Theme parks are big business these days, it appears! A deal has been struck between the BBC and Paramount to create the London Paramount Entertainment Resort. The park will feature attractions based off of BBC properties like Doctor Who and Top Gear, along with Paramount films such as Star Trek and Transformers. This is a pretty impressive collaboration, but don’t start booking your tickets yet: the park isn’t planned to open until 2020. In other theme park news, Disney chief Bob Iger revealed that Disney’s plans for Star Wars attractions will mainly feature rides themed around the new films, but yet didn’t exclude the possibility of rides based around the prequel and original trilogies. Still early for a lot of these plans, but still fairly interesting! Read more…
While this is listed as a rumor, I think we can all agree that this is more just a matter of time. Rumors are flying around that Disney is planning a major expansion for Disney World in Orlando, Florida, in the near future of 2018. This would include a Cars Land (based off the Pixar series), and of course, a Star Wars Land. While this has been rumored for just about every Disney park worldwide, I’m certain that this is a huge priority for Disney and will happen at one of them eventually. They’ve probably been talking about this for a while and sooner or later we’ll hear something legit. The real question is: what kind of rides or attractions would you want at this supposed Star Wars Land? Read more…
Now you can finally live out the act of having Iron Man’s armor fly onto your body in dramatic fashion. This weekend marks the beginning of a new Iron Man Attraction at Disneyland as part of the Innovations exhibit. There will be Iron Man suits on display, as well as a Kinect look-alike system of having an Iron Man suit track your body so it looks like you’re in the suit. Pretty nifty, but I think I’d rather look like a dork in the comfort of my own home. Would be cool to see all those suits though. Read more…
It’s easy to be skeptical when Disney talks about making a movie out of a theme park attraction. Sure, Pirates of the Caribbean turned out to be surprisingly great, but the rest of the films weren’t so hot, and the less said about The Haunted Mansion with Eddie Murphy the better. But when Brad Bird supposedly has an idea for the upcoming movie Tomorrowland based on a box of Disney memorabilia labeled “1952,” you start to wonder if it could possibly be intriguing. A supposed plot leak only piques interest further. Read more…
With Star Wars Weekends 2013 coming up starting May 17th, you can be sure that this year is going to be way more involved that previous years, just due to Disney now owning Lucasfilm. I would imagine lots of messy rights negotiations fade away with that new factor. So here comes all the new merchandise! Combining Star Wars and Disney characters, or Muppets too! Some of it is very hokey, but they are other cleverer items too. Uncle Deadly as Emperor Palpatine? Mickey Mouse in a Jedi Starfighter? The Muppets chickens with Stormtrooper helmets? Yes, it’s all here. Even a thermal detonator hot potato game. Even that. Read more…
I’ve always wanted to take a trip to Disneyworld, but given my close proximity to Anaheim’s Disneyland resorts and inability to schedule a proper vacation, I’ve had to settle for the California equivalent over the years. Of course, it’s not really equivalent in any way shape or form, but I digress. Those of you planning on attending the California theme park this summer will want to stop by Downtown Disney — a shopping arcade located outside of the park itself — and admire some of the new Star Wars-inspired art now on display. Read more…
Japan has its fair share of strange commercials, but this latest one for Disney’s Tokyo resort has to be one of the most adorable ads I’ve ever seen — so much, that the animated short has me convinced that I’d sit through an entire animated series centered around it. The 30 second anime short tells the story of a little girl and her time spent visiting the theme park over the years, from her first time as a kid, to meeting her future husband, eventually growing old together. It’s well animated, and the cute rendition of “A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes” fits it so well. Am I weird for wanting them to make more of these? I’ve included a bunch of screenshots from it after the jump.
I was trying to figure out why this recent commercial for Tokyo Disneyland Disney Halloween looks so damn cool. I’m an anime fanboy so my thought was that anything with a Japanese voiceover would just seem cooler, but that’s not the case. Then it struck me: Mickey and Mini and decked out in Venetian costumes instead of the typical goth look associated with Halloween. The result is that our mouse suddenly takes on a magical European quality that I just doesn’t associate with Mickey who’s as American as you can get. Read more…
The Japanese commercial is for the Monsters, Inc. attraction at Tokyo Disneyland which is set to open this Summer. I really love hearing the Pixar characters speak in Japanese, it makes them a bit more anime like for me!
These two commercials for the Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! attraction at Tokyo Disneyland are enjoyable on two levels: First it’s great to see these familiar Pixar characters speaking Japanese, it almost gives them an anime like quality. Next on the first ad above I love the intercuts of the typical Japanese family mirroring the actions of the animated characters. In fact the high quality of the Japanese voice actors almost makes me want to re-watch the film in Japanese with English subtitles just to see what they did. Read more…
