Progress City, U.S.A.

I feel that I am perhaps the last individual in the Disney blogosphere to post any sort of public comment about the recent controversy surrounding the rumored changes to Disneyland’s version of it’s a small world. This is due to a number of reasons, but mostly, as a grizzled veteran of Eisner’s last decade at the helm of the Walt Disney company, I have attained a degree of scandal fatigue. Quite simply, I have seen so many desecrations and obscenities foisted upon the art of themed entertainment and design that I have become inured to such grand disappointments.

I fought in the Toad Wars of 1998, had the first website devoted to saving Horizons and wrote a letter so incensed by Journey Into YOUR Imagination that I got a call at home from the then Vice President of EPCOT Center. I watched Disney built a park with amazing theming but little to do (Animal Kingdom), minimal theming and nothing to do (California Adventure) and no theming and nothing to do (Disney Studios Paris). I consider Hong Kong Disneyland something of a gated botanical gardens. After wands and hats and Pop Century, I had no store of indignation left.

Young revolutionaries on the barricades - the last Toad-In, September 7, 1998.
I seem distracted.

But just as things looked bleakest, there was a ray of hope. Paul Pressler left to destroy another company. Michael Eisner left to hang out with Bette Midler and trade baseball cards. John Lasseter and the Pixar squad rode in on their white horses to give the triage badly needed by a dying WDI and dead Feature Animation department. Even Bob Iger, Eisner’s hand-picked successor, proved me wrong and wound up not being a proxy for the departed CEO but a fairly bold new leader who embraced a far more progressive view of new technologies than his predecessor. Surely, everyone would live happily ever after.

Still, all was not well. The management purges and noxious politics of the last decade had left Imagineering paranoid and factionalized, split between the embattled creatives who had managed to survive in the hope of better days ahead and those who, bolstered by political maneuvering and their ability to “play the game” successfully had risen through the ranks. Not since the Augean stables had an organization so desperately needed a flushing out of the dross and a complete rebuilding.

While change came, however, it came slowly. Sub-par attractions still filtered out into the parks, and more alarmingly, newly announced attractions started to have a noticeably Pixar-centric tilt. The “toonification” of the parks amped up in earnest, and areas that once whisked guests away to adventure in fantastic but real-world settings became new venues for promoting the Franchise of the Month. It seemed that at our moment of greatest triumph, the folks from marketing had won after all. The parks were going to become ads for character merchandise, and the days of the great non-”property” rides like Pirates or Mansion might never return.

Oh noes.

There remained reasons for optimism, though, and obviously a great deal of wonderful, devoted and creative staff continue to try their best to keep the company living up to Walt’s ideals. I’ve tended to cut them slack even in times of irritation, and even though I might disagree with their choices I’m usually eager to see where they’re going in the hopes that the ship will eventually get turned around completely. So, for a while, my crusading came to an end.

Recently, though, rumors emerged of something so strangely unnecessary, blinkered and contrary to both good taste and Disney legacy that I felt that old activist drumbeat once more. Something had been planned so purely based in concepts of “marketing” and “brand awareness” and intended to move merchandise that it can’t help but to raise the hackles of fans. Something that strikes right at the nexus of several “sacrosanct” movements in Disney park history, and something that was neither asked for or needed.

So why not? Once more into the breach, dear friends. Start your petitions and phone calls, emails and letters. Grab the pitchforks and light up those torches, because they’re going to screw around with it’s a small world.

(more…)

This morning, the AMPAS announced this year’s Academy Award nominees. Ratatouille walked away with five nominations, including Best Animated Feature. Its competition in this category will be Sony’s Surf’s Up and Persepolis, the latter of which is considered to be Ratatouille’s strongest competitor. Many (including myself) have argued that Pixar’s film was worthy of inclusion in the Best Picture category, but the Academy’s bias against animated fare continues unabated. Sadly, the Best Animated Feature category looks to be a permanent ghetto for animated films and will prevent any animation, regardless of quality, from consideration for Best Picture.

On the positive side, the film did receive a nomination for Best Original Screenplay - a rarity for animated films. This looks to be the official “Makeup Prize to Brad Bird for Otherwise Ignoring His Brilliant Film Award”, as he was previously nominated for Best Screenplay for The Incredibles in 2005.

Congratulations are in order for Brad Bird and his team on the film, who have knocked another one out of the park despite the constant nattering of nabobs. Also worthy of congratulations are Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz, who had three songs from Enchanted nominated for Best Original Song.

Ratatouille Nominations:

- Best Animated Feature Film of the Year - Brad Bird
- Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) - Michael Giacchino
- Achievement in Sound Editing - Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
- Achievement in Sound Mixing - Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
- Original Screenplay - Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird

Enchanted Nominations:

- “Happy Working Song” - Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
- “So Close” - Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz
- “That’s How You Know” - Music by Alan Menken; Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

It’s been awfully quiet around Progress City during the holidays, but I thought I should drop in and wish everyone a Happy New Year. Things have been hectic, of course, and unlike more dedicated bloggers we’ve taken a little break. But the new year means returning to the real world, and that includes blogging. Look for things to pick up around here very soon.

2007 was an interesting year for Disney fans, as we watched the company try to pick itself up from the ashes of the last decade. The last stretch of the Eisner reign took a brutal toll on both theme parks and animation, with such infamous luminaries as Paul Pressler and David Stainton running the creative branches of the company over a cliff and into a seemingly unending morass of mediocrity.

But with new management came new times, and step by step we saw Disney slowly get itself off the ground again. There have still been setbacks (Laugh Floor and the continuing toonification of Tomorrowland) but there have also been halting steps forward (management change at EPCOT and the recognition of fan desire to celebrate that park’s 25th anniversary). 2008 is a real transition year in which the last projects of the old regime overlap with the first projects of the new. Bolt will hit theaters, having been reworked from the ground up by Lasseter’s WDAS story trust. Toy Story Midway Mania will arrive in theme parks, heralding the start of California Adventure’s billion-dollar facelift. Both projects, initiated under Eisner rule, have been fully reworked by Iger’s team and will truly indicate what the future holds for Disney fans.

Here at Progress City HQ we’ll be doing our best to chronicle all this, patting Disney on the back when they get it right and kicking them in the seat of the pants when they don’t. Also, we’ll probably talk about The Apple Dumpling Gang. Just because.

Here’s hoping that everyone out there has started their new year off with a bang; if not, then here’s to the rest of us digging ourselves out of the hole by, say, mid-May or so. There’s nowhere to go from here but up…

(Image nicked from here.)