I do think people riding this will have to try their best to not instantly compare the experience to the original ride. Even though I'm sure it'll be difficult if the new scenes and show elements make it feel like a new ride instead of a simple layover then that'll go a long way.
I went a step further to isolate the comparison between the two versions so it's a bit easier to tell what's changed and what hasn't. This also makes it easier to visualize what some were saying about how the perspective of the drop is different.
Here's an animated gif showing just how similar they are (or not depending where you look).
I think they should have kept the tree on the very top, I don't understand why it couldn't have stayed as that was a very iconic part of the old facade. The removal of the briar patch to make the drop less frightening makes sense but now it looks so empty with a plain guard rail. Couldn't they put in a patch of flowering plants or a fallen tree in front of that?
Anyway TBA isn't meant to be an homage to Splash Mountain. If this were a new ride from the ground up I think it wouldn't have as much pressure trying to live up to SM's reputation. As long as it has plenty of music, AAs, the story decent, and the scenes don't feel simply reskinned this could be a great ride.
The major feeling I had after riding Splash is that I always exited the attraction with a Big Smile on my face. I think Tiana will do the same.
Journey to Atlantis has proven you can hobble a ride by a lot and still have the core experience be good. They're not changing the ride itself, only everything else around it—not to make sound sound easy either. The real test will be how it's received once open but it does appear they're not trying to phone this one in.
For a while now a lot of AP’s and die hard theme park fans wanted to keep the orginal type attraction ideals alive as that is how these parks originally opened (Small World, Haunted Mansion, and others.) But recently we have been seeing the obvious interest in making new attractions based off their own films and IP’s (Webslingers, Rise of the Resistance, and Flight of Passage) A lot of people are getting some fatigue over all new attractions based on IP’s with no original attractions to be seen in a bit.
Point is I think Tiana is the beginning of just trying to make everyone happy, YES it’s based on an IP but it’s an ORIGINAL story. Honestly not a bad compromise, hope the execution is good.
It's tricky for theme parks I'm sure, between trying to keep rides around forever because certain guests want to come back and experience them even decades later (and create new memories with family and friends) and needing to build new things so the park as whole doesn't feel stale. As much as I like Diagon Alley I still wish we had Jaws sometimes too.
I think retrofitting new rides into old ones is where people tend to feel bothered and it makes total sense; the new ride can feel like it's wearing the skin of the old one and typically if it's done on the cheaper side then no ones really "wins." In this case it does appear Disney's putting effort into this and a bit more than people were originally expecting which is a good thing.
Disneyland isn’t a museum and it’s good to be open to change. (Even if the change is, at times, a downgrade, of course)
It's funny you say that because in some ways you can view theme parks as a living museum of sorts particularly when it comes to older attractions. They can be good snapshots into the past of how rides were designed and operated and show off the creatvie minds who built them in a way books, videos, and pictures cannot. Haunted Mansion and Small World are good examples of "museum rides," and if kept fully operational in another 10-20 years Rise might be another one.
Change for the sake of change isn't a good thing though that doesn't really apply here as there were some very valid reasons for why Disney is doing this in the first place. And it should never be a downgrade!
