D23 Expo

[Dan]

Figured this is a good place for me to post stuff during the event as it worked out so well during Comic Con. Any way, it's about an hour before they start letting the gold/silver members in and the line for the Disney Legends Awards got capped last night. Which means getting into the big events will be all sorts of fun.

[James]

Favorite quote from D23 so far: John Lasseter said, "We only make sequels if we come up with a story that's as good or better than the original. That's our rule. We don't do things just to print money."

[LotsoA113]

Favorite quote from D23 so far: John Lasseter said, "We only make sequels if we come up with a story that's as good or better than the original. That's our rule. We don't do things just to print money."

.......so how do you explain CARS 3 then?

[ShyViolet]

And I wouldn't call MU "as good or better than the original."

[Dan]

Passed by the poster for Incredibles II earlier, which put a smile on my face. Folks doing pro photos this weekend include Dick Van Dyke, Sean Astin, Corey Feldman, Christy Carlson Romano, Ken Page and more.

Just got Robert and Kristen Lopez' autograph and a selfie with them. Robert liked meeting a fellow Filipino and we had a quick talk about hoping to see Up Here while I still have a chance and their wishing they caught Hunchback when in played over there.

Getting in line now for animation panel.

[EricJ]

.......so how do you explain CARS 3 then?

A) The Apology For Cars 2, since it didn't ultimately turn out to be the Autobahn world-highway race movie that Lasseter wanted,
and
B)The same reason as Frozen 2 and Toy Story 4: Bob Iger wanted it. (That's how we got Cars 2.)

Iger is unfortunately very sensitive to knee-jerk audience judgment, like "Cars was a flop, because it didn't have as big an opening as Nemo!", or "Princess & the Frog was a disaster, nobody will remember What's-Her-Name five years from now!", or "Whaddya mean, 'that was the end' and no Toy Story 4? EVERY studio keeps sequels going! Besides, Tom Hanks said there was one, when a reporter cornered him at the Golden Globes! You're going to do one right after the Frozen sequel, right?"

Don't blame Lasseter, he's not the one with the peer pressure issues.

And I wouldn't call MU "as good or better than the original."

I would ("as", anyway), but key point is, it was DIFFERENT from the original.
Would that certain other studios could pick up on the concept.

[Dacey]

Except that Lasseter was all for Cars 2 (and presumably 3), but anyway...

[EricJ]

Except that Lasseter was all for Cars 2 (and presumably 3), but anyway...

He was for the half of Cars 2 that he thought it was going to be, namely "Lightning races around the world, and brings his pals along as pit crew, but will his old competitiveness jeopardize all his new nice-guy friendships?"

Unfortunately, "half" turned out to be more like 40-60 against the Mater's Spy Caper "Tall Tales" plot brought in to stretch it out, or 30-70, or 20-80, or...
(Which is the other problem in story conferences--Lasseter likes Mater the way Lucas liked JarJar.)

In playing up 3, the first thing he was saying was "All those California highways!", so it's pretty easy to see where his head is on this one (or whoever directs it), but, well, that was the way 2 started out...

[Dan]

Will try to get a more comprehensive report in tomorrow, but the animation program... one of the best panels I've ever been to. Over 2 1/2 hours of beautiful goodness. The surprise guests, the awesome footage. Just amazing.

Oh, to add to the Twitter note of the sizzle reel at the beginning show first footage of the live-action Beauty and the Beast, we also got first footage of the live action Pete's Dragon and the live action Jungle Book. I'm debating whether to even attempt tomorrow's program, but I'm so happy to have been at the animation program that I felt like I already accomplished all I needed to see at D23.

[Dan]

Alright, so here's my Day One report.

It started in line at closer to 8am. And the line for D23 members, which I happened to be, got longer and longer with each passing minute. Which I imagine was oodles of fun for the general admission folk and the D23 staff. Right around 8am is when they started to get the D23 members inside by increments. It was about 9:30am by the time I got in. As we were moving up, we watched the line go near triple-wrap before having to set up a new spot for incoming D23 members to go. The poor GA folk.

