Mouse Extra

Did you ever have one of those days when you felt like you wasted your time?  Have you ever been aggravated because you waited in a 2 hour line, say at the Motor Vehicles office or maybe at the dentist?  It’s the feeling that you could have been doing anything, literally anything else but this and your time would have been better spent.  That’s the way I felt when I left the movie theater after watching Disney’s new animated feature “Meet the Robinsons”.

I went to see the film in what I believe was a good frame of mind.  Being a Disney production, I was excited to see it.  But the reviews I reported on yesterday were very mixed, so I was ready for anything.  What I was not ready for was an absolute disastrously difficult 90-plus minutes of what can only be described as cinematic torture.

The story is certainly not a bad one.  An orphan boy-genius inventor goes to the future and discovers what his life will become, while a villain with a personal grudge tries to change the hero’s life by altering history.  It’s a simple story that has promise, but it buckles under the weight of maddening movie ineptness.   I can’t count how many times during the film I turned to my wife and asked her if the scene we just watched was supposed to be funny.  She didn’t know, and neither did the theater fill of children who never laughed once during the whole movie.  Vast sections of twenties minutes or more would go by without any redeeming entertainment or story-telling value.  It was just odd, sometimes trippy, but always   confusing or mediocre at best.  Even the animation came nowhere near the quality we are used to from Pixar productions.  Hopefully, Disney will learn from this and let John Lasseter’s crew handle this end of the animation business from now on.

The film was preceded by the 1938 short “Boat Builders” starring Mickey, Donald and Goofy, which was a treat to see on the big screen.  There were more laughs, and more happy children that came out of the seven minutes of a nearly 70 year old short than in the entire 90-plus minutes of “Meet the Robinsons”.  That probably explains why the decision was made to put it there to begin with.  I can only imagine when Disney Studio executives saw the finished product, this was the best they can think of to make the experience at least tolerable.

“Meet the Robinsons” ends with a poignant quote from Walt Disney  that the filmmakers were undoubtedly hoping would add to the story in some way.  Instead, it makes us wonder if Mr. Disney wouldn’t have pulled the plug on this film long before I wasted my money.  It is also hard not to wonder how John Lasseter convinced himself this feature was good enough to represent Disney animation.

Screamscape.com reported a very interesting rumor yesterday regarding the future of the Disney-MGM Studios.  Beside the often reported name change to Disney-Pixar Studios, the rumor says changes may be far more sweeping than just a simple re-branding… Read the rest of this entry »

by Dave

Today marks the opening of Disney’s new animated feature, “Meet the Robinsons”.  The morning papers are filled with reviews, and the results can at best be described as mixed.  In fact, the opinions seem to run everywhere from admiration to hatred, and everything in between.

Let’s start with the positive, and there are a few reviews that are very positive.  Here’s a bit of Bill Zweckers’ review from this morning’s Chicago Sun-Times…

With “Meet the Robinsons” I’m happy to report director Stephen J. Anderson and his team have delivered on the goods — obviously opening new avenues as far as the animation is concerned, but perhaps more important, giving us a charming story that will resonate with all ages of the family audiences it is targeting.

Sounds pretty good, don’t you think?  Well, as I continued to read other reviews, I came across one by A.O. Scott in this morning’s New York Times.  His opinion is totally opposite, and he pulls no punches.

…“Meet the Robinsons” is surely one of the worst theatrically released animated features issued under the Disney label in quite some time.

…And, with the exception of a few quiet early moments before the full whirligig of narrative starts spinning, just about everything in “Meet the Robinsons” has been done better before, including at the Disney factory. This movie has more in common with cobbled-together junk like “Chicken Little” and “Treasure Planet” than with the studio’s classics. But it’s all right. I guess everyone makes mistakes — though only movie studios expect the rest of us to pay for theirs.

Needless to say, Disney needs a homerun here, or at least a bases clearing double in the gap.  (Can you tell I’m ready for Opening Day???)  They unleashed an absolute marketing blitzkrieg for this film, and they need it to pay off.  Ads were popping up everywhere, and the film has been released in 3D in 600 theaters to get people excited.  It will be interesting to monitor the response from Disney fans over the next week.  I imagine there may be a large division between those who see the 3D version, and those who don’t.

The Orlando Sentinel reports this morning that Disney officials will announce the building of a giant indoor sports facility at Disney’s Wide World of Sports. The new arena will allow the Mouse to host even more sports events…

The Jostens Center, which will house more than 44,800 square feet of competition space, will contain six basketball courts, 12 volleyball courts, two roller hockey rinks, four locker rooms, two conference areas and two officials’ rooms. The venue is scheduled to open in fall 2008.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of that facility, and a huge new addition is one way they are celebrating the occasion…

The announcement coincides with events planned to celebrate Disney’s Wide World of Sport’s 10th anniversary. From 12:15-12:45 p.m. today at the complex, Disney officials and athletes will be on hand to mark a decade in Central Florida.

So let me get this straight.  For the 10th anniversary of a glorified college field house, we get a major enhancement and events, but for the 25 th anniversary of one of the most popular theme parks in the world we get nothing?

The Disney Blog has some information on the new post-show area coming to Epcot’s Spaceship Earth in the not-to-distant future.  Siemens and Walt Disney Imagineering have teamed with students at Carnegie Mellon to develop arcade games to help fill the long abandoned former Global Neighborhood area. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I need to begin by apologizing for this post in advance.  It is a really slow news morning, so I am digging a bit to find something to write about.  Apparently Mark Goldhaber over at Mouse Planet is having the same issue.  Read the rest of this entry »