My childhood just died

[MacGuffin]

Disney's Revamped Pirates Ride: Just Like in the Movies
The updated Disneyland attraction will look more like the films it inspired. But some fans feel it's taking marketing too far.
Source: Los Angeles Times



Purist fans of Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean ride are wishing they could force company officials to walk the plank for doing the unthinkable.

The classic attraction, which turns 40 next year, is getting an overhaul timed to coincide with the movie premiere of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," the second in a trilogy of films starring Johnny Depp. When the popular ride reopens June 26, it will look a lot more like the movie series that it inspired, complete with swashbuckler Jack Sparrow and his nemesis Capt. Barbossa.

Internet message boards have been in mutiny for months, with fans debating whether Disney is taking corporate synergy and marketing too far — and that's saying a lot for a company that capitalizes on just about every character tie-in imaginable.

"If it ain't broke, why fix it?" grumbled fan Candy Richter, 39, who grew up riding Pirates of the Caribbean. "I think it's really lamentable when society feels that they need to go back and adjust their pop culture icons to fit whatever new spawns out.... I don't think people are going in Haunted Mansion and wondering where the Eddie Murphy character is."

In a break from its ride-opening tradition, Disney is not giving any sneak peeks, not even to park employees, until after the movie's celebrity-studded premiere at the Anaheim theme park Saturday. The movie is set for wide release July 7.

Disney is banking that fans, even the die-hards, will not be disappointed.

"I cannot imagine how anybody can see this attraction and walk off and say, 'Boy, they did something they shouldn't have,' " said Disney Imagineer Kathy Rogers, who is overseeing the ride's creative changes at Disneyland and Walt Disney World in Florida. "It really has strengthened the classic."

Rogers said ride designers had tried to seamlessly add characters into the attraction in the same way that movie scriptwriters adopted elements of the ride. (Remember the dog holding the keys to the jail cells in the 2003 movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl"?)

The ride's story line has been tweaked. Instead of pirates ransacking a Spanish seaport town in search of gold, they're now trying to capture Jack Sparrow and beat him to the treasure. The booty, incidentally, has a lot more bling, Disney said.

Fans of the movie will see familiar elements, including animatronic characters depicting Jack Sparrow and Capt. Barbossa. In the ride's cannon scene, in which a pirate ship appears to shoot cannonballs over the riders' heads, music from the movie will be playing. Special effects also have been upgraded to make the cannon blasts more realistic.

A waterfall scene has been added with the ghostly image of Davy Jones, the evil spirit of the seas and a character in the second movie, Rogers said. In the ride's town and treasure scenes, Jack Sparrow has been dropped into the mix.

"They look like they've always been there," Rogers said. "You're not saying, 'Oh, they put that movie thing there.' "

In fact, Disney tried not to tinker too much with the classic sets. Old characters are still up to their marauding ways, including the auctioneer, the pooped pirate and the wenches for sale. The burning town was tweaked to make the fire more realistic. The ride remains 14 1/2-minutes long.

"There's nothing changing about the fundamental character of the attraction," said Jay Rasulo, chairman of Disney's theme park division.

The makeover is in the spirit of what Walt Disney would have wanted, Rasulo said. According to one of Disney's most famous quotes, Disneyland will never be complete "as long as there is imagination left in the world."

"I think true purists will know that Walt was a man of innovation," Rasulo said. "Walt was a futurist. He thought nothing of embracing new technology and making new magic."

Jeff Baham, founder of the website tellnotales.com, said fans seemed split about the changes, though many were reserving judgment until after they experienced the renovated ride.

In the most extreme cases, some fans contend that the ride should remain untouched because it is the last attraction Disney worked on before his death, Baham said.

Given the park's track record, some aren't sure what to expect.

The last time Disney made changes to the ride in 1997, it became the butt of jokes after its drunken, looting buccaneers were made a bit more politically correct. The company "rehabilitated" the ride to make the pirates in the chase scene pursue food rather than scared maidens. It became a sin of gluttony rather than of lust, officials said at the time.

Perhaps in a nod to the purists, that theme is being ditched to "make the story consistent," Rogers said, which means that the pirates will go back to their pillaging, misbehaving ways.

Jamie O'Boyle, a Philadelphia-based cultural analyst who has studied Disneyland and theme parks, said he was not surprised that fans were leery.

"Suspicion of Disney's motives is legitimate," O'Boyle said. "The company earned that suspicion over the past couple of decades with a series of bad decisions."

He cited such actions as Disney's replacement of the Swiss Family Robinson treetop abode with Tarzan's Treehouse and yanking guns from the Jungle Cruise skippers. The cruise captains recently got their faux firepower back but the Robinsons are still homeless.

Disney leadership, O'Boyle said, is still on probation.

