Disneyland Paris Christmas season pictures by Maureen Chaffurin

Maureen Chaffurin this young and talented photographer that Disney and more readers knows well for her previous photographic reports is back today with great pictures of DLP at night during this 2009 Christmas season.

Great pictures of the Castle and the Christmas parade as well as Frontierland and Fantasyland as you will see on the pictures below. On the pictures, as Maureen avoid to have too many people in the frame you may have the feeling that the park was empty, but i was there that same week-end and believe me i've never seen so many people in the park on a November week-end!

I remind you that Maureen has her own website called Shootin where you may see other great pictures of DLP shoot recently or during her previous visits. Her new pictures below are beautiful, so enjoy them!

























All pictures: copyright Maureen Chaffurin and Shootin

Universal Studios Terminator 2 3D Artwork

The artwork article of the week is, for once, not about WDI artwork but about the very popular Universal Studios Terminator 2 3D : Battle Across Time attraction.

Terminator 2 3D is a mini-sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day and reunites director James Cameron and the main cast from the movie, including Arnold Schwarzenegger as "The Terminator", Linda Hamilton as "Sarah Connor", Edward Furlong as "John Connor", and Robert Patrick as the "T-1000". The show is presented in two parts; a pre-show where a Cyberdyne Systems company hostess shows guests a brief video presentation about the company's innovations, and the main show, where live performers interact with a 3-D film.

During the main show guests are ushered from the pre-show auditorium into a large theater where they are to see a demonstration of Cyberdyne's newest creation, robotic soldiers called T-70 Terminators. Once guests are seated, they put on their "safety visors" to watch a demonstration of the Terminators in action...



However, John and Sarah arrive and disrupt the proceedings, followed by a T-1000 Terminator from the future. A second Terminator, portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, rides through a time portal on a motorcycle to rescue John. He takes John back through the portal and into the future war between humans and machines...



John and the Terminator make their way across the war ravaged landscape as they head towards Skynet. Along the way, they are chased by a Hunter-Killer (which was mentioned by Kyle Reese and seen in the first Terminator film), mini-hunters, and a terminator endoskeleton. When they finally reach the Skynet core, they battle the "T-1000000", a giant liquid metal spider that is similar to a very large T-1000.



The Terminator finally sends John back to the present while he stays behind to blow up Skynet and the T-1000000. The show ends with Sarah and John alone once again. Sarah finishes the show by saying that she feels that she owes her life to the Terminator for saving John's life. During this narration, a terminator endoskeleton's face is shown on the screen, which morphs into Schwarzenegger's face before the theatre goes black and the show ends.



The show was created by Landmark in cooperation with James Cameron, and it's one of the best attraction they've designed for Universal Studios along with others like Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park and the Spiderman ride. The show who was a success from day one opened at Universal Florida and Hollywood as well as Universal Osaka.

You can watch a very good making-of of the attraction on Youtube in three parts HERE, HERE and HERE

Here is a kind of "backstage video" from the Discovery Channel



And you can also find footage of the attraction movie and pre-show on Youtube HERE


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Artwork: copyright Universal Studios - Landmark Entertainment

Videos: copyright Universal and Discovery Channel

Thanks to Wikipedia for part of the text.

Editor's Note: Al Lutz on Miceage has a new update today with fresh news on the return of Captain Eo, Disney's California Adventure works, and more!

The new " Jungle Book " luxury edition is simply Gorgeous !

Anyone who loved Disney's great animated classic "The Jungle Book" will be in heaven with Pierre Lambert new gorgeous opus. Pierre Lambert is the author of the previous luxury books "Pinnochio", "Snow White", and "Mickey Mouse" all of them existing in english edition. This new one, published by french renown publisher Editions de la Martinière has its text in french only - that's why the title on the cover is "Le Livre de la Jungle".

Although Pierre Lambert's text is extremely interesting this only-french-version must not stop you to order the book as most of the 237 pages of the book are purely visuals. And what a great artwork! From Ken Anderson and Bill Peet first sketches to the stunning background by Albert Dempster, the book tells the full story of the creation of one of Walt Disney's most beloved classic. You'll find not less than 250 never seen before artwork coming from Walt Disney Animation Research Library and private collections: cellos, layouts, modelsheets, story-boards and preliminary studies, and many more. Let's have a look to some of them.

Here is a watercolour and china ink preliminary study from Ken Anderson showing Mowgli and Baloo...



...and a great cello upon background painting showing Mowgli walking in the Jungle (double-click on the image to see it in big).



You'll find also in the book rare story-board sketches like these below...







...or great colour sketches like this one for Baloo...



...or these colour sketch and modelsheet for King Louis...





...or Shere Kahn.





Of course, the book is full of great cellos like this one from the Bear Necessities sequence...



...or beautiful background paintings...



...or both of them together like these cellos on background painting of the King Louis temple scene (double-click on the image to see it in big).



And when i will tell you that the printing of this 13" x 13" book - which comes in a box - is absolutely stunning you'll understand that this Jungle Book luxury edition - definitely the best book ever published on the movie - would be a perfect Christmas gift to any super-fan of this animated classic. For now, the best price is 95 euros on Amazon ( $142 ) which, i agree, may look a bit expensive but believe me the book definitely worth each cent of the 142 dollars! Fantastic book, really!