Upon hearing that the Disney Legends Awards ceremony was practically capped the night before, I and a couple others looked in to see when they would start lining folks up for the animation program. We heard around 11am, so we made plans to do what we needed to do on the show floor quickly and then head back to Hall E. I passed by a lot of things, but being in a rush, didn't have too much time to take pictures. I managed to get to the Disney Music Emporium booth in time to get into the Robert and Kristen Lopez signing at 10:30am, though I was required to buy either the vinyl picture album or the songs CD, which would be the items they would sign. Went with the picture album. I got there at the good enough time that I wouldn't sweat the return trip to Hall E. Robert and Kristen were very nice, with Robert enjoying that I myself came from a Filipino family. Upon hearing that I was from San Diego, we got into discussing my hope to see Up Here before it wraps in September. They wanted to see Hunchback of Notre Dame during its run, but couldn't. Was able to get a quick selfie with them and a chat with Disney VP of Music Animation Tom MacDougall about determining the best types of music to use for animated films before quickly heading off.

Made it to the line up in Hall E for the animation program early enough that I was in the front of the line for the middle section of the room. Everyone puckered down as it would be a near 4 hour wait. They were kind enough to have monitors set up to loop all kinds of programs from the Disney Movies Anywhere app, including short cartoons, music videos, trailers, and more. They were a little lenient over folks getting out of line and coming back in given the long wait, but warned us that once the line started moving the spots were gone, so folks started mapping out their game plans for show floor visits and food runs. I made the decision to run up top to grab some drinks and catch a few things on the floor. A few of the pictures made it onto the AV Twitter and Facebook accounts such as Olivia Holt having a mini-concert on the Center Stage and my meeting Christy Carlson Romano, best known as the voice of Kim Possible. I got my picture taken with her and we discussed a little bit of her voicing Yuffie in Kingdom Hearts 1 and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

I decided to stay back in line in Hall E when it was about 12:30pm, knowing they would start the process of getting us in an hour before the schedule start time. It was during this that we found out that Johnny Depp made a surprise appearance at the Disney Legends program. Wow. They were going to enforce a strict no phones and no cameras policy and thus we had to have them sealed in bags throughout the program. Once we were in, we waited with the screens displaying trivia questions and then every now and then showing a teaser trailer of something or a fan profiling. There was also an orchestra on stand by to play folks in. One fun moment was when the fan profiling aired, of a girl named Ashley Kashar, some screams were heard a few seats over. Ashely and her friends were in the house. It was really nice to see her present in the audience after her story had been told.

They opened with a great sizzle reel of all that's to come from Disney both in animation and live-action. This included our first looks at the live-action of versions Beauty and the Beast, Pete's Dragon, and The Jungle Book, which got people very excited. Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, came out for a brief introduction before the program started in earnest with a fun montage of Disney Feature Animation up to this point. John Lasseter then came out for his MC duties. After a rundown about his love for Disney animation and the inspiration he felt with the talent that were ready to come out upon his and Ed Catmull's arrival in 2006, he handed the reigns off to the filmmakers of Zootopia to talk about their film. They explained the world of Zootopia, how it plays an integral part of the story, and then introduced Judy Hops with Gennifer Goodwin coming out to help talk about the character. They wrapped with Shakira doing video message to with a sample of the film's main theme song she's doing and then their showing off some key clips from the film, the last of which had everyone dying with laughter.

Lasseter than introduced one of the next projects on the pipeline, Gigantic. This brought out the filmmakers, which featured director Nathan Greno. Greno explained that one of the key attributes of Disney has been their ability to, by in large, unconsciously have their iteration of a fairy tale come off as "the definitive version". He wanted to create "the definitive version" of Jack and the Beanstalk. The story will be set in Spain during "The Age of Discovery", so Jack is a Spaniard. Upon climbing to the giant world, he immediately encounters a 12-year-old spitfire, who is modeled after a girl the filmmakers met during their research trip to Spain. The concept art was showed off in a great presentation reel and then they brought out Robert and Kristen Lopez, who will be doing the songs. Kristen then performed one of the demo songs they've submit with storyboards already boarded up with the 12-year-old overjoyed at having "My Little Man" to play with. It was lots of fun.

