Disneyland's Tomorrowland Might Slowly Get 'Star Wars' Upgrade; 'Monsters Inc' Ride Aimed At Fall 2016

Even with a film called Tomorrowland currently in the works, Disney may soon abandon the concept in the park. The latest edition of the wonderful column Miceage on MiceChat suggests the current plan is to slowly, over the next several years, turn the Tomorrowland area of Disneyland in Anaheim into a full Star Wars area. A similar, but smaller, upgrade will be made at Walt Disney World too. And none of this will be officially revealed at the D23 Expo in August.

Here are some of the choice excerpts regarding Star Wars in the latest Miceage column, which you can read in full at that link.

WDI rolled out several of their top concepts to expand the Anaheim property further, with the Monstropolis mini-land and E Ticket Door Coaster planned for the sleepy Hollywood Backlot area and a new Star Wars themed makeover for the messy Tomorrowland section of Disneyland. The Board also got overviews of WDI's plans to attempt a more modest makeover of the Disney's Hollywood Studios park in Florida, with a scaled down Cars Land section and some of the same Star Wars concepts planned for Tomorrowland.

The plan now, using development funds under the 100 Million dollar mark already earmarked for Disneyland, is to go in and do "placemaking" and aesthetic improvements in Tomorrowland just prior to the 60th Anniversary in 2015. Captain EO is on the chopping block with that plan, which should come as no surprise to anyone. The long-rumored West Coast version of the Monsters Inc. Laugh Factory would take up residence in that 3-D theater, while the area around it gets an aesthetic re-skinning that will help it mesh better with the big-budget plan to bring more Star Wars presence to Tomorrowland. The E Ticket of the Tomorrowland remake uses the speeder bike coaster concept on the old PeopleMover route, originally Imagineered with a Tron theme but now using Star Wars as the storyline for the new ride.

No word on what, if anything, this does to the rumors of a full Star Wars Land in Florida but it sounds like this might trump that idea. Or possibly just be the first seeds of it.

Interesting too that the Tron upgrade has seemingly been abandoned. However, it sounds like by the time Star Wars Episode VII is released, Tomorrowland will have even more Star Wars then just Star Tours: The Adventures Continue and the Jedi Academy. They maybe by the time Episode VII is out, it could be the whole park.

The article also confirms the Monsters Inc. door coaster could be up and running by Fall 2016. Here's some more info:

Meanwhile in DCA, the planning for Monstropolis has shifted into high gear this summer with Anaheim's operations team. Mary Niven and Michael Colglazier would like to see the new mini-land and E Ticket Door Coaster open by the Fall of 2016, even as WDI rushes to fine tune the engineering and design of the new ride building and attached dining and retail. The Door Coaster concept would have riders strapped onto the sides of doors as they are sent through several large show scenes in addition to a thrill ride component through the cavernous door hangars. Building on the wild success of Radiator Springs Racers that brought back the art of animatronic dark ride storytelling paired with a family thrill ride, both WDI and TDA want the Door Coaster to wow audiences even if the riders aren't huge Monsters Inc. fans. And it helps immensely that this is a Pixar property, as John Lasseter's Pixar team that keeps a close eye on Cars Land will be intimately involved in the process for Monstropolis and the Door Coaster.

Finally, the article explains that while all of these plans are in the works, nothing will be set to announce in time for the  D23 Expo in August. However, whatever is announced, you can be sure to read it here.