Robotic Walt Disney, anyone?
Installed as part of Disneyland California’s 70th anniversary, “the first Audio-Animatronics figure of Walt Disney ever created” is taking center stage in a new show called "Walt Disney: A Magical Life".
The robot approximation of Walt Disney speaks, with his words derived from recordings of the real Walt Disney.
To quote the Disney Parks Blog, the show is “a great opportunity to remind guests of Walt Disney’s incredible story - told in his own words - in both film and through the magic of Audio-Animatronics, the art form he pioneered.”
Check out the first images and sounds of the animatronic figure below:
Looks impressive enough, but not everyone is thrilled with this replica.
Last month, we reported that Disney’s granddaughter, Joanna Miller, denounced the creation - calling it "dehumanizing".
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Miller expressed her hurt upon seeing the mechanical figure: “I think I started crying,” she said. “It didn’t look like him to me.”
When the project was first announced last year, Miller voiced her concerns in a letter to Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, later meeting with him and some of the members involved in the attraction's creation.
Miller told Iger she strongly felt that, for visitors, “the last two minutes with the robot will do much more harm than good to Grampa’s legacy,” adding that people would “remember the robot - and not the man.”
While Iger was reportedly “very kind”, her pleas for the robot to be scrapped were ultimately ignored.
Miller also spoke out in a Facebook post last November, calling the idea of a “Robot of Grampa” a disservice to the real Disney, who loved to greet the park’s visitors in person.
“You could never get the casualness of his talking, interacting with the camera, [or] his excitement to show and tell people about what is new at the park,” Miller wrote. “You cannot add life to one empty of a soul or essence of the man.”
"Walt Disney: A Magical Life" is set to open at Disneyland California on 17 July.
