Disney doppelgangers: The copy and paste guide to animation

From: http://www.stylist.co.uk/

We're not ashamed to admit that we're big Disney fans here at Stylist. Having grown up in the days before Pixar and CGI animation, classics such as Snow White, Robin Hood and The Lion King are a treasured part of our DVD collection. So we felt just a touch disappointed to discover not all of our favourite films were hand-crafted from scratch.

Given that it used to take around three years to make a traditional, hand-drawn animated film, Disney's team no doubt rellished the opportunity to cut a few corners. The easiest way to do it? The 'copy and paste' trick - copy a scene that works, draw in new characters, and hey presto: a "brand new" Disney film from an old clip. A seemingly easy win which went completely unnoticed by viewers - until now, as the YouTube video below of the most obvious Disney doppelgangers shows...

The 10 Best 3-D Movies And What Hollywood Can Learn From Them

By Josh, Katey, and Eric

From: http://www.cinemablend.com/


In the wake of Avatar 3-D is the next big leap and Hollywood hasn't been shy about putting everything they have into the format. Summer's over but the next few months will see even more movies released in 3-D. You'd probably better get used to wearing those glasses. Next week Piranha 3D shows up with a campy approach to the format and a few weeks later in September Resident Evil: Afterlife will take a much more technologically serious approach as it becomes one of the few movies since Avatar to use James Cameron's 3D Fusion Camera system. After riding the wave of a summer box office loaded with 3-D conversions we've talked a lot about all the ways that 3-D's been going wrong, but maybe there's something to be learned by looking back at all the times 3-D went right.

Freed from the shackles of the mostly unsuccessful blue and red glasses 3-D which spared people to death, used properly and on the right movies, 3-D can and has added something to your viewing experience. Listen up Hollywood. Here's what it looks like when 3-D is done right.


Captain EO (1986)
When it debuted at Disney parks in the 80s Captain EO was regarded as the first 4-D film because it incorporated in-theater effects like laser lights along with the 3-D elements on screen. But really, it was just 3-D with lasers. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, the short film starred Michael Jackson as the captain of a ragtag starship crew on a mission across the stars. The story was pretty silly, and since it starred Michael Jackson, prone to a lot of singing, but the movie's special effects were stunning. Coppola's groundbreaking 3-D camera tricks were so good that those 3-D effects still hold up pretty well today. In part that's because Disney went all out when making it. Captain EO cost, on average, $1.76 million per minute to make. For that money Disney parks got the first ever 3-D movie that actually really worked in 3-D. It was so well done that more than twenty years later Captain EO continues to show at Disney's parks around the world.


Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3-D (1991)
Captain EO got all the attention but Michael Jackson's weird, space adventure wasn't the only 3-D movie showing at Disney's parks in the 90s. If you were lucky, maybe at some point during a trip to Disney you've stumbled into a showing of Jim Henson's Muppet*Vision 3-D. The attraction first opened at Walt Disney World and Disneyland in 1991 and it takes 3-D beyond the screen. The presentation uses actual animatronic Muppets and other real special effects to heighten the impact of the 3-D elements in the movie. At some point while you're watching it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish between what's really there in the room with you and what's being projected, and since it's the Muppets, it's a lot of fun. Muppet*Vision 3-D was the last thing ever directed by the late, great, Jim Henson. If he'd stuck around longer, it's hard not to wonder what he'd have thought of the format now… or for that matter what brilliant new ways he'd have come up with to use it.


Ghosts of the Abyss (2003)
Back in 2003 people still thought of 3-D as red and blue lenses Elmer's glued into paper frames. 3-D was still the awful, clunky, unwatchable stuff of Jaws 3-D and audiences wanted no part of that. But quietly, behind the scenes, James Cameron was working to change everything. Before he shot Avatar he started testing a new kind of 3-D on a series of underwater documentaries. This Cameron directed film was the first Disney movie produced in 3-D and, if you were one of the few who made it to an IMAX theater to see it, it blew your mind. Sure a lot of the 3-D effects were wasted on pie charts, but oh what pie charts. Graphs are a lot more interesting when they're hovering of the head of the guy in front of you. Images leaped out of the screen with stunning clarity. As Cameron's robotic cameras dove into the wreck of the Titanic, it was easy to let yourself go and feel as though you were really there. It would be more than half a decade before Cameron perfected his 3-D technique, but he laid the groundwork here, quietly, and while no one was really looking.


