Progress City, U.S.A.

Rick Heinrichs and Tim Burton with some of the characters from “Vincent” (Disney)

With Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland approaching theaters, it’s good to remember where it all started for Burton – right at the Disney Studios in the early 1980s, alongside a number of talented but underutilized young animators.

The above picture, which shows a 24-year-old (!) Burton alongside artist Rick Heinrichs, comes from a 1982 issue of Disney Newsreel, the cast newsletter for the Disney Studios. The accompanying article promotes Vincent, a short film that the two had made together. The stop-motion short, as you might be able to tell, had more than a tinge of autobiography to it.

“Vincent,” the Studio’s newest stop-motion animation short film, was released with “Tex” at the Westwood Bruin last week. The film was designed as an experiment to test new stop-motion techniques for their possible use in feature films. It was so accomplished that Production Vice-President, Tom Wilhite, decided it should be released theatrically.

“Vincent” is a six-minute story of a little boy who thinks he’s Vincent Price. Tim Burton wrote, directed, and designed the characters for the film, and Rick Heinrichs was Producer and Sculptor for the show. Vincent Price narrated the story.

“Vincent” was entered in the experimental short film category at the prestigious Chicago Film Festival and won first prize, and it will qualify for Academy Award consideration. It will show at the Westwood Bruin for the duration of “Tex’s” engagement.

The studio, of course, didn’t really know what to do with Burton, and he would soon depart along with other young animators like John Lasseter. Burton, who also did conceptual work for The Black Cauldron, would make another short for Disney in 1984; Frankenweenie can be seen on the DVD release of The Nightmare Before Christmas alongside Vincent. Burton is also remaking it as a feature film for his next Disney project.

You can see, though, in the picture from the article that the oh-so-young Burton was already working on several of the key design styles that would emerge in his later work. Rick Heinrichs would make good for himself too, filling various artistic roles on a number of Burton projects and emerging as an art director on major projects like the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean films, the current release The Wolfman, and the upcoming Captain America.

Teaser poster for TRON: Legacy

By now, you’ve probably seen this at any of the hundred other websites that have already posted it, but I’ll be consarned if I’m going to let some TRON news slip by. We finally have our first real look into the world of TRON: Legacy, the forthcoming sequel to Disney’s 1982 cult sci-fi classic. We also have the nifty teaser poster, shown above, which features the film’s iconic lightcycles. I’m glad to see that they did a good job with the poster, although I would have preferred a more graphic-based approach. Still, since the art of film posters has disappeared so completely in recent years I’m just glad to have something cool.

We also get a brief synopsis of the film, which gives us an idea of the plot as well as a name for Olivia Wilde’s character:

Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund in a scene from TRON: Legacy

TRON: LEGACY is a 3D high-tech adventure set in a digital world that’s unlike anything ever captured on the big screen. Sam Flynn (GARRETT HEDLUND), the tech-savvy 27-year-old son of Kevin Flynn (JEFF BRIDGES), looks into his father’s disappearance and finds himself pulled into the digital world of Tron where his father has been living for 25 years. Along with Kevin’s loyal confidant Quorra (OLIVIA WILDE), father and son embark on a life-and-death journey of escape across a visually-stunning cyber universe that has become far more advanced and exceedingly dangerous.

As you can see by the image above, the film’s look is darker than its predecessor. Gone are the white suits with blue piping, and instead we see Matrix-y black bodysuits and even a bit of bare skin. Also gone are the characters’ helmets, with Wilde instead sporting a very “mod” jet-black hairstyle. I have to say that while it definitely looks cool, I hope the final product is more “glowy” and consistent with the world of the original film. TRON had a look all its own, and there’s no need to try and ape The Matrix or The Dark Knight.

That’s a minor quibble, though, especially when judging from a single image. The film continues to look stylish and high-quality, and it will be interesting to see how my long my patience can hold up waiting for its December 17th, 2010 opening.

No, that title is not me being clever and kind of inappropriate. It’s Disney being kind of inappropriate!

I’ve been waiting to show this one to you for a while. This fascinating article appeared in the Disney Studios cast publication, the Disney Newsreel, in February of 1981. Eventually you discover that it’s a tie-in with the soon-to-flop The Devil and Max Devlin, but at first glance it just looks like someone at Disney decided to do a mid-February summation of all the times Satan appeared in Disney films (this was before Satan transferred to Parks & Resorts and changed his name to Paul Pressler). Did you know that Satan had his Disney debut in the 1929 Silly Symphony, Hell’s Bells? Oh, it’s true.

Enjoy this odd bit of self-promotion from days of yore, as you consider the age-old question: Who’s really more evil, Satan or Hannah Montana?

   

There must be some weird sort of Hollywood law of thermodynamics at work today. For each suspect Disney executive that retires, another gets promoted. So it happened that Rich Ross, president of Disney Channels Worldwide, was tapped to replace the fired Dick Cook as head of the Walt Disney Studios.

Let’s be clear. Ross has been incredibly successful business-wise in his thirteen years at the Disney Channel. He has turned it into a worldwide brand, with Disney television networks now in 163 countries. He’s also made Disney a ton of money thanks to the High School Musical and Hannah Montana franchises.

The thing is, he’s also turned the Disney Channel into a vast wasteland of dreck that has zero appeal to anyone over the age of twelve. Gone are the classic Disney films, animated shorts and anthology shows. Gone are even the more classy and better-scripted shows for teens and tweens that could also hold some appeal for adults. All that remains on the Disney Channel are ridiculously broad, slapstick farces with embarrassingly canned laughter and a series of blandly stereotyped mischievous moppets and their clueless parents. It’s junk food TV, which will disappear into the memory hole as soon as the next fad comes along.

There’s some concern noted in the coverage of Ross’s promotion; he is being handed the reins of a massive Hollywood studio, and yet he has no film production experience. He also lacks the ties to talent both behind and in front of the camera that former studio chief Dick Cook could claim.

I don’t know where this is going, but I fear it’s Iger’s branding mania gone awry. Walt Disney Pictures could probably make some money cranking out five Jonas Brothers movies next year, but those profits will be fleeting and eventually that well will run dry. Better to produce quality films than chase fads, eh? I would never make it in Hollywood…

Ross will also head Disney’s theatrical and music groups. The synergy, it burns. Read all the gory details here.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eff you, Zemeckis. You and your dead-eyed, zombie troupe, uncanny valley miasmas.

And shame on Apple Corps, although I’m not surprised.

The original Yellow Submarine isn’t an untouchable classic, but it does have some interesting animation. If Pixar or Disney Feature Animation, or even some ambitious independent studio, was doing this I’d be ecstatic. Nothing could make me happier than some wild animation and digital surround remixed Beatle tunes. But a horrific plasticine Macca gurning to the motion capture antics of some hack actor? No thanks.

Seriously, Lasseter, you’d better watch this like a hawk or I’m going to get Blue Meanie all up in Pepperland.