Despite those concerns, he said the additions to the ride made sense. "This is one of those changes that Walt would have done in a heartbeat. If they put Mickey Mouse or Winnie the Pooh in the attraction, it would be a destructive element."

Adding Jack Sparrow is a natural story evolution and doesn't contradict the original show, O'Boyle said.

Jennifer Figler, 29, a Southern California native who lives in Orlando, Fla., said she was not surprised by the overhaul.

"You hate to see a classic get changed, but they really struck it rich this time around so it's only obvious that they were going to give this a try," Figler said. "I am a little bit of a purist, but I'm also an optimist. I'm maintaining some positive hope."

Pirates points

• Ride opened at Disneyland on March 18, 1967
• Cost of original construction: $8 million
• Audio-animatronics cast: 68 people, 54 animals
• Length of canal: 1,838 feet
• The three-level ride is housed in two buildings totaling 112,826 square feet.
• More than 400 Disney Imagineers have worked in California and Florida over the last three years to update the ride.
• More than 270 speakers have been replaced throughout the attraction.
• It took three days to empty and refill the "bayou's" 750,000 gallons of water.
• The enhanced "Treasure Cache" scene includes more than 400,000 new gold coins and set pieces.Source: Disneyland

[squints]

I should've majored in Imagineering.

[MacGuffin]

ILM parts with prod'n unit
Lucasfilm in talks to put up sale sign
Source: Variety

It's the end of an era in special effects.

Seeking to shed the last vestiges of its origins as a models-and-miniatures special effects house, Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic is in talks to sell its physical production unit.

Purchaser is Mark Anderson, a model maker who has worked at ILM for more than 15 years.

Unit will be remonikered Kerner Optical, for its location in ILM's former digs on Kerner Avenue in San Rafael, Calif., and will focus on all physical production, including models, miniatures and stage work.

Once spun off, Kerner Optical will aim to pick up the slack by seeking work that ILM would not get. Kerner will become a preferred subcontractor for ILM.

ILM's physical production unit never made the move to Lucasfilm's new HQHQ at the Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco's Presidio.

With the shift to digital effects, Lucasfilm has found it difficult to keep that portion of the company fully employed.

At one time, however, the unit defined ILM. The company grew from the team that created the space battles and other movie magic for George Lucas' 1977 megahit "Star Wars."

The goal, says a Lucasfilm spokesman, is for everything to remain business as usual for employees.

Company informed its employees of the move Tuesday, saying it hoped the deal would be finalized within 60 days. Lucasfilm cautioned, however, that the announcement was made early in deference to the unit's heritage and the longevity of its workers, and the deal has not closed.

[MacGuffin]

Tinker Bell Talks -- Shame on Disney!

Last fall Disney unveiled a line of merchandise called Fairies, which follows the company's successful Princesses franchise. As part of the series of products and licensing deals, Disney will release straight-to-video animated films featuring Tinker Bell (since when is her name two words?), the tiny pixie duster from Peter Pan, and her fairy friends. As if J.M. Barrie isn't rolling around in his grave enough after the video sequel Return to Neverland or from the fact that Disney has created a clique of friends for Tink (unlike with the Princesses line, Disney doesn't already have a bunch of fairy characters to mine from), Disney is further ruining the playwright's iconic characters by having Tinker Bell speak. And providing her voice is Brittany Murphy.

[matt35mm]

She already spoke in Hook, and even turned into a full human for a brief bizarre moment and admitted undying love for Robin Williams.  Don't they even kiss?  (I dunno, I haven't seen the movie in a long time).

This may ruin the Disney version of Tink, but not really the "playwright's iconic characters."  In any case, yeah boo Disney.

[MacGuffin]

Old Disney magic in new animated logo
Source: Hollywood Reporter



Moviegoers who saw Walt Disney Pictures' "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" over the weekend also discovered an unexpected bit of treasure.

Buried beneath the usual movie trailers, just as "Dead Man's Chest" started, Disney unveiled a new, computer-animated logo that the Burbank-based studio spent a year designing.

In just 30 seconds, Disney's digitally revamped curtain-raiser travels from a star high above the clouds to reveal a jewel-colored landscape at dusk. The animated camera glides over a glistening lake to arrive at a glowing Disney castle where the studio's classic logo is spelled out in a silvery new 3-D typeface.

Disney's revised film insignia is a departure from the studio's decades-old, two-tone blue-and-white logo centered on a spartan white castle, animated by traditional 2D methods. But the new logo also hearkens back to such timeless Disney iconography as pixie dust, Pinocchio's star, a bank of fluffy clouds that Mary Poppins would recognize, a pirate ship and a mythical castle topped with luminescent spires.

