Walt Disney – A Magical Life

[Too Many Hats]

Disney has only themselves to blame for today’s fan backlash. No one held a gun to their heads and made them do this. Nobody forced them to hype up this AA as their best ever.

Again, I still think he could look fine from 50 feet away and the attraction could be very charming. Time will tell.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

Yeah I think Walt would love the tech. No clue on how he'd feel about it being him, but he'd be overjoyed with seeing how far the tech his people pioneered has come. Not sure how he'd feel about the general state of the parks, though (mostly the price gouging)

Yeah I think that’s a pretty fair take, I’m sure it being him would freak him out a bit but of course we’ll never know. His ideas were eccentric at the time and he never was the most committed to ethical concerns, so it’s always a possibility.

 

[Charlie The Chatbox Ghost]

Yeah I think that’s a pretty fair take, I’m sure it being him would freak him out a bit but of course we’ll never know. His ideas were eccentric at the time and he never was the most committed to ethical concerns, so it’s always a possibility.

Defunctland's Animatronics documentary (part 1) talks about how people thought Disney was committing a sin making the Abe animatronic. Some things never change.

 

[Mike S]

This is comical. If they couldn’t give him a slimmer head they shouldn’t have done it at all.

 

[wdwfan22]

I hate the “Walt would have” argument that always gets posted here but honestly find it hard to believe how Walt would not have seen this and thought it was sick-as-hell

I hate the accepting poor quality. Quite a few Disney fans have begun to do just that. This is a world class entertainment company, that is supposed to lead the way in technology and innovation. The animatronic is good and moves fluidly, but artistically they failed. I expect more from them. And if Walt was here, he sure as hell would have too.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

I hate the accepting poor quality. Quite a few Disney fans have begun to do just that. This is a world class entertainment company, that is supposed to lead the way in technology and innovation. The animatronic is good and moves fluidly, but artistically they failed. I expect more from them. And if Walt was here, he sure as hell would have too.

Because I ultimately don’t really think it’s a poor quality AA. It’s not 1:1, but I think it looks pretty damn good (in the videos, at least). I’m struggling to think of another human animatronic that actually looks more human. It’s far above any of the HoP and American Adventure AAs.

 

[WondersOfLife]

It’s far above any of the HoP and American Adventure AAs.

No its not.

 

[TheCoasterNerd]

No it’s not.

I would say it’s their most realistic motion-wise and the lean-to-stand looks amazing. Just not quite right on the face

 

[mickEblu]

I’m not 100% sure what folks were expecting the animatronic to look like. It’s the Hall of Presidents problem: any time they’ve done an AA of a real person that we’re all incredibly familiar with the appearance of, it’s come across as uncanny valley. There’s no real way around that. The best AAs in the world can’t get over that psychological hurdle. We are conditioned to notice falseness in recreations of individuals we’re deeply familiar with.

The majority of people think it’s not good enough. So do you think we all had unrealistic expectations and you re just one of the few people who had realistic expectations or do you think that perhaps they should have done better?

 

[WondersOfLife]

Its like Disney hired a caricature artist to design his figure. Lordy. I'm about to just give up altogether.

 

[WondersOfLife]

Just not quite right on the face

Correct. And that is probably more important than the movement realism, in my honest opinion.

I'd rather have him move similar to CoP figures just as long as the figure looked less like nightmare Walt.

 

[V_L_Raptor]

Movement below the neck, particularly that lean/stand transition — yowza, they knocked that out of the park. Truly impressive.

Neck and above? Oh, brother. They have some serious cleanup to do.

 

[Disney Analyst]

 

[Magenta Panther]

That thing looks like Walt Disney like the Trump AA in Hall of Presidents looked like Donald Trump the first go-round. (And the Obama AA always looked pretty bad too IMO).

Damn, who does the sculpts for AA figures these days? Imagineering has really gone downhill since the days of master sculptor Blaine Gibson. I had really hoped, since Disney was going to go through with this cheesy disrespectful stunt anyway, that the AA would at least LOOK good. But it's awful. Walt's face looks like a demonic John Goodman. Bloated, like he just got pulled out of a river after about three months. Yuck. Yuck a thousand times. I hate this so much.

 

[Magic Crush Drop]

Disney is not beating the “we're not a cult” allegations with bring Walt to life.

 

[Magenta Panther]

I just saw the full animatronic portion (not sure if that footage is public yet).

Iger's voice immediately made me roll my eyes and view the whole thing through a more cynical lense- it's almost like this is a puff piece for Iger. Something for him to go "look, I brought him back to life, I'm just like him aren't I?"

That said, the animatronic is incredible but horrifying. It moves TOO realistically. He also looks a little fat in the neck and his mouth looks slightly too wide, maybe because of the mechanics, but the voice is spot on- given that it's all recordings of him, it should be. Not sure where the complaints about the voice are coming from. This is 100% a win for the advancement of AA technology- but again, kinda freaky to see a dead man brought back to life in a way that's just slightly off from how he looked in person... all to boost the ego of a man who wishes he was 1% as creative and positively impactful to this world as Walt was.

This plus the museum exhibit also makes me sad, because the WED/WDI that Walt started is not what we have today. Seeing all the concept art and vintage AAs for wholly original ideas and then all the modern art shown with it was for IP only stuff... it's not the same as what Walt did and it's silly to pretend Imagineering today is the same as it was in the 50s and 60s. (Also crazy to see FOUR pieces of concept art for Splash Mountain along with art of the Brers on a park map)

What turns my stomach is Iger using Walt to prop up his image. Pretending that he actually respects the guy. You can see his actual "respect" for Walt and his legacy of quality and innovation in that AA's terrible off-model face. What a self-inflicted disaster. I'd laugh, but it hurts too much, if you know what I mean...

 

[Stripes]

Scott Gustin also saying online that the figure looks “drastically different” in person than it does on video.

Laughing Place, in their review, also mentioned that the figure is more convincing in person than on video.

 

[mickEblu]

Scott Gustin also saying online that the figure looks “drastically different” in person than it does on video.

Laughing Place, in their review, also mentioned that the figure is more convincing in person than on video.

This is giving the Disney POV of TBA just isn’t good.

 

[ChrisFL]

Yeah I think that’s a pretty fair take, I’m sure it being him would freak him out a bit but of course we’ll never know. His ideas were eccentric at the time and he never was the most committed to ethical concerns, so it’s always a possibility.

I realize that Walt seems that he didn't want an animatronic made of himself and maybe he asked for the company to honor that wish, I don't know for sure....but I do know that Disney made animatronics of several people posthumously that also didn't provide permission either (or did they contact the estate of everyone they've ever made an animatronic of?)

I do know that specifically politicians are considered sort of "public domain" regarding use of their names, etc. so that is more of a grey area. I am not a lawyer

 

[CoastalElite64]

I would say it’s their most realistic motion-wise and the lean-to-stand looks amazing. Just not quite right on the face

If they can just tweak the face it will be good. Everything else is very impressive.