PIXAR Animation Studios: Part 9: Wall-E

Series Intro: In my purposeful retrospective of WDAS I couldn’t ignore it’s younger sister: PIXAR. This is Part 9 in the retrospective of PIXAR

Official Title: Wall-E
Release: June 23, 2008
Running Time: 98 minutes
Estimated Cost: $180 million
Estimated Revenue: $521.31
Overall Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Plot Summary:(Abridged)
Wall-E is the lone “living” creature (nee: Robot) left on Earth. That is until Eve comes and the two seem to fall in love. Eve finds a living plant and her robot instincts take over. Wall-E hitches a ride to her home; where obese people never leave their seats as robots do everything for them. Wall-E and the ship have a huge battle about Eve and the plant, until finally, the ship returns to Earth. Wall-E and Eve live happily-ever-after.

Plot Rating: 5 stars out of 5
Much better than the last few! I enjoyed the fun joking of Wall-E and the hard nosed, rule following of Eve. My favorite part would have been the use of Hello Dolly!

Animation Rating: 4 out of 5
PIXAR continues to up its game, however, I’m not sure I can see any difference.

The Test of Time:
Wall-E seems like it’s lost in limbo. It was such a fabulous movie, but I’m not seeing much of it around. I don’t even think my Kindergarteners would know who he was.


Next Up:
Up

PIXAR Animation Studios: Part 8: Ratatouille

Series Intro: In my purposeful retrospective of WDAS I couldn’t ignore it’s younger sister: PIXAR. This is Part 8 in the retrospective of PIXAR

Official Title: Ratatouille
Release: June 29, 2007
Running Time: 111
Estimated Cost: $150 million
Estimated Revenue: $623.72
Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Plot Summary:(Abridged)
A rat, Remi, doesn’t feel like he belongs with the other rats, so after an accident, he strikes out on his own. He meets inept chef, Linguini, and together they become one of the best chefs in Paris. Until their restaurant is closed because of rats in the kitchen.

Plot Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Again, the movie was fine, but I just couldn’t get over the fact that a rat was cooking. I was a bit grossed out most of the time.

Animation Rating: 4 out of 5
Nothing stood out as amazing. PIXAR just continues to make wonderfully animated movies.

The Test of Time:
Remi makes appearances in at Disneyland Paris and has his own restaurants on the Disney cruise ships The Dream and The Fantasy. I hate to say this, but this movie was just a run-of-the-mill PIXAR!


Next Up:
Wall-E

If I Ruled The World: DownTown Disney

With the recent new about Downtown Disney possibly getting a major rehab/refurb, I’ve decided to skip DTD as having it’s own blog, but before abandoning it completely, there is one thing I would like to see: another people mover.

This one is self explanatory: the people mover would follow the street between DTD and the parking lot. It would be elevated to allow for safe pedestrian crossing.

Stops would include:
West Side: Circ du Sole
West Side: Main
West Side: Bus Bay
Pleasure Island
Market Place: Main
Market Place: Bus Bay

If I Ruled The World: Transportation

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This is the first entry in a blog series called “If I Ruled The World,” where I will explain what I would do to make Walt Disney World better. Of course, I know some of these things aren’t feasible or financially responsible but as the keeper of the Kingdom, I can do just what I want.

Some of these changes will be to make the guests’ experiences easier, and some of them are just my wish lists for better theme-ing.

So without further ado, here is the first entry in “If I Ruled The World: Transportation.”

Walt Disney World has excellent internal and external transportation. One can get from the airport to the property, around the property, to the parks, shopping, dinning, resorts and back to the airport with ease. But only if you travel in a set path. Want a high-speed option? I hope your staying at a Magic Kingdom resort. Want to get from Animal Kingdom Lodge to Fort Wilderness? Ha!

WDW Internal transportation was made to get you from your resort to a park or Downtown Disney. The busses are clean and are generally driven by courteous drivers. Disney says busses run about every 20 minutes and are limited to “Resort to Park” or “Park to Park.”

In addition to busses there are three monorails; the Magic Kingdom (MK) express (from the Transit and Ticket Center/Magic Kingdom Parking Lot (TTC) to the MK); MK resort loop (stopping at MK, Contemporary, TTC, Polynesian, The Grand Floridian); and Epcot loop (from the TTC to Epcot).

There are water taxis that can take you around the Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake (making stops at MK, Contemporary, Polynesian, The Grand Floridian, Fort Wilderness and Wilderness Lodge). Also at the MK you can take a ferry boat to the TTC.

Friendships can take you from the International Gateway (Epcot) to Hollywood Studios making stops at the Swan/Dolphin, Boardwalk, Beach/Yacht Club.

If money is no object, the following map would be identifying the new monorail routes. If money is an object, this would be a hard rail map. This wouldn’t replace the busses, however, it would supplement them and make park and resort hopping faster and more convenient.