"The goal was to create the most elegant, beautiful, magical castle that would represent not only Disney past but also Disney present," said Oren Aviv, president, Buena Vista Pictures Marketing. "The new logo is filled with breathtaking visual sweep, charm, scale and grace that we believe best represents the movies the studio is making today, movies like 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'National Treasure,' that have a bigger scope and scale."

Aviv and Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, first discussed the idea of a computer-animated logo makeover during a marketing meeting a year ago.

The execs tapped Disney producer Baker Bloodworth and director Mike Gabriel, both Oscar nominated in 2004 for the animated short film "Lorenzo." Gabriel devised three different treatments, created animatic storyboards, showed Aviv and Cook the frames and re-worked the designs until everyone was on board. Academy Award-winning studio Weta Digital in New Zealand was chosen to animate the story and add visual effects. "We chose to go to the world's best (visual effects) studio, where they specialize in live action/real-life simulation," Aviv said.

Aviv also tapped John Sable and John Blas from within Disney's marketing division to design the logo's new 3-D typography. When the imagery was 80% complete, the studio enlisted composer Mark Mancina ("Tarzan") to write a new musical score that was recorded with a full orchestra. The score's production was overseen by Chris Montan, president of Walt Disney Music.

"There are updates and upgrades," Aviv said. "But the trick, for us, is to honor the past logo, Disney's past as a studio, and Walt Disney himself. At same time, we tried to make it stunning and relevant for moviegoers not just today but decades into the future."

According to studio insiders, repeat viewings of the new logo yield a number of winks to those in the know -- one of the castle's flags, for example, is said to bear Walt Disney's family crest.

The cast and crew of "Dead Man's Chest" was the first audience to view the new logo on the big screen.

"They just exploded," Aviv said. "At every screening I've attended since, it's gotten applause. It's visually so stunning and scored with a stirring piece of music, so it's easy to get excited. It also means a lot to be a Disney-branded movie, which represents quality, a high level of entertainment and what people have come to expect -- that you can bring the whole family. It has real meaning for people."

[modage]

i think it looks good.  and i'm surprised it took them this long.

[Ravi]

But now people are going to watch crappy Disney movies and say, "It wasn't as good as the logo."

[MacGuffin]

Disney Celebrates "Pirates" By Firing a Bunch of People

You'd think that with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest smashing all sorts of box office records and Cars crossing the $200 million mark ... Disney-ville would be a pretty pleasant place to work at right now. Alas, no. Fresh off the cash cow arrival of Jack Sparrow's second adventure, Disney announced that they'd be cutting back on their cinematic output ... and they'd be firing a whole bunch of people.

According to Variety, Disney plans to cut back from about 18 movies a year to something more like 8, and all of their future releases will be "Disney-branded," which probably doesn't bode well for the folks at Touchstone and/or Miramax. Apparently this is some huge move intended to make the Mouse House more profitable in the long run, although to me it feels more like simple corporate greed. (Especially with the inevitably massive Pirates 3 waiting in the wings.)

Despite the stunning success of Pirates2 and the solid returns from Cars, the studio also spent/lost some solid coin on titles like Stick It, Annapolis, Stay Alive, The Wild, and Glory Road. What Variety neglected to mention is that Disney also unleashed Eight Below and The Shaggy Dog this year, both of which (amazingly) turned a profit. (Perhaps part of their new business plan should be to only make movies that deal with pirates and/or dogs.)

[MacGuffin]

Disney gives traditional animation another shot

Walt Disney Studios has reunited with the directors of its box office disaster "Treasure Planet" as part of a plan to get back into the decidedly unfashionable business of traditional animation.

The new project, "Frog Princess," will put a female spin on the classic fairy tale, according to sources.

It will be overseen by John Musker and Ron Clements, who left the studio shortly after "Treasure Planet" bombed at the end of 2002, grossing just $38 million domestically.

In their heyday at Disney, they demonstrated their ability to spin a popular tale around a female protagonist with 1989's "The Little Mermaid" They also worked on such traditionally animated Disney musicals as "Aladdin" and "Hercules."

But traditional animation no longer draws the crowd, thanks in part the innovative computer-animation purveyed by Pixar Animation Studios, which Disney now owns. Pixar principals Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, who now run Disney's feature animation operations, are interested in exploring Disney's pioneering 2-D tradition.

One of Lasseter's first initiatives following Disney's acquisition of Pixar this year was to woo Musker and Clements back into the fold.

[MacGuffin]

Dis puts 'Cruise' in high gear

Following the record-breaking success of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," Walt Disney Pictures is giving high-priority status to another movie project based on a Disneyland ride. "Smallville" showrunners Al Gough and Miles Millar are in negotiations to write "Jungle Cruise," an adventure movie and potential franchise that is being produced by David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman through their Mandeville Films label. "Cruise" is based on the Disneyland ride in which parkgoers travel the jungle river guided by a riverboat skipper, encountering such wild creatures as pirhanas and gorillas during their tour. The ride was one of the 22 original attractions when the park opened in 1955.

