Extra Secret Stories of Walt Disney World

by Jim Korkis

  The concept was to use sleek, Art Deco stylings popular in the 1930s to create a timeless sense of classic Hollywood where guests might reasonably expect a movie star to nonchalantly stroll in during a break in filming.

  The building was located on a newly created street dubbed Commissary Lane.

  Imagineering architect Joe Kilanowski said:

  One of the biggest challenges was the site. It had to be a long horizontal building with the center in the middle of the mass. Our design solution came from a beautiful old hotel in Miami that breaks up its entrance with a tower and receding tiers. The large, soaring marquee is a bit overstated for a working commissary, but it gives a feeling of excitement.

  The building is decorated with film posters from the past and present, props, and autographed photos and television monitors that promote the latest ABC television shows since Disney’s 1996 merger with that company.

  On its opening, both Michael Eisner and Frank Wells proclaimed it “the best we’ve ever seen,” although it probably never matched Paramount’s Café Continental or MGM’s Lion Den commissaries in their heyday.

  The marquee, designed by Jim Bockstall, juts thirty-five feet into the air and is polished stainless steel to echo the Art Deco condensed-type style.

  Once past the palm-tree-lined atrium entrance, there is always plenty of seating and air conditioning. The palms are ten feet tall and are meant to frame the ordering counter. There is a fifty-foot-long mural that features many of the major landmarks of the original Disney-MGM Studios designed by Han Woo Lee. It was painted by Bill Anderson to look like copper bas-relief, a popular Deco design motif.

  Barbara Dietzel, the principal interior designer, said:

  We envisioned this as a place where we could focus on the company’s movie and television divisions. We placed etched glass panels featuring the logos of those divisions along the entryway, and posters on the walls feature our latest movies and television shows.

  For the interior, landscape designer Joe Parinella brought in palms and added planters with a variety of seasonal plants to establish a “garden-like” atmosphere that would seem more inviting than the stark, functional interiors of some traditional studio commissaries.

  Jacobson said:

  I think this project is a great showcase of the Imagineering team process. Even though it’s not a high-profile, marketing-driven attraction, the entire team gave it every bit of the same attention to detail. In this restaurant, we’ve created an experience we can all be proud of.

  Hollywood Studios

  Birth of Fantasmic!

  The origin of Fantasmic! goes back to September 1990 when Robert McTyre, vice president of Disneyland Entertainment, got a phone call from CEO Michael Eisner.

  McTyre recalled:

  We don’t have anything big and new and fabulous for Disneyland in 1992 and we need to come up with something. Basically, it was an interim step to keep interest in Disneyland high before the 1993 addition of Mickey’s Toontown. We got the troops brainstorming and someone suggested a nighttime river spectacular like the IllumiNations show at Epcot.

  Barnette Ricci, who directed the park’s Main Street Electrical Parade for many years and created numerous other Disney live shows, was tapped to be the show’s artistic creator.

  Ricci said:

  We were asked to create something spectacular for Disney using the Rivers of America. We wanted something truly unique that combined a lot of spectacular effects that people hadn’t seen before and with a story about Mickey Mouse that would really involve people.

  The core for the show was the water screens. It would be unique to project Disney animation onto one of those screens. Mickey Mouse’s imagination creates these images and the audience gets involved with Mickey. We were given only twenty months, far too little time. Actually we had less than that amount of time because of the heavy winter rains earlier in 1992 that slowed things down. Doing this complicated a show, you would like to have three or four years to construct it.

  To set the river on fire, a half-mile of stainless steel tubing was installed under the river. During the show, natural gas bubbles up and is ignited. The fuel shot from the Maleficent dragon contains a key ingredient.

  McTyre explained:

  We do it with Cremora [a coffee whitener]. CoffeeMate won’t work for some reason.

  Ricci added:

  I spent months of research studying all the Disney classics. I wanted to find just the right scenes that could be edited together successfully. One challenge was that the new lyrics had to match the mouth movements of the original animation in which characters were often saying far different lines.

  We were all on graveyard shift for the last three months of rehearsal. Particularly challenging was synchronizing the movements of the performers with the computer controlled animation and special effects. It’s timed to the 30th of a second [the number of frames per second of the films being projected] and if things are two frames off, you can tell. They must be exactly on.

  The show was so successful that a second version was developed for Walt Disney World for 1998. The Disney animated feature Pocahontas was released in 1995 and was supposed to be a prestige box-office hit. While it was successful financially, it was still considered a disappointment in comparison to the financial and critical bonanza of The Lion King (1994) that had been rushed into release to allow more time to finish Pocahontas.

  At the time the WDW version was first developed, the expectation was that Pocahontas would be a major success, which influenced the show. An on-stage battle scene from the movie has Governor Ratcliffe and his fellow Englishmen fight against the Native Americans. John Smith attempts to help Pocahontas’ tribe.

  There are several other significant changes including the finale with the boat from Steamboat Willie rather than the Mark Twain steamboat. The Hollywood Hills Amphitheater stage in Florida is significantly larger than Disneyland’s waterfront version, and features a man-made, 50-foot-tall mountain as the centerpiece backdrop. The moat around the island itself can hold 1,900,000 gallons of water.

