Sunday, December 4, 2016

Armchair Imagineering: Holiday Fantasmic!

The Disneyland Resort sure loves to celebrate Christmas. Not only do thematically specific decorations go up in most areas of both parks, but a handful of attractions get made over into holiday-specific versions of themselves.* The most notable might be the shows and live entertainment offerings, nearly all of which, from the humble and homey Dapper Dans to the extravagant fireworks display, are in holiday mode at this time of year. Disneyland has hosted any number of Christmas parades over the years. Across the Esplanade, World of Color is on its second holiday version. But there’s one live show that has so far bucked the trend: Fantasmic!
It’s not hard to see why—Fantasmic! is possibly the most complex and intricate performance in theme park history. Not only does it involve multiple types of live performers and special effects, but it was designed from start to finish to be a satisfying whole. It tells a complete story with a three-act structure (something almost never done in theme park entertainment), and the musical score is as much a symphony as a medley. It's amazing that something like this was achieved once; doing it all over again with a more specific theme would be almost unfathomably difficult.
But what is Armchair Imagineering for, if not indulging in these wild Blue-Sky ideas? Come brainstorm with me...
(Well, okay, technically for now you're going to read while I brainstorm, but I welcome any and all contributions in the comments.)



Music

The main theme for Fantasmic! is one of the most adored pieces of theme park music in existence. Ride themes like “Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me)” and “Grim Grinning Ghosts” and “Now Is the Time” and “One Little Spark” certainly have their devotees, but because Fantasmic! is such an epic show, and because the theme suits it so perfectly and is used so well throughout, it packs a big emotional punch even with the sort of people who don't normally notice music all that much.
And it's definitive. I don't think you can have a show that people recognize as Fantasmic! without that theme. Yet at the same time, I want Holiday Fantasmic! to be unique in its own way. So right off the bat, we have the difficult balancing act of composing a main theme for this show that a) incorporates recognizable elements of the basic Fantasmic! theme while still b) being its own piece of music and c) clearly belonging to the holiday season. C) is probably the easiest of the three—just use plenty of handbells in the instrumentation. The rest, however, would be a challenge for any composer/arranger.
Beyond that, we must consider which other tunes to use. Fantasmic! makes excellent use of its clips and rearrangements of well-known Disney songs...but few Disney songs even take place against a winter or Christmas backdrop, much less are about it, and fewer still of those will be recognized by the average park guest. It's probably best to focus on the mainstream Christmas library, as most such shows do. “A Christmas Fantasy Parade,” “Believe...In Holiday Magic,” and possibly “LuminAria” constitute the textbooks to study for interweaving an original main composition with melodies and leitmotives from classic holiday tunes.
I think for a show like this, it is best to focus on secular Christmas songs. Busting out the “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night” is fine when you're only looking at fireworks or illuminated water, but Fantasmic!, like the parades, makes such constant use of Disney characters that I think it would be strange to juxtapose them with specific religions. Ask yourself: Is it weird to contemplate Mickey Mouse adoring the baby Jesus? I think so.
This being a version of Fantasmic!, we'll want to start off as the original does, with high energy and triumphant-sounding major chords. One of the great things about the original is the way it segues seamlessly between different moods, and hopefully we would be able to duplicate that feat in this version.


Plot

The plot of Fantasmic! follows a very simple three-act structure:
Act 1: Mickey Mouse, dreaming, experiences great flights of imagination.
Act 2: Mickey's imagination starts to run away with him, and the Disney Villains take advantage of his loss of control to stage a psychic invasion.
Act 3: Mickey gets ahold of himself, curb-stomps the Villains, and makes the dream a happy one again.
Don't fix what ain't broken, is my view. Holiday Fantasmic! needs to maintain this basic premise or it's just not properly Fantasmic! Only of course this time the whole thing has a Christmas/wintery veneer. Visions of sugar plums are dancing in Mickey's head, and he's using his Sorcerer's Apprentice magic to create delightful snowfalls and dancing lights.
Only—here's the cool bit—since this time of year is all about family and friends, he's found a way to let other characters share the dream. They're all asleep in their own beds, wherever those are, but their consciousnesses are visiting the same dreamscape. The fact that the Villains invade Mickey's mind in the original supports this possibility.
So Mickey puts on this imaginative dream-pageant for his friends, and at a climactic moment, invites them to join in. And who should step up but Queen Elsa? The dreamscape offers her a consequence-free chance to go for broke with her powers...and that's when the Villains make their move, using Elsa's doubts as a window into her mind.
I think this is in keeping with the new trend toward more subtle behavior on the part of Disney Villains. Rather than muscling their way into the psyche of their primary target (Mickey), they manipulate Elsa into believing she is no better than a Villain herself. Her power turns dangerous, threatening all the good-hearted characters involved. Worse, she “freezes” the borders of the dreamscape so that no one can wake up to escape.** Now it's her dreamscape, and Mickey can't wrest back control of it the way he could in the original.
Fans of Frozen will already have guessed the solution to this predicament: Elsa's sister Anna comes forward to talk Elsa down from the Villains' influence. This lends the show's climax a poignancy that is not present in the original version, further distinguishing them despite the similar plots. After a tense moment of uncertainty, Anna's plea gets through, and Elsa reclaims control of herself, leading to a triumphant finale.


Visuals

The really outstanding thing about Fantasmic!, of course, is the sheer variety of performance types, special effects, and Disneyland infrastructure it uses. The holiday version would have to offer a similar variety in order to measure up.***
Fortunately, I think it probably can. The two biggies—the Mark Twain and S.S. Columbia—could still be used, although in this case I would swap them. Have the Mark come cruising around the bend in the river when Mickey invites the other characters into his dream, with them aboard and the boat all hung with lights and garlands. Then use the Columbia during the climax, which could be staged similarly to the climax of Frozen, with Elsa causing a blizzard in a harbor.
What else? Dancers could represent snowflakes like the fairies in Fantasia. A giant Christmas tree could grow out of the stage, sprouting ornaments as it emerged. The barges could be floating party platforms. The climax could also feature a giant figure of Marshmallow and/or threatening icicles jutting from the stage. The famous water screens could show footage from films that include winter or Christmas scenes. There is more than enough material in the Disney library to provide inspiration, especially with more than two additional decades to draw upon over the original Fantasmic!

I've reached the point now where I'm spinning my wheels, so I'll move along to my conclusion. But first, a couple of counter-arguments to my own idea.
First...I realize that this is very very similar to Fantasmic! as we already know it, and thus must seem incredibly redundant. Yeah, probably. Think of it more as expressing a variation on a theme. It's through this sort of permutation exercise that ideas are perfected. I have absolutely no expectation that we will ever see a holiday version of Fantasmic!, which is after all pretty close to perfect as it is.****
Second, if you started rolling your eyes the second you saw Elsa's name mentioned, then don't worry, I rolled mine the second I thought of it. But honestly, if you're running a winter-themed Disney park show with an actual plot, how could elements from Frozen not be included? And I think it's a better use of these characters than just beat-for-beat rehashes of the movie itself, or else pure pandering like what's been inflicted on Epcot.
Regardless, please let me know what you think in the comments! I would love to get some more input into the concept of a Holiday Fantasmic!


* Opinions on these vary. A lot.
** Just go with it. It's fantasy logic that has to fit into a ~25-minute show.
*** Although let's be honest...it wouldn't quite measure up no matter how good it was. Fantasmic! was a game-changer. You can't change the game a second time by doing the same things over again.
**** Or rather, as it has been. Oh yes, I have heard the rumors, and I find them extremely unsettling.

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