At the D23 Expo last weekend in Anaheim, Rapunzel rubbed shoulders with Darth Vader as Minnie made friends with Captain America. Angelina Jolie swooped down as the horned, husky-voiced witch and John Goodman, last heard as Sully in Pixar's Monsters University, was declared a new legend. Attended by thousands of Disney fans, families and stars, D23 _ so named after the year that Walt Disney set up his studio in Hollywood _ was a biennial fan gathering and corporate expo where the creative vision of Walt and the entrepreneurial acumen of his organisation were celebrated, affirmed and expanded.
An early look at The Good Dinosaur . The new Pixar film will be released next year.
It was the third and biggest D23, and that's because Mickey has never gotten tired of making new friends. In the past seven years Disney has grown in size and ambition, especially after the company acquired Woody, Jessie and Nemo in 2006 _ in short, the entire Pixar Animation Studios _ followed by its 2009 move to buy Marvel, which brought into its catalogue a roster of world-famous superheroes. Then last December, Disney announced the acquisition of Lucasfilm, scooping up the Star Wars franchise and its rich space lore.
On the floor of D23, we see girls in Cinderella dresses as well as boys with lightsabres; from the moment Mickey Mouse appeared in Plane Crazy and Steamboat Willie in the mid-1920s, Disney's pop-cultural influence to the world has been huge, and now with Pixar and Star Wars under its wings, its fan base has multiplied while its worldwide reach through movies, television shows and products seem strongest in the company's 90-year history.
For the uninitiated, you could get a Mickey overdose at D23 (Disneyland is right next door to the convention centre). But for fans and devotees, it was pure heaven. Disney isn't merely trying to cultivate brand loyalty here; it's creating, nurturing and re-affirming an entire culture, or a cultural experience, based on its long history of storytelling and large collection of characters, carefully framed by American-style optimism and innovation. D23 lasted only three days, but its impact will resonate for months (later this year, a smaller version of D23 will also take place in Tokyo).
NEW ANIMATED MOVIES
A D23 highlight was the announcement of new projects and the exclusive "first look" at in-the-pipeline movies, both animated and live-action. It's best to remember that despite its evolution into an empire, Disney began as an animation studio _ and throughout the event the name that came up most frequently was that of the man carrying the torch lit by old dear Walt: John Lasseter, the rotund, exuberant Pixar talent who now heads Disney's three animation outfits.
On stage last Friday, Lasseter was greeted like a rock star, or the head nerd, or the creative-in-chief that he officially is, and his unveiling of new animation movies confirmed why Pixar is one of the most significant cinematic hive minds at work in the world today.
"Disney has always been a filmmaker-led studio," says Lasseter. "It was a place of creativity led by one person _ Walt Disney. I've loved cartoons all my life, and it has been a dream since I was young that [like at Disney], people can make cartoons for a living."
First off, Lasseter showed clips from Pixar's next feature-length animated film: the much-anticipated The Good Dinosaur. "All Pixar films start with a 'what if' question," he said. "What if toys can leave the room? What if there are really monsters in the closet door?" In The Good Dinosaur, the premise is what if that fateful asteroid missed Earth and the dinosaurs lived. In the film, it was revealed, the dinosaurs live a farming existence, slow and peaceful; the spark of the story is when our leading reptile, a goofy apatosaurus called Arlo, encounters the first human being on Earth.
It's interesting that Lasseter didn't just screen "clips" from the film. At D23 _ and this is clearly part of the strategy to involve fans and ensure that they are in the "family" _ Lasseter also showed the animation process, half-finished scenes, unpolished sequences, black-and-white drawings with rough outlines, and software tests of the newly-created characters. In the past, the magic of animation is to enjoy its fluidity and colour as a finished product, but now fans are clamouring for more _ they want to go behind the camera, to be part of the creative process.
After The Good Dinosaur, Pixar will roll out two more: the screams brought the house down when Lasseter confirmed that, 10 years after Finding Nemo, it's time to follow up with Finding Dory in 2015. The sequel will focus on the search for the family of Dory, the forgetful regal blue tang with the voice of Ellen DeGeneres, while Diane Keaton will voice her mother. After that, there's something we should really look forward to, something that will test if Pixar can take the animation form into something more expansive _ more cerebral, more abstract, and less whimsical than talking animals and chatty objects.
In development now is Inside Out, a film that takes place largely inside the head of a teenage girl, with her key emotions manifesting themselves through personifications of anger, disgust, fear, sorrow and joy. Now we love Cars and Monsters University, but surely this is something we can be more excited about.
