This is going to be part rant, part wry observation, part plea for improvement.
Over the years, I’ve noticed a handful of buzzwords that come up over and over in discussions of what you might call “theme park theory”–the nuts and bolts of design in a theme park setting and what we find to be effective and satisfying vs. what we find to be…not that. And it seems to me that these buzzwords are often used as a substitute for, well, saying what you actually mean–the definitions don’t appear to be consistent, it’s more of a code we use to signal each other that we’re “insiders,” in a sense–we know the jargon!
So here are some of those buzzwords I have observed, as well as how they’re used and misused, and what I think we actually mean. This is going to be a long one, folks!
Story/storytelling: This is probably the single most overused and misused term in the entire Disney theme park community. It’s supposed to be what sets Disney apart (well, one of the things that sets it apart) from other theme parks–they just have soulless roller coasters and log jammers, but we have themed attractions (and I will get to that term later) with stories! We can probably blame the OG Imagineers for choosing an imprecise word to describe what they were trying to do differently than contemporary amusement parks and carnivals. I think they used it to mean at least two unrelated things: 1) The organizing logic applied to something like a dark ride, so that it followed a logical emotional progression instead of just being a string of unrelated scenes and pop-up scares, and 2) careful design of not just attractions, but the environments in which they were located, to give everything a sense of existence beyond the immediate experience contained in the attractions themselves. 2) is especially important to understand–“There is a story here,” doesn’t mean there’s a plot you can suss out by following the clues, but more that you get the impression that this is a real place with its own stuff going on even when you’re not there. Unfortunately, these idiosyncratic meanings have gotten confused with the more conventional meaning of “story”–i.e. a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end, and conflict and resolution, and a character arc–and now people think any ride which doesn’t include all these elements doesn’t have a “story” and is therefore inferior (since we are so accustomed to thinking of the “stories” featured in Disney rides as a mark of superiority).
Immersion/immersive: From what I can tell, this just means “It looks real” and is also treated as a single-axis yardstick of quality, i.e. it’s always better for something to be “more immersive” than “less immersive.” Anything that “breaks immersion” gets a thumbs-down. I think it’s important to remember that “immersiveness” used to be one end of an axis of attraction design approaches, with presentationalism at the other end, and both are valid. Immersiveness is the “Let’s all play pretend together” approach and presentationalism is the “c’mere, I wanna show you something cool” approach.
E-ticket (and all its cousins): The coupon system hasn’t been a thing in over 40 years. Can we please find a better way to convey…whatever this is supposed to mean? A thrill ride? A cutting-edge ride? The anchor attraction of a new area? Your personal favorites? Failing that, can we at least develop some kind of standard for how the letter designations are used so that we’re not arguing over whether this or that ride qualifies as a “real” “E-ticket”? Help a gal out.
IP: These two little letters tend to serve as shorthand for a whole raft of frustrations with the direction of the company and the parks lately. It might help to nail down what exactly it is we object to about “IP,” and for that we have to first nail down what we mean by “IP.” Clearly not its literal definition, an abbreviation for “intellectual property,” because then we would have to realize that everything in Disneyland, and indeed “Disneyland” as a concept itself, is IP. In practice, it means “film-based IP,” or more generally “stuff that existed conceptually outside the parks before a version of it was made for inside the parks.” The frustration is that Disney a) seems to have given up on adding anything to the theme parks that wasn’t a movie first, and b) chooses which movies to adapt based on box-office returns rather than harmony with existing themes or even susceptibility to being so adapted. Even using it to mean “film IP,” obviously there has always been IP in Disneyland, often heavily promoted. It’s the way IP is used now that grates on our souls.
Attraction: This one is pure Disney snobbery: “Other theme parks have rides. Disney has attractions.” The distinction between the two is, as a rule, not provided. This is because there really isn’t one. Not all Disney theme park attractions are rides–the Enchanted Tiki Room and the fireworks sure aren’t–but most are in the sense that you get into a vehicle and ride, and all fun park rides are, in fact, attractions. This is because attraction is a travel brochure word. It means “thing you might be interested in doing.” You know…the thing that attracted you to this vacation destination as opposed to another. Or the thing that attracts you in a given direction once you’re there. It’s a useful term because it does encompass more than rides, but it’s not actually a mark of prestige.
Theme/theming: I have almost no idea what we tend to mean by this anymore. It tends to be used almost synonymously with story and immersion, and I’ve already gone into those at some length.
Please comment on the above, add to the list, go nuts! We can all rant/observe/plead for improvement!
