Let's dive a little deeper into Walt Disney Imagineering's latest creation.
Disneyland now is allowing us to share videos of the full performance of its new Walt Disney Audio-Animatronic. After previewing the new "Walt Disney - A Magical Life" production yesterday morning to invited guests, Disneyland asked us to share no more than 30 seconds of "Walt" performing. Today, that restriction lifts, and I now can share the whole show.
Before I go further, I want to bring up some context. At this moment, the online publishing business has created enormous financial incentive for divisive content. Stuff that evokes outrage and other strong emotions gets higher search engine placement and more exposure in social media algorithms. That creates incentives for people writing about new entertainment to trash it - because negativity sells online.
It's funny. For decades, critics and reviewers have had to deal with the accusation that a positive review of something was somehow bought and paid for bt the subject being reviewed. In reality these days, it's the pan - the negative review - that often delivers the most ad and click revenue to the critic or publisher. So I ask you to keep that in mind whenever browsing the Internet these days.
For me, I decided long ago that I would rather try to be right than try to be rich. So Theme Park Insider always has been my experiment in trying to do a publication the way that I wanted a publication to be done. I've failed at times, of course - Walt even says in the movie preceding this show that everyone needs a good hard failure in life - but I deeply appreciate the keen insight that others in the Theme Park Insider community have shared in posts and comments within this community.
So in that spirit, let's go.
In my initial review, I said that I thought that this Walt was far more friendly than I expected a "real life" Walt Disney to be. And yes, I think his head is a bit too wide, given photo and video references of the real Walt. The AA looks more like Walt's brother... or maybe Walt himself if he had not been dragging down a couple of packs of cigs every day.
WDI edited together audio clips of Walt speaking for the animatronic's speech. Imagineers swore to me that they did not use AI for Walt's voice, but that they did have to normalize the clips to make it sound like a single speech.
In doing so, I feel like they lost some of the bass and timbre that came to distinguish Walt's voice in his later years. WDI chose to visually depict Walt circa 1963, yet we hear what sounds like a younger Walt coming from an older Walt's body.
The facial difference, the overly friendly tone, and the vocal discrepancy all might contribute to the skepticism that some initial viewers honestly may feel watching the figure. But I believe that the biggest issue is the lack of a suspension of disbelief whenever WDI creates an animatronic based on a real person.
Effective animatronics rely on a bit of that suspension of disbelief. We get that when seeing animatronics based on cartoon characters, since we know that they do not exist in real life. But when we see animatronics depicting real people, we want the accuracy of our own recollections. (And yes, those recollections can be imprecise, but we still believe them.) That creates a higher standard for "real" animatronics, such as recent presidents in the Hall of Presidents and this Walter Elias Disney in the Disneyland Opera House.
Here's another example. When I first rode Harry Potter and the Battle of the Ministry at Universal Orlando's new Epic Universe, [spoiler alert] I was not expecting to see animatronics of several Harry Potter film actors. So the first time I rode that attraction, I was blown away by them.
I had suspended my inherent disbelief. But when I rode a second time, I did so with the question, "were those animatronic really that accurate?" Disbelief has creeped back into my mind, and a second ride left me a bit disappointed by the characters.
Having said all this, I do not believe that Disney created "A Magical Life" for fans who would say things like "Walt's face is too wide." This show is for a new generation of fans who do not know Walt the Person, only Walt the Brand. It's for people who will come into the show a bit more forgiving of the details.
But will that target demographic of fans care? This is not a show that the public was demanding. It was a love letter than Imagineers wanted to send. Throughout Hollywood history, those types of creative projects that found large audiences of fans who did not know that they wanted something until an artist created it for them. Perhaps "A Magical Life" will do the same.
This Walt animatronic clearly is meant to charm fans. It's an ideal vision of Walt Disney, presented to inspire people to fall in love with the man and, by extension, to fall deeper in love with the brand he created. I think it will be fascinating to see in a year or so the traffic counts between this show and the "Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln" production that eventually will share the Opera House stage.
All told, I think WDI did right by Walt. As I wrote in the initial review, Imagineers filled Walt's design and programming with appropriate detail - an effort that has helped drive advancement in WDI's animatronic technology. No one thinks that we are watching a robot anymore. We are believing that we are seeing a person here - we're just picking at the details of whether it is the right person.
I wanted more time with this Walt after the show was over. To me, that's the real test. And "A Magical Life" passes.
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Maybe they should have just gotten Tom Hanks to do the voice and provide the visual reference.
To me, it looks like they repurposed John Wayne's head from the Great Movie Ride.
I will give it this....it's a hell of a lot better than Ellen DeGeneres!
It's easier to process the Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain AAs, in part because we don't know what they sounded like. The timber of AA Walt's voice was the first thing to throw me off. It's indeed odd to look upon him as he appeared in the EPCOT films (more or less) but hear his younger self's voice. One advantage of the Hall of Presidents is that the "current version" of the current POTUS reads his contemporary words, so everything gels as well as it can. The movement of Walt's mouth doesn't seem quite right, but that's just where AA technology is right now. I understand wanting to "bring Walt to life" as more of those who knew him pass away. But, Disney is already using a sanitized version of him as something of a mascot. He was never smoking onscreen in "Saving Mr. Banks," for example. In that context, this whole endeavor comes across as a bit unsettling. Walt made a Lincoln show because he admired the man. Disney surely admires Walt now, but the public image of their company is also strongly tied to Walt or, at the very least, Walt as he exists in the, "popular imagination."
It’s surprising the face just seems so off and the timber in his voice seems higher, the movement does suspend disbelief tho!
Jim Shull, former Disney imagineer, said adding an old microfoon in front of the AA would at least make the sounds of the voice better to swallow.
I just can't wait to see Walt bobble heads into the giftshop as that head is too big lol.
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I think the speech does a good job of capturing at least what we think of as Walt. A humble, midwestern farm kid who made it big in Hollywood.
The animatronic, for those of us who've grown up in the 'World of Disney' is a little off yes, but I don't think it's terribly so. He's a little older than most of the pictures from that time (the greyer hair was the one that struck me) and his a little wider in the face from the typical pictures we see (see https://www.pinterest.com/pin/disney-supreme--43206477669815253/ as one example).
I still know it's an AA. Still something about the fluidity of joints that hasn't quite caught up yet, but it's getting better every generation. And they can't yet replicate the little ticks we all have as humans. YT doesn't do justice to their attempt to capture that glint in his eye, and most modern smartphones tend to make people look 'fat' in my opinion, anyhow.
Overall, I agree it's closer than not and hopefully something people take a moment to watch and appreciate. There are no doubt more people dead now that knew Walt than otherwise. Most of the folks I know in Marceline, MO who met him did so when they were very young children and they are in the 70's now across the board. I, a kid born in the early 70's, only knew him through re-runs on TV as a kid and all the pictures, etc. over his life.
So I'll reserve final judgement until I see it with my own eyes. But for those that feared it would be bad, I think they can rest easy. And we can quibble over the little parts, but I think it looks pretty darn good.