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…

It’s been a while, eh?

First, a note on the Tron 2 buzz that’s circulated since our last story. Jim Hill posted a somewhat breathless tale this week about the film’s production and how original TRON director Steven Lisberger had been taken off the project by John Lasseter, scrapping the years of development work that he had put in on the production. Lasseter, says Hill, was inspired by the original TRON to pursue a career in computer animation and thus has a great deal of interest in the film’s success. According to Hill, Lasseter’s interest has led to a great deal of drama with new writers being brought in and Lisberger being replaced with director Joseph Kosinski.

What Hill’s potboiler tale of seething angst and intrigue left out is that many of these changes were made months, if not years, ago, as described here in March. Thankfully Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News had a scoop handed to him when, upon reporting on Hill’s article, he was contacted by Lisberger. Although Lisberger is not directing the project, he remains actively involved in the production as Producer and promises amazing things to come. Good news all around.

Old links for perusal:

- In the light of recent events, this seems even more germane. In fact, I might trot that visual out every time the P.R. machine puts up their typical smokescreen

- Remember when the Disney Channel was good?

- World’s oldest animation!

- Donald Duck’s family tree. Expect to see a great deal about the Ducks here in the future.

- When the new Spaceship Earth show opened last fall, there was a great deal of controversy about the new, oversimplified narration and (to put it politely) anticlimactic finale. While the first act of the attraction, replete with new animatronics, is indeed spectacular, the more objectionable changes are symptomatic of the problems endemic to WDI’s output in recent years. Re-Imagineering posted a very on-the-target analysis of this thematic drift.

- Alvy Ray Smith, though unknown to most Pixar fans, was one of the three founders of that company along with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull. He has posted some documents from Pixar’s founding at his website.

- Taking a moment to reflect up the recent it’s a small world fiasco, I’d like to link to a rebuttal to Disney P.R.’s spin by John at the Disney Blog. I think it’s an excellent riposte to Disney P.R.’s highhandedness (also to be seen in last month’s Adventurer’s Club dealings) as well as an indictment of Disney’s corporate dependence on the fleeting popularity of trends.

Finally, since one cannot link enough to the fine writings of Foxx at Passport to Dreams Old & New, these stories:

- First, her thoughts on the small world issue. Not only does this mirror my own first thought about the Adventurer’s Club fiasco - I thought we were past this - but she also points out the complete breakdown of communication between Disney and its fans since the Toad Wars of 1998. Not only have certain elements within Disney corporate made no secret of their disdain for their most devoted fanbase, but they have repeatedly and publicly lied to said fandom. Those rifts will take a while to heal, and apparently there’s still need of some housecleaning at Team Disney.

- I encourage everyone to read this dissection of Walt Disney World’s film-based attractions. Although I far too often get distracted by current news or the state of the animation program, this is the Disney I am most in love with. The Disney of Walt Disney World, 1971-84. I only wish I had more time to write about it. These “Phase I” attractions were technologically advanced, thematically and tastefully sophisticated, and embodied that great era before “loud = FUNNY” became the watchword of the day. If I had one wish for WDI’s future, it would be that they could in some part return Walt Disney World to that wonderful holistic feeling of balance that made the resort “The Vacation Kingdom of the World”.

John Lasseter and Disney Studios chief Dick Cook set animation fandom aflame yesterday when they hosted a presentation in New York City to detail the next five years of animated films from Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. The press conference was unusually detailed for the typically secretive world of animation - Cook pointed out that it was the first strictly animation-related presentation from Disney in more than a decade.

In all, ten new theatrical releases were announced. Scheduled to arrive in theaters twice annually, the slate includes four films from WDAS and six features from Pixar. Aside from 2011, when Pixar will release two films, Pixar films will arrive during the summer and Disney Animation productions during the holidays. In addition to the new films, Toy Story and Toy Story 2 will be re-released in 3-D. Also announced were four direct-to-video Tinkerbell films - one each for the next four years - from the overhauled DisneyToon Studios. The theatrical slate, in brief:

2008

WALL*E - Pixar Animation Studios, June 27th, 2008 - Directed by Finding Nemo’s Andrew Stanton, WALL*E is the last robot on Earth when he suddenly falls in love and goes on an adventure to save the world.

Bolt - Walt Disney Animation Studios, November 26th, 2008 - Directed by Chris Williams & Byron Howard and released in 3-D, Bolt follows a canine television star on a cross-country adventure where his on-camera superpowers neglect to translate into the real world.

2009

Up - Pixar Animation Studios, May 29th, 2009 - Also released in 3-D and directed by Pete Docter, Up is about an elderly man who is beginning to think that life has passed him by when he embarks on a perilous journey with an eight year old Wilderness Explorer.

Toy Story in 3-D - Pixar Animation Studios, October 2nd, 2009 - The original John Lasseter film has been converted to 3-D for its re-release.

