My Trip to the 2013 D23 Expo - That's a Wrap!

[PrincessInOz]

WOW. what amazing imagery. Love, love, love the clay models.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm going to get horribly behind on everyone's TRs from here one. I'm putting up the Gone Fishin' sign and won't be back til mid-Oct.

I will endeavour to catch up on my return.

 

[Pinkocto]

That early Land Pavilion concept looked pretty cool.

The first clay picture with the cliff and mining car, the guy looks so bored!!!

Love all those clay models.

 

[mvf-m11c]

I forgot to post on your latest one until the new update from yesterday. That was so neat that Joe Rohde was at the Sorcerer's Lounge and get to meet him. I knew about all the pins that Fran bought during the Expo but I didn't imagine it would be that many when you took the picture in your room.

My DA went in the D23 Arena queue around 6am while I was in the D23 members queue at those times. It did feel a long time to be in the queue just to enter the Anaheim Convention Center on all of those days. But Saturday felt even longer since I was by myself.

The Journey Into Imagineering pavilion is very nice but it would have been even better if there was a new attraction in the pavilion. But overall it was very neat how the Imagineers have all these different appartments and what they do. The one part of the JII pavilion that I was so amazed with is to see the actual paintings of the original DL drawn by Herb Ryman and seeing the DL painting when Walt Disney announced the plans of Disneyland. Those made my times at the JII a lot to see the original art work. It would have been nice to take a picture of those paintings but I understand why they don't want people to take pictures of them.

Very nice updates.

 

[lurkergirl]

My DA went in the D23 Arena queue around 6am while I was in the D23 members queue at those times. It did feel a long time to be in the queue just to enter the Anaheim Convention Center on all of those days. But Saturday felt even longer since I was by myself.

The first two days we were in the Arena line, which went in fairly early - just meant we were waiting in the line inside or sitting in the Arena for a *long* time. Sunday we got to the D23 Member Line for the Floor at 6am (oh, sleeping in! ) and it felt like it was taking *forever...and a half* because we didn't get to do the move to security, sit on the floor, then in the Arena bit.

 

[Leshaface]

Geez I had no idea how many pins Fran bought! It practically fills up the entire bed.

I didn't notice Fran's shrit until she was playing with the animatronic bird. I love Wreck-it-Ralph! Just found out that they added a WiR scene to Wishes.

 

[Wonder2008]

I think I could have spent all three days in the Imagineering pavilion watching them work! I make scale models, so it would have been fun to watch others doing it (even better, Imagineers!).

My sister and I happened to see Joe Rohde in, of all places, Disneyland's New Orleans Square in 2007. He was leading a tour group from Kenya, so we couldn't say anything to him. I too remember his TV shows from Expedition Everest. He speaks with such enthusiasm!

Thank you again for sharing these pictures with us!

Robert

 

[rentayenta]

I just love the hitchhiking ghosts and all of the clay models.

The animatronic parrot is pretty neat too. I love his little peg leg.

 

[franandaj]

Thanks so much for sharing all of this with us appreciate the time it takes for you to post it all I am caught up D23 Expo is definitely on the top of my list I WILL get there

I think everyone should get to the Expo! It is an incredible experience.

Great pictures thank you! Love the R2D2 and HM ghosts . The way the imagineers build those scenes wow. Clay making cool! I love making things from clay not on that level though lol...

It's so nice it's interactive letting guests operate equipment and computers. That parrot and ghost for example! Those models are awesome. I would love one of those! Like the ones they have at the DVC showroom preview for the new resorts I always admire the detail. I wonder what they do with them after do they auction them?

Or they sell them to Theme Park connection.... :rolleyes!

WOW. what amazing imagery. Love, love, love the clay models.

Thanks for sharing.

I'm going to get horribly behind on everyone's TRs from here one. I'm putting up the Gone Fishin' sign and won't be back til mid-Oct.

I will endeavour to catch up on my return.

I will be happy to catch up with you while you are gone! And I'm sure you will catch up quickly when you get back!

That early Land Pavilion concept looked pretty cool.

The first clay picture with the cliff and mining car, the guy looks so bored!!!

Love all those clay models.

I know, I was cracking up with how bored he seemed. The other guy was quite animated.

I forgot to post on your latest one until the new update from yesterday. That was so neat that Joe Rohde was at the Sorcerer's Lounge and get to meet him. I knew about all the pins that Fran bought during the Expo but I didn't imagine it would be that many when you took the picture in your room.

My DA went in the D23 Arena queue around 6am while I was in the D23 members queue at those times. It did feel a long time to be in the queue just to enter the Anaheim Convention Center on all of those days. But Saturday felt even longer since I was by myself.

