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By Michael - August 4th, 2008  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…
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By Michael - August 2nd, 2008 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”.
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By Michael - July 31st, 2008 As a bit of an obsessive-compulsive, I love looking at the statistics that my blogging software compiles about this website. I love seeing where you guys come from, how many of you there are, and I especially love looking at the keywords that people use to find the blog. As it stands, the all-time most popular web searches that have led people here are image searches for “wall-e eve” and variations thereof. You people love WALL-E and EVE, and apparently can’t find enough pictures of them out there. Somehow this page has worked its way up the Google image search rankings so that “wall-e eve” tends to bring people this way, so I thought it was time to make sure that these wayward robophiles found something at the end of their browsing. So here are several stills straight from Disney of WALL-E and his lady EVE. Click on each to embiggen, and enjoy!
Continue reading WALL-E and EVE!!! Photos! Here!
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By Michael - July 30th, 2008 
Well, color me surprised. Disney has gone live with their website for next year’s The Princess and the Frog. The site features a brief teaser for the film; it doesn’t show actual scenes from the movie itself but rather breaks the fourth wall to give a sense of the film’s humorous tone and New Orleans atmosphere. This atmospheric vibe is fantastic, from the Blue Bayouesque fireflies blinking in the website background to the wonderful color styling and backgrounds of the teaser itself. Oh sweet traditional animation, how easy you are on the eyes. Exciting stuff.
One more thing of note – Tiana makes reference to the original fairy tale, insinuating that this is not a direct re-telling but rather takes place in a world where the original story is well-known. Also notice how that firefly might possibly give me nightmares.
I can’t wait to see this one – here’s hoping they pull it off.
In an unrelated aside, this is the site’s 100th post. Happy centenary, everyone!
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By Michael - July 29th, 2008 
So, here’s something that I just found out.
While doing a little bit of fact-checking for my recent spiel about the 2003 Disney short Destino, I found that it was suddenly and mysteriously absent from Disney’s home video release slate. The film had previously been announced as part of this November’s Walt Disney Treasures Wave VIII release:
“Destino,” began in 1946 as a collaboration between Walt Disney and the famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali. A first-hand example of Disney’s interest in avant garde and experimental work in animation, “Destino” was to be awash with Dali’s iconic melting clocks, marching ants and floating eyeballs. However, “Destino” was not completed at that time. In 2003 it was rediscovered by Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney, who took on the challenge of bringing the creation of these two great artists to fruition. In addition to the completed “Destino”, this exciting addition to the Walt Disney Treasures line also includes an all-new feature-length documentary that examines the surprising partnership between Dali and Disney plus two new featurettes; “The Disney That Almost Was,” an examination of the studio’s unfinished projects; and “Encounters with Walt,” which addresses the surprisingly diverse group of celebrities and artists who were attracted to Walt Disney’s early work.
Well, it seems that Disney Home Video has updated their press release and Destino is nowhere to be found. The two other planned releases, The Chronological Donald, Volume Four and Dr. Syn, Alias The Scarecrow, remain on target for their November 11th debut. So what happened to Destino?
Judging from statements by the host of the Treasures series, Leonard Maltin, it appears that early fan concerns were correct and there just wasn’t enough material present for this title to support a 2-disc Treasures release. Destino had originally been planned as a one disc “Legacy Series” release, only to be promoted to the Treasures line when the “Legacy” brand was abandoned. Destino was an odd fit for the Treasures line, and apparently despite the fact that the supplemental materials they announced sound fascinating, it all wasn’t enough to wrap a 2-disc DVD set around a six minute animated short.
Luckily, Maltin has been quoted as saying that Destino will receive its home video release in a one disc format later this year. This is great news as the short definitely deserves its time in the spotlight and I’ve been eager to get a copy for years. I only hope they take care to include all the planned extras from this set; they all sound very interesting.
In the meantime, Treasures fans need not despair – according to Maltin, a replacement release, centered around Annette Funicello, will readied in time for November. The once imperiled DVD line looks to continue next year, as well; Maltin hopes for a release of Zorro episodes in 2009.
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The Progress City Primer
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