Progress City, U.S.A.

The new gateway to Pixar Place. Photo nabbed from EpcotServo.

These are odd times for Disney theme park fans. After a decade of escalating affronts to the legacy of quality and good taste they had long taken for granted, relief came in the form of new CEO Bob Iger and the John Lasseter-led Pixar braintrust. While some would see Lasseter as the White Knight by whose hands all positive change would be affected, his efforts will hopefully result instead in a wide variety of Imagineers who could be equally trusted with large-scale, E-ticket projects. As the most highly-placed creative staffer in the company, Lasseter has the ear of individuals that the average Imagineer or animator could only dream of calling for a lunch meeting. After so many years in the wilderness, Disney fans thought that they finally had an advocate at the highest levels of the corporate ladder.

The problem, however, with surviving the reign of a tyrant is that any small kindness is viewed as loving and magnanimous. Things in the parks were so bad for so long, that just getting a fresh coat of paint on anything seemed like the theming achievement of the century. After having been so grateful to see the bleeding staunched, it would seem ungrateful to criticize the new wave of attractions emerging from WDI.

For many of us, though, the last decade of Eisner’s rule left us uneasy and suspicious of change. After decades of gladly giving WDI the benefit of the doubt, trusting fans would now be burned time and time again with each new attraction. The first few years of the new leadership have indeed been far from critic-proof; concerns about the “toonification” of areas formerly themed to exciting “real-world” adventures have combined with worries over the fairly obvious Pixar-centric drift of new development.

It’s not that Pixar has no place in the parks; as the most uniformly popular output of Walt Disney Pictures in the last decade they’re obviously meant for inclusion. While fans might hope that WDI would some day give heed to the huge back-catalog of Disney films and shows without attractions - or even build some completely new attractions without licensing tie-ins, it’s fairly reasonable to expect that the average Disney guest would look to find Buzz, Remy and WALL-E on their Disney vacations.

So while neither unexpected nor unwarranted, the arrival of Pixar in the parks has been a bit overwhelming, and at times redundant and out-of-place. From a Walt Disney World standpoint, it’s definitely been noticeable. In recent years we’ve had Finding Nemo attractions open in two separate parks - one of which placed a cute and pleasant Nemo dark ride into a location that unfortunately stripped EPCOT’s Seas pavilion of its informative nature and overshadowed the real-life thrill of undersea exploration. Tomorrowland now plays host to a Monsters, Inc. attraction which, aside from being absolutely tragic, is woefully out of place thematically (Tokyo Disneyland will soon be getting an out-of-place Monsters, Inc. attraction in their Tomorrowland, but that is at least guaranteed to be a budget-busting E-ticket affair). Last but not least, Walt Disney World is now home to two attractions themed to Toy Story that differ in technological complexity but feature the exact same game mechanic.

This is not to say that the new management has failed, but rather underlines that work remains to be done. While both WDI and Feature Animation are home to an array of great talent, there still needs to be a “scouring of the Shire” at the upper levels of management to clear out those who forced through so many embarrassments in the past. Prime amongst these offenders is Disney Parks head Jay Rasulo, whose disastrous global branding initiative is designed to make Disney’s parks as unique from each other as five slices of stale white bread. It was Rasulo’s visionary leadership that led to the cloning of Toy Story Mania - an attraction designed for Anaheim’s California Adventure - to Florida’s Hollywood Studios. While this fine attraction was a much needed and well-themed addition to the California park, it is completely out of place in Florida’s Studios park.

Pixar Place, home of Toy Story Mania! Photo from WDWMagic.com.

This brings us, at last, to Disney’s Hollywood Studios and the new Pixar Place. The recently opened area, formerly known as Mickey Avenue, has been completely and elaborately rethemed to resemble Pixar’s Emeryville studios. While the area is ostensibly intended to house a variety of Pixar’s creations, at the moment its only inhabitant is the new Toy Story Mania. With the former Disney-MGM Studios rumored to be the site of several new attractions and re-themings over the next decade, it’s certain that Pixar Place will see a great deal of welcome new development. But what’s on the way?

The site in question, circa 1989. At this point, Mickey Avenue was off-limits to guests as it was still part of the working Backlot. Guests were only allowed in this area via the Backlot Tour, which then departed from the current Magic of Disney Animation queue.

One persistent rumor over the last year is that Pixar Place will be the site of a new roller coaster, which would be the park’s marketable new attraction for Walt Disney World’s big 40th anniversary celebration in 2011. This speculation derives from last year’s Pixar-based “Toon Studios” expansion at Disney Studios Paris, which contained Crush’s Coaster, an indoor spinning coaster based on Finding Nemo. While many expected the attraction to be cloned in Florida’s Pixar Place, other rumors held that the coaster would instead be based on 2007’s Ratatouille. The latest speculation stems from a recent Jim Hill article, which claims that the new coaster will be themed to Monsters, Inc.

The pre-millennial Mickey Avenue. The area was by now open to the public, as production had ceased in most of the facilities and the space was now used to preview upcoming Disney films. The entrance to the now-shortened Backlot Tour was now housed at the end of Mickey Avenue.

Since its release in 2001, Disney fans have anticipated the creation of a Monster’s, Inc. coaster themed to the film’s Door Hangar sequence. Hill claims that just such an attraction is being designed for installation into the former Soundstage One building on Pixar Place. The building would be rethemed to resemble the Monsters, Inc. facility from the film, with the conceit that guests are attending an open house to see how the titular monsters collect laughter to fuel Monstropolis. As they careen through the building in their coaster vehicles, guests’ screams and laughter will be collected in canisters which will fill to explosive levels.