The Journey Into Imagineering pavilion is very nice but it would have been even better if there was a new attraction in the pavilion. But overall it was very neat how the Imagineers have all these different appartments and what they do. The one part of the JII pavilion that I was so amazed with is to see the actual paintings of the original DL drawn by Herb Ryman and seeing the DL painting when Walt Disney announced the plans of Disneyland. Those made my times at the JII a lot to see the original art work. It would have been nice to take a picture of those paintings but I understand why they don't want people to take pictures of them.

Very nice updates.

I just wish I had more time in the Imagineering pavilion it was really cool!

The first two days we were in the Arena line, which went in fairly early - just meant we were waiting in the line inside or sitting in the Arena for a *long* time. Sunday we got to the D23 Member Line for the Floor at 6am (oh, sleeping in! ) and it felt like it was taking *forever...and a half* because we didn't get to do the move to security, sit on the floor, then in the Arena bit.

Wow! I can't even imagine having to get up that early to do stuff. If we can't get Sorcerer's passes, we just couldn't do the Expo. There is no way We could be up at that hour and do anything else besides the major presentations. We had trouble making it through as it was!

Geez I had no idea how many pins Fran bought! It practically fills up the entire bed.

I didn't notice Fran's shrit until she was playing with the animatronic bird. I love Wreck-it-Ralph! Just found out that they added a WiR scene to Wishes.

Yeah, she bought like two of every pin, and yes her shirt is cool! I love WiR tool

 

[ACDSNY]

I was so far behind I had six pages to catch up on. Very cool meeting Joe Rohde!

 

[franandaj]

I was so far behind I had six pages to catch up on. Very cool meeting Joe Rohde!

I'm glad you got caught up!! Yes it was really cool to meet Joe Rohde!

 

[franandaj]

We headed over to the Arena. This time we decided not to check our cameras and phones since they weren’t searching the bags. They asked us as we entered if we had phones or cameras and I told them that we had checked them in the Sorcerer’s lounge. Then they let us right in.

They had improved their loading of the Arena from the day before and already they were boarding the regular guests, in fact the place was already 1/3 full. We got decent seats, not as good as the day before (front row), but you won’t see it reflected in my pictures, because I couldn’t take any!

Fran decided to enjoy some of her sandwiches while we waited. I think I had already eaten my yogurt and V8, but I had some grapes that I munched on while we waited for the show to start.



The presentation began with a Sizzler reel highlighting all the motion pictures that were coming out in the near future, including Animation. Alan F. Horn Chairman of the Studios spoke with us and welcomed us to the presentation.



He talked about all the great studios under the Disney Brand.

Pixar joined Disney in 2006

Marvel joined in 2009

And Lucas Film in 2012



He mentioned that Star Wars VII would be coming out in Summer 2015, and that JJ Abrahms is directing and John Williams will be doing the score. He said that there would be some “stand alone” films from out of the Star Wars universe. At that point Darth Vader came on screen and told him that he couldn’t say any more.



At this point we went into some Marvel features that are coming up. Now forgive me Marvel fans if I botch any of this. I haven’t seen any of the Marvel movies and after watching the clips that they showed, I kind of understand why. I hope that these movies have more than just explosions and people kicking the sh1t out of each other, but once the Marvel portion ended I kind of realized why I don’t go see these movies because that seemed to pretty much what they were all about.

Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios head, was quickly introduced and he began talking about upcoming productions.



The first one that he talked about was Thor, the Dark World 11.8.13. I actually thought that I might enjoy seeing the first movie in this series.

Alan Taylor is the Director and he started to go through the cast and there were just way too many names for me to write down. They played a clip for us and then Tom Hiddleson came onstage. He promised that he was not going to sing today, so those who missed it the day before were out of luck.

Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins came on stage as well. In this film, Natalie Portman leaves her world and is taken into Thor’s world. They showed us her first scene when she awakens in his world.



The next movie that they talked about was Captain America, The Winter Soldier coming in April of 2014. Feige showed a clip of an elevator scene where (I assume) Captain America beats the crap out of about a dozen guys trying to take him on. It was slightly amusing, but definitely full of violence. Then they blew up a bunch of things.

On stage they had Sebastian Stand, Anthony Mackey and Chris Nevitts.



Next up was Guardians of the Galaxy which is coming out in August of 2014. They are four weeks into shooting this one and it was the first that looked pretty amusing to me. Evidently there are these five totally unrelated characters who are whacky and bad guys, but they call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy and somehow they come together. The clip was quite funny.

