Retheming Splash Mountain: Time for change?

Splash Mountain at Disney World and Disneyland will be rethemed to the popular movie The Princess and the Frog. Since the announcement, there has been lots of debate within the Disney fan community about this decision. Fans have debated whether the attraction should be rethemed and more specifically, if choosing The Princess and the Frog is the correct decision. 

Splash Mountain

Splash Mountain has remained an extremely popular ride since it opened. However, there has always been a significant awareness surrounding the attraction’s ties to the controversial film Song of the South. 

Splash Mountain opened first in Disneyland on July 17 1989. The ride was a huge success. This led to the attraction later being built at both the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland.  There were also plans to build the attraction in Paris. Mainly due to budgetary reasons, this never happened.

Tony Baxter, the lead imagineer on Splash Mountain, came up with the idea for the attraction while sitting in traffic on his way to work in 1983. The attraction was originally set to be called Zip-A-Dee River Run. At the time, there was a push by Michael Eisner for more thrill rides to be built at the parks. Eisner wanted to attract more adults to the parks and saw building more thrilling attractions as the perfect way to do this. Splash Mountain, with its 52 1/2 foot drop reaching a speed of 40mph, fitted this requirement perfectly. 

At the time the ride was being planned, the America Sings attraction was being closed due its poor attendance. Imagineers saw an opportunity for the animatronics in this attraction to be taken and adapted for something else. This was a big reason as to why the Song of the South theme was chosen. Many of the old animatronics could easily be used for this theme with very little change required. 

A further reason for choosing the Song of the South was the huge popularity of the film’s song ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’. As anyone who has been on Splash Mountain knows, this song is key to the brilliance of the attraction. 

The problems with the Song of the South 

Despite the popularity of Splash Mountain, it has always felt strange that Disney built a ride linked to a film that has not been available in any format for over 33 years due to its racially sensitive nature. 

Song of the South, originally released in 1946, is based on a collection of stories told by Uncle Remus. Uncle Remus, created by Joel Chandler Harris, is a fictional character and the narrator of a collection of Black American folktales. 

The film is set in the south of America after the end of the Civil War. The film follows an innocent young boy from Atlanta, named Johnny, who moves with his mother to his grandmother’s plantation. While on the plantation, the boy learns a variety of life lessons from Uncle Remus in the form of stories about  Br’er Rabbit and his mission to evade Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear. These stories are told in the film through sequences of animation.

Issues surrounding Song of the South are not so much its content, but more what the film fails to show. Song of the South never explicitly makes it clear where the story is taking place, despite it being obvious to anyone vaguely historically informed that the stories are set on a plantation.

The words “slave” are never spoken, and details of the economic relationship between the black people and white people are left deliberately vague. In the film, the plantation is essentially shown as a wonderful place to live where black people willingly and cheerfully serve white people. This, of course, is an unbelievably glamourised and romanticised depiction of slavery that strays very far from the truth. It is willingly hiding a very awful part of history. 

The animated sequences, when watched in isolation of this context, don’t seem to raise any issues they are not absent of problems. The sequences with Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and Brer Fox, revolve around stories of Brer Rabbit wanting to run from his problems. The moral of these stories is always that trouble will be found wherever you are and nothing beats home. This message being told to Johnny while living on the plantation is particularly troubling as it seems to point towards the idea that being a slave is as good as it will get for the young boy. This becomes further troubling when linked with the uncomfortably cheerful nature of the boy and others living on the plantation. 

Why was the decision to change Splash Mountain made now?

With the issues surrounding the Song of the South and the current political climate, it is both understandable and obvious as to why Disney would want to change the theming of Splash Mountain. 

Many have pointed towards the petition signed by 20000 people to change the theme of Splash Mountain, suggesting this is the reason why Disney have decided to change the theme of the attraction. Personally, I believe that this petition will have only had a very small influence on Disney’s decision, if any. There have been many larger petitions calling for change at Disney parks that those running the company have completely ignored. 

The problems with the attractions ties to Song of the South have been obvious over since the opening of the attraction. Therefore, I do not believe that Disney only just started to think about retheming this attraction because of a relatively small petition. It’s also unlikely that plans, including budgeting, could have been completed during the lockdown. 

With the parks in the USA still being closed because of the coronavirus pandemic and there now being no date set for the re-opening of Disneyland, the company needed to deflect attention away from these issues. After all, Disneyland will now not be open on its 65th birthday. The parks were also receiving much negative press related to its arguments with the cast member unions over the safety issues related to the parks plans for reopening. Therefore, announcing such a major new attraction worked as the perfect distraction.

In all honesty, I believe that the company had plans to change Splash Mountain for quite sometime now, but simply rushed the announcement slightly earlier than planned due to Disney’s current circumstances.

It must also be mentioned that when the parks in the USA do open, Splash Mountain will still be open and will likely stay open for many, many more months. This will most definitely drive guests who love the attraction back into the parks over the coming months at a time when Disney is likely to struggle to attract people into the parks. Many who might otherwise be trying to cancel their annual pass due to the new need to book days, may well have a new reason to keep it.

Change can be good 

Splash Mountain is a 90s attraction based on an old and controversial movie. It is certainly a fantastic attraction, one of Tony Baxter’s best, but it is not an original or a Walt classic. Therefore, it has never been an attraction that I have felt will remain in the park for ever more. Splash Mountain is by no means untouchable (clearly). However, I must admit that I have spent many days in the parks and have often left thinking that Splash Mountain is my favourite attraction. 