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All pictures: copyright 2009 Disney

Last news about Shanghaî and Hong Kong Disneyland

Last news about Shanghaî and Hong Kong Disneyland:

At Shanghaî, the WDC has already began an advertising campaign - may be to learn to those who don't know Disney characters who they are - with a huge ad (picture above) showing Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto. The park won't open before 2014 but apparently it's never too soon to introduce to Shanghai inhabitants the Disney characters.

After news was released about SDL arriving in Shanghai, a piece of land in Chuansha New Town was sold at a record high of 1.19 billion yuan ($175 million) at a land auction. Several stocks related to the Disneyland venture are now hotspots for market speculation, and this is only the beginning!

At Hong Kong, HKDL on Monday "dismissed a report that it is mulling a further expansion in a bid to compete with a planned new park in Shanghai.

The Hong Kong Economic Times cited an unnamed source as saying that Disneyland is considering a further enlargement, after it announced a deal in July to expand the venue by almost one quarter.

But a Disneyland spokeswoman said there was no such plan: "The current position is to implement the extension plan as agreed in July with the development of the three themed areas in phases. There has been no discussion on further expansion".

In two words: HKDL is still building the three new lands previously announced, but no further expansion is scheduled, which of course doesn't mean that there won't be new attractions after Grizzly Trail, Mystic Point and Toy Story Land.

From AFP and Beijing Review

Picture: copyright Beijing Review.com.cn

How Disneyland attractions inspired parks around the world - Part Two : Europa Park's Pirates in Batavia

In the part two of this articles series we will have a look to how Pirates of Caribbean inspired the Piraten in Batavia attraction at Germany's most popular theme park: Europa-Park.

Europa-Park is run by the Mack family which have produced vehicles since 1780, circus wagons since 1880 and rollercoasters since 1921. The park was opened in 1975 to act as a showcase for many of their different ride models - for example, the Wild Mouse roller coaster. Although the park "borrowed" many ideas from Disney parks - beginning by Epcot's Spaceship Earth ball design - Disney is sometime interested by MACK ride systems for a Disney attraction. Recently, Al Weiss, Philippe Gas - DLP chairman - Georges Kalogridis - now at the head of DLR - were at Europa Park for a secret meeting as i told you in previous articles.



At Europa-Park, guests who ride the Piraten in Batavia attraction (Batavia was a city in the Dutch indonesia colony and is known now as Djakarta) can "witness the attack of wild pirates on a southeast Asian Dutch colony in 1619, which has been reproduced to perfection. Already in the entrance area, you are taken to the Far East and put in the mood for the adventures yet to come. You pass by sceneries with Dutchmen who are far away from home, and suddenly – a deafening cannon shot. Here, you won’t have a chance to get bored! Then, you start an adventurous boat trip through the exotic world of the seaport Batavia in the former colony Dutch East India. Become a witness of the pirates’ attack on a peaceful colony!"

Does this synopsis of the ride sounds familiar? Well, although Piraten in Batavia took a lot of its inspiration in Disneyland's attraction - as you will see on the video below - the quality of the audio-animatronics is not as good as the one designed by WDI. But thanks to the lighting and decors, may be the guests don't see the difference...which i doubt.





Thanks to leave a comment or discuss this article on D&M english forum on Mice Chat

Picture: copyright Coasters.com and Rides.nl

Youtube video: copyright Alexhardrock whom i thanks a lot

How Disneyland attractions inspired parks around the world - Part One : Niglo Show at Nigloland

When Walt created Disneyland in 1955 he probably couldn't imagined that this new theme park concept was going to inspire the creation of many non-Disney parks around the world.

The concept of a central hub with 4 or 5 lands all around it was of course copied everywhere but some parks didn't hesitated to almost duplicate a Disney attraction. Of course, when it's the case, they've changed the theme, the storyline or, as we will see today the kind of animals that appears in the show to avoid the rights issue but, still, where the inspiration is coming from is too obvious to say that it's a simple "tribute" even if it is one on a certain point of view! To put it more simply, some of them totally copied a WDI attraction concept.



Today, i'm introducing the "Niglo Show" at Nigloland Park in France. Located in the Champagne region the Niglo Show was introduced in the park in 1991, one year before DLP's opening. To say that the Niglo Show is inspired by the Country Bear Jamboree is a euphemism. The "niglos" animals - symbol of the park - replaced the bears, but the principle of multi-stages with a bigger one in the center was kept, and even the deer trophy AA on the right side wall is there! Not to mention the exterior facade that you can see on the picture above also inspired by the Country Bear Jamboree building at WDW.



The show is full of audio-animatronics, of course not as perfect as the one designed by WDI because the budget was not the same, and the storyline or the music is lame in comparison to the original which is not this time a problem of budget but a lack of inspiration. However, considering that we are in France and that Nigloland is a small theme park it's not that bad.

Thanks to the video below the best is that you'll have a look by yourself as you have to see it to believe it!

Niglo_show
envoyé par charly21500. -

Tomorrow we will see how Pirates of Caribbean inspired a similar ride in one of Europe's most visited park.


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Pictures: copyright Nigloland, last picture copyright romainfanatix.over-blog.com/

Daily Motion video: copyright charly21500