Saving Mr Banks Released Tomorrow in the U.S, Three New Great Featurettes to Keep You Waiting !

Saving Mr Banks, one of the most awaited movie of the year - by Disney fans - will be released tomorrow in the U.S! How good will be Tom Hanks playing Walt and Emma Thompson as P.L Travers? Will you have the feeling to go back in time at Disneyland glorious years?

You'll let us know what you think after you watched the movie and in the meantime here is three new featurettes titled Tom Hanks", "The Music", "The Story" to keep you waiting. The three look great, include many new shots not seen before, so don't miss them!










Picture and videos: copyright Disney

Jay Rasulo Announces That Shanghaî Disneyland May Expand Quickly After 2015 Opening

Jay Rasulo announced at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York yesterday that Disney may quickly expand Shanghai Disneyland Resort after its opening late 2015 "in order to meet rising demand in the world’s most populous country".

"Shanghai Disney Resort will be almost 1,000 acres (404.7 hectares) in size when it opens, putting it third behind Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and Disneyland Paris among the company’s resorts" said Rasulo. Disney will have enough room available to expand both the new park and to create another one as land has been kept on the right of Shanghaî Disneyland "Magic Kingdom".

“We believe we’re developing a park that will absolutely blow people away. We’re opening the park for a pretty healthy number of attendees but more importantly both we and our partners and the Shanghai government are eager and willing to expand rapidly after that,” Rasulo said. Attendance could ultimately top Tokyo Disney Resort, which has 28 million annual visitors, Rasulo said. 

Disney owns 43 percent of the venture with the state-owned Shanghai Shendi Group Co., a consortium of three businesses, holding the rest and cost of the phase one of the project is $4.78 billion. "Shanghai Disneyland is part of a larger focus by Disney on China, where entertainment spending by consumers has lagged the growth of the middle class. The new park is within a three-hour drive of 330 million people, many of them young families" Rasulo said.

Don't get too excited, though, with Rasulo's  as what will more probably happen is that they will build new hotels and attractions and then a new theme park years later as they do usually, and this if everything goes well. We learned with the experience of Disneyland Paris to don't believe promises until works on any expansion starts for real.

Picture: copyright Disney 

Star Wars Characters With An Awesome Steam Punk Design

Here is some awesome pieces of Star Wars Steam Punk art created by artist Bjorn Hurri. Below, you'll find Princess Leia, Han Solo, C3 P0, Darth Vador, Yoda, Boba Fett and a Storm Trooper all with a Steam Punk style treatment!

Godzilla 2014 First Trailer !

The awaited first "real" trailer of the new Godzilla movie produced by Legendary Pictures was put online two minutes ago and here it is below. You'll note that the music you hear during the first minute is the same one than Stanley Kubrick used for the black monolith  sequences of "2001, A Space Odyssey". 

Godzilla will be released next year.






Picture and video: copyright Legendary Pictures

Disneyland Paris Update : Discoveryland Entrance Original Fire Effects, Disney Dreams Frozen Sequence, and more

Here is a new Disneyland Paris update which will send us back in time at DLP opening day! If you already visited the park you surely remember the entrance of Discoveryland with its dramatic rock formations partly submerged by water. When you entered the land recently it looked like the picture below shot by Disneyshawn...

On the picture above you can guess some lights under water. But that's not how it was at opening day as WDI Imagineer Discoveryland Show-Producer Tim Delaney had included some more dramatic effects with smoke effects and fire explosions right in the middle of the water! These effects don't work anymore since many many years and it's a pity as Discoveryland entrance was even more spectacular, and specially at night. There was also a reason why Tim wanted this fire effects and it's because the whole land was supposed to be on a volcanic ground. In its first "Discovery Mountain" version Space Mountain was supposed to be located atop of a volcano...

Pictures or video showing these fire / smoke effects at the entrance of Discoveryland were impossible to find until recently when the guys of Disney Central Plaza forum found back this rare dutch video filmed at DLP opening days in 1992. I did some screen shots for you and you'll see below  the few seconds in the video showing the fire and smoke effects.

These "fire in the middle of water" was an effect quite new and not too much used in others theme parks when DLP opened in 1992 and for the guests surely impressive...

On the two pictures below you'll see the smoke effect coming over the water. Below , without smoke effect...

And here comes the smoke effect on this next one.

Some of the fire effects were spectacular!

At that time ( but may be it's still the case today ) the water was running down from the top of the rocks...

Regularly the park is doing some maintenance - as you can see on this Dlp Info picture below - often to restore the rocks, but the fire effects never came back. The real reasons why DLP maintenance never put back the original effects are not totally clear - some say it's because it stops working too often, others have another version saying that the real ducks who move all around the park from a lagoon to another one where grilled by the fire (!) - but one thing is sure, the fire effects disappeared and probably will never come back.

And now, here is the 1992 video with the few seconds where you can see this "fire and smoke" effects.  Jump directly to 13min 47sec to see them.





We'll stay on the hub for what's coming next and it's about the Frozen sequence that DLP guests can discover in the new Christmas Disney Dreams! show. You may have seen yesterday the clip of the Frozen musical sequence called "Let it Go!". Well, the Disney Dreams! Frozen sequence is inspired by the same song. If you've missed the Frozen clip here it is first...




And here is video filmed by Max from DLP Welcome showing only the new Frozen Disney Dreams sequence.