Superman Returns: An IMAX 3-D Experience (2006)
When it was released in 2006 an alternate version of Superman Returns called Superman Returns: An IMAX 3-D Experience was released simultaneously in IMAX theaters. It was the first live-action Hollywood movie to get a combined IMAX 3-D release, though now its commonplace. Only 20 minutes of the film were actually converted into 3-D which resulted in the admittedly annoying process of taking your 3-D glasses on and off throughout the film… but oh what a 20 minutes. Superman's bright, sharp colors and director Bryan Singer's talent for stunning visual clarity made those 20 minutes of 3-D worth the trouble. Used primarily on action sequences, 3-D made the movie's biggest moments even bigger and grander. Combined with IMAX's unmatched picture and sound quality Superman Returns delivered an, at the time, unmatched of theater experience.


Meet the Robinsons (2007)
Meet the Robinsons was a turning point for Disney. The studio's second attempt at computer animation was also their first good one. They'd been struggling, their animated movies were no longer working, and then out of nowhere suddenly Meet the Robinsons did. It helped that they had a strong story rooted in the importance of family, but visually, I'm not sure the movie would have worked without 3-D. On its own Robinsons' animation looked dated and overly simplistic but when 3-D was used to add depth, suddenly the film's unexpectedly simple landscape design became deeper and more interesting. In applying 3-D to such basic computer animation Robinsons discovered something interesting: 3-D works best when you keep it simple.


Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)
While most movies use 3-D only to enhance what they're doing, Journey to the Center of the Earth existed solely in the service of 3-D. It was made, from the beginning, with 3-D in mind and the entire film was crafted from stem to stern with audiences wearing funny glasses as the plan. That paid off in a big way in sheer entertainment value. While the movie's story was, admittedly, a shallow, paint by numbers modern version of Jules Vernes' classic tale, the film's visual elements were such a blast that most went in and didn't care. The movie took full advantage of both the gimmicks and subtler nuances 3-D offers to delight and amaze. Journey to the Center of the Earth was the rare 3-D movie that there was literally no point in watching without 3-D. Without your glasses on, without 3-D effects, there was no movie. Maybe they didn't always get the story right but Journey knew how to get the most out of 3-D.


My Bloody Valentine (2009)
Before Hollywood started trying to promote 3D that was "subtle" and "enhanced the world of the film," My Bloody Valentine used the technology the way it was always intended-- to scare the hell of an audience by throwing things at them. I can't even tell you how many times a pickax swung perilously out over the crowd, or how many bulging eyeballs or body parts came up for our close inspection-- and that's mostly because I had to cover my eyes in terror every time it happened. I have no idea why a cheapie horror movie like My Bloody Valentine managed to do live-action 3D better than something massive like The Last Airbender, but I'd never been so happy to see real humans in the third dimension-- and then, of course, to see those real humans chopped to bits.


Coraline (2009)
As we've seen with many of the 3-D films released this year, it's often difficult to get the proper level of depth required for a positive 3-D experience with a live action movie. Henry Selick's Coraline, on the other hand, has depth to spare. Both filmed in 3-D and animated using 3-D figures, the movie actually establishes an immersive world for the audience, something that 90% of 3-D films lack. Be it expanding a tunnel into an alternate world filled with button-eyed doubles or fighting against the evil Beldam in a gigantic spider-web, Coraline was a movie experience made for 3-D. Watching it that way is like stepping inside the film's magical, stop-motion world. In Henry Selick's clay-molding hands, Coraline's 3-D experience was supremely effective.


Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)
Monsters vs. Aliens was an endearingly goofy and over-the-top spin on the classic monsters movie, and how better to honor the B-movie roots than by showing the whole thing in glorious 3D? It wasn't just that it was better to have the various laser beams and monsters flying out of the screen at you, but that even the 3D was getting in on the fun, amping up the bright colors and crazy action so that you didn't have a choice but to jump in. As one of the first DreamWorks movies conceived in 3D, MvA's action sequences took great advantage of the format, sending Ginormica skating down the streets of San Francisco with cars as roller skates, and showing off every bit of alien weaponry in sharp 3D detail. Monsters vs. Aliens was too early in the 3D trend to take advantage of enough high ticket prices to earn itself a sequel, but it still represents one of the earliest and best examples of how animation can really work with the added dimension.