A behatted Disney-MGM Studios. Mickey Avenue gained the Walt Disney tribute One Man’s Dream (yay) as well as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Play It! (boo) in 2001.

How plausible is this rumor? While the pricey and well-themed attraction would no doubt be a hit, there’s been no hint of it from Disney. Or has there?

This won’t be the end of the additions to Pixar Place. Hill continues to say that the former Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground will be rethemed to Pixar’s a bug’s life, and floats the possibility of Lights, Motors, Action receiving its own Pixar overlay when Cars 2 debuts in 2012. He also mentions the rumor, reported elsewhere, that a great deal of the remaining backlot area will be leveled to make way for a clone of the Carsland area that’s coming to California Adventure. This depends, of course, on how popular that new attraction proves to be when it opens around 2012. Hopefully, though, Disney’s cloning trend will by then be wholly purged from the company and we Florida-goers will have unique new E-tickets to call our own.

Pixar Place today. If rumors hold true, this area will expand to the left and top of the map in upcoming years.

Maybe, just maybe, Disney’s Hollywood Studios will get something new and unique that suits and enhances the park’s own themes. It would just go to show you, anything can happen in the movies…

Yes folks, I’m back. I apologize to the small but valued handful of “regulars” here for taking a powder without notice, but c’est la vie. A too-short holiday in the mountains, a backlog of “real” work, some downtime as my web host moved its servers, March Madness (go Heels!) and the general azalea-blooming weather lately has been a distraction. More importantly, though, is the fact that most of the news out of the House of Mouse lately hasn’t been very inspiring.

Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t 2001 and we aren’t facing the constant strikeouts of the Eisner-Pressler regime. But perhaps my hopes got the better of me with the management change and I expected more than the singles and weak doubles we’ve been seeing lately. I certainly expected a damn sight more than this, but there will be more on that later. The point is that while many things in the Disney empire are OK on the micro level, at the macro level there’s a distinct lack of vision. Things are continuing to slide, and that’s a problem.

But I’m back, and here are a few tidbits to get the pump primed:

Thankfully the EPCOT Central blog is back at work, and have a post about EPCOT’s current state that touches on the themes I mentioned above.

Alain Littaye hits us with a slew of concept art - from Disney’s America (with props to me!), California Adventure before its budget was slashed, and the Disney-MGM Studios (1, 2). He also has some interesting photos from the Carousel of Progress.

The Hallmark Channel has acquired a 99-film library of classic Disney films to air on their network. According to the press release, the deal includes:

Disney’s “The Shaggy Dog,” “Flubber,” “Old Yeller,” “The Parent Trap,” “The Incredible Journey,” “The Princess Diaries,” “Freaky Friday,” “The Santa Clause,” “Bedknobs and Broomsticks,” “That Darn Cat,” “The Love Bug,” “The Shaggy Dog,” “Mighty Joe Young,” “Babes in Toyland,” “The Cat from Outer Space,” “Gus,” “Return to Snowy River,” “Snowball Express,” “White Fang,” “The Apple Dumpling Gang” and “Swiss Family Robinson.”

While it’s great that people are going to be able to see these films on television, and they’ll be made available to a new generation of fans, I can’t help to think that it’s sad that Disney doesn’t have their own cable outlet to show their classic films. Why, maybe someday there could be an entire “Disney Channel”, so to speak, that could show Disney material 24 hours a day! Oh I know, it’s just a pie in the sky dream… but wouldn’t that be a great idea? Man, I know I’d watch that channel all the time! But what do I know? I’m old enough to drive so Disney doesn’t really care what I think…

Old EPCOT geeks like myself will remember SMRT-1 from the glory days of CommuniCore. The Paleo-Future blog has a nice piece of concept art I’d never seen before, but the point of the link is the blog itself. You should definitely check it out, as it’s one of my favorites.

Page down for some nice side-by-side comparisons of scenes from Enchanted.

Indeed.

And finally this. Change your life, it will:

I’ll be back soon with more…

I’m working on a few things, but in the meantime I wanted to share this nifty video I’ve just seen. It does a nice job of summarizing the highlights of the upcoming billion-dollar DCA makeover.

Yes, what about that, Mr. Eisner?

With all the fooferall surrounding recent rumors of a fifth gate (or 4th and a half gate) in Florida, I’ve been reminded of an odd period in Disney history when, from 2000 until 2002, Disney operated a website called thirdthemepark.com. Occasionally when I make joking reference to the site as a generic verbal stand-in for any gross instance of managerial hubris, I find that Disney fans don’t remember or were not aware that this page once existed.

Click to enlarge

Thirdthemepark.com is a fairly interesting piece of Disney theme park lore, especially for those interested in the NeverWorld of lost park concepts. While the site itself is long gone (its URL is currently owned by an individual in Colorado), one can still view elements of it courtesy of the Internet Archive. So lets travel back, forty thousand years (or, say, seventeen), and take a look at this mysterious website and the process leading up to its creation.

(more…)

It was seventy years ago today, on November 21st, 1937, that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered at Hollywood’s Carthay Circle Theatre. Many of Hollywood’s royalty were in attendance that evening, but mixed among them were the anonymous and unknown animators who had struggled to create the film. As they watched the audience watch the film unspool, they realized that they had succeeded in achieving what many had claimed was impossible - the creation of a feature-length animated feature that would engage and affect audiences as much as a live action film.

Disney fans probably know all the stories and what was at stake; every ounce of the studio’s resources had been sunk into the film. Walt himself had mortgaged his home; he constantly struggled to find additional funding as the film’s budget skyrocketed from the original $500,000 to a then-astonishing $1,500,000. While not everyone echoed the sentiments of those who referred to the film as “Disney’s folly”, few could probably have anticipated the massive public response that followed Snow White’s release.

(more…)