Greetings, readers!
Sorry for my absence recently, but I just returned from a fabulous, week-long vacation in Walt Disney World. Needless to say, I have many observations and thoughts percolating around my head, so my next set of columns will be a collections of these musings and thoughts.
I thought I'd begin with what I consider to be one of the most interesting technological advances that Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) is currently pursuing: The Next Generation Intiative, or what Disney fans have taken to simply calling Next Gen. It's sort of a mixed bag, and there's a lot to be excited about, but also, a lot have gotten the Disney fans up in arms.
However, make no mistake about it, it's coming, and it's a priority for the company. Tom Staggs spoke to shareholders about it in February, and the project is rumored to be costing around $1 billion (just think...for a tenth of that, the Yeti could be fixed! But, I digress).
Next Gen is a far-reaching proposal, stretching everywhere from attraction queues (see: the new queue for Winnie the Pooh), to character meet and greets, which is what we'll focus on right now. That part of Next Gen has been called the Living Character Initiative, something WDI has been pursuing in earnest since 2006. We first saw this at Walt Disney World in the Dream Along with Mickey show, which premiered as part of the Year of a Million Dreams. Take a look:
As you can see, the characters mouths appeared to move in time to the dialogue they were speaking, and there were also other actions, such as blinking that were occurring. However, this was just the beginning. Characters in the parks soon began to make a series of rudimentary sound effects (most frequently, the blowing of a kiss) that impressed guests. The next step up involved the character of Remy (from Ratatouille) making appearances at Les Chefs de France in Epcot. Let's ignore for a moment the obvious argument to be made regarding who would want a rat on their table while they're trying to eat, and just enjoy this video:
And yet, still rumors swirled that Disney was working on something much more complex, something that would blow guests' minds and completely change the way they envisioned their meetings with Mickey Mouse. In May 2010, Disney Parks released the following promotional video, taken from a weekend where Next Gen Mickey was greeting his guests out at Disneyland:
Obviously, much of what you see in that video is staged promotional material, but the fact remains that the possibility of Mickey being able to greet guests by name and interact with them was no longer a pipe dream. This seemed to be happening sooner rather than later.
Still, questions remained. How would Mickey react in less structured situations? Is this something that would be successful with any guests, or just these carefull chosen ones? Well, throughout the year, at random times unknown to anyone but themselves, WDI would take out Next Gen Mickey to "play test" it and see how it worked. Here is a recent example:
Mickey was able to closely interact with the guests, first a young family, then some teens, and it's really hard to argue how with these results. The teens were reduced to fits of laughter, Mickey got to be a little mischevious, and everyone seemed to have a good time. For those wondering, the technology that allows this sort of thing to happen is very similar to the technology used in Turtle Talk with Crush and the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor (which has always had the unfortunate acronym of MILF).
Not satisfied with just these stationary meet and greets, WDI pushed the Next Gen initiative even further, working to create a free roaming Mickey that could talk to guests. This was the result:Sorry for my absence recently, but I just returned from a fabulous, week-long vacation in Walt Disney World. Needless to say, I have many observations and thoughts percolating around my head, so my next set of columns will be a collections of these musings and thoughts.
I thought I'd begin with what I consider to be one of the most interesting technological advances that Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) is currently pursuing: The Next Generation Intiative, or what Disney fans have taken to simply calling Next Gen. It's sort of a mixed bag, and there's a lot to be excited about, but also, a lot have gotten the Disney fans up in arms.
However, make no mistake about it, it's coming, and it's a priority for the company. Tom Staggs spoke to shareholders about it in February, and the project is rumored to be costing around $1 billion (just think...for a tenth of that, the Yeti could be fixed! But, I digress).
Next Gen is a far-reaching proposal, stretching everywhere from attraction queues (see: the new queue for Winnie the Pooh), to character meet and greets, which is what we'll focus on right now. That part of Next Gen has been called the Living Character Initiative, something WDI has been pursuing in earnest since 2006. We first saw this at Walt Disney World in the Dream Along with Mickey show, which premiered as part of the Year of a Million Dreams. Take a look:
As you can see, the characters mouths appeared to move in time to the dialogue they were speaking, and there were also other actions, such as blinking that were occurring. However, this was just the beginning. Characters in the parks soon began to make a series of rudimentary sound effects (most frequently, the blowing of a kiss) that impressed guests. The next step up involved the character of Remy (from Ratatouille) making appearances at Les Chefs de France in Epcot. Let's ignore for a moment the obvious argument to be made regarding who would want a rat on their table while they're trying to eat, and just enjoy this video:
And yet, still rumors swirled that Disney was working on something much more complex, something that would blow guests' minds and completely change the way they envisioned their meetings with Mickey Mouse. In May 2010, Disney Parks released the following promotional video, taken from a weekend where Next Gen Mickey was greeting his guests out at Disneyland:
Obviously, much of what you see in that video is staged promotional material, but the fact remains that the possibility of Mickey being able to greet guests by name and interact with them was no longer a pipe dream. This seemed to be happening sooner rather than later.
Still, questions remained. How would Mickey react in less structured situations? Is this something that would be successful with any guests, or just these carefull chosen ones? Well, throughout the year, at random times unknown to anyone but themselves, WDI would take out Next Gen Mickey to "play test" it and see how it worked. Here is a recent example:
Mickey was able to closely interact with the guests, first a young family, then some teens, and it's really hard to argue how with these results. The teens were reduced to fits of laughter, Mickey got to be a little mischevious, and everyone seemed to have a good time. For those wondering, the technology that allows this sort of thing to happen is very similar to the technology used in Turtle Talk with Crush and the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor (which has always had the unfortunate acronym of MILF).
Clearly, this was much more of a mixed bag. While the technology is still impressive, it's clear that the free-roaming Mickey is reduced to using pre-programmed canned phrases. At some points during that video, Mickey's response to the guest's question is a little strange.
It would seem logical than, for WDI to focus on the more interactive Next Gen Mickey, which is where he could speak freely with his visitors. And, there are now strong rumors that the new Mickey Meet and Greet, which will take place in a refurbished Main Street Exposition,will feature this new Next Gen Mickey. In addition to spending an inordinate amount of time and money preparing the area (which was somewhat necessitated by the "foreclosure" of Mickey's home in Toontown), reliable online sources are reporting that this Mickey Meet and Greet will have a fastpass system installed in it, making it the first character greeting to do so. It doesn't seem logical for Fastpass to be installed on a "regular" character greeting, especially when the enormously popular princess meet and greets operate with only a standby line.
To date, Disney has yet to officially announce anything, including even a date for the opening of the Mickey Meet and Greet at the Main Street Exposition. Please note that projects are typically known about by the online community months before Disney chooses to announce them publicly (the Disney Parks blog is notoriously slow).
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