[modage]

Disney Animation Cutting 160
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
December 3, 2006

Five months after the Walt Disney Company slashed 20% of its work force at its live-action studio, the company has said that it will do likewise at its Burbank animation facility, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Walt Disney Animation -- which houses Disney Feature Animation, Disney Television Animation and Disney Toons -- will cut about 160 jobs from its staff of 800, with employees due to be notified of their employment status by midmonth.

Disney, which made the announcement Friday, will give the affected workers 60 days' notice, putting their last day of employment there roughly six weeks before the March 30 opening of Disney's next animated feature, Meet the Robinsons.

The Disney-owned Pixar -- operating in Emeryville, Calif., just as it did before its merger with Disney -- will retain its entire 800-person staff.

Disney has said it plans to release two animated movies a year, one produced in Burbank and one in Emeryville. Burbank animators are reportedly about two months from completing work on "Robinsons."

A Disney spokeswoman said the layoffs will not affect movies currently in production. After "Robinsons," the Pixar-Disney film Ratatouille is due June 29. Films that had been in development, the status of which are now unclear, include The Frog Princess, American Dog and Rapunzel Unbraided.

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Walt Disney Animation -- which houses Disney Feature Animation, Disney Television Animation and Disney Toons -- will cut about 160 jobs from its staff of 800, with employees due to be notified of their employment status by midmonth.

It's as if Disney waited until the holidays to do this.  Wow, they are evil!

[MacGuffin]

Walt Disney Studios To Stop Producing Direct-To-DVD Sequels

Los Angeles, CA (AHN) - Walt Disney Studios has decided to stop producing direct-to-DVD sequels of its animated features, according to the website JimHillMedia.com. Although the direct-to-DVD sequels - such as "Meet the Robinsons 2," "Chicken Little 2" and "The Aristocats 2" - have generally been very profitable, the new Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney, John Lasseter, has publicly said the sequels are inferior to the originals and erode the Disney brand.

JillHillMedia.com also reported that the president of DisneyToon Studios, Sharon Morrill, has been forced to step down as part of the decision.

Lasseter recommended that Disney drop a sequel to 1953's "Peter Pan" called "The Tinkerbell Movie," and Disney CEO Bob Iger decided to follow the recommendation, even though the project had already accrued $30 million in development costs.

Also scrapped was a series called "Disney Princess Enchanted Tales," which would have featured characters like Jasmine from "Aladdin" and Aurora from "Sleeping Beauty."

Two more DVDs will be released this fall - one "Enchanted Tales" installment and "Little Mermaid 3" - and that will be the end of Disney's direct-to-DVD sequels.

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Disney tosses Toons topper
Morrill sacked over 'Tinkerbell' problems
Source: Variety

Disney has ousted Sharon Morrill, long-time head of its DisneyToons direct-to-DVD operations.

Morrill was sacked on Monday from her post as president on returning from a vacation even though she has another year and a half on a five-year contract that she signed in late 2003.

A rep for the Mouse House said Morrill was being moved into another slot dealing with special projects, but would not elaborate.

The key problem apparently stemmed from costs that had ballooned to nearly $50 million on the "The Tinkerbell Movie" project.

"Tinkerbell" has seen close to two dozen versions of the script and a dozen different directors.

Multiple sources also said that Morrill, who had headed DisneyToons since its inception in 1994, has repeatedly clashed with Pixar Animation toppers John Lasseter and Ed Catmull over creative differences on "Tinkerbell" following Disney's puchase of Pixar early last year.

As part of that deal, Lasseter and Catmull were put on top of Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Though the two did not directly oversee DisneyToons, they are said to have gotten increasingly involved in the unit's operations.

DisneyToons had announced a year ago at the Licensing Fair in New York that it had lined up Brittany Murphy to voice the Tinkerbell character. Other voices cast include Kristin Chenoweth, Cameron Bowen, Emma Hunton, Zach Shada and America Young.

Morrill began the division in 1994 with the marching orders of extending Disney's animated franchises. The operation produced several features, including "Piglet's Big Movie," "Pooh's Heffalump Movie," "The Jungle Book 2" and "The Tigger Movie" along with homevideo titles such as "Bambi II," "Brother Bear 2," "Lion King 2: Simba's Pride," "Lady and the Tramp 2," "Pooh's Grand Adventure" and "Lion King 1 ½."

[modage]

Sharon Morrill, there is a special place in hell for you next to Rick Sands.  MY CHILDHOOD LIVES!