  Animal Kingdom

  Pandora: World of Avatar

  Based on Oscar-winning filmmaker James Cameron’s record-breaking box-office hit movie Avatar (2009), Pandora opened in May 2017 to welcome guests into the lush world of the habitable moon in the Alpha Centauri system generations after the human conflict with the native Na’vi inhabitants has ended and peace prevails. Pandora is a creative collaboration of Walt Disney Imagineering, Cameron, and Lightstorm Entertainment.

  Alpha Centauri Expeditions (ACE) now allows eco-tourists to enjoy some of the legendary delights of the planet including enormous floating mountains where waterfalls cascade down the mountainside into meandering streams and pools, a bioluminescent forest with exotic plants that illuminates with a dreamlike quality in the evening, and winged mountain banshees.

  In partnership with ACE, visitors have the opportunity to explore the values and culture of this exotic place, and celebrate the striking beauty and overwhelming power of the natural world.

  A Na’vi built drum circle, Na’vi totems, and other cultural items are scattered through the area. Tour guides from Alpha Centauri Expeditions (ACE), scientists from the Pandora Conservation Initiative (PCI), and even an occasional eclectic expatriate interact with visitors and help them understand what they are encountering.

  Pongu Pongu (meaning “Party Party” in the language of the Na’vi) is the center of the expat community and offers various liquid libations and snacks. It is located near Windtraders where visitors can purchase Na’vi cultural items, toys, and science kits.

  The Satu’li Canteen (pronounced “Sa-too-lee”), a Quonset-hut-style building, was once the main mess hall of the Resources Development Administration (RDA) base (the main antagonist in the film). Now the canteen is owned and operated by ACE and has been redesigned into a beautiful museum-like dining room for visitors.

  The interior has been transformed with colorful Na’vi it
ems filling the walls and hanging from the ceiling—hand-woven tapestries, natural Pandoran elements, and even cooking tools decorate the restaurant.

  According to Imagineer Joe Rohde, the premise is that Avatar was not a movie but a documentary:

  We are taking our guests on a journey to this world in an experience that’s as realistic and immersive as possible. In the movie, the world of Pandora is a setting for the action and characters whose story we follow. Here, guests are the primary characters immersed in an extremely vivid, authentic experience.

  We’ve been welcomed into the culture because of our motives. We’re here to learn. We’re here to educate ourselves. We’re here to become better stewards of our planet. The world in which the Na’vi live is in order because they care about it. They care for it. It is not enough to care about the world. You have to care for it. You have to do things. Take action.

  Avatar: Flight of Passage is a simulator attraction that allows guests to climb atop a mountain banshee for a breathtaking, multi-sensory flight over the moon’s incredible landscape that mimics the memorable rite of passage bonding scene in the original film. The journey includes a face-off with the most feared predator of Pandora, the Great Leonopteryx.

  Na’vi River Journey gives guests the chance to serenely travel down a sacred river in reed boats and a brief encounter with the Shaman of Songs.

  Rohde said:

  It is a ceremonial forest. We’re bringing to life everything, from the largest creature you might encounter to the most microscopic. Animals will appear out of the underbrush—big Pandoran animals will appear at the edge of the forest and you’ll hear the very complicated calls they issue back and forth.

  Animal Kingdom

  Pandora Field Guide

  In the 2009 film Avatar, director James Cameron envisioned a moon called Pandora in the Alpha Centauri system orbiting the gas giant Polyphemus that makes the atmosphere of the moon un-breathable for humans without assistance from exo-packs.

  Earth personnel in the presence of the Resources Development Administration (RDA), a quasi-governmental company, travel to this distant place in the 22nd century to mine a rare mineral whose superconductive properties allow it to float in magnetic fields.

  In addition, scientists studying the indigenous humanoid species called the Na’vi and the unusual fauna and flora also accompany the private security contractors employed by RDA.

  Cameron meant to draw parallels between the lush, tropical forests of this science fiction-inspired moon and the supposed devastation of the ecology on earth where (in the film) humans have turned their planet into a global urban slum where little remains of a functioning natural ecosystem. He also wanted to make connections between the Na’vi’s spiritual relationship and responsibility to their world which have allowed it to flourish.

  Cameron used a team of expert advisors in order to make the various examples of fauna and flora as scientifically feasible as possible. The Pandoran ecology is inter-connected from the floating mountain ranges to winged banshee predators.

  In DAK’s version of Pandora, the Na’vi people only make appearances in the two attractions and in artwork throughout the area. Disney claims this is to have guests see the area from the Na’vi point of view as well as the difficulty in creating realistic costumes for the unique creatures.

  According to Disney:

  [The Na’vi people] possess humanlike consciousness and intelligence. The average Na’vi is three meters tall with cyan-colored skin and bioluminescent markings. They have large, almond-shaped eyes, long torsos, and a prehensile tail.

  Throughout the area are examples of Pandoran plants. Disney published a flyer explaining what they are when the area first opened:

  The diversity of Pandoran plant life and its range of size and complexity suggest that the environment of Pandora acts as a strong force for natural selection. The environmental factors that plants experience on Earth—radiation, water, atmospheric gases, and gravity—are present on Pandora, although their characteristics differ profoundly.

