Imagineer, former animator and Disney Legend, X Atencio speaks on the Official Disneyland Resort Podcast about his work as an animator through to an imagineer at Disney, and talks about his work on the original Pirates of the Caribbean attraction.
Talking of Disney animators, Clay Kaytis has just put up the latest segment of his interview with Burny Mattinson at the Animation Podcast.
I haven’t had a chance to post anything for a while so I’m catching up a a bit here. Originally mentioned by Blackwing Diaries, the UCLA’s Department of Special Collections unveiled a new website with 5,100 images from the archives of the LA Times and the Los Angeles Daily News.
Cartoon Brew has been rooting through the archives and has come up with a load of interesting photos of Disneyland, Walt Disney Studios (the strikes, and the never very camera-shy Ward Kimball), Bill Peet and many more that haven’t been seen for a very long time. Enjoy.
Update: Boing Boing has also been on a photo hunt and come up a whole new array of goodies.
I thought I’d drop Disney a line to find out what happened to the Walt Disney Legacy Collection DVD set and, more specifically, the Destino DVD. Sadly, I still don’t know much more:
“At this time, we do not have a DVD release date for DESTINO. We will forward your request for release to our Marketing Department for consideration. No additional LEGACY COLLECTION releases have been announced.”
Did I dream the Destino DVD box mock-up that was, until recently, displayed on the Legacy site?
I thought I posted this a while ago, but obviously not! It’s the trailer for the Disney / Square Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix+, which includes the original Kingdom Hearts 2 plus Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories, a re-working of the GBA game that, chronologically, sat between Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2. Interestingly they’ve kept the fighting using cards thing that I really couldn’t get into.
A shame that it looks like it’s only going to be available in Japan though. No details on a EU PAL or US NTSC release yet. (via Penny Arcade)
Walt Disney Treasures to Continue: Talking of Disney… It looks like they’re not going to stop the Disney Treasures DVD series after all. The next wave, released in December, will include “Disneyland: Stories, Secrets, and Magic”, “Chronological Donald: Volume 3”, and “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit”. Interestingly, Oswald and Disneyland were originally scheduled to be released as part of the new Disney Legacy Collection, but have since been removed from the official site. There’s no sign of the elusive Disney/Dali “Destino” DVD now either — it too has been removed from the Legacy site.
Take a look at this fantastic version of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror from Walt Disney World’s MGM Studios in Florida. It’s created wholly with Garry’s Mod and Half-Life 2! I think this is the file here. (via The Disney Blog)
I’m a great fan of the film critic Mark Kermode and, for the most part, respect his judgement, however I did have to cringe while hearing him review the Disney (not Pixar) flick Meet the Robinsons in his latest podcast straight after reading the comments on this blog entry at Blackwing Diaries — yes, he mentions the “seven writers”. As Jenny says, it’s not unusual for many storyboard artists to be involved in “writing” a film, what is unusual is that they get all their deserved credit at the beginning of the film.
To his credit the rest of the review sounded quite fair. He also brought to my attention the “3-D glasses” version of the movie — after seeing what Disney can do with Mickey’s Philharmagic I’d really love to see that!
The current trend in digital remastering of animated classics has seen another DVNR casualty. Cartoon Brew asks is “the new Peter Pan DVD ruined?“
Disney’s marvellous new autonomous audio-animatronic, the Muppet Mobile Lab, visited Pixar on another test-run. The Disney blog has a great video of it in action. You can also find some photos on Flickr.
Disney plans live action Sorcerer’s Apprentice. With Nicholas Cage as the Sorcerer. Seriously, could they not think of a worse idea?