Orlando Weekly has posted last week an article about the "Latest Disney rumors having Indiana Jones dealing with dinosaurs at Animal Kingdom". It's true that there is insisting rumors of an Indiana Jones ride replacing Animal Kingdom Dinosaur attraction but what is new is that they might think to keep the Dinosaurs with this new Indy ride. Orlando Weekly found the info in a post in the rumor timeline HERE reporting that the Indiana Jones ride at DAK "would be a new story and not a direct clone of Indiana Jones Adventure. The new story could potentially include dinosaurs."
Of course most of you reading this will probably think: "C'mon!, an Indiana Jones ride with Dinosaurs?!?" and i have to admit that it is a bit hard to swallow indeed. Until faithful D&M reader Mark Wong posted a comment on the D&M Facebook page that, in fact, a novel titled "Indiana Jones and the Dinosaur Eggs" - no kidding - was released in 1996, and was the tenth Indy novel in the series of original stories published by Bantam Books, written by author Max McCoy.
So, let's have a closer look at what the story of this Indy novel was talking about thanks to the Publisher's Summary posted on the Indiana Jones Wiki page HERE:
"Fresh from a ride on a Nazi submarine, Indiana Jones is persuaded by a beautiful missionary to search for her missing father in Mongolia. Professor Angus Starbuck has discovered a dinosaur bone in the Gobi Desert. But unlike other discoveries, this bone isn't ancient! As Indy crosses from China through a treacherous mountain pass to Outer Mongolia, he runs afoul of the region's fiercest warlords. Meanwhile, the world's last innocent people, dwelling in a Stone Age paradise, are poised on the brink of destruction. Suddenly Indiana Jones is dueling wild dogs and bloodthirsty killers in a desperate effort to save the most historic discovery of the twentieth century: the last living Triceratops!"
Now, I am not saying that the new ride will be inspired by this novel as it certainly will not be the case and DAK Imagineers don't need a novel anyway to create an attraction. But the interesting fact is that a novel mixing Indiana Jones with Dinosaurs already exist - and since 22 years! So, even if it's certainly not a proof - not even a hint - that they'll do at Animal Kingdom an Indy ride mixed with Dinosaurs, we know that the idea itself of Indiana-Jones-meets-Dinosaurs is not an impossible thought. That said, if they do it like this at DAK i'm curious to see how they'll do to justify it, but that's another problem...
What is also interesting is the second part of the rumor which was saying that "Dinorama would be replaced by a coaster, possibly a version of the Excavator that was a concept for the area over a decade ago." Now, that makes the whole thing interesting but if you've never seen before artworks of this Excavator coaster attraction, done by former Imagineer Tom Thordarson, here they are.
As you can see the coaster was supposed to run through a Dinosaur boneyard BUT with one "living" Dinosaur at the center of it - an Audio-Animatronic one, of course.
Mmmh, that starts to make a lot of Dinos coincidence in that Indiana Jones rumor, and may be there is some truth behind it, so i can't wait for an announcement - or a denial - to learn the final truth. It's also interesting to remember, as i told you recently in my article HERE, that DAK Expedition Everest should closed early next year for a long renovation, meaning that Animal Kingdom won't have a lot of coaster attractions for several months, if we except Dinorama Primeval Whirl which is more a wild mouse spinning coaster. So, a new "real" coaster would be welcome at that time at DAK but, except if they delay Expedition Everest renovation they won't have the time to build the Excavator ride before the closure.
Always on the Indy rumor page we learn that "TheVisionarySoul is reporting that the DINOSAUR to Indiana Jones Adventure conversion is likely to result in DINOSAUR closing in 2019. He also reported that the budget is expected to be shared WITH Disneyland Paris." Of course, this relaunch the long time rumor of an Indiana Jones adventure ride coming to DLP Adventureland, where, by the way, they always kept the land to build it between the Temple du Peril and Pirates of Caribbean, as you can see in the late 1990's WDI blueprint below.
So, as i know that you're waiting for me to confirm or not that an Indy ride is coming to DLP, let's put it like this: First, we know that a new Indiana Jones movie will be released in 2 or 3 years, and we also know that Disney like nothing more than to create "synergy" between a movie release and new rides. Disney also like to save money and creating a new Indy ride and sharing the budget by having it coming in two parks is indeed a way to save money. These two reasons only could make perfectly sense and make the rumor of an Indy ride coming to DLP valid - and there is more reasons, starting by the fact that DLP Adventureland didn't had any new attraction since 1993 and Disneyland Paris Adventureland truly needs a new attraction ( like Frontierland, by the way ).
Last but not least, the latest entry in the Rumor Timeline page was on May 24 and WDWMagic.com users MansionButler84 and marni1971 who are reporting that the latest information they have regarding Dinoland USA was updates to the land itself with DINOSAUR remaining unchanged, and if you ask Dinosaur cast-members they'll probably tell you that it is a fan-made rumor which, i agree, is perfectly possible.
An Indiana Jones ride would be indeed possible at Disney's Hollywood Studios ...where they have room to create an Indy mini land and ride, but this only if they remove the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular which takes a huge room at DHS. Personally i think that having an Indy land at DHS would make more sense as it is a park about movies, but this also mean to build a brand new show building with the ride system, at a huge cost that Disney would avoid if they were just transforming the Dinosaur ride at DAK, and that's probably the best point in favor to the Indy ride at Animal Kingdom rumor. Will Disney resist to the temptation? If these rumors of a new Indy ride are true, whether it's for DAK, DHS or DLP, we'll know it probably next year as we can expect an announcement most probably at the 2019 D23 Expo, if not announced before.
Pictures: copyright Disney, Lucasfilm, Bantam Books
