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By Michael - January 28th, 2008 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
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By Michael - January 27th, 2008 While I continue to futz around working on some story ideas, the tubed interwebs thankfully continue to produce stories of interest and worthy of linkage. Here are a few for your late-weekend perusal.
 First, I’m glad to report that EPCOT Central seems to be up and blogging again. These folks are die-hard EPCOT traditionalists like myself, and I’m glad that there are people out there keeping Disney’s feet to the fire concerning the park’s current lack of unifying purpose. A few recent pieces of note:
– A story about management dropping the ball on EPCOT’s 25th anniversary last year. I was fortunate to be able to make it down for the celebration and, while the fan organizers did a magnificent job setting things up, they shouldn’t have had to. I’ve been planning a series for the site entitled “Why Won’t Disney Take My Money?” and one of the first of these will be about EPCOT’s 25th. It’s shocking to me that, as a fanbase, Disney fans practically have to beg corporate to be recognized and catered to. It has to be a fairly unique situation – rabid, dedicated fans that are sneered at by the company they seek to celebrate. It’s reached the stage of an abusive relationship and Disney really needs to get their act together on this front.
– A story about the necessity of criticism and the need to hold management’s feet to the fire concerning the revitalization of EPCOT. I link to this post because it makes almost verbatim an argument I’ve been making for years:
Disney is a company that needs to make money. It’s a for-profit company. It needs to grow revenue and income. Those are also common explanations. To that, I counter that only by offering something truly revolutionary, truly out of the ordinary, can a company grow for the long term. Walt Disney knew that, that’s why he was never content to continue doing what had made him successful. An artistically driven company like Disney has to take risks, and if that turns the stomach of its top managers, why did they get into this game in the first place.
Disney is filled these days with people who got into it for one key reason: to make money for themselves. That’s not a bad motivator, I have no qualm with that. But they wanted to make money fast, to do it the easy way. With projects like ABC’s flagging ratings, the theme-park design fiascoes and the death of traditional animation, they’re learning the lesson the hard way. It’s not about the quick buck, it’s about the long haul. It’s about doing what’s right.
People forget that Walt did things the right way and made a lot of money. You don’t have to sell your soul for a profitable company, but you might have to obsess a little less about the quarterly reports. The Disney Frontier blog agrees.
– A story about the fact that despite the departure of Eisner, Pressler and Stainton, all is not well at Disney. While I mostly approve of Iger’s moves lately, he’s still a corporate guy with no real Disney allegiance. The Disney loyalists in the company, like Lasseter, are mostly Disneyland-obsessed and so the Florida property continues to be ignored and looted and – even worse – sold off piecemeal. No one seems to grasp the philosophy under which the Florida property was purchased and organized and so, slowly, irreparable damage is being done. More interestingly, the author suggests EPCOT as a new branding strategy for Disney to reach audiences immune to the charms of Hannah Montana and I think it’s a brilliant idea. If someone at Team Disney had an ounce of gumption they’d look into this ASAP.
More from this great blog in future updates.
A few interesting facts about Adventureland.
 Euro Disney continues its economic turnaround as it announces a twenty percent increase in first quarter revenues. The resort, which hasn’t operated at a profit since 2001, has had seven consecutive quarters of revenue growth. The increase in attendance, hotel occupancy, and per-guest spending is attributed – shockingly! – to the addition of new attractions (gasp!). This will presumably only continue as the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror opens at Disney Studios Paris this month. Hopefully this innovative new strategy of “adding new things” will continue, making the Disney Studios worth visiting and refreshing the long-stagnant Disneyland Paris itself.
 Apparently actress Suzanne Pleshette died last weekend while I was off in the mountains and “off the grid”. I learn this from Isn’t Life Terrible, which posted a tribute to Pleshette last week. While the she had a large body of work, I of course grew up knowing her from her work at Disney.
Pleshette starred in four live-action films for Disney over the years; these included The Ugly Dachshund, Blackbeard’s Ghost, The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, and The Shaggy D.A.. While two of these I never saw as a child, and even as a kid I knew The Shaggy D.A. wasn’t very good, I was an enormous fan of The Ugly Dachshund. My brother and I were fairly obsessed with the film, watching it over and over as only fanboy kids can. Pleshette starred, as she would in two of her other Disney films, opposite Dean Jones – himself another childhood obsession. Jones, alongside Han Solo and Cary Grant, made up a weird childhood trifecta of male role models and embodied all that was cool, mod and hip and provided a worthy subject for emulation. Pairing Jones with the ultra-foxy Pleshette provided a Disney power couple par excellence.
Check out the tribute via the link for some interesting facts about Pleshette’s career and time at Disney, as well as some words about her role in 40 Pounds of Trouble. This film is definitely an oddity – a Universal picture featuring extensive footage shot within Disneyland itself. Definitely surreal, and a great time capsule of Disneyland itself.
Finally, wrapping things up, is my dear and beloved Tina Fey. Have a great Sunday!
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By BeaconJoe - January 24th, 2008 
Today in 2000 Bob Iger was promoted to President of the Walt Disney Company. At the time, I yawned and declared him to be quite the yes man Eisner underling, but he’s given me a nice meal of crow to eat. Thank God it wasn’t Paul Pressler.
Yes Iger’s done great by me, his case made stronger by the day, especially now that I have found out that he was the suit at ABC championing the broadcast of Twin Peaks. But that’s neither here nor there. By the way, he’s also celebrating another anniversary today – 2 years since the announcement of the Pixar merger, which I cannot believe. It is truly amazing to see how much Disney corporate culture has changed so quickly since Lassater and Co were annexed.
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By Michael - January 23rd, 2008 It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so there’s been a pileup of Disney detritus in my links folder. Now that I find myself bereft of anything that I’m bothered to write about, it’s time to share some of the actually interesting things that other writers are blogging about.
Continue reading Woody’s Roundup 01-22-2008
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By Michael - January 22nd, 2008  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
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