Mouse Extra

Perhaps the oldest running rumor in Disney history is the possibility of a new Star Tours. It seems everytime Star War Weekends or a new Star Wars project rolls around, we hear this rumor ad naseum. Not that long ago, Anthony Daniels, a.k.a. C3-P0, was quoted as saying he recorded some dialogue for a Star Tours 2. That rumor has seemingly died on the vine.

But now, we may have the most reliable source yet for a Star Tours 2. In fact, it may even have been confirmed to at least be in development. A recent article on c/net news goes in depth into the work behind the new Indiana Jones film by computer graphics supervisor, Hayden Landis. Its a nice review of the amazing work done on that film by Industrial Light and Magic. What does this have to do with Star Tours 2 you ask?

Simple. The next to last line of the article - seemingly a throw in- will set Disney fans into hysteria. It reads “Next up for Landis is another nostalgia-oriented project–a redo of the Star Tours ride at Disneyland.”  

to read the article click here

By Mike, contributing writer to Mouse Extra and certified Star Wars nut

Let’s continue our tour around this years Flower and Garden Festival over at Epcot.  Last time we took a look at the character topiaries found around the park.  Today we will check out some of the other details you’ll see touring around the park.

First up is the encoded message we find in Future World.  What you see below is a collection of flowers in the shape of nautical signal flags.  They apparently spell out a message, but I must admit that I never bothered to find out what it was…sorry about that…

If you like butterflies, you can find lots of them over at Minnie’s Magnificent Butterfly Garden.  It is located just next to Innoventions over by Test Track.  I walked through it once.  But to me butterflies are still bugs!

Not far from the bugs…errr…butterflies, you’ll find this little playground pictured below.  It’s called Pluto’s Play Zone.  It may not look like much, but there were always plenty of little ones here and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Check back with us tomorrow for a few more photos from this year’s festival.

Sometimes it feels like all you do at Walt Disney World is wait.  You wait on line for rides.  You wait for food.  You even wait outside the gate before opening so you can go inside and start waiting.  It can be maddening sometimes, to say the least.

But Disney has done a good job in making the waiting a little bit easier to handle.  They have broken up lines, added interactive elements to queues and have created many terrific pre-shows.  But there is one attraction that is severely lacking a pre-show, even though it probably the one most prime to have an especially good one.

To get a decent seat at Fantasmic, even during the slower periods, you have to be there early.  For forty-five minutes or more, you need to sit on incredibly uncomfortable bleachers, probably sweating, and just stare at your watch.  There is no pre-show nor any interactive games to ease the pain.  There simply is nothing to make the time go by faster.  Every time I go to the show, I can not help but asking myself how this could be.

Right next door at the Beauty and the Beast show, there is an a cappella group that performs for the waiting crowd.  Festival of the Lion King at least gets people to do the “hand jive”.  It may not be mind blowing excitement, but it’s at least a distraction.  And both of those shows have much shorter wait times needed to get a good seat, and significantly fewer people in attendance.  Why would Fantasmic not have something twice as good as these shows?

In my opinion, Disney is missing a huge opportunity here to make the best pre-show possible for a huge and captive audience.  Fantasmic! is an amazing show, and worth seeing on every trip to Walt Disney World.  But it can also be a very time consuming and frustrating experience.  And I know many people who attend during the more crowded seasons that simply do not want to wait there with their kids for over an hour staring at an empty stage.  A well done pre-show would go a long way to solving this problem.

So it is time for the Imagineers to get to work and help the waiting masses sweltering at the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater.  Make us a pre-show that is a worthy introduction to Fantasmic!.  Such an addition could make a night spent at Disney’s Hollywood Studios a truly terrific experience. 

For those of you who are unable to attend this year’s Flower and Garden Festival over at Epcot, I thought I would take a couple of postings over the next few days and show you some photos of this year’s event.  I will begin with some pictures of my favorite character topiaries.

At the Showcase Plaza, the entrance to World Showcase from Future World, you will fine this tribute to the Mouse’s best friend.  Looks like Pluto enjoys the beach…

Head towards the Mexico pavilion and you will see this terrific topiary dedicated to the Three Caballeros appropriately located.  I couldn’t help but thinking it would have been nice to move the meet-and-greet for these birds over towards this display.

And finally, this beautiful topiary sits romantically on the banks of the canals of Venice.  Of all the ones around World Showcase I found, Lady and the Tramp certainly appeared to be getting the biggest response. 

There will be more to come from this year’s Flower and Garden Festival, so check back during the week.

Maya Bell from the Orlando Sentinel has a terrific story about a new attraction coming to Epcot’s Innoventions later this summer.  It is called “StormStruck: The Tale of Two Homes” and it is a look at what to do to be safer during a hurricane. 

StormStruck, an immersive digital surround-sound-theater experience, is based on what happened to these two houses — and is designed to show homeowners that they can make their own homes safer: not by teaching the nitty-gritty of safe construction, but with a little Disney drama.

…According to a Disney description, exhibit visitors will don 3-D glasses and watch as their “safe house” is lashed by a hurricane and begins to break up around them. As the eye of the storm hovers overhead, they’ll race against the clock to decide how to rebuild the home more safely.

I will be totally honest with you.  I am one of those people that walk past Innoventions and barely ever go in, no less walk through the exhibits.  But this looks intriguing enough to make me want to give it a try.  Perhaps coming in to see StormStruck may make me want to look around at the rest of what is offered in the old Communicore, another place a barely even went.

I do find it interesting that Disney has chosen a hurricane as the subject of the next addition to Innoventions.  It goes without saying that hurricanes have been one of Disney’s most difficult problems when it comes to getting people to central Florida during the offseason.  You would think they would want to stay clear of any talk of the destructive force of these storms.  But I applaud them for the effort.

Hidden inside Innoventions, just around the corner from the Epcot Character Spot, is a new and probably short lived gem of Walt Disney World.  It is called the Epcot 25th Anniversary Gallery, and it explores the history of this wonderful theme park.

The gallery has the words “Creating the New World of Tomorrow” above its entrance and it features a visual history of Epcot Center.  It is chock full of artifacts, models and concept drawings.  All of which are serious eye candy for the Epcot lovers and especially heartwarming for the purist.

You’ll find some great artifacts and even a wonderful collection of some of the very first merchandise sold at Epcot Center…

Those of you out there, and I know there are quite a few, who miss the classic Future World attraction Horizons may just shed a tear when they see this display case dedicated to the extinct attraction…

And these photos just scratch the surface.  It is not a big room, and they could probably make it three times as big if they wanted, but it is till a great walk down memory lane.  The next time you are at Epcot, get yourself out of the blistering heat or passing shower and take a look inside Epcot’s 25th Anniversary Gallery.  If you are a lover of Epcot, you will not be disappointed.