  Spiny Whip: The cup-shaped top of this plant collects raindrops and many species of birds use the plant as a source of water.

  Panopyra: This plant captures water and minerals from dew and fog. The Na’vi collect the liquid and use it as a healing drink.

  Vein Pod: The pods produced by these trees help to detoxify the atmosphere on Pandora, maintaining stability in the environment.

  Flaska Reclinata: This plant absorbs, condenses, and purifies atmospheric toxins on Pandora.

  Dapophet: The leaves at the top of this plant have healing properties used by the Na’vi, while the leaves along the stem store water and are used as portable hydration.

  Puffball Tree: This tree is an important plant on Pandora for purifying the atmosphere. The Na’vi also harvest its leaves for salt.

  Grinch Tree: This tree grows in a hunched shape with a twisted trunk and bluish bioluminescent leaves.

  Producer and director James Cameron stated:

  I think I knew it was going to be a pretty amazing world, but I was still thinking ‘movie.’ You can walk around and smell the world, touch the world. I wander around with a sense of wonder myself. I had an amazing time working with the Imagineering artists as they conjured all of this.

  This has been a transformative adventure for me. It’s certainly transformed my perception of what is possible in the real world. If you had asked me ahead of time, I would have said this is not possible. What they have created here is not possible.

  Animal Kingdom

  Na’vi Shaman of Songs

  Imagineer Joe Rohde said:

  The Pandora attractions have very deliberate emotional moments crafted into them, the way a good story does, the way a good film does. It’s not as simple as just coming to a place that looks realistic. It’s a place that’s been deliberately imbued with the emotions of awe, of wonder, of respect, of harmony.

  The Na’vi River Journey opened in May 2017. Guests sail serenely down the Kaspavan River in a reed boat winding through a bioluminescent rainforest in the Valley of Mo’ara on the planet of Pandora. The indigenous Na’vi are seen throughout the ride in scenes where they are hunting and gathering.

  Native wildlife including the dangerous viper wolves and gentle woodsprites as well as mysterious glowing fauna can be seen on the nearby banks.

  Executive creative director Stefan Hellwig explained:

  The queue begins on a path that winds its way around various textiles created by the Na’vi as well as their totems of the magical Shaman of Songs. The pieces are intricate works of art and give you a taste of the fascinating people you are about to see.

  Above the queue is another intricate hand-woven piece that actually serves as a map of the river that winds through Pandora. The blue ropes represent the river, and the other areas represent the rest of the bioluminescent forest. At night, this piece takes on new life as it is illuminated with light that moves, showing where various life forms are as they journey down the river.

  All of the activity seems to be heading in the same direction and the lazy river journey culminates in the appearance of a figure who has a deep connection to the life force of Pandora and celebrates that connection through her music. Music is central to the culture of the Na’vi.

  This is the Na’vi Shaman of Songs who is radiating positive energy into the forest. The rough translation of her song thanks the Great Mother for the many gifts that allow the Na’vi to live well in the forest.

  All of the other creatures have actually been presented as realistic projections on layers of screens that are positioned inside the magnificent scenery.

  The Na’vi Shaman of Songs is the most complicated audio-animatronic figure ever created by Walt Disney Imagineering. Despite its sophistication and many functions, it is not a creation of Garner Holt Productions who have supplied many intricate audio-animatronics to the Disney theme parks.

  During a robotics event in Boston, Disney provided a glimpse at t
he inner workings of the Na’vi Shaman which is larger and so can hold additional mechanics to provide more realistic movements and expressions.

  Rohde said:

  The shaman is even more extraordinary than we expected. Her facial expressions, little movements in the cheek, tiny movements in the eyelid—each one of these carries an emotion she’s capable of conveying.

  In the event of a malfunction, a hidden scrim can be rolled down and then an image of the shaman projected onto it. Above the figure, where guests rarely if ever look, is a circular ring indicating how a screen curtain can be lowered and hide the actual figure.

  Rohde explained:

  Na’vi River Journey is a very sweet, lyrical adventure through a spectacular visual environment that just becomes more and more spectacular as you go on. The bioluminescent activity of the plants around you unfolds in richer and richer scenes in really just a very uplifting, wonderful kind of journey.

  Animal Kingdom

  Classic Art Influences

  On August 3, 2017, the Orlando Museum of Art presented “Pandora: Celebrating the Beauty of the Natural World” featuring two similar forty-minute, capacity-crowd presentations by Imagineer Joe Rohde entitled “Animal Kingdom, Pandora and the Great Masters.”

  Rohde spoke about some of the major artistic influences on the design of all of Disney’s Animal Kingdom but in particular Pandora: The World of Avatar. He made clear that while he studied the works of previous Imagineers when he was doing his design work, he also studied just as intently the often forgotten great painters and sculptors of past centuries.

  Rohde quoted Victorian era English art critic John Ruskin: “There are many beautiful things to see in the world if you stop and you look at them.” His point was that Disney guests at Animal Kingdom would be rewarded if they slowed down to discover some of the details.