Basically that the multiple departments involved have different objectives.
Imagineering is trying to build the coolest things possible, and many times the things seen in parks are play-tests.
Operations has to find the money and resources to keep things going, and these things take a lot of people to run.
Marketing sometimes will often provide the budget to make things happen (to promote a movie, etc) but it's not sustainable. They'll often sometimes use impractical inventions for marketing reasons, since they exist and might as well be used for something.
That's the main gist, although there's some interesting points about the risk to the brand (especially with camera phones) if Mickey ever slightly malfunctions in a public setting.
I worked with someone who had previously worked on park robotics, and apparently they had to guarantee that the character could not injure a child to be able to put them in parks - a particularly high barrier to actually doing so.
One look at Olaf's hands alone make that an impossible thing to guarantee. Those stick fingers will eventually poke a kid in the eye if kids are allowed to get close to the character. If they gave him a small intimate stage, or roped off area, to do some act or crowd work that would be more ideal/less risky.
Basically that the multiple departments involved have different objectives.
Imagineering is trying to build the coolest things possible, and many times the things seen in parks are play-tests.
Operations has to find the money and resources to keep things going, and these things take a lot of people to run.
Marketing sometimes will often provide the budget to make things happen (to promote a movie, etc) but it's not sustainable. They'll often sometimes use impractical inventions for marketing reasons, since they exist and might as well be used for something.
That's the main gist, although there's some interesting points about the risk to the brand (especially with camera phones) if Mickey ever slightly malfunctions in a public setting.
I worked with someone who had previously worked on park robotics, and apparently they had to guarantee that the character could not injure a child to be able to put them in parks - a particularly high barrier to actually doing so.
One look at Olaf's hands alone make that an impossible thing to guarantee. Those stick fingers will eventually poke a kid in the eye if kids are allowed to get close to the character. If they gave him a small intimate stage, or roped off area, to do some act or crowd work that would be more ideal/less risky.
Why not make those from foam, ie the tip or something?
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