Walt Disney Animatronic to use Archival Audio, Good Idea or Bad Idea?
Disney announced at D23 this year a new show for Disneyland featuring an animatronic Walt Disney and we have a few more details since the announcement.
Earlier this week at D23: the Ultimate Disney Fan Event, wow, that’s a mouthful; Disney announced a new show coming to Disneyland in 2025 as part of the Disneyland 70th anniversary. As with almost all of them, this announcement comes with some controversy. This show will have the first-ever audio-animatronic figure of the company’s founder, Walt Disney.
First, let’s look at what Disney had to say about this new addition on their Disney Parks Blog:
As Walt Disney once said, “When we consider a new project, we really study it—not just the surface idea, but everything about it. And when we go into that new project, we believe in it all the way. We have confidence in our ability to do it right. And we work hard to do the best possible job.”
The past, present and future are coming together, giving visitors the chance to imagine what it would be like to stop by Walt’s office. Who knows what he might be dreaming up inside? Only time will tell with Walt.
“Walt Disney – A Magical Life” will debut inside the Main Street Opera House, and after its initial run, the attraction will play in rotation with “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.” A fitting acknowledgement of Walt’s significant advances with Audio-Animatronics about 60 years ago when he first introduced the groundbreaking technology.
The figure is set to star in “Walt Disney — A Magical Life” at the Main Street Opera House for the 70th anniversary of Disneyland.
Walt Disney’s grandnephew Roy P. Disney appeared at D23 to support the figure.
“Creating our first Walt figure is a huge responsibility, and we’ve brought members of the Disney family along with us for every step of the journey,” said Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro, “His great-nephew, Roy P. Disney, visited the Imagineering campus recently to see our progress.”
But some people are up in arms about it. The Disney news site WDWNT reported that Joanna Miller, Walt Disney’s granddaughter, through his daughter Diane, is opposed to the animatronic.
Joanna said:
“I am overwhelmed with disgust and anger. Mom would be ready to fight. I think it shows a lack of respect for Grampa.
“Walt is already BRANDED and used by the company everyday. Yet that he exists in film that was for his company and we have the real thing to see and listen to we do not need to turn him into a robot. I rather feel he is being used, victimized by the company.”
New Details Revealed about this Attraction
This week, we learned new details about the attraction from an article in Fortune. They got a sneak peek at the figure and talked about it with Josh D’Amaro and Tom Fitzgerald.
Disney will use Walt's archival audio to tell his life story. They are also paying close attention to get the details right.
Here's an excerpt from the article:
“This has been a labor of love,” Tom Fitzgerald, a senior creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering, said as he showed the prototype to Fortune on a recent tour. Fitzgerald’s team is using audio-animatronic technology to create a moving, speaking version of Disney, one that will stand up from the desk and tell a story. New technical methods are being employed to animate the hands and fingers. Other new techniques are being implemented to make the skin look maximally lifelike, because camera-phone-wielding guests will zoom in close to the model’s face. “It’s a new world for us, new challenges,” Fitzgerald commented. “But as Walt would say, it’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”
“This is a big deal for us,” D’Amaro said, explaining that it is pegged to next year’s 70th anniversary of the original Disneyland resort, the only park that Walt Disney himself ever set foot in. Through archived audio recordings, the late Disney will tell his own life story in his own words. Imagineers “are best in class at bringing figures to life in a way that connects emotionally,” D’Amaro said. Walt would appreciate the team’s quest to keep guests coming back for more.
Is this a Good Idea or a Bad Idea? My 2 Cents.
I think this will be a great memorial for Walt. Walt helped elevate audio-animatronics. His vision for Mr. Lincoln and the Carousel of Progress for the 1964 World’s Fair brought animatronics to the forefront. They were so advanced at the time that attendees thought the animatronics were live actors.
Walt was the public face of the Disney Company the whole time he ran it, making public appearances and weekly TV appearances. Younger generations need to know that Walt Disney is not a mascot. He’s not Ronald McDonald; he was a real-life person, and all of what we experience with Disney is due to him and his brother Roy.
Disneyland’s 70th anniversary is the perfect time for this show and animatronic to debut. And to share the theater where Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln performs just feels right.
The new animatronic does not exploit Walt. The Fortune article and D23 announcement show that Disney is being cautious and deliberate with this attraction to get it right. Using archived audio from Walt is critical. The story will be told in Walt's’s own words, not an AI-generated speech through the words of a robot.
Another point to consider is that this attraction will not make Disney a lot of money. It will not draw new attendees to the park like the new Avatar land or Coco ride. However, it will be a new experience for people already planning to attend the 70th anniversary celebration.
Disney needs to do more to celebrate its founder and creator at Disneyland. Walt Disney World has a statue at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT memorializing Walt and the One Man's Dream walk-through at Hollywood Studios. Walt's park, Disneyland, needs this attraction.
That being said, Disney could always mess this up. Don’t forget the AI hologram of Walt Disney they had for the Disney 100 exhibit touring around museums. While not wrong or bad, it was just weird.
What do you think of the decision to make a Walt Disney animatronic?
Let us know in the comments or on the app.
It's best that Walt be immortalized in a medium he originated. And, because they obviously can't use the real man now, the archival audio is the only option.