Avatar (2009)
James Cameron began developing Avatar in 1994 and much of the time between then and its 2009 release was spent developing the movie's groundbreaking 3-D effects. Live action elements were shot entirely on the 3-D Fusion Camera System and that worked. But much of the reason the film's 3-D succeeds is that 60% of the movie's scenes contain no live action elements and were done using photorealistic computer generated images created using a new kind of virtual camera system for motion capture. Under Cameron's direction 3-D is used to give the Pandoran jungles depth or to make seed pods float out over the heads of the audience, and at times what's happening on screen feels utterly real. Since its release Avatar has become the gold-standard in 3-D filmmaking, and if you're serious about making a 3-D movie, then you'll do it the Avatar way.

A Model Day At Disney Parks - Exclusive Tilt-Shift Video Featuring Magic Kingdom

See the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida from a whole new perspective. The exclusive video first featured on The Disney Parks Blog was created from a series of photos snapped inside the Magic Kingdom Park. Its a sunrise-to-sunset story told without words. But the message is clear — celebrate.

Fact-Checking 5 Epcot Rides That Predicted the Future

The shameless futurism espoused at Disney World's Epcot theme park in Orlando, Fl. was taken in by generations of kids who saw the world through Walt Disney-colored glasses. But did any of these imaginings come true? Here, we look at five visions of the future in hindsight—and see how they hold up.

By Seth Porges

Epcot has always been the most curious of Disney World's parks: a place of slow (and some might say boring) rides that focused more on education than on adrenaline-boosting thrills. This is a park where utopian ideals (the park's name originally stood for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow") meet multicultural reverence, with a huge section of the park devoted to miniature recreations of various countries. Epcot has always been a place of shameless futurism, where, for the price of admission, visitors can spend the day exploring contrasting and often unrealistic visions of the world to come. In an attempt to keep up with changing technology, these attractions are regularly closed and replaced with more modern fare. But the extinct rides of Epcot's past are all fondly remembered by the generations who grew up with them. We thought it'd be fun to look back at five of the park's past visions of the future. Here is how they held up.

Horizons

(1983 to 1999)

Horizons is all futurism, all the time. The animatronic-filled, slow-moving, dark ride first pays tribute to some of the past's more outlandish visions of the future, with sci-fi dioramas showing off robot butlers, tube-based mass transit and a healthy dose of neon lights. The ride then takes a turn for the serious, replacing cartoonish prognostication with faux-realistic visions. Surprisingly, some elements of this vision of the future have actually come to pass, at least in some form:

-A family is depicted engaging in television-based videoconferencing in their living room. To anybody who has Skype, this is simple and possible. But the glasses-free 3D that the videoconferencing is presented in is a little more difficult to pull off today, even with recent advances that have made home-based 3D TV cheap and easy to use.

-A man is seen playing a keyboard that is controlled by waving his hand over it. Could this futuristic theremin have been forecasting today's DIY laser harp trend?

-Robotic farming: A former desert is shown being farmed by large, fully automated robotic machines. Bot farming is still fairly new, with applications limited to a few specialized, custom-built machines, but it definitely exists.

-Underwater personal subs: Residents of an underwater mineral-mining city (it's never stated what minerals they are extracting) are shown venturing out into the their backyards using personal subs. We aren't living under the sea just yet, but personal submarines are here—if you have the cash.

World of Motion

(1982 to 1996)

World of Motion is primarily a trip into the past. This slow-moving ride gives visitors an in-depth lesson on the history of transportation: from foot power to jet planes. When the history lesson reaches the present day, visitors ride through a tunnel of swirling light while a narrator waxes: "Ideas are there to help us fulfill our age-old dream to be free. Free of mind, free of spirit, free to follow the distant star of our ancestors to a brighter tomorrow." The future vision shows a hologram of a curvaceous futuristic car, which visitors can see their ride car transform into when they pass by a trick holographic mirror.

