Started: 27 November 2012
Finished: 28th November 2012
Excellent continuation of the overall story, but…I had some definite “Disney” issues with this one.
Spoiler Alert! (place and hold your mouse over the bar to see)
On the front cover of the book (hardcover edition at least) is a picture depicting a scene from the book (starts somewhere around page 128). This image depicts Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame threatening one of the Kingdom Keepers. But when he actually makes his debut in that scene…it’s really weird. He is described as wearing clothes that sound more like something Captain Hook would wear. And then he’s speaking in a French accent! How is that a realization of the character Disney created (voiced by the phenomenally talented Tony Jay)?!?
On page 290, the Keepers are back in EPCOT and are splitting up into teams to get to two pavilions: China and Morroco. But as we follow them past the pavilions: they’re in the wrong order! This is a sadly glaring oversight since it’s not that hard to pull up a map of the World Showcase (as evidenced by a quickie Google Image search) and I’m rather disappointed that the editors missed this.
Moments after that disappointment, the character of Shan Yu is in the China pavilion and speaking with a broken English accent which is a very large disservice to the brilliant character that was brought to life in Mulan (he’s very high up there on my list of favorite Disney villains).
And then the story takes over again and is absolutely brilliant! Even lifting my spirits higher when on page 417, they describe an unused facility backstage at Animal Kingdom, it’s intended purpose (something about Western lowland gorillas), and how the project was unfortunately scrapped and the facility remained unused.
So overall, yay for a continuation of this exciting saga! But…it’s getting harder and harder to enjoy these books as a die-hard Disney fan without cringing. But they’ve got me on the story, so I’ll keep reading it….