I guess there is another Avengers movie coming out in 2015 and they did a clip tease for this movie. Avengers, Age of Ultron.

Alan Horn returned to the stage to talk about Disney Nature and the next movie will be Bears. It’s coming out in 2014. They have partnered with the National Parks Foundation and will donate a portion of the profits to them for everyone who goes to see it opening week. I believe it is around Earth day if I’m not mistaken, but it isn’t in my notes.

They showed us a trailer from this movie.

Next up was The President of Disney Live Action Sean Bailey. The first thing he talked about was the new Muppet Movie, Muppets Most Wanted. This will be starring Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell, Tina Fey and Brett MacKenzie. This is going to be a hilarious movie, especially if you love the Muppets!

They showed a clip of Kermit being locked up by Tina Fey as a spy with a Soviet sounding accent. It was quite humorous, and I won’t give it away, but the bottom line is that Kermit is taken prisoner by a master criminal who looks surprisingly like Kermit.

They played a few more clips for us, and they showed us how the “new Kermit” meets with the “crew”, another hilarious scene. Ty Burrell came onstage in a little car.





Ty plays an American detective in the movie who is tracking down this “master criminal”. Ricky Gervais is the sidekick for the “master criminal”, and they showed us a clip of a musical number that the two do a song and dance routine for which was also hilarious! I can’t wait to see this movie!

One comment that Ty Burrell made about working on the movie was that he found it difficult to concentrate because the puppeteers were so interesting.

Next up they talked about Into the Woods which will come out at Christmas time 2014. It will be based on Sondheim’s music of the same name.



It will be a witty look at traditional characters in an all new Happily ever after, whatever that means, but I wrote it down verbatim.

Meryl Streep plays the Witch

Johnny Depp is the Big Bad Wolf

And also starring Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, and Emily Blunt.

The next movie that they talked about was Cinderella, the live action film, which will be coming out in March 2015.



This film will be Directed by Kenneth Branagh and will star Lily James as Cinderella, Richard Madden as the Prince, Kate Blanchett as the Step Mom and Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother.

They showed us some artist renderings for some of the concepts, but really didn’t have much on this one yet. They talked about the gown and they were working on some very special effects to make it just stunning.

The next film they talked about was Maleficent.



This will be Directed by Robert Stromby, Produced by Joe Roth, and it was written by Linda Wolverton. Maleficent is being played by Angelina Jolie who took the stage.





She said that she has always wanted to play a Disney character, especially this one. She thought that Maleficent was deliciously wicked, however, during filming she realized that playing a Disney character was not going to be all that she had thought it to be. While they were filming, families would come in and watch the process. Since Jolie loves children, she would often walk up to them and greet them during the breaks, not realizing that she was in full make up, thus scaring the children. At one point a child turned to their mother and asked, “Mommy, please make the mean witch stop talking to me.”



They showed a clip from the movie from when Maleficent confronts the King upon the birth of Aurora. I do have to say that she really “rocks” the role (no pun intended!). Basically this is the prequel to Cinderella, in this movie we find out what made Maleficent so evil. They told us that we may even come out of the theater wanting evil to triumph this time.

The next movie that they talked about completely went over my head. It’s called Tomorrowland and it will be released in December 2014. It will star George Clooney as Brilliant Inventor and the movie is Directed, written and Produced by Brad Bird, and also Damon Lindelof is a Writer and Producer.

The concept of the movie is based on this box that they claim they found in the studios archive. The box says 1952 on the side of it. Inside the box is a photo of Walt & Amelia Earhart which is dated after she disappeared. Some how they figure out the photo is doctored up and Walt’s head was placed on Cary Grant’s body.

There was also a Sci-Fi magazine, Amazing Stories, with some stories by HG Wells. Also in the box was a piece of strange cardboard, and an overlay which created cryptic messages. There were plans for “It’s a Small World” and there was insignia on the plans that was also on the cardboard piece. There was also a strange sort of disc that had data on it.



I didn’t get a chance to visit their pavilion on the show floor, but none of this made any sense to me. We’ll have to see how the movie comes out.



The last movie they covered was Saving Mr. Banks. This is coming out soon around the holiday season this year, and looks like it is going to be a fantastic movie! It tells the story behind creating Mary Poppins. Walt is played by Tom Hanks, who does a fantastic job from the clips that they showed us. PL Travers is played by Emma Thompson, who plays a perfect “up tight” and “generally disagreeable” woman.



The Sherman Brothers are played by Jason Schwartzman and BJ Novak. Colin Farrell and Bradley Whitford also have supporting roles.