Now, some great news for those of you who did pre-order to me the Disneyland Paris "From Sketch to Reality" book in its English normal edition as we've finally received the copies from the printer last friday and ALL orders have been shipped today! - the last ones will be shipped tomorrow Tuesday. It should take between 10 and 15 days to arrive depending if you're living in Europe or in the U.S.

It also mean that the new and updated ENGLISH regular edition is now available for immediate shipping, and you can always order it at the pre-order price of 55€ + 15€ shipping worldwide.

You can order the book by sending me an email at: neverlandeditions@gmail.com or send directly your Paypal payment of the 70 euros either by the Paypal button below or directly from your Paypal account at the same email address. The book will make a gorgeous Christmas present so order today your copy of "Disneyland Paris, From Sketch to Reality" to make sure you'll get it for Christmas!

A full description of the book can be find HERE.

Disneyland Paris From Sketch to Reality - Include shipping

1 Copy English NORMAL Edition Disneyland Paris book inc shipping €70.00 EUR 1 Copy English COLLECTOR Ed Disneyland Paris book inc shipping €115.00 EUR 1 Ex Signé Collector Français Livre Disneyland Paris + envoi €115.00 EUR 1 Ex Collector Français Livre Disneyland Paris + envoi €100.00 EUR

Pictures: copyright Disneyshawn, DLP Info, Wesley Lelieveld 

Videos: copyright Disney, DLP Welcome

Frozen Spectacular Musical Sequence " Let it go ! "

Have you been in theaters to watch Frozen? Not yet? Me too, but i will see it soon and in the meantime have a look to this beautiful musician sequence called "Let it go!". The Animation of snow and ice is spectacular, really...




Picture and video: copyright Disney

Futuroscope New Attraction "Raving Rabbids" - Full Report and POV HD Ride Video !

The Futuroscope, the film and technology theme park and 2nd french theme park in terms of attendance after Disneyland Paris had this week-end their press event for Futuroscope's new attraction called in english "Raving Rabbids, The Time Machine". You may know the Ubisoft popular video game featuring the crazy Raving Rabbids - which are known in France as "Lapins Crétins" - and they are the inspiration for this time travelling attraction.  

The ride will open officially only December 21 but thanks to Max, D&M contributor and Dlrp Welcome webmaster, Disney and more has for you pictures and a video of the full ride, so let's go and have a look at this new attraction!

First, you have to know that it's the Dutch creative company Jora Vision which have been involved in the design and engineering production of the new ride.  In addition Jora Graphics provided canvases showing the history and creative side of the Lapins Crétins and Jora Entertainment created the customized light and special effects for the immersive ride.

In “La Machine à Voyager dans le Temps” - Time Machine, in english - guests walk aboard a vehicle for a time travel with the Raving Rabbids, and they will be travelling from the Ice Age to Ancient Greece and up to the moon, thanks to the crazy rabbits’ laboratory. Jora Vision used for the ride a combination of 3-D projections, light effects, customized ride vehicles and the newest interactive dark ride techniques to create a unique attraction. The ride use is also located in the same building where the attraction "Les Animaux du Futur" was previously and according to Max is much more fun than the previous ride. 

A  Raving Rabbids submarine stands in the garden near the above show building entrance.

When guests go inside there is a pre-show called "Museum des Lapins Crétins" (Raving Rabbids Museum)...

...in which are displayed famous artwork, all with a Raving Rabbids take.

Also displayed some Raving Rabbids supposedly historical items and the washing machine that you can see below in the foreground has some importance as you will see later in the ride.

The Futuroscope wanted “La Machine à Voyager dans le Temps” to have plenty of humor and to create a ride to be fun for visitors of all ages. So, once they get out of the pre-show guests arrive to the boarding room below. What, you ask, it looks like a restrooms entrance? That's right, and not only it's the entrance of the boarding room...

...with a sign on the doors showing a Raving Rabbid sit on a toilet bowl and a restroom attendant on the TV screens above doors telling you that it's time to make a stop to the toilets before embarking...

... but it's also on this that guests will sit when they embark in the ride vehicle...

...on seats designed like toilet seats!

According to Max the seats are in foam and not a hard plastic like real ones ( thanks God! ) and when the washing machine that you'll see in the ride movie - which apparently serves as time vehicle - fall on the floor the seats go down suddenly a few centimeters.

Before you watch the full ride video, a bit of synopsis about it: So, it's  supposed to be a time machine ride in which you travel with the the Raving Rabbids through different eras starting by Ice Age and then through Ancient Greece, Native Americans era, etc... According to Max the ride include in-ride effects, mostly wind either to simulate the touch by a mouse on your legs ( in the first scene ) or snakes ( in the fourth scene, the best one ). The vehicle is moving from one scene to another and in each scene guests face a 3D movie. Of course, on the video below it won't be in 3D but it'll give you an idea of how they use it.

My take on the ride itself, now: it looks very well done and is indeed full of humor, not always my favorite kind of humor, though... To be frank, it's a delight of good taste and raffiné gallic humor - it's totally ironic, of course, you'll see why... Anyway, it's time to embark, and please note that the video of the ride itself starts at 0.50 sec, just after a slide show of the pictures you've seen above.




Pictures and video: copyright Max Fan - Dlrp Welcome, Futuroscope