Concept art of the Walt Disney Audio-Animatronics figure that will debut in 2025 at the Main Street Opera House in Disneyland. (Courtesy of Disneyland)
Walt Disney’s grandkids are pleased with the “stellar” and “accurate” recreation of the audio-animatronic version of their grandfather that will star in a new show coming to Disneyland in 2025.
The new “Walt Disney — A Magical Life” animatronic show debuting on May 16 as part of Disneyland’s 70th anniversary celebration will initially run solo before playing in rotation with “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” in the Main Street Opera House.
“Creating an Audio-Animatronics figure of Walt Disney is an enormous responsibility and one that we take incredibly seriously,” according to a Disneyland spokesperson. “We are bringing the same care, research and respect to Walt Disney as Walt himself did when he advanced the technology he pioneered by creating the Abraham Lincoln figure for the 1964 New York World’s Fair and ultimately ‘Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln’ at Disneyland Resort. We continue to push the artform and technology in every way possible to ensure that this tribute is done right.”
The Walt Disney Family Museum board of directors — which includes five of Walt’s grandchildren and three of his great grandchildren — support the creation of the new audio-animatronic for the “Walt Disney — A Magical Life” show coming to Disneyland.
“We are enthusiastic about, and grateful for, the company’s efforts to create this exciting new attraction that will allow people to experience Walt Disney, the man behind the magic,” Walt Disney Family Museum executive director Kirsten Komoroske said in a statement.
Disneyland and Walt Disney Imagineering invited the museum’s board in July 2023 to view the progress on the Walt Disney audio-animatronic project.
“Their work to that point was stellar and they were very eager to be as accurate as possible in creating this,” Walt’s grandson Chris Miller said in a statement released by the museum. “We came away confident that this is the right group to take on this important project.”
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Tamara Miller believes her grandfather would have approved of the audio-animatronic being created in his likeness by Imagineering.
“We believe that our grandfather would have been enthusiastic about the project and fascinated by the advancements of the audio-animatronics technology that was first developed during his days at WED (now Imagineering) — a technology that he was always passionate about,” Tamara Miller said in a statement released by the museum.
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Not all of Walt’s grandkids are happy with him becoming a “robotic grampa.”
Joanna Miller, the child of Walt’s daughter Diane Disney Miller, has started a letter-writing campaign to persuade Imagineering to abandon plans to create an audio-animatronic version of Walt Disney.
“The idea of a Robotic Grampa to give the public a feeling of who the living man was just makes no sense,” Joanna Miller wrote on Facebook. “It would be an imposter. They are dehumanizing him. People are not replaceable.”
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Retired Imagineers have told the current generation of Disney theme park creators that creating a Walt Disney animatronic is “out of bounds,” according to Joanna Miller.
“Most importantly, I learned that Grampa told Sam McKim that he never wanted to be an animatronic,” Joanna Miller wrote on Facebook.
Sam McKim, a Disney Imagineer and Disney Legend, created the Disneyland park maps in the 1950s and 60s and drew early concept art for the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean and “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.”
“So, so sad and disappointed,” Joanna Miller wrote on Facebook.
Originally published at Brady MacDonald