, saving research and development costs, and keeping Dinoland’s budget low by opting for one single ride versus Beastly Kingdom’s minimum of two.
- Then came the Lost Legend: Jurassic Park: The Ride. It’s not just that the 1996 attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood was a hit; it was that Universal was officially inking plans for a new theme park in Orlando that would not only clone the Hollywood attraction, but have an entire Jurassic Park land as its centerpiece.
- And yet to come was the 2000 film DINOSAUR – reportedly, a pet project of Eisner’s – which would combine cutting edge computer animation with live backgrounds to create a movie that would redefine filmmaking for the new millennium.
Given what was happening – and what was on the horizon – it’s easy to see why Dinoland was elevated above Beastly Kingdom. It was the right land at the right time; one that would cash in on the recently-revitalized pop culture coup of dinosaurs, rise to meet Universal and its new park, integrate a highly sought-after ride system into Walt Disney World, and set the park up for success thanks to the in-production film. As for the form it took?
Dinoland, U.S.A.
Animal Kingdom’s Africa transports guests to the fictional – but not fantasy – waterside village of Harambe; Asia similarly sets guests down in the misty town of Anadapur at the foot of the Himalayas. Dinoland takes you somewhere, too… it’s just not quite as far away.
Look, we’ll be the first to admit to being “Dinoland Apologists.” In fact, Theme Park Tourist published a full, in-depth Declassified Disaster: DINOLAND feature that digs into the history of the land just to mount a defense against its critics. You can see and feel that Imagineers really did want to use Dinoland to transport guests somewhere new… in this case, to a sleepy town on a quiet highway somewhere between Texas and Florida, long-since surpassed by the Interstate. Just as much as any other land at Animal Kingdom, Dinoland is rich with history and story and detail layered on by Imagineers who are building a fake place that could exist in the real world.
In this case, it’s a story that begins with locals – like married couple Chester and Hester – whose long-standing gas station was a lone outpost in the quiet Diggs County… until the discovery of fossils brought archaeologists and grad students from around the world. Within, the land’s buildings tell the story of their ensuing re-use, with old fishing lodges become dorms and cafeterias for hungry students; with their professors gradually forming the Dino Institute in vacant Diggs County structures, gradually gaining funding…
…up to the opening of the more prestigious Dino Institute museum and research center, where the Lost Legend: Countdown to Extinction served as the land’s only chance to get face-to-face with real, living dinosaurs.
Put another way, Dinoland has a story as pervasive and rich and layered as Batuu. Like 1994’s New Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom or 1995’s Adventureland in Disneyland, this was an early attempt at Imagineering’s land-wide continuity, with one overarching frame story explaining every ride, show, restaurant, and shop in the land. So why didn’t people love it?
The Downfall of Dinoland
Even when Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, there consensus seemed to be that Dinoland, U.S.A. was an oddity… It just… didn’t fit. From the untamed beauty of the Oasis to the craftsmen village of Discovery Island in the fantastic roots of the Tree of Life, then to photorealistic and immersive lands recalling far-flung corners of Africa and Asia… Animal Kingdom is a park of artistry and romance; it explores how the story of humanity is inextricably tied to the animals and nature our civilizations have developed within and alongside.
Dinoland took that “idea” of exploration humanity’s relationship to animals and created a philosophically clever take without stealing Jurassic Park’s M.O. of literally positioning us alongside them. It explored how we, as people, have both revered and infantilized dinosaurs; how we take for granted that giant reptiles once walked the earth and instead turn them into caricatures in cartoons; patterns on baby bibs; action figures and stuffed animals… It’s a clever way of sticking to the park’s pattern, but it’s also very different from the rest.
Imagineers worked hard to create in Dinoland a physical place, and habitable and layered in history as Harambe or Anadapur. But Dinoland was still out of sync. Maybe it was “too close to home;” not exotic enough; maybe it didn’t have enough to do; maybe it just pales in comparison to Jurassic Park.
Or maybe its story was so deeply embedded – so layered – that most guests just didn’t even realize it was there. Most visitors, after all, don’t view lands as puzzles that need studied to be solved, but as places that need navigated to be completed.
And though Dinoland might’ve ridden the wave of ‘90s pop culture, the EMV, and Eisner’s shoe-in blockbuster movie Dinosaur to its completion, the land that didn’t fit didn’t get much better. In fact, it might’ve gotten worse… Read on as we dissect the downfall of Dinoland.
Right out the gate, Dinoland was somewhat of an oddity at Animal Kingdom. Despite similar scope and equally embedded storytelling, Disney’s recreation of Diggs County simply didn’t fit among the park’s Africa and Asia. And though it opened with Countdown to Extinction as its single ride, Dinoland would subtly – but substantially – change. Here are the three ingredients that make up today’s Dinoland… and why each failed to become the hit Disney hoped…
1. DINOSAUR
Imagineers sold executives on the idea of Dinoland hinging on the EMV, the ride system that had catapulted Disneyland into the modern “Ride the Movies” movement with the world-class, ultra-beloved, fantastically fun Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure. Of course having the EMV at Disney World would be a win, and the idea of an off-roading safari through a jungle of dinosaurs isn’t at all a bad concept.
But look… anyone who’s read our in-depth look at the Lost Legend: Countdown to Extinction knows that Disney’s plans for an Indiana-Jones-equivalent prehistoric safari quickly encountered some cut corners. Don’t misunderstand: Dinoland’s dark ride lives up to its (laughably bad) tagline – “It’s fast. It’s a blast. It’s in the past.” – but it’s also severely uneven, hampered by continuous re-writes to fix its narrative problems, broken figures, large expanses of darkness, laughably cheesy effects, and an uneven tone that underwrites it all.
In isolation? It’s a fun ride. But in 1998, positioning an ultra-intense, dark, terrifying, loud, rough, scary attraction as one of two rides at Disney’s Animal Kingdom? It was… a choice.
And that choice was made all the more odd when, in 2000, the ride was briefly closed and then reopened as DINOSAUR, ostensibly tying it to the now-completely-forgotten film that helped greenlight the land. Combined with the changes made to “lessen” the ride’s intensity at that time and the many effects that have flickered out of existence since, Dinosaur is rough in more ways than one.
And frankly, it’s never been able to overcome the simple, foundational hurdle that it’s just not Indiana Jones Adventure. For Disney Parks aficionados, it’s practically mean that Disney World is this close to having a duplicate of one of the best dark rides ever designed, right down to the rides’ nearly-identical layouts. So yes, Dinosaur is “good.” If you didn’t know Indiana Jones Adventure existed (which of course, most Disney World guests do not), you might even think it’s “really good.” But it’s not Indiana Jones Adventure.
2. Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama
Dinoland opened alongside Animal Kingdom in 1998. In 2000, Countdown to Extinction became the increasingly-uneven Dinosaur. Meanwhile, attendance at the new theme park allegedly wasn’t keeping up pace. Part of the problem? While guests reportedly liked Disney’s Animal Kingdom, it simply didn’t have enough to do. And, like… yeah… Three years into existing, Animal Kingdom offered just three noteworthy rides: Kilimanjaro Safaris, DINOSAUR, and Kali River Rapids.
Disney has faced this problem many times. Today, the popular solution is Toy Story Land, a veritable panacea for parks that just don’t have enough to do. It’s an easy, quick, relatively inexpensive way to inject “cheap and cheerful” family attractions into the park with a universally-recognized IP and off-the-shelf rides. That’s why almost every Disney Resort on Earth has a Toy Story Land. Even before Woody and Buzz began literally reigning over carnival rides, Disney California Adventure’s quick fix solution was 2002’s “a bug’s land,” an (arguably more charming than Toy Story Land) attempt to miniaturize guests and inject some family flat ride capacity into an underbuilt park.
