Still reeling from Disney buying Lucasfilm earlier this week? Yeah, me too. There’s a lot of good news here, some uncertainty, but most of all I’m excited. I’m feeling a little like a fanboy again at the prospect of new Star Wars films – or should I say, the prospect of new Star Wars films that could be good. More good news? George Lucas has made all of us who ever complained about the prequels looks like whiny children. He announced that he’ll be giving the majority of the money from the 4.5 billion dollar Disney deal into a foundation to support education and education issues. Do you think he dropped the mic and strutted offstage after the announcement, too? Read more…
In news that took me a while to wrap my head around, today the Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in cash and stocks. Disney now owns not only Lucasfilm, but also Industrial Light and Magic, Skywalker Sound, and LucasArts, as well as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and numerous other properties. This is a pretty big deal, and I’m not entirely sure how to take it. What conflicts my opinion even further is the news that Disney is planning a new trilogy of Star Wars movies. Read more…
You have to hand it to Disney, their marketing for Wreck-It Ralph, the upcoming CGI film set in the world of video games, is really fantastic. They’ve been running with the idea that Fix-It Felix has been a real game, from making an actual arcade game you can play, to an authentic-feeling “vintage” ad for the local Litwak Arcade. They did such a good job it makes me wonder if they actually transferred the video to a VHS tape at any point. Anyway, I hope this bodes well for Wreck-It Ralph, as it sure does seem like the creators have an honest love for old-school games. Read more…
I was pretty thrilled when I first heard about Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix. The collection gathers Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, and the cutscenes from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and puts them all in HD on PS3 with trophy support. Now there’s a trailer to show off what the game looks like, and it definitely gets me pumped. Read more…
When I heard that Square Enix was rereleasing Final Fantasy X in HD, my first thought was “I hope they do that for Kingdom Hearts.” We may still be waiting on that version of FFX, my dream looks like it’s coming true, as Famitsu is reporting on a new HD collection announced at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. The original Kingdom Hearts is back, but there’s more to it. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on May 31, 2012 in Animation, Cinema
The kind folks at Chronicle Books have supplied us with two amazing bits of preproduction art for the upcoming Pixar Disney film Brave. Make sure to click on each illustration to see it at full size: Read more…
Disney XD’s upcoming TRON animated series TRON: Uprising, won’t be airing until June 7th, but for those of you who don’t want to wait, you can catch the entire first episode online. Although it’s not a live-action sequel, the animated series seems promising enough. It certainly has everything you’d expect from a TRON series, from Light Cycles and Identity Discs to spandex outfits, so its about as close as you’ll get to a sequel — at least, for the time being. They even managed to snag decent stars for the voice cast, including Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, and Pee-wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens.
Fans of Marvel’s animated universe are getting ready for next month’s premiere of Ultimate Spider-Man — well, most of them any way. Some are still wondering what happened to Marvel’s The Spectacular Spider-Man which ended its run after two seasons, despite being well received by fans and critics alike.
And now, in the tradition of Ishtar, Waterworld, Pluto Nash and so many other over-inflated, big budget Hollywood turkeys comes…John Carter. John Carter completely lives up/down to its advance thumbs-down buzz: noisy, uninvolving, unlikeable characters, every cliché in the book strung together like pearls on a necklace – and poorly performed. Full disclosure: I only was able to sit through the first half hour of this thing before bailing, so maybe it got better after I left – but I doubt it. Read more…
This has to be the third or fourth spoof I’ve seen for The Dark Knight Rises trailer, and it’s probably the best one yet. Editor and director, Brad Hansen, decided to sync the audio from the trailer with clips from Disney’s The Lion King. It’s pretty amazing how it all fit together so well. It’s certainly more entertaining than the original trailer, but that’s not too hard to manage.
Anyone remember that mid-90s action flick, Face/Off? You know, the one where Travolta and Cage swap faces for whatever reason. I always thought it was kind of ironic that even though they’re supposed to have only swapped faces, it was pretty much their entire bodies — it’s not as if they have the same build. Any way, take that concept, throw in some Disney and you’ll have yourself a hilarious Tumblr account. Disney Face Swap is a collection of ‘shopped’ images featuring one or more characters from our favorite Disney classics. The curator not only posts his own swaps, but also accepts fan submissions, so its updated frequently. The images themselves range from hilarious to outright disturbing, but they’re all work safe and, I guarantee they’ll keep you entertained throughout the day.