A still from Mickey Mouse: Get a Horse. The short mixes retro 2D drawing with 3D technique.
Lasseter doesn't just supervise Pixar; under his watch are also Disneytoon and Disney Animation Studios, both geared more towards traditional Disney fare. Still, it looks like the creative edge of Pixar has finally spread its tentacles of influence. At D23, Lasseter presented, in its entirety, a new short film featuring Mickey Mouse himself in a stunning flip-flop between the 1920s retro-style, black-and-white 2D drawing and the 3D, full-colour, eye-popping world. To this writer, the exhilarating three-minute short was the best thing unveiled at D23; the movie is a fine example of how Disney can still reach deep into its earliest history and spin out contemporary magic. Called Mickey Mouse: Get A Horse, the film also features the actual voice of Walt Disney _ culled from various audio clips _ and the short will open the feature-length Disney animated film Frozen, slated for a December release.
Frozen is the kind of princess-in-distress story that only Disney seems to know how to pull off, usually with a straight face and precise pressing of the emotional hot-buttons. Set in the winter wonderland of Norway (where everything is white) the film follows two sisters, one warm-hearted, the other an ice-queen, on an adventure, aided by a huntsman and a zany snowman. Next year, it's time for Big Hero 6, a mash-up of Japanese comic book aesthetics and a San Francisco superhero saga. And over to 2016, a promising project called Zootopia will bring the animal kingdom into a futuristic, non-human metropolis. Again, some early sketches, key concepts, and the logical premise of that make-believe world were shared with the audience at D23.
LIVE-ACTION ROLL CALL
"Star Wars is now part of the family," says Disney's CEO and Chairman Bob Eiger at the start of D23. While that's not exactly news _ the acquisition of Lucasfilm took place more than eight months ago _ the official announcement by Disney's head to the fans was greeted with deafening cheers. The intersection of Star Wars geeks and Disney's fans may not be large at the first glance, but if you factor in Marvel, which Disney acquired four years back, the fantastic universe once dreamed up by Walt has certainly expanded into the galaxy far, far away.
And yet, nothing about the new Star Wars film was unveiled at D23. George Lucas didn't show up (there were expectations that he would, although this week he has become a father again at 69). Nevertheless, a new trilogy will begin with Episode 7 in the summer of 2015, and two more films will be released every two years; we have only known that J.J. Abrams (who didn't show up either) will direct and he's now working on a script with Toy Story writers.
That left Marvel superheroes to strut. Thor: The Dark World will come out later this year worldwide, and at D23, Natalie Portman appeared on stage as she presented a clip from the film. Next year, it's Captain America: Winter Soldier, with Chris Evans returning as the stars-and-stripes all-American hero and Robert Redford as the villain. On top of the wish list, however, is The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, the much-awaited sequel to the Marvel medley megahit. The film, like the new Star Wars, is slated for 2015, and since everything is pretty much in the blueprint, nothing was revealed at D23.
Not playing any superheroine, Angelina Jolie's presence was super-powerful in itself when she showed up on stage _ perhaps the biggest surprise _ to present Maleficent. Sporting horns and a dark cape, Jolie stars in the film that tells the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale from the eyes of the witch, which will come out next year and co-stars Elle Fanning as the beauty. Another big announcement at D23 is a live-action version of Cinderella, which will be helmed by Kenneth Branagh, a veteran Brit who promises to treat the familiar tale with a more serious spark. This will come out in 2015.
Later this year, Tom Hanks will personify Walt Disney in Saving Mr Banks, a story about the making of Walt Disney's classic Mary Poppins, with Emma Thompson playing P.L. Travers, the strict British author who never wanted her story to be adapted by the studio. It looks like something that will make a buzz at the awards season come the end of the year.
Lastly _ and this is another intriguing project _ is Tomorrowland, a supposedly sci-fi saga that will star George Clooney. The film has started filming two days before D23, and director Brad Bird (Ratatouille, Mission Impossible 3) went on stage and thrilled the crowd without actually giving us the plot, either out by design or by accident. Tomorrowland, we gather, has its genesis in a mysterious and phoney photograph of Walt Disney and Amelia Earhart found in a "dusty old box" in the basement archive of the Disney Company. Talking excitedly, Bird didn't really spell out the film, but went on about a secret machine and other esoteric memorabilia dating back to the time of Walt in the mid-20th century. For Disney, the magic lives _ and the mystery too. Tomorrowland will be released next year and it already looks set to be one of 2014's most eagerly awaited films.
John Lasseter, Chief Creative Officer of Disney and Pixar.
A first still from Pixar’s Inside Out .
