Spaceship Earth Original Artwork

Today we will have a closer look to the original renderings for Epcot icon: Spaceship Earth, beginning by this Herb Ryman painting showing the exterior above.

Next renderings are some artwork for the cro-magnon cave sequence.




Strangely, it seems that a scene with dinosaurs was considered before being cancelled.





Here is the rendering of the egyptian temple sequence.



This one is for the Phenician scene.



Three renderings , now, for the Gutenberg press scene.





Artwork for the Michelangelo - Sixtine chapel scene.



Two artwork for a scene called "the age of invention"




The model for the telephone-telegraph scene of the "age of invention"



Let's end with three artwork for the outer space "planetarium" sequence as it was envisioned at the beginning






Thanks to leave a comment or discuss this interview on D&M english forum on Mice Chat

All artwork: copyright Disney enterprises

Editor's Note: As usual, small topics for the week-end and my review of Roland Emmerich's 2012. Also, don't miss Brady Mac Donald's articles on his L.A Times blog with more details about HKDL Grizzly Mountain coaster AND a closer look at Hong Kong Disneyland’s Mystic Manor where you'll learn what will happen scene-by-scene inside this awaited attraction.

UP! on front pages !

Pixar's UP! is on the front page of two magazines! First one above is a full cover advertising on Variety and it's part of the Disney-Pixar campaign for a best picture and best animated picture nomination.

The second cover was for the recently released issue of the Hear the World Magazine, the magazine of hearing aid maker Phonak's hearing loss awareness initiative. Carl Fredricksen is the first fictional person to ever appear on the magazine's cover.



Pictures: copyright Disney-Pixar , variety and hear the World Magazine

2012 Review

I saw tonight Roland Emmerich's 2012. I'm not a big fan of Emmerich's movies but i love "end of the world" movies, and 2012 is all about that.

So, what do i think about it? First, all the digital effects are perfectly - and even wonderfully - done. Two, it's not the worst of his movies - 10000 B.C was the worst one - it has a better story than The Day after (which is not difficult) and it's less "republican" than Independence Day (which is not difficult, too).

The main problem as always with Emmerich who is not - and will never be - Stanley Kubrick, is that the story line, characters dialogs, etc...are still very "primary". They could have cut at least 20 minutes in it (2012 runs 2h40min) and the movie would have been better. Still, some of the scenes (and i'm not talking about the destruction scenes but of the scenes which are in-between) are so predictable, mainly because we've seen them hundred times in other movies.

There is also another problem: if you've watched the teaser, the trailer, and the movie clip released last month you've seen already two third of the main destruction scenes. In two words: Emerich spent too many of his bullets in the movie promotion. But to be fair there still is beautiful and stunning scenes to discover like the one of the volcano explosion in the Yellowstone national park.

Obviously Roland Emmerich is the Irwin Allen of the 21st Century. With the main difference that Emmerich arrived at the digital era and can create never-seen-before images. But Irwin Allen had great actors: Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, etc... in The Poseidon Adventure and Paul Newman, Steve Mc Queen and William Holden in The Towering Inferno. And i'm sorry to say that it makes a big difference as this old generation of actors not only were playing perfectly their part but also had an "interesting" acting. In 2012 actors are okay, they do their job quite well, but their characters are really stereotypes and of course none of them have an acting as interesting as the one i've just quote. If we except Woody Harrelson, probably the most interesting acting, we've seen so many times in other movies this kind of characters that it's hard to have any empathy for them.

Because the digital SFX are so well done we can watch 2012 with pleasure but basically the movie is between a summer blockbuster and a Deluxe TV movie which deserves of course to be watch on a big screen to fully enjoy the destruction scenes.

Picture: copyright Sony Pictures

James Cameron's Avatar Behind the scenes video

As it's often the case during week-ends, lejavascript:void(0)t's talk about something different than Disney.

Just like "A Christmas Carol", a big part of James Cameron's Avatar - released December 18th - was filmed in "performance capture", but i have the feeling that one (Avatar) is going to send the other (A Christmas Carol) to prehistoric times.

We will check this in person next December but in the meantime, have a look at this behind the scenes featurette which also show some never-seen-before shots of the movie!



Those of you who are video games addicts might be happy to learn that Ubisoft designed an Avatar video game released December 15th, and here is the trailer.



Artwork and Videos: copyright 20th Century Fox and Ubisoft

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland Posters

2010 will also be a "Alice in Wonderland" year, thanks to the awaited Tim Burton's version of the famous tale. Let's have a look today in a short pictorial article to the different visuals released recently by Walt Disney Studios for the movie posters.











And if you're wondering how will look the the Japanese posters, here is one of them!



All pictures: copyright Disney

Editor's Note: Major Executive changes today at the WDC, as you will read below. Also, i repost today for two reasons the great interview of Imagineer Pat Burke: First, if you've missed it last time you will love this grand interview full of WDI stories, and two, i've added new pictures, including rare photos of Disneyland's Big Thunder model and never seen before Pat Burke's renderings for the Indiana Jones Adventure queue decor. All of them with great comments from Pat!