I finally watched that great Discovery channel video tonight when I got on a kick to try to see the Yeti in A mode. After watching the movements, and seeing the mechanism I really don't get it. This cannot be an engineering issue or a money issue. This MUST be a political issue. Doubtless they had tons of money allocated for maintenance on this monster, and to record new movement sequence for this guy that just moved his fingers, eyes and head as shown in this video
would not put any stress on his "cracked foundation", and would not cost anything near the amount of money they saved by having disco yeti for 5 years.
This my friends is almost assuridly imagineering pouting that the guys in Florida won't spend the money to fix this right. So they refuse to put in the half day of reprograming it would take to make this guy move a bit. They can't stand to have their great achievement neutered into a normal functional animatronic. It's all or nothing! Totally smells of grown adults acting like 5 year olds.
Now given, their fear may be justified, because if they created limited A mode then operations may never bother to return this guy to his former glory... Still can't they just work out a deal that they will do it for the sake of the show in exchange for a promise that they will fix it once Avatar land comes on line. It is all about the show right, and not about Joe Rohde's (or someone else's) pride?
Maybe this is why Disney doesn't seem to let imagineering do animatronics much anymore. They give them all to outside contractors like Garner Holt from what I have heard of late. All of Radiator Springs Racers was done by them right? Was little Mermaid internally done? Maybe her floating hair was? Sure their group screwed up on Murphy the new Fantasmic dragon temporarily, but at least Disney could blame someone, and not have to baby them to get a fix.
What do you think? Am I on the right track?
