Disneyland Paris release new pictures of WDS Tower of Terror

Disneyland Paris marketing department released new photos of the Tower of Terror, but this time with a little mise en scène.

Great pictures, and you will five the six most interesting below, in high-res, as usual.








Photos: copyright Disneyland resort paris

First picture of Toy Story Mania Mr Potato Head Audio-Animatronic !

If we except the one published in the New York Times recently, this is the first picture of the awaited and highly sophisticated Mr Potato Head Audio-Animatronic that will welcome the guests at the future DCA and DHS Toy Story Mania attraction.

For the first time we can now see him complete, with its clothes, and with Don Rickles, the man who did Mr Potato Head's voice in the Toy Story movies.

If we look carefully to the picture, we can see that Mr Potato Head eyes seems to be done with a rear projection effect.

Anyway, just like you, i can't wait to see it in action!

Photo: copyright Disney

Meet "Susie , the little blue coupé" , the ancestor of "Cars"

Fifty-four years before John Lasseter's "Cars" animated movie, Walt Disney productions released in 1952 a lovely 8 minutes short animated called "Susie, the little blue coupé". One of the four animators was the great Ollie Johnston, and the narrator voice was Sterling Holloway, who did Kaa's voice, years later, in the Jungle Book.



There is no link between this short animated and the story line of the Pixar movie - there is humans in "Susie" and the cars don't have really their own "life" - but, like in "Cars", all the different cars characters of "Susie" already had eyes, mouth, etc...



Whether it's Susie itself or its parking lot friends...



Or a big angry tramway...



Or even a police car...



So, (re)discover this wonderful short animated, the "ancestor" of Cars, thanks to this youtube video below, it's 8 minutes long, and you won't loose your time.




Screen capture and video: copyright Walt Disney Productions

Walt Disney , the space age, and the World Wide Telescope

The historical photos topic of this week is about "Walt Disney and the space age", i.e the end of the 50's, when everybody was dreaming about the conquest of space. Of course, everybody remember the Tomorrowland rocket, and above is a great picture of Walt with it.



As we know, the great "Man and the moon" tv series was incredibly popular. Walt did the presentation, and here are two photos, above Walt and the moon, and below, Walt in his office holding one of the space ship.



Wernher Von Braun - the man who created the Saturn 5 rocket and supervised the Apollo missions - was of a big help in the making of the series. Here he is with Walt Disney.



And here is Walt with Ward Kimball, close to another space ship of the series.



The video below is a short clip from the "Man and the moon" series.

Man and the Moon clip
envoyé par donaldtheduckie

Now, yesterday, february 29, 2008 - 50 years after Walt introduces America to the conquest of space - a major announcement was done by Microsoft: The new World Wide Telescope. A new technology that combines feeds from satellites and telescopes all over the world and the heavens, and weaves them together holistically to build a comprehensive view of our universe for each of us.
It looks like Google Sky, but it will probably be better and the site will be launch this spring.

Science educator Roy Gould and Microsoft's Curtis Wong give an astonishing sneak preview of the WWT on the video below.




Photo: copyright Disney.

New WALL-E poster introduce EVE robot character

Cinematical have released a new WALL-E poster, and this one might be the final one.
Note that for the first time the EVE robot character appear on the poster.

Click on the image to see it in high-resolution quality.

Also, UK film magazine Total Film, has a great article on WALL•E in it’s April 2008 edition. You can see it on the excellent upcoming pixar web site where scans of the pages - including new concept-arts - are available.

Picture: copyright Disney-Pixar

EPCOT 25TH ANNIVERSARY - a special celebration - Universe of Energy Original Artwork

In tribute to Epcot 25th celebration, here is the part seven of a series of articles about the Epcot attractions original artwork.

In this one we will have a closer look to the original renderings for the Universe of Energy pavillion, this wonderful attraction which take us back 200 million years in the past, at the age of dinosaurs, and then into the future. As always, click on each picture to see them in big size.
Everybody is ready? Let's go!



The first one above show the exterior architecture of the wedge-shaped pavillion, by daylight. And here below is a picture of the WDI model.



The two next renderings shows the original pre-show. This pre-show was changed when the new version of the attraction with Ellen De Generes opened. But the original one was stunning with this "Kinetic Mosaic" created by Czech filmmaker and artist Emil Radok.




If you've never seen this unique pre-show, don't worry, i have found for you a youtube video of it, and here it is below!




Before the famous dinosaurs sequence, guests entered in a first theatre.
A very good description is done by the excellent Universe of Energy companion site:
Theater I is a "chameleon" of a space, acting as both the beginning and end points of the Universe of Energy ride. It's here where guests first board the Travelling Theater, and where their adventure begins--with a dramatic film introduction on the origins of Fossil Fuels. From here, guests are sent into the "reality" of what they've just seen, as the Travelling Theater effortlessly whisks them away into the murky and forbidding Primeval Diorama.

The Travelling Theater returns to Theater I for the finale of the show--once a spectacle of light and color, in which the Theater was completely transformed, now a low-key conclusion to Ellen's nightmare, and a poignant reminder that we are both capable of and responsible for charting our Energy future.

The rendering below showing a scene from the first version.



Then came the fantastic Primeval world scene with the dinosaurs. I think that everyone who did the attraction remember this magic moment when the vehicles starts to move , the curtains goes up and the dinosaurs appear in the dawn of time.



On the top is a close shot of the Tyrannosaur vs Stegosaur sequence, and here is a rare picture of the imagineers at work during the installation of these two giants creatures, here still under their plastic protection.



A close shot on the rendering of the volcano sequence...



And a rare picture of a WDI imagineer at work on this volcano.



At the end of the Primeval world sequence, all the vehicles come back in a theatre where guests "return to the present". After they learned the origin of fossil fuels the guests will see how "a wide array of energy sources would meet the growing energy demands of the future". Here is two renderings of the original show.




Some of you may not remember, but there was a post-show "Exxon's Energy Exchange", which was located in Communicore East.

This last rendering is a rare WDI artwork for a post-show scene, and, correct me if i'm wrong, but i think that this fantastic scene was never realised.



If you want more informations about the attraction, i strongly recommand to you the excellent Universe of Energy companion site at:
www.energy.planet7.org/companion/top/mosaic.htm

All artwork and photos: copyright Disney Enterprises Inc

Hong Kong Disneyland High-Res wallpaper pictures - Part two

Here are some great wallpaper pictures of Hong Kong Disneyland, this time about Adventureland - and one more about Hong-Kong with the pirate ship, last year.
These pictures are here in high-resolution. A first part about HKD Tomorrowland wallpaper pictures was previously posted and you can find it in the wallpaper section on the right column. A part three of HKD wallpaper pictures will come soon!

Click on each picture to get them in bigger size. They will all look fantastic on your computer screen!












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All Photos: copyright Disney and Hong Kong Disneyland