The Princess and the Frog - Walt Disney Animation Studios, Christmas 2009 - The only traditionally animated feature on this list, and directed by Disney vets Ron Clements and John Musker, Princess reimagines the classic fairy tale in jazz-age New Orleans and features Disney’s first African-American princess.

2010

Toy Story 2 in 3-D - Pixar Animation Studios, February 12th, 2010 - John Lasseter’s first sequel has also been converted to 3-D for its re-release.

Toy Story 3 - Pixar Animation Studios, June 18th, 2010 - Produced in 3-D and directed by Lee Unkrich, the second Toy Story sequel follows the toys as Andy prepares to leave for college.

Rapunzel - Walt Disney Animation Studios, Christmas 2010 - Another 3-D release, this re-telling of the well-known fairy tale is directed by renowned Disney animator Glen Keane and Dean Wellins.

2011

newt - Pixar Animation Studios, Summer 2011 - First-time director Gary Rydstrom, previously a sound designer for Pixar and Lucasfilm, will bring us this 3-D film about two endangered newts who are brought together by scientists to repopulate their species - only they can’t stand each other.

The Bear and the Bow - Pixar Animation Studios, Holiday 2011 - Brenda Chapman becomes Pixar’s first female director with this Scottish tale of magic and fantasy. Produced in 3-D, the film tells of Merida, a Scottish princess who defies her parents and in turn endangers her father’s kingdom.

2012

Cars 2 - Pixar Animation Studios, Summer 2012 - Though long rumored, this film is perhaps the most surprising on the list. Pixar producer Brad Lewis will direct this 3-D sequel, in which our automotive protagonists embark on an adventure overseas.

King of the Elves - Walt Disney Animation Studios, Holiday 2012 - Surprising many, this film had been rumored since Disney optioned the Philip K. Dick story upon which it will be based. Directed by Aaron Blaise & Robert Walker, and produced in 3-D, this odd fantasy tale concerns “an average man living in the Mississippi Delta, whose reluctant actions to help a desperate band of elves leads them to name him their new king.”

We’ll be describing these films in greater detail in upcoming posts, but I have a few thoughts. First, I can’t help but notice that there is unfortunately only one traditionally animated film on the list. It had previously been hinted that Disney had another 2-D project in the works, but as this schedule is fairly crowded I can’t imagine it surfacing before 2013. That’s a long time to wait for some old-school animation, folks!

The release pattern is also interesting. Pixar gets what is assumed to be the plum summer timeslots, not to mention two releases in 2011. It’s also worth noting that all the Pixar films have single directors while all Disney films have two; while this is typical of traditional animation, does it indicate that Lasseter doesn’t yet have faith in Disney directors to have a singular artistic vision?

Troublesome to me is the fact that after WALL*E, all but the traditionally animated Princess are going to be released in “Disney Digital 3-D.” While Disney has been pushing this technology hard since Chicken Little in 2005 as a way to motivate families to choose theatrical releases over home video, I continue to worry that it will remain a gimmick and a fad while neglecting to service the story of the films whatsoever. It was an innovation driven by marketers rather than filmmakers, and despite Lasseter’s enthusiasm for the process I hope that traditional standard releases continue. Maybe I’m a fuddy-duddy (and at such an early age, too), but I’d rather enjoy the art of the animation without having to deal with all the artifacts of the 3-D process (not to mention that I don’t want to wear the sodding glasses either!).

Another interesting aspect of the announcement is how it fleshes out long-circulating rumors, such as the hints that Rydstrom and Chapman were going to be assigned features and the odd mention in one news article mentioning a new Scottish princess in the Disney pantheon. Yet it also brings up questions - where is John Carter of Mars? And while Brad Bird’s Pixar-produced live action 1906 isn’t mentioned, where the frak is Incredibles 2? Such a project has long been denied, but it’s widely asserted among fans that The Incredibles is far more worthy of a sequel than Cars. While Cars 2 is obviously timed to coincide with the opening of the new Carsland at California Adventure in 2011, and inspired by the huge marketing windfall that has followed the original film, one would hope that Pixar isn’t starting to pump out sequels just because of merchandising opportunities. Who cares? I just want Incredibles 2.

In any case, it’s a bold plan and shows the real confidence Disney now has in animation. This is a very ambitious slate, unmatched since the heyday of the 1990’s animation boom. Let’s hope they can just keep all those balls in the air this time around. The best news is that Disney and Pixar have a great mix of seasoned talent and new directors all working on a fairly unique series of concepts with the committed, hands-off support of management. Even the DisneyToons studio has abandoned the unwanted direct-to-video sequel market, with Cook promising more films on the way but only spinoffs or original concepts. It’s an exciting time, and I can’t wait to see what they have in store.

