Is Disney and more Starting Again ?

Am I coming back on Disney and more? Well, may be... As you've seen, i'm posting little by little new posts and, although i enjoy posting on Facebook, it's true that i may be a bit tired of the Facebook format "only". So, i may start Disney and more again but i'll have so many things to do this month that i'm not sure i'll post on D&M long articles as i used to do before. That said keep an eye on D&M as you may have some surprise in a not so distant future!

WDW Release Artwork and Details for Epcot "Frozen Ever After" Ride !

We learn more today about the Epcot Frozen ride as Walt Disney World unveiled a first artwork for the ride and scene-by-scene details for the ride which is officially called "Frozen Ever After", and as i told you below, rumored to open May 2016.

WDW released details exclusively to the Wall Street Journal: "Kathy Mangum, who oversees the Walt Disney World Resort showed off storyboards for the attraction and a virtual tour in a room called the “DISH” that utilizes 3-D images projected on the walls, ceiling and floor to simulate a ride before it is built.

“What we try to do is take you back to the movie without retelling that story,” Ms. Mangum said of “Frozen Ever After.” “This is a celebration of the characters, a way for guests who love the film to experience it in a completely different way.”

While it doesn’t feature any new songs, there are several new lyrics to existing melodies written for “Frozen Ever After” by movie composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson Lopez.

Maelstrom, on which visitors ride a floating log on a tour through Norwegian mythology, has been “gutted,” Ms. Mangum said, and is currently getting “a whole new overlay with ‘Frozen.’” While the logs and the path will remain the same, everything you see along the way is being replaced.

The setting for “Frozen Ever After” is the winter festival that takes place in summer, when residents of Arendelle apparently celebrate their favorite season of the year in the midst of its polar opposite.

While waiting on line, which is sure to take longer than the four-minute ride, visitors will walk by Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post. The trader with the thick accent will occassionaly clear steam on the windows to utter a hearty “yoo-hoo!” to people walking by. “We consider this scene one,” Ms. Mangum said.

Once they board their logs, “Frozen Ever After” riders will first see goofy snowman Olaf and equally goofy reindeer Sven setting up the Winter Festival premise.

Next is a stop at Troll Valley, where Grandpappy Troll tells a gathering of children the story of how Anna and Kristof met, before the log goes up a ramp to find Olaf again, singing a song while ice skating, right next to Anna and Kristof, who are singing with their friend Sven.

Behind a set of doors is the moment any visitor is sure to be waiting for: Elsa, on a balcony, singing “Let It Go” in her ice castle. It’s the centerpiece of the ride, “the big, big scene,” Ms. Mangum said, and it features elaborate effects to create simulated snow crystals soaring around the room.

Visitors will next ride by Marshmallow, the giant, formerly evil snowman from “Frozen” and his miniature Snowgie pals, who show up in the short “Frozen Fever,” which ran in front of March’s “Cinderella.”

Marshmallow himself yells “Let It Go” in time with Elsa’s song before the log travels through a mist cloud and reaches the final scene, which includes fireworks and a wave from Elsa, Anna, Olaf, Sven and Kristof.

The audio-animatronic characters will be cutting edge, Ms. Mangum said, using a new technology that includes projectors behind the faces to enable more lifelike animation. It was first used on the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride that opened in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom last year.

Disney executives and designers started discussing a “Frozen” ride before the film even came out, said chief operating officer Tom Staggs, who ran the theme park unit until February. But “our urgency grew as the film really took off,” he said, and “we purposefully set a really audacious goal to get this thing done.” That’s one of the reasons why it’s a makeover of Maelstrom, rather than an entirely new attraction that would take longer to build.

The company is counting on “Frozen Ever After” to boost the popularity of Epcot, where attendance was essentially flat between 2009 and 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, according to the Themed Entertainment Association. “Cars Land” did the same for Disney’s California Adventure theme park, which struggled before an area based on the Pixar movie opened in 2012.

Of course, some may question whether the the fictional world of Arendelle belongs in Epcot’s World Pavilion, which has always been about touring countries that actually exist, like Japan, Mexico, and Norway.

But Mr. Staggs argued that “Frozen Ever After” is sure to draw more visitors to the Norway Pavilion, and Epcot as a whole, and that the movie is in fact based significantly on Scandinavian culture, art and mythology.

“If the goal is to give people a taste of something like Scandinavia with the Norway pavilion, then ‘Frozen’ would only increase the extent to which people would be drawn to it,” he said. “To me it doesn’t seem out-of-character at all.”

Picture: copyright Disney

Text: copyright Wall Street Journal

New Drone Video Over Shanghaî Disneyland Construction Site

A new Chinese video was filmed, using as usual a drone flying over Shanghaî Disneyland construction site, and if the sky was not the best to have a good contrast - due to the fact that it was probably filmed early morning to have the drone as "invisible" as possible, it's pretty well filmed and may be the best video i've seen so far. It's also the most recent one showing the construction of the park as it was one week ago.

