From a favorite website of mine Comingsoon.net
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=58981
Toy Story 3, Cars 2, Pooh & Bear Updates Source:Empire September 10, 2009
Disney's big D23 Expo kicks-off today at the Anaheim Convention Center, and ComingSoon.net will be covering the event, but it seems the studio has already made some of the biggest announcements before the show has even started. In addition to last night's news that Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi will voice Rapunzel, John Lasseter was also in London today to reveal news and show clips that were expected to premiere at D23 Expo.
Empire magazine attended the presentation in which Lasseter revealed that Timothy Dalton will voice a character call Mr. Pricklepants in Toy Story 3, "who's something of a luvvie and wears lederhosen." The magazine described a animation test they saw of the character and the trailer:
We saw a tiny animation test with Mr Pricklepants (who's cute in a spiky way), but the big news was a lengthy Toy Story 3 clip and trailer. The clip showed Andy packing from college, and emptying all his toys into a black bin bag for storage in the attic. He hesitates over Woody and Buzz, finally putting Woody in the box of things to take for college. But all the toys are panicked - especially Woody, who's worried for his friends. When Andy is distracted by his little sister and leaves the garbage bag on the landing instead of upstairs in the attic, his mother takes it out to the kerb - and a frantic Woody has to save his friends from a rapidly approaching bin lorry.
We also saw the as-yet unreleased trailer, which showed bits of the same scene, but developed the story. Clearly the toys end up being sent to a daycare centre, where they are horribly abused by the little kids - and after that it's time for a break-out attempt to find a safe haven, and hopefully a new owner, in a cruel world. It looks every bit as good as its titanic predecessors.
Empire also says Lasseter revealed the story for Cars 2:
The story sees Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), his pit team and new pit boss Mater head around the world for the Race of Champions, to take place in five different countries and involve the champions of different disciplines like Formula One and rally driving. First up is a race in Tokyo, starting at Mount Fuji and heading downtown (somewhat reminiscent of Mater's Tall Tales short about drift-racing, that); then there's a German race through the Black Forest; then "Porto Corsa" in Italy, which is based partly on the Monte Carlo Grand Prix; then a 24-hour race around Paris (so somewhat like Le Mans then) and finally a thrilling climax in London, approaching Buckingham Palace (where the guards appear to be Land Rovers).
But all this racing is not the only focus. Mater, who we know from the series of cartoon shorts Mater's Tall Tales (more on that in our blog in a minute) is prone to exaggeration, gets involved in a "Hitchcockian" case of mistaken identity, saves the life of a British secret agent called Finn McMissile (who looks a heck of a lot like an Aston Martin) and becomes embroiled in a huge spy thriller. Only no-one believes him. That too comes to a head at Buckingham Palace.
Along the way there are towtruck-abroad pictures to be taken at the Oktoberfest in Germany (where Mater wears "Materhosen") and harassing the aforementioned Palace Guards. Is it weird that Mater isn't annoying me at all any more, after being a bit of a pain at times in the first film?
Next up was a presentation on the new Winnie the Pooh movie that is in the works:
Lasseter followed that - and a series of gorgeous production stills - with Winnie-the-Pooh, which the studio is bringing back to the big screen in spring of 2011, and which we are assured will not just be for little kids. The writers went through the archives and the books of A.A. Milne and found five stories that had never been filmed, combining the plots of all five into a feature-length story. Burny Mattinson, an animator who's been at Disney for over 50 years and who worked with Walt on the original Pooh films, is working closely with directors Steve Anderson, Clark Spencer and Don Hall.
And lastly they saw concept art for The Bear and the Bow:
It's Pixar's first real attempt at a leading female character (and a female director in Brenda Chapman), and focuses on Merida (Reese Witherspoon), a princess in 10th century Scotland. She's something of a wild girl who's most at home in the Highlands rather than in the family castle, and is somewhat alienated from her family: King Fergus (Billy Connolly), Queen Eleanor (Emma Thompson) and her much younger triplet brothers. We don't know many details of the plot, except that it's less about finding a prince and more about Merida's relationship with her mother (Yay!), but we do know that there will be a baddie, who's a witch (she prefers "Wise Woman") and is voiced by Julie Walters. Only concept art for that one, but gorgeous concept art.