It’s somewhat curious that Animal Kingdom didn’t opt for “a bug’s land” behind the Tree of Life in its own quick-fix push to add family capacity to the park. Instead, in 2002, it debuted Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama. Building off of the land’s existing mythology and doubling down on that clever case study of the land’s thematic message, Dino-Rama was… well… another choice.
Look, we spent a good chunk of our Declassified Disaster: DINOLAND feature defending Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama and how it really does fit into that deeply layered and embedded story that permeates through Dinoland. It is a fitting representation of a roadside attraction anchored by the dino-Dumbo TriceraTop Spin carnival ride and the practically-mobile Primeval Whirl wild mouse coaster that looks like it just unfolded from a tractor-trailer. And fittingly, Disney Imagineers expanded Chester & Hester’s “blacktop” parking lot and set up their prehistoric county fair there.
But even if we can narratively excuse Dino-Rama, there’s just no denying that it only added to the “differentness” of Dinoland. To travel from the foot of Expedition Everest and the mystical, reflective, and otherworldly Serka Zong into… a top-40-hits fun fair of clanging carnival games and whizzing roller coasters…
And given that most guests don’t look at lands like puzzles to be solved, you can see why the narrative of Dinoland grew increasingly negative. Casual guests and fans alike took Dino-Rama at face value (which is fair!) and decreed that Disney had cheaped out. Now, Dolly Parton is fond of saying “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap,” and that’s true of Dino-Rama – where extensive placemaking sold the illusion of a roadside carnival. But at the end of the day, it was a relatively “cheap and cheerful” solution to the problem.
3. Primeval Whirl
Speaking of problems, Dino-Rama’s roller coaster – Primeval Whirl – has been one in its own right. Just as it’s odd that Disney opted to build Dino-Rama instead of merely duplicating California Adventure’s “a bug’s land” that was in production at the same time, they made another curious choice in Primeval Whirl. Animal Kingdom’s coaster was built by French ride manufacturer Reverchon rather than the tried-and-true Mack Rides who built California Adventure’s Mulholland Madness (today, Goofy’s Sky School) at the same time. It was, to put it lightly, a bad decision.
In 2001 – a year before Primeval Whirl opened – Twister at Lightwater Valley in the U.K. (a Reverchon coaster of the same model as Primeval Whirl) experienced a two-train collision, with a 20-year old rider dying of head trauma.
In 2007, a Disney Cast Member died after allegedly falling off of a platform on Primeval Whirl.
In 2011, another Cast Member died after allegedly suffering a traumatic head injury while working on the ride.
In 2015, a Lightwater Valley worker was reportedly flung 40-feet into the air after being struck by a vehicle on the same Twister coaster that caused a death in 2001
In 2019, a young boy fell from Lightwater Valley’s Twister coaster and was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition.
Three weeks later – on June 17, 2019, Primeval Whirl officially switched to “seasonal” status – a common death knell for Disney Parks rides, and unlike rides hidden away in showbuildings, a quiet coaster in a blacktop parking lot sure doesn’t look great… In any case, “seasonal” status suggested that Primeval Whirl would only open during the busiest weeks of the summer and winter seasons and otherwise remain standing but not operating.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic suggested that “busy weeks of the summer and winter seasons” might be a thing of the past entirely… We have yet to recognize the full, decade-long ramifications of the potentially crippling effects of the 2020 pandemic on the slate of projects across Disney and Universal Parks… But we do know that Primeval Whirl will never re-open. On July 16, 2020, Disney officials confirmed that the coaster was closed for good.
It’s unlikely that Disney is in any rush to remove the steel ride… Such an expense would be ludicrous amid the reported $900 million in capital cuts to Parks projects. Plus, if Disney did remove Primeval Whirl, Dino-Rama would look even more pathetic than it already does, making the “parking lot” look even more like an empty expanse, and with a single spinning dino-Dumbo as its only visual point of interest. Yikes. So what, exactly is left of Dinoland, U.S.A.?
DINOSAUR? Declining.
Dino-Rama? Detested.
Primeval Whirl? Deleted.
So maybe it’s time we chalk Dinoland up to a lost cause and shift our focus to a much more fun conversation: what could be? Our dreams finish up on the next page.
Countdown to extinction…?
To step into Dinoland in 2020 is to step into a land that feels on the brink of extinction.
Sure, it’s still layered with all of the earnest, well-intentioned placemaking and storytelling of 1998… but to analyze Dinoland as an early adopter of the “living land” strategy (now exemplified by the Wizarding World and Galaxy’s Edge) is to see it as a land with a lot of mistakes. Its location? Unclear. Its time period? Unclear? The “role” and “motivation” guests are meant to adopt in the story? Unclear. It feels like you’re stumbling into someone else’s story without a clear idea of what it has to do with you.
At least in our opinion, people don’t really understand Dinoland. They don’t relate to it or connect with it. Its story is too embedded; too philosophical; too layered. They don’t connect the pieces; they don’t understand what the story even is – where, when, or why they’re there. As a result, it’s not a world people want to be a part of, like Batuu, Hogsmeade, Pandora, or non-IP lands like Grizzly Peak, Adventureland, Africa, or Asia.
(Neither here nor there, it was also designed just on the cusp of the scientific understanding that birds are dinosaurs, leaving Dinoland one of the last significant dino-projects to show dinosaurs as sleek, scaly, muscular reptiles rather than the feathered reptiles we recognize as accurate today… A recent semi-permanent Donald’s Dino-Bash takeover by Donald Duck and friends is a clever – but campy – event centered around his “recently discovering that his ancestors were dinosaurs,” but only adds to the nonsensical clutter of the land and buries the story even further.)
So here we stand. Dinoland, U.S.A. 2020. It’s still got DINOSAUR, with its 4:3 aspect ratio pre-show video, its uneven tone, its fading effects and its, y’know, not-being-Indiana-Jones-Adventure. Then you’ve got Dino-Rama, minus its one actual noteworthy ride, leaving a parking lot of carnival games, a single spinner, and the now-vacant remains of a practically-portable carnival coaster reigning over it all.
So now, let’s turn our attention from either defending or decrying Dinoland to the more exciting opportunity: how we would replace it…
Blue Sky
In the Blue Sky phase of Disney Imagineering design, there are no holds barred. Forget technologies and limitations and budgets and just dream big. Even here at Theme Park Tourist, we’ve tripped over ourselves in the lead-up to the opening of Pandora to imagine other lands that could’ve occupied the park and fit just as well. Perhaps like us, you can practically picture what a Narnia, Endor, or Gravity Falls could be like at Animal Kingdom…
But, this isn’t quite a Blue Sky exercise. Animal Kingdom exists. So does Dinoland. And at the very least, any concept that were to replace Dinoland would almost certainly have to make use of as much of the land’s infrastructure (restrooms, restaurants, pathways, etc) as possible, and even if we wanted to go big with our ideas, we’d certainly have to salvage the EMV ride itself.
And there’s one more thing we just have to consider when we’re talking about a new addition at Animal Kingdom: an appreciation for the park’s themes. Imagineer and creative lead Joe Rohde had been instrumental in everything that’s come or gone from Animal Kingdom since its earliest conception, and he’s whittled its heart down to three themes:
- the intrinsic value of nature
- transformation through adventure
- a personal call to action
Those “big ideas” permeate the park; they’re inherent in every attraction, experience, and environment. So while an IP like Zootopia – a city populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals and all the inter-species struggles it entails – might sound like a natural fit, it doesn’t pass Rohde’s smell test. He tweeted in response to the suggestion:
“[In Zootopia,] the animals are proxies for humans and human issues rather than animals in their own right facing animal-related issues. [At Disney’s Animal Kingdom,] we try to enforce the ‘no pants’ rule.”
So to imagine a solution for replacing Dinoland is to face some serious creative hurdles; to imagine a land that “flows” with the rest; that sticks to the park’s themes; that gives guests a role in a world the way Dinoland sometimes fails to; where animals are presented authentically and in the context of real issues; and that can acceptably re-use the EMV dark ride (something, for example, a Narnia land or a Moana land wouldn’t quite do).
The conspiracy-theory-killing principle of parsimony, or Occam’s razor, says that the simplest solution is usually right. Most times, the correct answer is the most obvious one; in almost every event, things are as simple as they appear; if something requires mental gymnastics, conspiracies, and excuses to justify, it probably isn’t true. And that’s true here, too… The simplest answer is probably the best. So rather than trying to force-fit concepts into the space, our suggestion for a Dinoland redesign is the same one many have suggested before…
South America
For about as long as Disney Parks discussion boards have been around, the almost-too-obvious idea of transforming Dinoland into South America has circulated the community. Surely, you can imagine why. First and foremost, DINOSAUR could be (admittedly, extensively and expensively) redesigned into the form it really probably should’ve taken from the beginning: Indiana Jones Adventure.
As if it could be any better, there’s already a blueprint for this. Tokyo DisneySea’s Lost River Delta (sort of a nautical Adventureland) is set deep in the jungles of the Mexican peninsula where the remnants of a Mayan civilization loom over the treeline.
It’s a clever way of having a land that feels “real” in the Animal Kingdom sense, but still lends itself heavily to the Indiana Jones time period and mythology. Lost River Delta cleverly cuts a river between an explorers settlement (including “living land” dining and retail that Disney would love) and the vast temple complex of the Mayans beyond.
The land’s anchor in Tokyo – the third of Disney’s three EMV rides – is Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull (unrelated to the film, which came out after the ride). But it’s easy to imagine how the mythos of Indiana Jones could hit all three of Animal Kingdom’s themes… maybe a Temple of the Jade Viper, with visitors racing to replace a stolen snake artifact to restore peace to the temple and the surrounding jungle.
Throw in a themed HUSS Top Spin with flame and water effects or perhaps even a compact coaster amid temple ruins like Disneyland Paris’ Temple of Peril and you’ve got yourself a land that follows the global expedition eco-tourist theme of Pandora, Africa, and Asia while also reviving DINOSAUR as a sought-after reinvention themed to an actually-relevant Disney-owned IP, without a carnival spinner in sight.
A South America with an Indiana Jones themed focus doesn’t just align with Animal Kingdom’s themes at least as well if not better than AVATAR. It would also give Disney World the Indiana Jones Adventure it needs (which would be a legitimate anchor attraction, which Dinosaur is not), and and it would finally move Disney forward in actually utilizing the IP it earned in the other half of its purchase of LucasFilm. To us, that’s a win-win-win.
Extinction Event?
Look – there’s no saying if Dinoland will really bite the dust. Truthfully, the same forces that have stalled it (including the COVID-19 pandemic) probably also ensure that even if Imagineers were in the early stages of imagining a better use for Animal Kingdom’s real estate, they probably aren’t anymore. Put simply, Dinoland is most certainly “good enough,” and for the foreseeable future, “good enough” is… well… good enough.
Still, it’s fun to begin to imagine the shape that an entirely empty plot of land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom could take, and how it’s existing EMV dark ride could take on a new form, as well. While in our minds, South America is the concept to beat, if anyone can beat it, you can.
Would you like to see an Indiana Jones land at Disney’s Animal Kingdom? Or is it one IP land too many for a park that was once Disney’s most original and IP-free? Share your thoughts on Dinoland’s future – and your Blue Sky plans for the space – in the comments below and on Facebook… Just make sure your ideas “fit” in the ways Dinoland doesn’t, including adhering to Animal Kingdom’s themes:
- the intrinsic value of nature
- transformation through adventure
- a personal call to action
We can’t wait to read your ideas!