I have for you some enhanced screen captures from the video below, so you can have a closer look at what point SDL lands are currently, and you can see them in the D&M Facebook album HERE. The two pictures showing some green fields nearby are showing in fact the land where will be build Shanghaî Disneyland second gate.

Don't forget to follow my posts each day on the D&M Facebook page HERE!

Brad Bird's Tomorrowland Review

I’ve been in theater yesterday evening to watch Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland, and i liked it a lot. I think it’s a great film done with talent and courage and it was needed to do a movie on this subject, not so easy to transform in a movie. And, although there is plenty of action, that’s why you have sequences of « talks » which are needed to explain what is going on. By the way it’s also probably the reason why the story was kept secretly as it was probably impossible to really explain it and make sure it has been well understood without any misunderstanding. On the « paper » it’s pretty simple and one of the good idea is that the movie stands on a feeling that almost all of us have: why the future looked like a bright, big, beautiful tomorrow in the 1960’s and is now looking so dark, if not « no future »? The film has its own explanation which fit well with the story ( but not for the « real » reality ) with a secret society called Plus Ultra created by great visionaries like H.G Wells, Jules Verne, Edison, Einstein, and Walt Disney among others, and Brad Bird does a good job, as well as each actors, all perfect, to keep the story “believable“ - if i can say.

The film, though, miss greatness by a few inches but Brad Bird is not to blame because, although the movie concept is fascinating and there is a lot to say and write about it, it’s extremely hard to create a story out of it. And i know what i’m talking about as i’m myself trying to do a script since years which would talk about why the world is getting mad and i don’t succeed to find the way to transform it in something which can make a film. And i think that probably no one can do it, except may be Stanley Kubrick who unfortunately passed away. The reason why is that we’re talking here about something which belongs to the part of the “invisible“ in life and it’s very hard to transmit that in a popular movie. Kubrick did it wonderfully in Eyes Wide Shut, a movie talking about what it really is to be a couple and the invisible link between two people, but he had the chance to have found the perfect story to tell it. 

To come back to Tomorrowland which talk about the future i think that Brad Bird and his co-writers really did the best they could do to transmit this message about the future, and what we must do, even if Tomorrowland is not really a "film message“  in the intellectual meaning of the word. But Brad Bird find also his limits in Tomorrowland and, with all the respect and admiration i can have for his films - i loved all of them - he is not Kubrick and don’t have this ability to reach and transmit a fifth dimension that Kubrick had. That said, Tomorrowland is full of idealism and even innocence and it’s the most charming part of it, with of course the great visuals. I’m curious to see how it will work at the box office and what people will think of it. I think it will be fifty / fifty but that’s not important as i’m sure that you will take great pleasure watching it.

Picture: copyright Disney

Disneyland at Opening Day LIFE Magazine Pictures

I have something great for you to celebrate Disneyland 60th Anniversary celebration. Those of you who are longtime readers of Disney and more may remember when i've found - and posted on D&M - these unbelievable treasure of 102 never-seen-before LIFE Magazine pictures shot at Disneyland by famous LIFE photographers on opening DAY in 1955!!!  LIFE released these old pictures without doing any retouch in the colors and all of them had too much magenta color.

When i've posted them on Disney and more in 2013 i didn't changed anything in the colors. As obviously Disneyland colors on opening day didn't had this excess of magenta my natural perfectionist nature pushed me to  spent sometime to bring back each picture in the natural colors. See above the difference before / after. And, to celebrate the start of Disneyland 60th celebration, i'm posting during five days starting this Friday the 102 pictures all again on the D&M Facebook page, land by land, so make sure to jump HERE to don't miss the repost of this treasure, this time with the right and glorious colors of the era!

Pictures: copyright Time - Life

Skyacht One, a Yacht That Can Fly Designed by Eddie Sotto

Imagine a Yacht that can fly. That's what Eddie Sotto, the great WDI Imagineer show-producer of Main Street at Disneyland Paris, the Theme Building restaurant at LAX Airport, the L.A Rivera restaurant, and much more, has designed through his company Sotto Studios for Embraer. The plane is called Skyacht One and soars with it's hand painted "trompe l'oeil" mahogany "hull" and towering vertical stabilizer. I've posted on my Innoventions website the full article in which you can have a closer look to Eddie's new wonder with fantastic pictures and Skyacht One description, but first watch this video in which Eddie himself will present to you the gorgeous Skyacht One and then jump HERE.






Picture and video: copyright Sotto Studios and Embraer

After 46 years of Waiting the Hat Box Ghost is Back at Disneyland Haunted Mansion - Perfect HD Video

That's it, the Hat Box Ghost is now part of Disneyland Haunted Mansion after 46 years of waiting! Here is the "perfect" video of the Hat Box Ghost, coming as usual from ThemeParkHD and I don't think we'll get a better HD low light video of the Hat Box Ghost than this one! 

The Hat Box Ghost is placed right after the bride in the attic, as you will see by yourself and it seems that this time, after 46 years, the effect is working, partly thanks to the use of mapping technology.

I remind you that i posts several posts each day on the D&M Facebook page, so don't forget to follow me HERE.





Video: copyright Theme Park HD