Merry Christmas to all Disney and more readers !

Today is December 24th, and i wish to all of you a Merry Christmas and a magical Christmas evening. For this 2008 Christmas evening, as it is the tradition, i have a little gift for you, a rare and beautiful Jungle Cruise Artwork by Disney artist Charles Boyer.

It's a great painting, as all the different scenes of the Jungle Cruise attraction are on this artwork.

Enjoy it, and once again, have a magical evening!



Artwork: copyright Disney

Lost Horizons...

Lost Horizons was the title of Frank Capra's famous movie - you know, that movie where adventurers find Himalaya's legendary lost city of Shangri-La... But for us, Disney theme parks fans, our Lost Horizons is Epcot beloved and now unfortunately extinct attraction. So today, here is a grand tribute to the Horizons attraction who was one of my favorite. Lot of pictures, for the first time in big size, plenty of artwork, and great video of the whole ride at the end of the article, with the links to the previous Epcot original attractions artwork articles.



Horizons, designed by imagineer George Mc Ginnis and Collin Campbell opened on October 1, 1983 and was about the future!...and more specifically, Horizons was dedicated to "humanity's future" with this principle "If we can dream it, we can do it!".
Not only the building was huge, but the 14.45 minutes ride was one of the longest one ever created by Walt Disney Imagineering. Lot of audio-animatronics - 54, exactly , and 770 props all along the ride, not to mention the 12 film projectors, the two Omnisphere screenshow, and a huge capacity of 2784 guests per hour.Everything was great: the story line, the theming, the music, everything!



During 10 years - from 1983 to 1993 - the attraction sponsor was General Electric, as we can see on this picture of the entrance.



Right after the entrance, the Futureport announced the "destinations"



It's time to board in one of the Horizons vehicles



First, we had a look back to some of the great visionaries like Jules Verne, then to how the future was dreamed in the 30's.
Here is a picture of the model of that scene.



And here are pictures of the real thing.






The next scene was a vision of the future from the 50's.




After these opening scenes the Horizons vehicle moved to the Omnimax film sequence with images of the DNA chain, or the space shuttle lift off. The next scene was the 21st century Habitat sequence , also called the Nova City living room.



A huge backdrop painting was done for that scene, here is three close shots of this artwork.





The next scene brings the guests at Mesa Verde, a desert farm of the future...




And then to a submarine habitat...




But also inside a space colony and the "crystal lab"...







The Holographic "happy bithday" party line was the next scene, and the special effects were at that time really impressive.




The guests had then the possibility to "choose their tomorrow" with a choice of three destinations: Space , Desert, and Undersea. A screen came in front of the vehicle and a short movie was played. A good idea, but the image definition was not as good as it would be today.

Before we arrive to the videos below, i have more rare pictures for you. First, a model of the building.



Then some artwork for the "Main Shuttle port"






Here is a fantastic painting showing a city of the future.



But one of the biggest backdrop painting was the "Looking back at tomorrow". Here are some very rare photos showing the painter at work - Robert McCall, a famous artist who worked mostly for NASA - and details of the painting.







And now it's time for you to board inside a Horizon vehicle and enjoy this fantastic ride, thanks to this 3-part youtube videos from Century3Horizons, that i thank a lot, and congratulate for the high quality of the filming.

Just like everybody who did the ride at Epcot, you will love Horizons instantly, it was Imagineering at its best! And don't forget: If we can dream it, we can do it!










You can know more about Horizons, read the original script and listen the great music theme on the excellent Horizons web site HERE

I remember you that you can find the previous articles about Epcot's original attractions artwork: for Spaceship Earth HERE, for The Living Seas HERE, for Communicore HERE
, for The Land HERE, and for Journey into Imagination HERE. More coming next week about Universe of Energy!

Photos and artwork: copyright Disney Enterprises Inc

Youtube videos thanks to Century3Horizons

Designing a Real " Tomorrowland "

Let me introduce to you Jacque Fresco. If you love the 1960's Tomorrowland spirit, you will love his "Future by design" work. A documentary, also called "Future by design" was directed by academy award nominee William Gazecki and you can see the trailer here on this blog and know more about the movie - or find the dvd recently released - at: http://futurebydesignthemovie.com/

Jacque Fresco is considered by many to be a modern-day Da Vinci. Peer to Einstein and Buckminster Fuller, Jacque is a self-taught futurist who describes himself most often as a “generalist” or multi-disciplinarian -- a student of many inter-related fields. He is a prolific inventor, having spent his entire life (he is now 90 years old) conceiving of and devising inventions on various scales which entail the use of innovative technology. As a futurist, Jacque is not only a conceptualist and a theoretician, he is also an engineer and a designer.

His organization,The Venus Project (named after the town he lives in, Venus, Florida), works to provide a global vision of hope for the future of humankind in our technological age. The Venus Project reflects the culmination of Jacque's life work: the integration of the best of science and technology into a comprehensive plan for a new society based on human and environmental concern.

Enough talk, let's now have a look to the real thing with this youtube video!

Islands of Adventure Artwork and Video Tribute

When Universal's Islands of Adventure theme park opened, everybody was stunned: So, Universal was able to build a theme park with a theming as good and detailed as Disney?
Yes, and there were good reasons for that : some of the creators of the park were former Disney Imagineers, and they did a real good job on IOA.

Anyway, the park is indeed beautiful, and here is a "portfolio" of some of the art-work done for each land of the park. In another part to be on line soon , you'll see photos of the huge model of the park , as well as more art-work that were display in the same room where i was invited years ago for a Universal press event. As always, click on each picture to see them in bigger size.





















And, to do things perfectly, you'll find below you tube videos of the Cat in the hat attraction, as well as those of "Poseidon's fury " attraction - that probably will be removed for their future Harry Potter's land - , Jurassic park river adventure, and the not-to-be-missed Spiderman ride.

Art-work: copyright Universal Studios