They capped off the Disney Feature Animation portion with an extensive presentation on Moana with directors John Musker and Ron Clements coming out to present. They explained the story, set to explain a period of a South Pacific tribe that suddenly went from being great explorers to no going anywhere to then suddenly a thousand years later going back to being explorers. As they were introducing the characters, a familiar voice pipped in to add "extra" lines to his character's description. The audience went NUTS upon recognizing the voice as that of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who later came out. The man had everyone by the hook from the second he appeared as virtually everything he said elicited squeals and cheers. His character is Maui, a demigod Moana teams up with whose body tattoos come to life to tell of his achievements. They showed off some great animation of characters to be seen later before Johnson came back out to introduce one of the musicians involved with the project, Opetaia Foa'i, and his band Te Vaka to perform one of the songs from the film with a warrior tribal dance on display. Fantastic!

We switch gears to Pixar Animation with Lasseter introducing the filmmakers of Inside Out. Pete Docter thanks everyone for making the film a success and introduces Josh Cooley, the film's head of story, who directed the upcoming short "Riley's First Date?" They teased not showing the short, even having Lasseter acting grumpy and saying we can wait til November, but ultimately they showed us the short in full. So much fun came out of the short, that's for sure.

We then move over to The Good Dinosaur with Lasseter having to do some additional introductions for director Peter Sohn, noting the voices he's responsible for and directing the short Partly Cloudy. Peter goes further by doing a storyboard pitch of his background further, noting how his Koren mother, who didn't really understand English, connected through animation and how that affect him in going into animation. Peter explained the story and showed off clips that show The Good Dinosaur just might be another emotional journey for audiences and yet having moments of pure delight. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the film after the presentation they did.

Lasseter then noted that they were now in production of their Dias de los Muertos project, with the title being Coco. It will be directed by Lee Unkrich and Lee came out to explain a bit of what the film will be about. They also showed what producer Darla Anderson called a "panorama" reel of what the film may ultimately look like in final, though this is probably not intended to be part of the film. It looks lively and colorful, though I can't help but feel that it will definitely be an interesting sell coming off the heels of The Book of Life. I should point out at this point that nearly all of the projects except for Zootopia have producers who are female.

Lasseter then showed off a collection of footage from Ellen DeGeneres' show where she is constantly mentioning when they're going to make a sequel to Finding Nemo. This brings out Andrew Stanton and his fellow filmmakers to talk about Finding Dory. After a film clip that helps set what the film will be about, DeGeneres herself comes out for "witty banter" that (I believe intentionally) goes nowhere before they introduce the new characters to be voiced by Ed O'Neil, Ty Burrell, and Katlin Olsen. They wrapped up by showing another clip from the film where Dory interacts with Hank, the octopus character voiced by O'Neil.

The program comes to a close with Toy Story. Lasseter notes that this year is the 20th anniversary of the first film's release and brought out his film-making team for the fourth round. They also brought the writing team, Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. Lasseter notes how each Toy Story film works off a different genre than the last and the fourth film (as spoiled earlier this morning) would be a love story centered on Woody and Bo Peep. The primary adventure element of the plot being that Woody and Buzz go on a journey to find (and rescue) Bo Peep. The program ends with Randy Newman coming out to perform "You've Got a Friend in Me" and ending with the main Toy Story 4 crew and folks in costume firing off T-shirts to the audience before confetti starts falling.

Man oh man, my writing of the programs does it no justice. The program live is incredible and fantastic. I could do nothing else for the rest of the weekend and feel content because this program was so worth attending. Just fantastic.

Now comes the issue for me to debate. Should I try to attend the live-action program tomorrow morning...

[Dan]

Day Two is in the books for me, so here is my report.

I took a chance and got in the stand-by line for the live-action films program at sometime after 7am. I was rewarded by entry into the program just as it started, so I missed out on seeing that great sizzle reel that opened the animation program yesterday. Alan Horn served as MC for the festivities with the various heads of the three studios running their respective slates, although Kathleen Kennedy was not present due to her daughter going to college so Alan did the LucasFilms slate.

Doctor Strange looks to be a fantastic film based on the conceptual designs showcased. It seems that they pretty much have the overall visual appearance of the film down and now just need to wait until principal photography can begin in November.

The presentation for Captain America: Civil War was excellent. Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie having flown in from Germany the night before just to talk about and present the film was really appreciative on their end and their presence, especially Chris, was very well received. The footage they showed was excellent and everyone is psyched for the film to come out.