The Red Line would travel in a loop (in both directions). Stops will include:
• TTC
• Epcot
• Typhoon Lagoon
• Hollywood Studios
• Wide World Of Sports
• Blizzard Beach
• Animal Kingdom
• TTC

Blue Line:
• TTC
• Animal Kingdom Lodge
• Animal Kingdom
• Coronado Springs
• Blizzard Beach
• All-Star Sports
• All-Star Music
• All-Star Movies
• Wide World of Sports

Green Line
• TTC
• Wilderness Lodge Villas
• Wilderness Lodge
• Fort Wilderness
• Epcot
• Beach Club/Beach Club Villas
• Yacht Club
• Swan/Dolphin
• Boardwalk/Boardwalk Villas
• Caribbean Beach
• Pop Century/Art of Animations
• Wide World of Sports

Orange Line
• TTC
• Epcot
• Port Orleans Riverside
• Port Orleans French Quarter
• Old Key West
• Lake Buena Vista Golf Course
• Saratoga Springs
• Downtown Disney Area Resorts

You’ll notice the Orange Line doesn’t go to Downtown Disney’s Shopping districts. I’m keeping with Disney’s current philosophy that because the parking is free, they don’t want people to park there to get to the parks.

Yellow Line
• Palm Golf Course
• Magnolia Golf Course
• Oak Trail Golf Course
• TTC
• Wilderness Lodge Villas
• Wilderness Lodge
• Osprey Ridge Golf Course
• Eagle Pines Golf Course
• Port Orleans Riverside
• Saratoga Springs
• Lake Buena Vista Gold Course
• Old Wey West

In addition to the new monorail/hard rail lines above, I also see a place for a people mover. See below. It is a pleasant walk from Hollywood Studios to Epcot and a long boat ride. I recently walked this twice and thought it would have been a great place for a people mover.

Stops are:
• Epcot International Gateway
• ESPN Zone/Boardwalk
• Swan/Dolphin Bridge/Boardwalk
• Hollywood Studios
There are a few other places in the world that can have people movers, but I’ll talk more about them in their parks.

Finally, there are the waterways. Of course, they are slow (the opposite of rail above), but I would like to be able to take boats to more places at WDW. Here are the new waterways I’d like to see:

In the new waterways boats would launch in a circular pattern – in both directions:
• Magic Kingdom (at the current MK dock at the front of the park).
• Epcot (at the current Epcot dock at the International Gateway).
• Hollywood Studios (at the current HS dock at the front of the park).
• Animal Kingdom (at a new dock in between The Oasis and Discovery Island).

This boat service would not replace the current Friendships that travel between Hollywood Studios and Epcot and make stops at Epcot area resorts. The new route would only stop at theme parks.

Returning to the busses, I believe Disney should have a “next bus” type system to help guests better judge the wait time, and now that there are multiple ways to get around, knowing the times would be very beneficial in planning the trip to your destination.

That’s what I’d love to see at the world in relationship to transportation.

What do you think? Comment below on any areas of transportation that the park could use.

And for your listening pleasure:
A song…sung to Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”
Wake up in the morning feeling like Walt Disney
Grab my ears, I’m out the door, I’m gonna hit the Kingdom
Before I leave, brush my teeth with my Donald tooth-brush
‘Cause when I leave for parks, I’m in quite a rush!

Walt Disney Animation Studios: Part 47: Meet the Robinsons

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Series Intro: This is Part 47 of a multi-part retrospective of Walt Disney Animation Studios' endeavors.

Official Title: Meet the Robinsons
Release: March 23, 2007
Running Time: 95 minutes
Estimated Cost: n/a
Estimated Revenue: $169.34 million (ouch!)
Overall Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Plot Summary:
Orphan child, Lewis, is a poor inventor, but on his way to stardom, when one day he meets a boy from the future, Wilbur. Because of the Bowler Hat Guy, Wilbur and Lewis wind up in the future. Lewis finally feels like he’s part of a family while he works on the time machine at Wilbur’s. Things turn bad when Bowler Hat Guy follows Lewis into the future, bent on stealing Lewis’ inventions. It’s revealed that the Wilbur’s family is actually Lewis’ family, in the future. And Bowler Hat Guy is Lewis’ roommate from the orphanage. Lewis’ inventions save the day, and as his dream of seeing his birth mother (before she left him on the steps of the orphanage) becomes reality, he realizes that the past is behind him and he mist “keep moving forward” and think of his future family. Lewis is adopted by the judge of the science fair, and we can see how his future family evolved out of the people surrounding him during the science fair.

Songs:
Not a musical, but a great score.


Plot Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Overall, I enjoyed this movie.


Animation Rating: 2 out of 5
WDAS did up it’s game. The animation was less bulky and more fluid than Chicken Little, but was still amatureistic when compared to PIXAR’s current release Cars. In fact, the animation was reminiscent of 1997’s Toy Story.

The Test of Time:
Hasn’t stood up at all!

Through the Modern Lens
PIXAR’s John Lasseter took over this film and rewrote about 60% of it. That would explain why the plot was SOO much better than Chicken, but not as to why the animation wasn’t up to par. I LOVED the future world (think about it). There were lots of nods to the Tomorrowland areas of Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. Not only was there Space Mountain and the Astro-Orbiters, but the bit that sent me rocketing, was the People Movers (last time I was in WDW, I road the People Mover about three times a night across three or four nights). Plus, “Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” (from Carousel of Progress).


Next Up:
Bolt