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By Michael - June 13th, 2010 In 1987, Walt Disney World was in the midst of a huge expansion. Construction was underway at multiple locations, on projects that would change the face of the resort forever. Disney’s new CEO, Michael Eisner, was intent on making the resort a full-service destination that could keep a family occupied for an entire vacation without having to leave property.
Most of his first projects were designed to stave off competition from elsewhere. The Disney-MGM Studios was put in development to head off a possible new Universal park in Orlando, and to support Eisner’s big-time movie production ambitions. Typhoon Lagoon was intended to counter the elaborate water parks that had sprung up elsewhere since River Country’s opening, and Pleasure Island sought to keep adults on property at night and to draw business from Orlando’s Church Street Station.
Add to that legacy projects from Card Walker’s time like the Grand Floridian Beach Resort and EPCOT’s Norway pavilion, as well as the new IllumiNations show at EPCOT, and there was a lot to keep roving report Regis Philbin busy in this progress report from the 1987 Walt Disney World Very Merry Christmas Parade.
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By Michael - June 12th, 2010 First, if you haven’t seen it already, go watch the new trailer for Rapunzel.
For years I’ve worried that executives and marketing slobs were ruining Disney animation. Now I’m starting to worry that they already have.
Has the vast studio bureaucracy – ranks upon ranks of Vice Presidents and marketing mavens – really salted the fields of creativity so that nothing will ever grow there again? I talk a big game but typically am willing to cut Disney a ton of slack, yet in this trailer there are things that really make me want to retch. That some of the cornball nonsense in this trailer can be presented with a straight face in the year 2010 nearly makes me give up hope altogether. I have no connection to Disney besides my fandom, but I would be embarrassed for my friends to see this trailer in the theater.
In my practice of finding at least one or two good things to say, I’ll say this: I really like Rapunzel’s design. It’s Glen Keane-y but has converted well to CGI. Her animation in this trailer, and some of the model sheets I’ve seen, at least indicate that she’ll be appealing to watch. The hair looks good too; in fact, the look of the film doesn’t seem hampered at all by its computer-generated origins.
However, the tone of the piece, the insanely derivative male lead, the “wacky” animal sidekick, that horrendous horse design, and the awful comedy beats just… discourage me. There are about a dozen cliches in pose, animation, and design in this that I’d like to see banished from Disney forever. And “the smoulder”? Really? Marketing can make a lousy trailer, but the animators at Disney really need to purge themselves of some of these affectations they’ve developed over the years. Some of these stock expressions have become very obvious institutional tics.
I’ll just close my eyes and cross my fingers and hope that this is mostly to blame on Disney’s amazingly inept film marketing department. After all, this is a trailer for a film once called Rapunzel that gives no indication that it’s about… Rapunzel. That’s right, go back and check – her name is not mentioned once in the entire trailer. Then again, she has… what, two lines?
I’m sure it will be worth it, though. Not mentioning that she’s Rapunzel means that now it’s certain that teen-aged boys will go see this at least a dozen times apiece. Because that’s how the world works, in the minds of Disney executives.
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By Michael - June 10th, 2010 
I just wanted to post a brief note that The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story is now available for download on iTunes. I never gave this film an official, full review after seeing it last year at the D23 Expo, but it’s fantastic. Directors Gregory V. Sherman and Jeff Sherman do an excellent job at relating a very personal tale that will surprise even the most devoted Disney fan.
I recommend that you seek it out any way you can, but for now it can be found on iTunes here.
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By Michael - June 10th, 2010  Trayas, from Nightingale, by Mike Gabriel I recently mentioned the unmade film Ramayana, once rumored to be in the works at the Disney animation studio. I’ve yet to see any artwork for this project; instead, a lot of fan sites on the internet mistake concept art for another project as being from Ramayana. This other project, in development from around 2002-2003, was Nightingale, or The Emperor’s Nightingale, based on the famous story by Hans Christian Andersen.
The Emperor’s Nightingale has been placed in development multiple times at the Disney studio over a period of several decades, dating back to Walt’s time. At one point, famously, there was an attempt to adapt the story featuring Mickey Mouse in a starring role. But when the idea was revisited in 2002 it was placed in the hands of Disney animator Randy Haycock. Writer Robert Reece was brought in to write a treatment, and the film was put into development as a traditionally animated project.
In a story that seems to be far too familiar from that era, the film was re-envisioned as a computer animated project when Disney’s traditional animation unit was shut down in Spring of 2003. The project seems to have been shelved entirely in the Fall of 2003; it’s possible that Disney decided to go ahead with The Snow Queen as its return to animated fairytales instead.
 Concept art for Nightingale by Colin Stimpson As you might note, the development art for this telling of The Emperor’s Nightingale draws on Indian influences, very different than the Chinese setting of the original story. This explains why the art is so often mistaken as being from Ramayana.
While little else is known about the project, the development art shows that there was a great deal of potential in the story. These lush visuals by artist Colin Stimpson, and appealing character sketches by Disney veteran Mike Gabriel, make one regret that this project was abandoned. At the very least, it makes one hope that Disney revisits the idea of an Indian-themed animated feature in the future.
Some more development art by Colin Stimpson:
And now, some character sketches by well-known Disney artist Mike Gabriel:
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By Michael - June 8th, 2010  Artist’s rendering of Thunder Mesa, circa 1969 No, this isn’t a big article about Western River Expedition. I’m not yet ready to make that rite of passage that every Disney blog eventually must face. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do since day one, but I just haven’t had that breakthrough of research yet to make it any more than a rewrite of articles posted elsewhere.
Instead, I was going through some documents and cleaning up some artwork and just came across this rendering – an image very familiar to most retro Disney fans. Thunder Mesa and the Western River Expedition has become, over the years, something both legendary and symbolic for fans. It’s the one that got away – the magnum opus of several legendary imagineers that would pick up where Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion left off. And, as of about 1973, there was little to no chance that we’d ever see it become a reality.
But looking at this image filling my monitor, I forgot about the attraction as a bit of history or a mystery to be researched, and just thought of what it would really be like if it were real. Go ahead – click and open up the large image, let it fill your screen, and think… that could be real. Like, really real. Let it fill your field of view. It’s a vista just as if you were standing on the Rivers of America. It could be real, regardless of what later naysayers and revisionists (coughMartySklarcough) would tell you. Sure, it’s huge – but so is Mount Prometheus in Tokyo.
So forget all the baggage, and just look at that picture. Wouldn’t that be cool?
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The Progress City Primer
 From the Progress City archives comes this collection of 33 tall tales and true from Disney history. Available in paperback, hardback, and ebook formats. |
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