Opening the Disney Studios section was The Finest Hours and Chris Pine was brought out to talk a bit about making the true-life story and actually meeting one of the survivors of the tale. There was some more footage to be seen than what had already been shown in the trailer and it certainly looks quite the thriller.

The Jungle Book will probably go down as the show-stealer of D23. Jon Favreau was great in displaying his great love for the original animated feature and his desire to stay true to its heart while pushing forward with a live-action feature that would be worthy of it. Fun presence by the stars Ben Kingsley, Lupita Nyong’o, and newcomer Neel Sethi, who was shy and nervous throughout being the apparent center of attention.

As was posted earlier, the footage shown of Jungle Book was amazing. And if what they showed was work-in-progress, I can only imagine what the finished film is going to look like. The standing ovation we gave it afterward was richly deserved and Neel was pink with shyness. "That's me! What did I miss?!"

There were a lot of excited fans for Alice Through The Looking Glass and I think the footage they presented showed some promise. Mia Wasikowska was present to introduce the clip and talk briefly about reuniting with the cast after roughly six years. A nice set up for the film.

Pete's Dragon could be the most intriguing of the bunch as the trailer gave it an interesting new look and feel to the story. Given where they were in production, we hardly get anything of Elliot aside from Pete rubbing a hand over his fur. Star Bryce Dallas Howard appeared to explain his love for the original film, the intriguing of doing a new take, and how the new film is shaped for a 21st century audience. Much love was talked about for co-star Robert Redford.

There was a brief preview of another true life story Disney is doing, The Queen of Katwe, with Nyong'o coming back out to talk about her experience in meeting the real family while still photos of the film were displayed. It came off almost as filler given how brief it was and there being no footage.

Most were a little disappointed that Beauty and the Beast, one of the most hotly anticipated films on the slate, didn't have much in the ways of footage outside of what was seen in the sizzler and some behind-the-scenes clips. Furthermore, everyone was still in London wrapping up production, there we were treated to video of Luke Evans and Josh Gad singing a bit of "Gaston". Nevertheless, we wanted to see more.

Though Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tells had nothing in the ways of footage or even photographs, Johnny Depp coming out in character as Captain Jack Sparrow had everyone in the room screaming with delight. Seriously, him throwing out grapes and saying "Grape!" each time was a delight due to his charisma. Certainly got us pumped.

The main portion of the Star Wars presentation was pretty much everyone just going nuts for Harrison Ford coming out. It took a good few minutes before he could get a word out and everyone resumed screaming. But we were enchanted by Bob Iger's presentation of the Star Wars lands coming to Anaheim and Orlando. The concept art shown were excellent and his description of what we will see had us drooling with delight. A fine way to end the program.

I then got an opportunity to get my picture taken with Dick Van Dyke. I decided to get into the queue after purchasing my ticket and I was glad to do so because the line got much bigger by the time the photos were to be taken nearly 90 minutes later. I managed to quickly express my appreciation to him having grown up on the Dick Van Dyke Show as a kid thanks to my grandparents. A delightful man to meet, truly.

We wrap up with a very informative Toy Story 20th Anniversary celebration with John Lasseter and company having pretty much a round-table-like gathering to reminisce about the creation of the film and the difficulties they had along the way. I'll explain a little more once I put the write up proper, but there were some really fun things to hear about the film's development, like Tom Hanks doing about 20 variations of the "NOOOOO!!!" scream in the climatic chase scene at the end that Lee found a way to include pretty much all of them in the final cut. A very nice program to check out.

Tomorrow expects to be a little more low-key, but we'll see what surprises might be had.

[droosan]

we were enchanted by Bob Iger's presentation of the Star Wars lands coming to Anaheim and Orlando. The concept art shown were excellent and his description of what we will see had us drooling with delight.

[EricJ]

(I don't ask much from this world...Just that somebody remember some OTHER freakin' line from Jedi?)

[Dan]

Not just a tourist trap. XD Bob mentioned that they will start casting for park personnel as the lands get closer to completion and nearly everyone in the room started whispering and muttering to themselves about wanting to be staff members at those parks. XD

[droosan]

I was only funnin' ..

Though, I'm not sure where Disney's gonna find 14 acres to put a Star Wars Land onto, in Anaheim .. short of buying-out an adjoining hotel property, or chopping Frontier Land in half, or something.


Oh, and EricJ: