However, this iteration didn’t even last a year, closing permanently when the park shut down for COVID on March 12, 2020. It certainly carried that Animal Kingdom gravitas of being visually pleasing even if other elements might have been missing, so I guess in a way it was truly the perfect show for the park. That being said, the show was visually beautiful, just as one would expect in Animal Kingdom. It simply stitched a bunch of clips together with some music and there was some slight narration, but not enough to really drive home that theme of “We Are One.” The whole show just kind of dragged on until it just ended. Plus, the show just did not really tell a story. There were no fireworks because of the animals in the park, so the boom factor was gone. The biggest issue with the show was that it was just boring. It’s always sad to see performers taken out of a show, especially when the show seems to suffer afterwards due to guests not really being able to see the water screens that largely replaced them. Those elements were present in the previous iteration of Rivers of Light, but one part that kicked the bucket was the live performers from the original show. Plus, the flower floats came complete with water fountains (making the whole experience kind of feel like an animal-centric World of Color). The floats brought a lot of life to the show because they were constantly roaming around the area. In addition to the water screens, there were also floats moving around the area, some with animals and some with flowers. It was actually a lot easier to see what was going on with the animation than the DisneyNature scenes because of the distinctive colors from the animated scenes. One could kind of make out which films were on the screen, but it was tough to take in the actual scenes themselves. I’ll be honest, I don’t think that this show improved too much with the addition of the IP mainly because it was almost impossible to actually see what was happening on the water screens because they were pretty far away and not very clear. I remember this change getting some flak when it happened from those people who were fans of the show, but on its surface the change made a ton of sense because while IP gets a bad rap from hardcore Disney fans, it does attracts more guests to many of the attractions. With Rivers of Light: We Are One, the show designers looked to incorporate animation from the Disney anthology as well as footage from DisneyNature films to help make the show a bit more exciting. With that in mind, Disney decided to spruce up the show a bit with Rivers of Light: We Are One (basically Rivers of Light 2.0) opening on May 24, 2019), which serves as our chosen attraction today. The show was pretty much panned from the outset by fans because there simply wasn’t that much going on in the show to get excited about. ![]() The show was being billed as the caliber of Fantasmic and IllumiNations, but to say that it did not reach that level is a bit of an understatement. However, that show was merely a placeholder to tie in with the live action The Jungle Book as the plan was always for the highly anticipated Rivers of Light to call the Discovery River Ampitheater home for the long run.Īfter four years of hype, that version of Rivers of Light barely lasted two years. With Pandora on the horizon, the park focused more on nighttime activities in the park with the first foray into a nighttime spectacular being The Jungle Book: Alive with Magic. Logan had retired pretty soon after Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened, so he wasn’t involved with the park’s transformation to include nighttime activities. While not well known outside of hardcore Disney fans, Logan was a true game-changer in the live entertainment space, being instrumental in the creation of shows like Fantasmic and Festival of the Lion King as well as parades like SpectroMagic. This week, Disney Legend Ron Logan passed away at the age of 84. This week, we’ll be taking a look back at the second iteration of Animal Kingdom’s first marquee nighttime spectacular.
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