News / Art of Disney Animation

Disneyland Paris has announced the opening date of Animation Celebration, the reworking of its 17-year old Art of Disney Animation attraction into a new Frozen musical experience.

The star of Walt Disney Pictures’ live-action Beauty and the Beast remake will replace animated heroine Moana at the Walt Disney Studios Park meet and greet spot from the new movie’s release date. Read More…

Disneyland Paris scored an exclusive “first” yesterday as Disney’s latest heroine Moana made her first ever appearance within a Disney park anywhere in the world. Read More…

Disneyland Paris will welcome a brand new Disney character to its catalogue of famous famous next weekend, its first in three years. Moana, titular star of the new Walt Disney Animation Studios film, will begin meet and greet appearances at Walt Disney Studios Park from Sunday, 20th November 2016. Read More…

Two new character illustrations have been added to the Animation Academy drawing classes at Art of Disney Animation in Walt Disney Studios Park.

Along with old favourites such as Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh, guests will now be able to draw Daisy Duck and Goofy throughout the day at the Toon Studio attraction.

Disneyland Paris announced the additions on its official Twitter account, which it says are thanks to a collaboration between the artists and Walt Disney Imagineering creatives.

It’s a minor plussing, but we’re glad of anything which sees the Studios freshened up outside of La Place de Rémy. In fact, Disney — why not see if the rat himself can be added, too?

VIA @Disney_ParisEN (Twitter)

Now, if you’d like to take the tour through the three initial rooms of Art of Disney Animation, you’d better check your Programme times guide. The attraction is now listed alongside the likes of Moteurs… Action! Stunt Show Spectacular with pre-determined “show times” for the start of each presentation.

This week, you can visit the attraction only at 11:00, 11:30, 12:00, 12:30, 13:00, 13:30, 14:00, 14:30, 15:00, 15:30, 16:00, 16:30, 17:00, 17:30 and 18:00.

Normally, Art of Disney Animation runs continuously right through the day, with guests waiting outside or in the pre-show area for the start of the next show around every 10 minutes, passing from room-to-room between the Disney Classics Theatre and Drawn to Animation theatres for a total show time of around 20 minutes.

These new scheduled times therefore cut the number of chances to tour through the attraction by around two thirds, not to mention leaving the attraction in the dark for the first hour of park opening, until 11am, and for much of the final hour of the day.

That said, Art of Disney Animation is far from bombarded by guests. Not really providing enough interest to most visitors for repeat viewings, the outdoor queue line, now hidden partly behind the Hollywood Boulevard façades, very rarely sees any real use. This new test for low season days could ensure that audience numbers are never embarrassingly low, whilst allowing cost savings with Cast Members potentially doubling-up roles for the first two rooms.

The continuous start times of each presentation have previously been confusing and unhelpful to visitors. Sometimes you can rush inside just as the doors are closing and end up missing the whole pre-show, other times you appear to be waiting for far too long. Even if it means fewer showings per day, this kind of transparency is probably a good step.

But isn’t it just highlighting a bigger problem with Art of Disney Animation? Looking at the concept of the attraction as a whole, switching to scheduled times means a vast amount of central floorspace in this very small park suddenly becomes useless for long periods of time, cutting capacity and adding yet another complication to visitors planning their day — if the scheduled times of Playhouse Disney, Stitch Live, Animagique, CinéMagique and Moteurs Action! weren’t enough.

Wouldn’t a much better way to present “the art of animation” be to restructure the attraction to work more like the Disney Animation pavilion at Disney’s California Adventure?

Warning, self-indulgent home-Imagineering ahead…

In California, guests enter into a central lobby area and are then free to roam through several different rooms at their own pace. In Paris, the current post-show area would be perfect for this, with a single wall knocked through (by the video screens in the pre-show, the Jungle Book artwork in the post-show) to open up direct access to the pre-show room and theatre. The post show is already accessed directly by a lot of guests, using the exit doors to drop in and out. The pre-show and Classics theatre are, however, completely cut off.

Drawn to Animation with Mushu also exists as one of those rooms in California, and is really the only part of this attraction concept which needs to be presented as a scheduled show. Its current exit in Paris, behind the Animation Academy drawing boards, could double up as a single entrance, with these new half-hourly showtimes posted outside.

Though emotional and enjoyable, the Disney Classics Theatre in Paris is largely quite pointless, simply playing a series of themed clips from Disney and Pixar animation. The theatre could be better used as a “Cinéma Mickey/Main Street Cinema”-style drop-in space playing classic Disney shorts, or ripped out entirely for other interactive exhibits.

While we’re at it, replace The Disney Animation Gallery boutique with an indoor meet and greet space, for Sorcerer Mickey. The returns on souvenir photo prints would surely be better than current sales at this tiny shop, which has recently had its original remit of animation books, prints and collectibles watered down to a samey array of High School Musical merch anyway.

Open up the current entrance and exits to traffic in both directions et voilà — an open, free-roaming covered walkthrough, exhibit and show space in Walt Disney Studios Park that’s open at all times. An equivalent to Videopolis, Liberty Arcade or the original Adventureland Bazaar. Shelter from the rain, something to fill-in between other show times and a real heart for Toon Studio.

Knocking through a wall or two here might not even be all that outrageous for the park, given all the knocking down and rebuilding that went on at Walt Disney Studios Store last year just to give that shop more light.

Rather than cutting back access to this great, covered, central space, open it up!

Images © Disney, Google Earth.

The heart of Toon Studio has seen little change inside its walls since 2002, despite a change of colour to its exterior, new Peter Pan statues from Florida, new trees and the incredibly close arrival of Hollywood Boulevard.

Now, Art of Disney Animation is presenting a refreshed film in its Disney Classics Theatre, the second room of the tour. After discovering the history of animation and a little about how Disney began to revolutionise the art, guests are invited to step through the doors and sit back to enjoy a 5-10 minute compilation of classic Disney scenes, following themes of love, loss, friendship, success and more.

Fans microsan on FPA forum and La Rouquine on Disney Central Plaza report that the film now includes clips from animation released this decade, particularly The Incredibles and WALL-E.

Films more popular with a younger audience, such as Winnie the Pooh and Finding Nemo, have replaced some of the lesser-known clips, and Pixar Animation Studios enjoys a much greater presence throughout, notably with A Bug’s Life.

Microsan reports that the colour and sound have been completely remastered — perhaps replacing some of the more grainy clips with ones taken from recent remasters done for DVD and Blu-Ray releases, though La Rouquine confirms that the emotions are still followed in the same order and with the same choice of music.

And the critical response? La Rouquine comments that it doesn’t seem to flow as well as the original film, whilst “lodoss” on the FPA forum shouts “massacre!” and says this version lacks unity. But most, of course, say that any change and update here is a very welcome thing, with the attraction now feeling much more up-to-date.

Notable in its absence from this new version is the gunshot heard as the montage cuts to Bambi‘s realisation of his mother’s death. The upsetting excerpt is now apparently a little shorter than before.

Perhaps nothing more than a coincidence, it’s worth mentioning that this week’s park programme has added an extra Closure & Refurbishment to the list, marking Art of Disney Animation down for a closure this Friday and Saturday, 27th and 28th March 2009.

The rest of the attraction, including its pre-show, post-show and Mushu “Drawn to Animation” show currently remains exactly as before.

Pictures: DLRP Today.