Well, they're both stories about a person with multiple past lives who is the Last Of His Kind, dedicated to saving humanity while traveling the world with a number of quirky companions...two of whom are pretty, uniquely talented girls, and with one of whom he shares annoyingly evasive romantic tension. Sound familiar?
D23...lines. Lots of lines.
The personnel didn't do a very good job of helping and keeping things organized, and the "first-come first served" rule for the Arena shows when they had a perfectly good FastPass system for all the other stage shows was downright
, but all in all it was a good time. I got a Disney Infinity Sorcerer Mickey figure that won't be publicly released until January (naturally, I had to buy the game after that
), and the panel on the voices of Disneyland was VERY interesting--they don't look at ALL the way they sound in their voiceovers.
Copy-pasting my reactions to the MASSIVE deluge of info and previews we got at the Animation panel:
Time for some impressions from someone who was actually at the panel.
The Good Dinosaur: Eh...it's clear the people working on it have put a lot of love into it, but it's not looking that great, unfortunately. :sceptic: Zootopia looks like it's going to hit a lot of the same notes (as far as the world itself goes) in a more interesting way, and I'm finding the main characters more annoying than endearing, surprisingly.
Monsters Inc. Party Central:
Pure Awesome. This is more along the lines of what we wanted out of Monsters University--it's a shame we had to wait for the short films phase to get it. This will likely be the only reason I'll buy The Good Dinosaur on Blu-ray, just so I have this short.
Finding Dory: There was
not much info for this one, unfortunately. I'm pleased with the casting for Dory's parents, though--a perfect fit. After all, who
else could successfully play Ellen DeGeneres' parents?
Planes Fire and Rescue: Eh. I was disappointed by the announcement--considering it was made on the same day that the movie opened, they should have been more careful discussing the plot. I'm pretty sure the ending for
Planes was just casually spoiled for anyone sitting in on the panel--and unless you were at a midnight screening of
Planes and then went straight to the line for the panel, there is no way anyone in that arena could have seen the first film before having it spoiled for them.
As for the movie itself, most of the characters seem likeable enough (we got a short clip from the film, with a cool mix of finished animation and various in-progress shots--I honestly found the switches between complete and incomplete more interesting than the scene itself), but it didn't really grab me. But while we're on the subject of grabbing me...
Frozen: Oh. My. God. YES. I knew next to nothing about
Frozen prior to the panel, and it is now number one on my "Must See" list for this year. I actually have a sneaking suspicion that
Frozen is actually going to be an implied sequel to
Tangled--Anna and Elsa share a number of physical similarities to Flynn and Rapunzel that go beyond the general similarity of art style, including (most importantly) the golden hair--Elsa, the sister with magical powers, has golden hair, while her sister Anna has hair much closer to Flynn's and (more potentially spoilery stuff ahead)
[spoiler]
Rapunzel's natural shade (that is, after she cut her hair). Also, in the high-res pics we saw of Anna, she seems to have a single lock of blonde hair, possibly indicating a minor or dormant affinity for magic of her own, further implying that she and Elsa are Flynn and Rapunzel's descendants.
[/spoiler]
Additionally, one of the clips we saw featured a horse with striking similarities to Maximus, both in appearance and in behavior. I'm almost certain that if
Frozen isn't a sequel to
Tangled, then at least the two take place within the same universe.
Oh, did I mention getting to hear Idina Menzel live was
awesome? Because it was. :grin: "Let It Go" is an
amazing song, and I'm hungry for more. :sweet:
Get A Horse: Must be seen to be believed. The amount of work that went into this project is truly awe-inspiring. The animators who worked on restoring the piece spoke of having to "unlearn what they had learned about animation over the years" in order to match the style of the animation they already had--it was fascinating to hear them talk about how much animation has changed since those early days. Definitely worth a look--especially since it's running before
Frozen.
The Tinkerbell movies: Gah, why am I consistently underestimating these? Having seen the first two, and now some previews for the latest two (yes, I know, I'm missing some--didn't you hear me say I keep underestimating them?), I am forcibly impressed. They're underappreciated, and are really quite good. Also, we managed to convince Tom Hiddleston to sing "The Bare Necessities", so I'm pleased about that as well.
Big Hero 6: I'm suspending judgment until later, when we have more info. I do have to say that I love the concept of "San Fransokyo", though--this needs to become a real thing.
Make it happen, San Francisco/Tokyo! :rofl:
Zootopia: Now this one seems interesting. I was a big fan of the Disney animated
Robin Hood when I was little, and there's something about this project that seems to evoke a similar feeling. I can see it crashing and burning if it goes off-course, but if it keeps to the concepts that were presented at the Expo, it'll be fantastic.
Inside Out: Other than being upset that the title was changed (seriously, the old title was MUCH better), I'm really excited about this one. We got a fully-voiced storyboard sequence from the movie, and it is
perfect. #2 on my "Most Excited about" list, after
Frozen.
Also, I think John Lasseter was stalking me.
Seriously, after the Broadway panel on Friday night, he walked right past me on his way out, and then at the Alan Menken and Richard Sherman musical presentation he walked past me on his way to his seat--both times just
feet away. Fun times, fun times.
