![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() I’m not sure how long the cursed Nemo walk-around lasted. I eventually got Nemo’s attention, braved a smile, and entertained my mom’s request for a photo, though inside I couldn’t wait for the encounter to be over. Nemo roamed about the plaza with no formal line, and the guests he awkwardly wheeled toward didn’t know how to react. My mom quickly took out her disposable camera and excitedly urged me to stand next to Nemo. Its wide eyes, peering left to right, seem to pierce into passersby’s souls and say, “I know what you did.” The loud sound of wheels emanated from underneath its “bubbles” as it rolled along the cement. Its fins flapped in an unsettling manner. The large… thing… was a huge figure that glided around. Rather than a traditional costumed character, Nemo was a vehicle of sorts. Iwerks notes that Imagineer Tony Baxter hoped Disney’s 2001 feature, “Atlantis: The Lost Empire” could justify reviving the long-dormant submarines at Disneyland, but when “Atlantis” didn’t make an impression with audiences, the idea fizzled.Īs my family approached the plaza outside The Living Seas at Epcot in September 2003, we found Nemo - or at least, something supposed to be Nemo. This lukewarm reaction to Disney movies sometimes stinted Imagineering’s projects. The public just didn’t latch onto Disney Animation stories and characters of this time period the way they did with Pixar films (with the lone exception of Disney’s 2002 sensation “Lilo & Stitch”). ![]() Disney Animation’s films chronologically before and after “Finding Nemo” were “Treasure Planet” and “Brother Bear.” These were modest successes that certainly had their fans, but were dead ends in terms of theme park inspiration. As author Leslie Iwerks points out in her book “ The Imagineering Story,” the acclaim that Pixar films achieved in the 2000s was especially important in relation to theme parks because Imagineering couldn’t rely on Disney’s own animation studio to produce hits at the time. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |