Walt Disney World has always been a haven for dreamers. Where the real world so often scoffs at adults and teens with their heads in the clouds, every guest at the Most Magical Place on Earth is invited to relax stubborn propriety and embrace our imaginations.
There is possibly no subset of the population that understands and appreciates this better than those who identify with geek culture. Thirty years ago, the concept of a business as successful as Disney catering to such a fringe demographic would have been unheard of. The word “geek” carried derogatory tones, a label for eccentrics who couldn’t stay grounded in reality or who (like our beloved Belle) couldn’t keep their heads out of comic books and science fiction novels. Dreamers, role-players, and the chronically curious have always held a special place to Disney, particularly in parks like Epcot, but over the past decades something truly remarkable has happened.
Geek culture has become mainstream.
Image: Disney
The very interests that previously defined a person—even a child– as a social outlier have now become the essence of cool. Yesterday’s geeks have become today’s most successful entrepreneurs, innovators, and auteurs. It’s as if the culture as a whole has been given the very thing Walt Disney always encouraged: freedom to imagine, innovate, and let the stories we love the most influence our identities.
While Disney is still producing plenty of attractions and experiences based on its classics (such as the upcoming Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad), a brief look at Disney’s plans for future developments reveals that, perhaps, geek culture has changed the landscape of Walt Disney World forever. How exactly did this shift happen?
The rise of intellectual properties
Image: Jett Farrell-Vega
Focus on intellectual properties isn’t a particularly new phenomenon at Walt Disney World. But at the same time, a large number of Disney’s past attractions focused on stories written in house. Spaceship Earth, Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Journey Into Imagination all fall into this category. It is hard to identify where the turning point arrived, but two major events had a dramatic effect both on Disney embracing intellectual properties as the focus of attractions and on their ultimate embrace of geek culture.
Disney’s surprise bid to purchase Marvel comics in 2009 was possibly the first sign. The most successful entertainment company in the world sensed the shift in culture early and changed the way comic books are viewed by the masses. Their timing was impeccable, aligning closely with the launch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—soon to become one of the most successful properties in entertainment.
The deal also dealt a partial blow to Islands of Adventure, home of Marvel Superhero Island. The contracts in place between Universal and Disney regarding Marvel ultimately protect Universal’s rights to the “Marvel Action Universe” east of the Mississippi, but Disney has found plenty of creative ways to milk the Marvel cash cow through the installation of Super Hero Headquarters at Disney Springs, through strategic Marvel properties like Guardians of the Galaxies (currently unused by Universal), and through the ultimate announcement of an upcoming Marvel-Land expansion to Disney California Adventure somewhere around 2020.
The other major event that affected the shift came at the hands of Disney’s prime competitor, Universal Orlando Resort. Disney had an opportunity back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s to purchase the theme park rights to the Harry Potter series. This was back in the days when theme park attractions based on a movie ultimately surrounded a single ride placed inside a warehouse style exterior. J.K. Rowling held to a series of strict terms surrounding the theme park rights to Harry Potter, particularly how expansive and immersive any Harry Potter land should be (a single attraction was out of the question).
Disney ultimately backed off, uncomfortable with Rowling maintaining so much creative control, while Universal gave her basically everything she wanted and won the deal. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando Resort has become possibly the most successful and immersive theme park expansion ever built. Universal proved that immersive entertainment and popular intellectual properties would earmark the future of theme parks. Disney had been outdone at their own game.
The flabbergasting success of The Wizarding World of Harry Pottery ultimately drove Disney to quickly snatch up the next major intellectual property that came their way in 2011: James Cameron’s Avatar. While it seemed an odd choice for a theme park expansion—even in geek culture, Avatar doesn’t have a particularly large following– the deal would ultimately lead to the construction of Animal Kingdom’s highly successful World of Pandora expansion (which also has the most delightfully geeky restaurant in all of Walt Disney World). For the first time, Disney fully embraced what Universal had already discovered—audiences were entranced by the opportunity to fully immerse in a story. They could turn science fiction into HD reality and guests came in droves.
The purchase of Avatar also foreshadowed the biggest game-changer of all…
The franchise awakens…
Image: Disney
The announcement of Disney purchasing the rights to Star Wars in 2012 changed everything. What George Lucas only partially succeeded in doing through the Star Wars prequels and Clone Wars series, Disney accomplished in spades—reviving the Star Wars franchise to become king of all sagas once more. Disney threw all their chips into the most beloved mythos of geek culture, and the payout has been spectacular.
Star Wars has become a ubiquitous presence in Disney parks. For one thing, it has single-handedly revived the atmosphere of the previously-dwindling Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Star Wars merchandise can be found almost anywhere in Walt Disney World (except for Animal Kingdom, where Pandora holds the geek-culture throne). With the announcement of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, coming in 2019 to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Disney has set the bar higher than ever before for the future of theme parks.
Instead of trying to force Star Wars into the structures of Disney past, Disney has embraced the very elements geek culture values: innovation, role-playing, gamifying, even snarky humor. The March of the First Order has become the perfect welcome for guests arriving at Disney’s Hollywood Studios—a literal parade celebrating geek culture. The park’s flagship fireworks show is entirely a celebration of Star Wars. We’ve gushed before about how marvelously geeky Star Wars Launch Bay is, a secret haven for Star Wars fans to enjoy props from the films (and even the cartoons!), translate Aurebesh artwork, and search out myriad Easter eggs from the films. All of Disney’s plans for Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge seem tailor made with geek culture in mind, even down to the toys that will be sold in shops, designed to replicate items made in the Star Wars universe (no action figures!).
Oh, and there’s another area of geek culture Disney has embraced to great profit…
Unlikely inspiration…
Image: Disney
We explored recently how Disney’s ambitious plans for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge carry some stunning similarities to video games. The same techniques that video game developers use (particularly in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) to make players feel fully immersed match those that Disney is planning to use for Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge. The land’s two flagship attractions won’t just be “tours” of the Star Wars universe. Rather, guests’ choices on those two attractions (which may have “gamified” interactive components) will affect how cast members and elements in Galaxy’s Edge interact with them, similar to how faction standings work in video games. While this may sound far-fetched, Disney already has the perfect mechanism by which to do this through MagicBands (pay attention to the posters in the queue of the Aerosmith Rockin’ Roller Coaster to see this technology already demonstrated).
Guests staying in the new Star Wars themed resort won’t just bed down in a cool themed hotel. They will actually role-play, in a way, as denizens of the Star Wars universe, right down to the clothes they wear while staying there. Everything from food and drinks to the merchandise available to purchase will be designed to make guests feel (as much as is reasonable) like they are truly visitors to that galaxy far, far away. Even now, before Galaxy’s Edge has landed, Disney has already proven video games can make spectacular inspiration for an attraction through the successful launch of “Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire”, a hyper-immersive virtual reality experience at Disney Springs which might be the best attraction in all of Walt Disney World.
Endless financial opportunities
Image: Jett Farrell-Vega
Embracing geek culture has already proven hugely successful for Walt Disney World, and it appears they are going to keep running with the shift. Even beyond Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Disney’s plans for the inclusion of the upcoming Tron roller coaster in Tomorrowland and a Guardians of the Galaxy roller coaster coaster in Epcot echo this. While merchandise will likely remain the most ubiquitous area where Disney cashes in on geek fandom, even upcharge experiences like the Star Wars Guided Tour at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and the Galactic Spectacular dessert party prove that the landscape has changed. The outliers have become one of Disney’s most embraced demographics, and we couldn’t be happier about it.
In what other ways do you think Disney is going to embrace geek culture in the future? What do you think about this shift so far?