This attraction does not give any hint to technologies that could win out for future transportation—there is no talk of electric, hydrogen or plant-powered vehicles. But for those keeping score, the futuristic car does bear a striking resemblance to Aptera's all-electric Typ-1 e.

Captain EO

(1986 to 1994)

While most of Epcot's future-filled attractions sought to fill visitors with wonder at the site of what could be just around the corner, this Francis Ford Coppola-directed 3D film (which was replaced at Epcot in 1994 by the Rick Moranis-starring Honey I Blew Up the Audience) played off the same sort of far-future space-trotting sci-fi that forms the basis for Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. In it, Michael Jackson and his "ragtag band" of alien Muppets travel through the galaxy delivering packages and completing missions for a vaguely defined leader. The real draw: a singing and dancing MJ using the power of music to battle a mutant alien queen (played by Anjelica Huston).

Predictably, Captain EO's liberal use of sci-fi technology makes it tough to nitpick due to the fact that none of it has yet seen the light of day. Some of Captain EO's not-yet-here prognostications: sentient humanoid androids, furry (and very cute) alien life, and the ability to use pop music to transform bad guys into scantily clad dancers.

Spaceship Earth

(1982 to present)

In Spaceship Earth, visitors ride through a massive geodesic dome while learning about the history of human communication. Unlike the other attractions in this list, this ride is still in operation. After all, its giant golfball exterior is the park's major landmark, and is unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon—instead, as the ride becomes outdated, Epcot continues to update it to bring it up to the times. So, for our purposes, we're going to look at the future presented by its prior iteration, which was in operation from 1994 to 2007.

In this version of the ride, kids are seen videoconferencing with each other while watching TV on the same screen. Today, the combination of Hulu and Skype makes it free and easy for anybody with a laptop and an Internet connection to pull off this trick.

The more out-there tech shown in this attraction is the instant audio translation. Two kids are depicted speaking over the tubes, with each hearing the other's speech in his own language. A primitive version of this technology can be found today in various forms—in voice-to-text-to translation, but the Department of Defense continues to research better, more instant translation tech. DARPA's Global Autonomous Language Exploitation (GALE) program aims to develop software that can interpret speech and text in multiple languages on the spot. But while progress has been made, the ease with which this Epcot-envisioned translation occurs is not quite in our technological capabilities.

Carousel of Progress

(1964 to present)

Alright, so Carousel of Progress is at Magic Kingdom, not Epcot. But its futurism would fit right in at its cross-town sister park. This show (it's not really a ride) was devised by Walt Disney for the 1964 World's Fair. In it, an animatronic family shows off how the latest technologies of different eras are making life easier, from the turn of the century ("our icebox now holds up to 50 pounds of ice!") on up. It was Disney's dream for the attraction to be continually renewed to keep up with changing times. But since the show was last updated in 1994, it is ripe ground for anachronisms and misguided visions of the future.

In the final scene, the family is shown playing a virtual-reality space-pilot game. The characters use a wearable joystick (a glove) to move a spaceship through a game. Real-world motion is mimicked onscreen—a lot like what Nintendo has done with the Wii and what Microsoft is looking into with Project Natal. The characters also reference "laser discs and high-def TVs". One of these technologies is ubiquitous today, and the other is nearly dead. Also on display in this show is voice-activated home automation, in which the father character is able to adjust the oven just by saying "oven temperature to 375." While such functionality is certainly possible today, given recent advances in voice recognition and home automation, it's hard to imagine voice control being a more practical controller than, say, an iPhone.

In Loving Memory of Michael Jackson:Captain EO, In Its Entirety

The King of Pop is dead. Long live the King of Pop! As I’m too distressed to work, as I’m sure you are too, I thought we could celebrate Michael together with something from his prime: 3-D Disney parks cinematic odyssey Captain EO — which, many tend to forget, was one of Francis Ford Coppola’s lesser-heralded works. That’s Angelica Huston as the licorice-tangled Supreme Leader ordering EO and his crew to be turned into trash cans, before Michael saves the day by singing “We Are Here To Change The World” and shooting purple lasers out of his wrists.Captain EO premiered at EPCOT September 12, 1986 and had its last public showing at Disneyland Park Paris on August 17, 1998. Goodbye, Michael. There will never be another you. I wish it all had a happier ending.

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