Despite this, I am not against the change. First off and as already stated, the attraction’s ties to Song of the South are troubling. Secondly, change is not always a bad thing. As Walt Disney said ‘Disneyland will never be complete. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world’. For the parks to grow and continue in the way Walt imagined, attractions will come and go. There simply isn’t enough space, even in Florida, for this to not be the case.

In recent Disney park history, this is not the first hugely popular attraction to be reimagined. For example, Maelstrom at Epcot was given the Frozen treatment. Also, Tower of Terror at Disney’s California Adventure was reimagined to be based on Guardians of the Galaxy.

I was fortunate enough to ride both original attractions multiple times and grew to love both. However, despite my original scepticism, I have to admit that I love the new reimagined versions of these two attractions. Controversial I know, but Tower of Terror in California Adventure always felt mediocre in comparison to Hollywood Studios and Frozen is just so much more advanced and yes, many object to IPs in Epcot, but come on….Let it go! Sorry, I had to.

The Princess and the Frog 

Let’s start with the obvious, The Princess and the Frog is a great Disney movie. If you disagree, that’s fine, but I’ve always felt it is so unfairly ignored in comparison to other more recent princess films such as Frozen and Tangled. The film also feels extra special as it is the last hand drawn, 2d animated film Disney have released. There’s also no denying its cultural importance, as the film introduced Disney’s first ever black princess, Princess Tiana.

The Disney Parks Blog statement said that the attraction will take place straight after the end of the film. This raises concerns as to whether key characters Dr Facillier and Ray will be included in the attraction due to the ending of the film. A Princess and the Frog attraction without Dr Facillier would leave many fans of the film disappointed. Therefore, I think Dr Facillier will be brought back from the other side to cast his voodoo magic.

Ray however, the much loved firefly, seems unlikely to be included in the attraction as he did die in the final scenes of the movie but never say never. Maybe we could hear his voice in the safety video or you never know, Dr Facillier could bring him back. Or maybe we’ll just have to make do with a simple image of him and his beloved Evangaline up in the sky above our boat.

A specific element of the film that caused it to be so popular was the film’s incredible soundtrack. The films most popular songs, such as “Friends on the other side”, were written by the incredible Randy Newman. These songs are fantastic and will most certainly play a huge part in (hopefully) making this new attraction a success. 

With the huge popularity of this I do think it’s a little sad that it will not be getting its own, original attraction. A completely original attraction would give the imagineers much more freedom to create something amazing. However, we now know that this will not be the case. The imagineers will be restricted to reimagining Splash Mountain. This by no way means that the ride will not be great. It does mean that the job of the imagineers has been made a little more difficult.

The changes coming to Splash Mountain are controversial and will upset many people. Therefore, it is essential that Disney make the reimagined version of the attraction as good as possible. A major factor as to whether or not this will be the case is the budget allocated to the attraction. A large budget will mean brand new state of the art animatronics, additional show scenes and a beautiful looking attraction. A small budget could lead to an attraction where the largest changes are the removal of the Brer characters, a few cheaper additional animatronics and a different soundtrack. With the financial impacts of the pandemic on the parks, I am concerned about how much money Disney will make available for this new project. 

Does The Princess and the Frog theme fit?

Theming and attention to detail is what makes Disney parks so special. Thus, it is important that new attractions must fit with the theme of their land. The Princess and the Frog is set in New Orleans. This does not fit with the theme of the lands Splash Mountain is situated in either US park. At Disneyland, Splash Mountain is currently located in critter country. This land is directly next to New Orleans Square. It therefore seems feasible that Critter Country will be removed and the area will become an extension of the New Orleans theme. This would require some rethinking of other things within Critter Country, most notably the Winnie the Pooh attraction. 

The proposed changes at the Magic Kingdom cause more problems thematically and these issues seem harder to solve. Splash mountain is situated pretty much in the middle of Frontierland at the Magic Kingdom. The New Orleans theme of The Princess and the Frog does not fit in Frontierland. Due to the location of Splash Mountain within this land, the theme seems a harder fit here than at Disneyland. You could potentially shut off the current area near Splash Mountain and create a new land. However, this would be a very small area. Although you could rework the pathways to make the two areas feel more separate, there would still be Frontierland to the left and right of this land.

Other ideas being proposed are that Big Thunder Mountain will also be rethemed. This would allow for a larger New Orleans themed land to be created. This seems far too drastic to be true and therefore I’d say it’s pretty unlikely.

Personally, I like the two American Disney resorts to build different attractions. If Disney wants to change Splash Mountain, I would have liked the changes in each park to be different. For example, I think retheming the attraction in Florida to be based on Pocahontas would be a much better fit. It would also give fans twice as much to be excited about. However, it would give Disney twice as much designing and likely far more spending to do.

Conclusion 

Changing Splash mountain, due to its popularity, is a controversial decision. However, it is also controversial to have an attraction based on Song of the South. With the passionate fan base and the current political climate, whatever Disney decided to do was going to cause controversy. Although I have loved riding Splash Mountain, I do believe that there are many valid reasons for changing this attraction. The new Princess and the Frog theme will revitalise the attraction with more popular characters. It will also allow Disney to sell a whole host of The Princess and the Frog merchandise within the parks. Furthermore, it will help the company further distance itself from the Song of the South. 

From a personal point of view, I am very excited about Princess and the Frog finally getting an attraction. However, I am concerned about the attractions budget and how the new theme will fit within the parks.

So, how do you feel about the changes coming to Splash Mountain?

If you enjoyed this article, please check out our article on the new countries we would love to see added to EPCOT.