Posted by Michael Pinto on Oct 23, 2011 in Animation
On October 23, 1941 the elephant who could use his ears to fly stepped onto the silver screen. Expectations were set low for the film as it was intended originally to be a short, and was done on a low budget to make up for the financial losses from Fantasia. Even though they weren’t trying to push the edge with Dumbo, the strong focus on storytelling and strong characters won over critics. What I love about this film is that Disney wasn’t trying to be realistic as with Snow White, so there’s a great deal of the silly cartoony look which harkened back to their shorts: Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jun 28, 2011 in Cinema, Design
The other week I stumbled across the works of Damon Bard. While many of you might not recognize his name, you’ll definitely recognize his work. Damon’s been involved with a number of Hollywood productions over the course of his career, with his sculptures and character designs having graced such films Revenge of the Sith, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek 2, and more. While his website might seem a tad unassuming, his online portfolio is filled with a plethora of beautiful sculptures, Marquettes and models he’s crafted over the years. While he might not be responsible for bringing these models to life on the big screen, Bards creations have likely fueled the creativity of animators who have. To find out more about Damon and his craft, check out his official website, portfolio and blog.
As some of you may be aware, Hot Toys is known for their stunningly detailed collectibles. True to form, their upcoming 1/6th scale Pirates of the Caribbean Jack Sparrow is no exception. The figure is the latest addition to the Movie Masterpiece Deluxe line — each one bearing a striking resemblance to the actors that portray the characters they’re based on. As you can see here, they’ve done an amazing job of capturing Johnny Depp’s visage.
Ever wonder what it’d be like to work at a Disney theme park? I know I have, and thanks to this fantastic video my curiosity has been satisfied, though I have to admit that no amount of food could possibly make up for having to listen to “It’s a Small World” on repeat. I pretty much figured it’d be exactly as he described in the video, minus the awesome doodles. I just had no idea the food was that spectacular. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 1, 2010 in Comic Books
How can you tell that Disney expect the upcoming Tron film to be huge? Because Marvel plans to cash in with a poorly done comic book based on the original film (Tron: Original Movie Adaptation #1) which will be released this week. Clearly the thinking is that fanboys will be nostalgic for the original and will buy almost anything with a Tron logo on it. Sadly a more creative team might have had fun with a creative interpretation of the original and done an amazing graphic novel — instead this preview reveals a bad tracing and coloring job: Read more…
It would look like this! Designer Satoshi Fumihara the genius behind the Japanese MTV series Golden Egg designed these funky Cubic Mouth Disney Key Cover which look cutting edge yet retain the cute qualities of Mickey and Mini. I’ve always admired how Disney has adapted to local culture in Japan by taking chances and this is always reflected in the merchandise — something which I wish Disney would do more often in the United States where the brand play it a bit too safe. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 15, 2010 in Animation
I’m not sure what short this footage is from but it shows a recreated animation meeting at Disney for the 1955 film The Lady and the Tramp. While the meeting itself is clearly staged for the camera it gives a very good insight into the classic Disney animation process from that era where music was integral to the production (I also had no idea that Peggy Lee actually wrote lyrics for Disney!). By the way notice that the scoreboards all have animation peg holes on the bottom of the paper: Read more…
Both the Disney and Apple fanboy in me fell in love with this Snow White MacBook laptop skin decal that I spotted on Etsy. To me an appreciation of old school Disney is what sets the casual fans apart from the real connoisseurs, and if you love the medium you’ve got to worship Snow White for the landmark film that it was.
It’s hard for me to believe that Lilo & Stitch came out eight years ago! What’s also interesting is that the film and related goodies like videogames are still quite popular in Japan. Show above is the Stitch HQ 3-Way Furisu Blanket which is quite kawaii! And at under $30 makes for a cheap cosplay outfit — although the catch is that since the blanket is on the small size it may only benefit young and somewhat short con goers. Read more…
With Disney World’s annual Star Wars Weekends event beginning later this month, several new advertisements have recently popped up. The images feature everything from Yoda trimming Mickey Mouse-shaped hedges with his lightsaber to Darth Maul having a rainbow painted on his face — each image just gets better and better. I’m a little sad that they omitted Boba Fett, but the expression on Darth Maul’s face more than makes up for it. If you’d like some higher resolution images, head over to Avertolog. Read more…
For those who aren’t familiar with it Kingdom Hearts (キングダム ハーツ) is a Japanese RPG series that has been around since 2002 that combines original anime characters with old school Disney critters. To celebrate the series in August Square Enix will be shipping this set of Kingdom Hearts Avatar Trading Arts Mini Vol. 1 collectables. In this set of figurines the original Kingdom Hearts characters have been turned into ultra-cute “avatars” — included in the set are Cloud, Tifa, Sora, Riku and ginger haired Axel: Read more…
So much of the toy fair is really aimed at kids, and while there are fanboy friendly booths here and there Diamond is always a pleasure to visit with the variety of cool goodies that they have. Shown above is a Qee Bear Spock — and below you can see a wide range of toys from Alice in Wonderland to Mickey Mouse: Read more…