There’s been a great deal of news lately about various upcoming Disney and Pixar productions, what with this year’s release of WALL-E inching closer and the first hard news starting to leak out about Up and Toy Story 3. Rather than crank out a couple of posts a day with each small story - other sites are bound to have them up quicker anyway - they’re collected here en masse in case you’ve missed anything. I’ve also included a few stories concerning Ratatouille and its director Brad Bird, as they begin to reap the fruits of the end-of-year awards season.

Ratatouille

Aside from its Oscar nominations and other awards, Ratatouille has collected the Golden Tomato for best-reviewed wide release of the year from critic metasite Rotten Tomatoes. Director Brad Bird spoke to the website about the award and the film’s critical reception. Other honors the film has earned include an award from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Animated Picture and nominations for awards from the Art Directors Guild for production design, the BAFTAs for Best Animated Film, the Producers Guild of America, and the American Cinema Editors for Best Editing (Darren Holmes).

In a series of interviews, Bird has spoken about his influences and demanded respect for animation writers, as well as describing the process behind the writing of Ratatouille’s screenplay.

Finally, as a neat little extra, Pixar artists have created a Little Golden Book featuring art from the short Your Friend, The Rat. The short, which premiered with the DVD release of Ratatouille, was directed by Pixar story man Jim Capobiano, who highlighted the creation of the film on his blog. The book features actual production art from the film and is available at Amazon.

WALL-E

Buzz for WALL-E continues to build as more information leaks out from the film. Musician Peter Gabriel has revealed on his website that he is writing music for the picture, while new images have been posted on /film and the Disney Reporter (shown here). I’ll speculate that the other robot in the stylized drawing is EVE, the futuristic robot with whom WALL-E falls in love. She can also be seen on the recently-revealed cover of The Art of WALL-E, shown below and available for pre-order at Amazon.

More merchandise is on the way; a few screenshots have been released for the tie-in videogame under development at THQ. The fan community has gotten in on the act, with a group dedicated to building their own real-world replicas of the titular robot. We’ve even seen the first WALL-E case mod.

Expect interest in the film to expand after its upcoming Super Bowl ad.

Up

Upcoming Pixar linked to the above image, as seen in the Disney animation exhibit at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It’s the first piece of character art released from the film depicting the protagonist, who has been described as a senior citizen who “travels the globe, fights beasts and villains and eats dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon.” Reports say that the story is loosely modeled on the tale of Don Quixote, perhaps indicating that the hero is more imaginative than actually daring. Personally, the above picture strongly reminds me of Spencer Tracy in his later roles, such as Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? or Inherit the Wind.

Toy Story 3

Possibly the biggest story to come from this update is that not only will Toy Story 3 be produced in 3-D for its 2010 release, but it will be preceded to theaters by 3-D re-releases of Toy Story and Toy Story 2. John Lasseter, Pixar co-head honcho and director of the first two films, will oversee their conversion to 3-D from the original data elements. Toy Story 3 is being directed by Lee Unkrich.

As the Variety article linked above points out, Disney is increasingly using 3-D technology to draw viewers to cinemas. What remains to be seen is whether this will prove a viable artistic tool or just another cyclical trend such as when 3-D surged in the 1950s and the late 1970s and early 1980s. Will the technology add anything besides gee-whiz factor to the new film, and especially the already existing films, or will it just be a gimmick? It’s estimated that the number of 3-D capable theaters nationwide will be in the thousands by the time of the film’s release; while I trust Pixar not to pull a Fozzie Bear (”cheap 3-D tricks?!”), it will be interesting to see how this plays out. The release schedule:

- Toy Story - October 2, 2009
- Toy Story 2 - February 12, 2010
- Toy Story 3 - June 18, 2010

Disney has released its 2007 annual report and, while it may be the dullest and least informative annual report ever (how bare must your calendar be if you have to slap High School Musical on the cover? You couldn’t even give us some DCA renderings?), it at least has a nice new image from The Princess and the Frog:

This 2009 animated release marks the first return to traditional animation for Disney since 2004’s execrable Home On The Range and is the first true animated fairy tale from the studio since Beauty and the Beast. So far, most of the film’s buzz has resulted from publicity about the lead character, Tiana, being the first black Disney “princess”. While admittedly the whole “Disney princess” marketing jihad gives me the galloping creeps, Tiana is a nice change of pace and so far the limited amount of conceptual art to be released from the film has been intriguing.

Far more interesting to me than the possible demographic breakthroughs of the film, though, are the potentials presented by its setting. Set in New Orleans during the Jazz Age, The Princess and the Frog (wow, it would be so much easier to type its previous title, The Frog Princess) promises a world of French Quarter elegance and mystical bayous, as well as “a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn.” Done well, this could be a film dripping with atmosphere from smoky jazz clubs and arcane voodoo ritual in the decadent decay of the Crescent City.

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