John Carter Trailer - Trying To Keep An Open Mind

I say to myself "Self, try to keep an open mind, try to keep an open mind, try to keep an open mind...." but I got to say from the TV ads and trailers that are coming out to promote the Disney John Carter movie, the film looks dreadful beyond words. This movie cost Disney an estimated $250,000,000 to make (that's a quarter of a billion dollars folks). It's success (or failure) will probably shape how Disney will handle big budget films going forward (already seen last year when Disney shut down production The Lone Ranger when its cost began to escalate beyond the 200 million mark and Disney made a statement to the films producers to get the costs in line). Anyway, below is a John Carter trailer from YouTube. You be the judge. Is that a Led Zeppelin orchestral soundtrack?

Word to remember - "You are ugly but you are beautiful". What the....? What would Walt think? Just askin'.

What's In A Name?

As note last month by all things Disney watchdog Al Lutz and MiceAge.com, Walt Disney Studios subtly made a change to the opening splash that fronts all of their movies. It began with the November release of The Muppets. Look at the picture above. Notice anything missing? Up until the release of the Muppets, it used to say Walt Disney Pictures. The Walt has now been removed giving us the simple brand name "Disney". 

Is the legacy of Walt being removed from corporate Disney? Many people feel that way which is why MiceAge has began to sell T-Shirts with the following protest...

Now this doesn't matter all that much to me because I'm old enough remember Walt living but future generations may have a tougher time seeing the creative vision of a man who started an empire with a mouse.

BCS National Championship Game Tonight - Disney Smiles

Tonight is the National Championship of college football now known as the BCS (Bowl Championship Series). The teams - the LSU Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide - don't mean a lick to me except they are both really, really good as should be the game. More than a Disney guy, I'm sports guy. So what does all this have to do with Disney?

The game is on ESPN and millions of people will watch. Far more people will watch this football game than will set foot in all Disney Parks combined this year. And as much as it galls Disney fans to hear it - by far the most profitable part of the Walt Disney Company is ESPN which Disney owns. This game will generate a fortune for the Disney bank accounts

No Soup For You and Other Short Takes

 

The mighty Matterhorn now closed

As mentioned in a previous post on Saturday my Disney Christmas kind of fell by the wayside this year. I just didn't have what it takes to give The Disneyland Traveler a whole lot of thought for the last month or so. My biggest regret? I didn't take the time to go see Disney's The Muppets movie over the holidays as I had planned... I would imagine the video will hit the stores sometime in March....

Lines...I miss being down at Disneyland during the Christmas season....what I don't miss are the massive lines that appear during the Christmas school break...park visitors sent back pictures of the sign in the DL hub that posts wait times and where stand-by times for every listed attraction went over 60 minutes...Would have driven me crazy...

Winter is here and it is time for the usual refurbishments. Of course there is the usual 3 week closures for the Haunted Mansion and it's a small world to remove the holiday overlays...HM is closed now and when that comes back later this month iasw goes down... Most refurbishments on the calendar will be relatively brief from a few days to a week or so...except...the Matterhorn is now closed until mid-June to install the new bobsleds and to give the venerable mountain a makeover....Also closed until the summer season is the whole section of Main St that houses the Blue Ribbon Bakery (now replaced by the Jolly Holly Bakery), the Candy Palace, the Penny Arcade, the Coca-Cola Refreshment Corner, and alas...the Carnation Cafe. As confirmed by Disney Parks Blog, there will be no Loaded Baked Potato Soup served until the new and improved (with an indoor seating section) Carnation Cafe returns probably sometime in May. No Baked Potato soup? That almost would be a deal breaker as far as making a trip down to Disneyland for Mrs. DisneylandTraveler. 

ElecTRONica continues on though...ugh!

Star Tours opened 25 years ago today...in January?... I can't imagine Disneyland opening any major attraction outside of the summer season anymore.

Do to a misfire accident, the holiday fireworks display did not go off something like 8 of the 9 days that led up to New Years Eve...bummer...the fireworks did go off as scheduled on New Years Eve but the entire park was shrouded in a mysterious looking thick fog...you can check the pictures and videos out on the internet but the whole evening, while festive, was pretty eerie looking...

I don't really make any New Year's resolutions but I do know this...if I don't take off some weight my poor knees while have a hard time taking a Disneyland pounding when that next trip comes around... 

Let The Memories .... End

Disney Parks promotion for the last year has been titled "Let the Memories Begin". Not one of its most dynamic park promotions to be sure but this past year has been a successful one at Disneyland even as the economy continued to struggle. Park attendance has been up, hotel bookings have been up, even spending at the resort has been up - all good things for Disney accountants and shareholders. So the "Let the Memories Begin" promotion has been pretty inconsequential. Now the Memories promotion will continue until the new summer promotion hits the TV commercials and spot ads mostly like directing you to Cars Land and the all new Disney California Adventure Park but the transition has already begun to take place with the removal of the huge Disneyland - Let The Memories Begin float that has sat out in the esplanade for the last year or so.

The float's removal today is hardly news worthy other than I probably have 20 pictures of the thing sitting in my Disney photo collection all taken by Mrs. DisneylandTraveler. I guess she rather liked it. Now the photos are just a memory as well.

This Is Only A (Cars Land) Test...

Radiator Springs Racer Testing - A Disney Parks Photo

During December, Disney Parks Blog posted to YouTube videos of testing 2 of the 3 rides that will  be the  cornerstone of Cars Land in Disney California Adventure Park - Luigi's Flying Tires and Mater's Junkyard Jamboree. These are the two "minor" attractions with the main attraction being the massive Radiator Springs Racers. I guess I wanted to capture these two videos here because if someone ask me about what rides will be in Cars Land, I can point them to this blog post quickly for a sneak peek.

The first video features Luigi's Flying Tires with the Cars (and Toy Story and Pixar) man himself John Lasseter in the driver's seat.

The second video shows Mater's Junkyard Jamboree.....

Now I can't seem myself on either of these two rides as from appearances, they appear for a younger crowd (and their parents) but who knows? Maybe three years from now on a quiet off season day when the line makes these slow loading rides close to walk-ons, I may give them a try.

A New Year, A New Beginning - Disney Style

My intentions were good. December, Christmas time at the Disneyland Resort, I had so much to write about, so many pictures to post and share. It didn't work out that way. As they say "sometimes life gets in the way" even in the life of a Disneyland blogger. My output to this blog this past December was pretty meager - 5 posts - all very early in the month. What happened? - I guess stress of the holidays, stress of my real job (for the first time in many years I didn't take any extra days off around the holidays), and company here at the old homestead from Christmas till New Years made it very difficult for me to focus on my alter-ego, the Disneyland Traveler.

But its a new year. For Disneyland a new bakery opened yesterday while the rest of the month things close down for winter refurbishments and assorted maintenance that goes on during the park's slowest time of the year. We'll trudge are way through these changes as time goes on but for now its just good being back as The Disneyland Traveler.

And when will the DLT be heading down to his favorite park, favorite destination? Sad to say but as of right now, there are no plans and probably not any time this year. The funds aren't there for any time this winter or spring. I won't go near that place anytime after the immediate opening of Cars Land for fear I will be (quoting Led Zeppelin here) "trampled under foot" by a maddening crowd. If there is a chance of making it down to Disneyland it will probably be towards the end of year. 

It's a pity, I really look forward to trying out the new bakery along with all the other recent additions I have missed out on (Star Tours, the Little Mermaid ride, and the 2 Paradise Pier restaurants). In the meantime, I live my Disneyland experiences in trips of others with a hopeful eye of that magical trip in the future.