From the clips that they showed us, this is going to be one fantastic movie! I think they showed us three different clips. The first one was about PL Travers in Disney’s office for the first meeting, pretty funny how they showed Walt trying to manipulate her out of her comfort zone. The next one was about how he met her at DL instead of at the studios, and I won’t give away anything, but the last one involved the Sherman Brothers and was very cute. PL Travers did not approve of “made up” words, so you can guess how the whole idea of the movie went over!



I can’t wait to see this one either!

Once they let us out, this was a much worse mob than we encountered leaving the animation presentation. I ended up getting totally separated from Fran and we didn’t get back together until we were upstairs. I’m so glad that we didn’t check our phones because I’m not sure how we would have found each other without them! We didn’t use them during the presentation so no harm so foul. We finally got caught back up after some serious separation. And then the next chapter of our day began. I will cover that in the next update!

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

Great update thank you so much! I just love your TRs the details, so interesting they really are a joy to read when we can't be there. I am so excited about the new Muppets movie and Tom Hanks playing Walt that sounds amazing. Star Wars vii yeah! Can't wait. Been too long for us Star Wars fans.

Love that they are donating money for wildlife fund in first week of new Brother Bear. I hope they do this from sales internationally otherwise we will just have to fly across to support it! Thanks again. You rock Alison.

 

[dgbg100106]

child turned to their mother and asked, Mommy, please make the mean witch stop talking to me.


That is too funny!

 

[dolphingirl47]

Some of the films sound really cool.

Corinna

 

[kmedina]

I am here. Looking forward to catching up. We are definitely going to the next one. Crap promised (even though he said he may take the boys to the park while I attend).

 

[franandaj]

I think I could have spent all three days in the Imagineering pavilion watching them work! I make scale models, so it would have been fun to watch others doing it (even better, Imagineers!).

My sister and I happened to see Joe Rohde in, of all places, Disneyland's New Orleans Square in 2007. He was leading a tour group from Kenya, so we couldn't say anything to him. I too remember his TV shows from Expedition Everest. He speaks with such enthusiasm!

Thank you again for sharing these pictures with us!

Robert

You know, I'm thinking that I could have probably done that too. We didn't stop to talk to the imagineers much, but I bet if we did, we would have been stuck there forever!

I just love the hitchhiking ghosts and all of the clay models.

The animatronic parrot is pretty neat too. I love his little peg leg.

Everything in there was really cool, but everything at the Expo is so cool, you just get caught up in how cool everything is that it finally catches up on you!

Great update thank you so much! I just love your TRs the details, so interesting they really are a joy to read when we can't be there. I am so excited about the new Muppets movie and Tom Hanks playing Walt that sounds amazing. Star Wars vii yeah! Can't wait. Been too long for us Star Wars fans.

Love that they are donating money for wildlife fund in first week of new Brother Bear. I hope they do this from sales internationally otherwise we will just have to fly across to support it! Thanks again. You rock Alison.

Thanks! I hope that you get to see the movies that appeal to you. We still have yet to see planes, and I doubt we will for some time.

child turned to their mother and asked, Mommy, please make the mean witch stop talking to me.

That is too funny!

I know! I think that was my BEST takeaway from this whole presentation!

Some of the films sound really cool.

Corinna

A lot of these films sound really cool!

I am here. Looking forward to catching up. We are definitely going to the next one. Crap promised (even though he said he may take the boys to the park while I attend).

I think that he should take the kids to the park while you go. That way you can do what YOU want and not stand in the kiddie lines. Just realize you'll need to be in line at like 5-6AM because unless you get a Sorcerer's pass the lines are CRAZY. We won't do it again unless we get this pass, there is just no way Fran could wait in lines like that.

 

[dgbg100106]

great minds think alike....

 

[Pinkocto]

I'll probably see every one of those movies. What a presentation! In regards to the Marvel movies, there are quite a few 'bang bang, shoot em/beat em up' scenes but the story lines are usually always fantastic as well.

So jealous you got to see Angelina. I think she's fabulous.

 

[Leshaface]

I'm not too much in to Marvel, but may see one of those movies if DH is interested.

However, I will probably end up seeing every single one of the other movies you mentioned. I think i'm going to really enjoy Saving Mr. Banks. Tomorrowland sounds interesting.

 

[kmedina]

I know I need to catch up, but I loved this update. What a fun event! To get a preview/details/inside info on all of these awesome movies is already cool enough. Add that to hearing from the stars directly, and it passes over into ridiculously cool. Sucks about the seats but glad to see you got pictures.