Disney will premiere what Imagineers are calling their most life-like animatronic ever this summer at Disneyland.
This week, Disney invited me and a handful of other reporters to Walt Disney Imagineering headquarters in Glendale, Calif. for a sneak peek at "Walt Disney - A Magical Life," the new show coming to Disneyland's Main Street Opera House this July. The show stars Disney's first-ever Audio-Animatronic Walt Disney. And based on what we saw and heard in Glendale, it promises to live up to WDI's hype.
Like "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln," the show with which it will share the Opera House, Walt Disney - A Magical Life will start with a film presentation before pulling back the screen for its Audio-Animatronic performance. For this production, which has been in development for seven years, the movie will be a re-edited "One Man's Dream" show from Disney's Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. Following that 15-minute presentation will be the two-minute encounter with the new Walt animatronic.
"It's a huge responsibility, as I'm sure you would imagine, bringing Walt Disney to life in Audio-Animatronics," Walt Disney Imagineering Senior Creative Executive Tom Fitzgerald said. "And I think we are giving, and have given, the same care and attention that Walt and his team did with Lincoln many decades ago."
That included countless hours of research with the Walt Disney Archives and Walt Disney Family Museum to confirm what Walt would be wearing, all the way to the specific product he would wear in his hair. Imagineers even used a bronze cast of Walt's hands to help create that feature of the animatronic.
"Our teams have taken artistry and the technology and really pushed the boundaries of all of those things to bring the most lifelike creation and presentation that we could do. Everything from the way Walt used his hands to accentuate points as he as he was talking to the facial features, his very expressive eyebrows, and the glint in his eye that so many people who worked with him and knew him said he had," Fitzgerald said.
"One of the things I discovered in watching the footage is [Walt] doesn't blink when he's speaking. When we did the programming for our animator, [we said] here is the blink profile for what he's saying. Here's how many times he blinks. He's where he blinks. And I think that's why people said you were like in a trance [talking with Walt], because it's a little unnatural to not be blinking as much, but those are the kinds of details that we really were researching to get there."
We were not allowed to take photos, but we were invited to get close to the sculpt that WDI created of Walt that provides a draft for the "shell," if you will for the Audio Animatronic figure that guests will see at Disneyland this summer. Having had the opportunity to see many Disney AAs up close over the years, this sculpt really is the most lifelike work by Disney I have seen upon close inspection. From the fingernails, to the ears, to the details of the teeth in the mouth, everything looks completely natural - as if this man could "wake up" and start talking with us at any time.
Which is exactly what the Audio Animatronic will be designed to do. The show will take place in a version of Walt's office, in the early 1960s. The idea is to recreate the feeling that television viewers of the era would have from watching Walt during his "Disneyland" TV show, but to have that moment happen in person, in real life. It's all meant to feel casual, in contrast to the very formal atmosphere of the Lincoln show.
"We have a whole generation of guests and cast who don't know about Walt Disney, the man. They know the name and Disneyland, but to be able to keep his story as a permanent story at Disneyland - the only park that he ever walked in - is extremely important to us," Walt Disney Imagineering Executive Producer Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz said.
Walt's speech during the show will be a composite from interviews over the years. All of the words will be spoken by Walt, with modern editing to normalize and clean up the sound for this production.
The Walt Disney animatronic will be mounted on a turntable that also will host Disney's Lincoln animatronic on the other side. At some point in the future, Disney plans to run the two productions - Mr. Lincoln and Walt Disney - in rotation at the park.
Before guests see this new production, in the Opera House lobby, Disney is staging a new exhibit, "Evolution of a Dream." The exhibit will feature long-unseen, once-missing artwork of early plans for Disneyland. The lobby also will include a new reproduction of Walt's Town Square apartment, featuring original furniture from the apartment on loan from the Walt Disney Family Museum. Beyond the gallery, the revamped pre-show area replaces the U.S. Capitol model with a new presentation on the history of Audio-Animatronics. (If you are curious, the Capitol model now is in the care of the Walt Disney Archives.)
On the other side of the Opera House, the show's exit hallway will feature a new exhibit honoring 70 years of Disneyland cast members and a mural highlighting the resort's history of parades and nighttime spectaculars.
Walt Disney - A Magical Life opens July 17 - the date of Disneyland's 70th birthday.
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It is kind of weird to think that it's taken them this long to do a Walt AA.
I'm curious what Walt would say if he was face to face with his animatronic likeness. In a way it's creepy, but in the same way, it preserves the legacy of one of the greatest creative minds of his generation. I assume WDI will take the upmost care and provide their highest quality work with something that bears Walt's likeness, so there's little doubt this will be amazing. The real question is whether or not the GP will appreciate this enough for it to be more than just a novelty or part time attraction.
Walt was always offbeat on his own standing. A famous story is them showing a film on his life and career "The Disney Vision." After it was done, Walt just sat there quietly, got up to leave and made the passing line "I feel like I just watched my own eulogy."
Walt made it quite clear he never wanted to be an attraction in the park or an AA figure. The park was to be a reflection of him - in spirit and design. It is not to be a museum. So even the Partners Statues everywhere are really not anything he wanted. The Disney Family was not entirely behind this move, even though the Walt Disney Museum did provide assistance with this attraction.
Russel(and everyone else) I doubt if he were to come alive and head to disney world, it would be the least troubling thing he was to see there. I often think " man, walt is rolling in his grave right now" or " I wonder what walt would think of this announcement"
While they are at it, can they remove the gift shop next to the Haunted Mansion?
I know Walt never wanted to be "the star of the show" but he did star in the Disneyland show, and he was probably the most public studio head at the time. There isn't a studio chief today that does as much publicity as Walt did. He ended up embracing the "Uncle Walt" persona. So I do feel like if he were alive today (which is a silly question because if he were alive, we wouldn't need an AA of him), due to his understanding of how he had a unique ability to "sell" the company's initiatives better than anyone else, and his fascination with technology and AA's in particular, he would've been over the moon with his likeness being an AA.
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Interesting look, I can imagine they'd want to honor Walt as much as they could.