Original subtitles

(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)

KEVIN: In Imagineering's over 60-year history now,

I think at the heart of it, at the root of it,

this place has a survival instinct.

Despite the gauntlets and the challenges,

and the dark days we've had, and the mistakes and everything else,

we try to rise above them and to keep that torch lit.

It's important for us to understand what worked, what didn't and why,

and never do the what didn't work things ever again.

(THEME MUSIC ENDS)

(SNOW WHITE CHUCKLES)

SNOW WHITE: That was fun.

Now you do something.

Well, what should I do?

Tell us a story.

ALL DWARFS: Yes, tell us a story.

-A true story. -A love story.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

MALE VOICE: Please welcome the president and chief operating officer

of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger.

(CROWD APPLAUDING)

Welcome, everyone, to our salute to 50 years

of magic at Disney Parks and Resorts everywhere.

As we begin this wonderful celebration,

all of us in Anaheim welcome our friends

in Orlando, in Tokyo, in Paris,

and even Hong Kong in commemorating this historic milestone.

It was in September of 2005 and I was standing on the parade route

in Hong Kong Disneyland on opening day.

And I was watching float after float and character after character come by.

And what struck me was that the characters in the decade that had just passed

were mostly from the Pixar films

and all the others were from the older Disney films.

At that point, the Pixar relationship was nearing its end.

It had been publicly announced that it was ending.

And I thought, "Well, what would happen

"if we failed to make great animation?"

The sense of urgency that I felt was very much on my mind

as I left Hong Kong and went off three weeks

after that to actually become CEO.

NARRATOR: On October 1st, 2005,

Bob Iger took over as CEO of the Walt Disney Company.

The former ABC president quickly rose the ranks

with a vision for change, that depended on three key strategies.

International expansion, new technology,

and fresh creative content.

But Bob inherited a Disney Animation Studio in disarray.

A string of recent flops threatened its long-term well-being.

Mothers with children under 12 rated Pixar's brand higher on average.

Only four months after his epiphany in Hong Kong...

Bob Iger won over Steve Jobs and negotiated a swift buyout of Pixar,

for 7.4 billion dollars.

He knew moving forward meant correcting the past.

(CHOPPER WHIRRING)

BOB: California Adventure didn't live up

to the expectation of a Disney theme park.

And that bothered us a lot.

One of the big questions we had was

could it even be fixed? And if it could be fixed,

was it gonna take a huge amount to do it?

I allowed Imagineering to begin a creative process.

The proposal that they made to me creatively

was big ambition,

big risk, sweeping change.

And... (CHUCKLES) ...in the face of the financial analysis,

it wasn't necessarily the easiest thing in the world to do.

But again, we're dealing with,

something that was just fundamentally broken and needed fixing,

and right in our own backyard or Disneyland's own backyard.

And so, I just decided, let's do it.

BOB: Welcome to Walt Disney Imagineering.

Now, this is an exciting day for the company.

And we're really pleased to make this announcement.

CHRIS: To invest at the level

that the Disney California Adventure Park invested at...

at the time, economically that the rest of the country was in,

I think for a lot of us it was like, "Wow. This is... this is commitment.

"You know, this is commitment to doing things right."

BOB: I was asked to look at California Adventure.

It had five or six of the most popular attractions in the resort...

and yet the park as a whole was not successful.

What it meant was DCA did not have the sense of place or warmth

or the Disney bubble that Disneyland had.

It lacked sincerity.

When you put something that doesn't have that

right across the street from Disneyland,

it just feels discordant, and so people weren't comfortable there.

NARRATOR: The Imagineers ventured into a five-year renovation effort.

While the park stayed open,

they set out to demolish and rebuild entire areas

including the California postcard entrance.

We're opening up the entryway.

We're removing the tile walls. We're moving the turnstiles forward,

and what we're gonna do is open this up and make this more of a town square,

more like Main Street.

It's going to tell the story

of Los Angeles in the 1920's and 1930's

which was when Walt first arrived and was first working here.

We're really paying homage to that period of time,

as he created his early characters, he did his early films.

And this is really the world or the town that he lived in.

NARRATOR: Buena Vista Street answered the need for atmosphere.

But the first pillar of Bob Iger's plan for plussing

stood on the foundation of creative content.

The new Pixar cast of characters revitalized the brainstorm process.

Each Imagineering team staged a pitch.

Okay. (GROANS) Make up. (VOCALIZES)

(POPS)

KEVIN: The hardest thing I think there is to do

when you come up with an idea at Imagineering,

is to be able to distill that story, that idea, down into one sentence.

-All right. -We're gonna talk about Midway Mania.

You get to shrink to the size of a toy and play Midway games

with the Toy Story characters. You can describe it in one line.

If it's hard for you to... to present, to pitch,

to understand yourself, then you don't have it.

Imagine walking along the promenade there, and you see a living Mr. Potato Head.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

step right up and see the most amazing marvel of the Midway,

It's a ride...

I remember pitching...

"And wouldn't it be great if he could pull off

"some facial features like he does in the movie?"

And the jaws hit the floor, it was like,

"What are you talk... How are you gonna do that?"

(ALL LAUGHING)

KEVIN: When Robert Colter and I first pitched this idea

we didn't know how they were gonna do it.

I mean, you have to be really careful what you wish for at Imagineering,

because they'll actually build these things. It's phenomenal.

We've come a long way through the ears haven't we?

Unbelievable.

This is just... This is magic in motion right here.

It's the ultimate exercise in reverse engineering

where the artist will draw,

give you the concept. The sculptor will sculpt.

There's not many variations in Mr. Potato Head.

And the trick with taking the ear off was geometry.

Regarding the length of his arm,

it was a real packaging challenge to make the components fit

that were required to get those movements.

-Pull off my ear? -FEMALE VOICE 1: Yes.

Ouch.

There. Are you happy now?

MR. POTATO HEAD: Hey, young lady. You know my wife, Mrs. Potato Head?

GLENN: There's actually a live person sitting in a control room

with a video screen and a joystick

so he can look around and see all the people that are there.

And I think they just point at them and then it, it zooms in on that person.

And then he touches different spots

on a computer screen to make the different lines go.

TOM: People want to have interactivity.

They want to be able to talk to the characters we know and love now.

And those are the areas that we're spending

more and more time on I think studying,

and experimenting, and testing, and pioneering,

because they're, they're important to the success of our future.

NARRATOR: Through mock-ups and play testing,

the Imagineers incorporated guest feedback into the design.

KEVIN: Today, in the world of gaming, there's all different kinds of levels,

and people are very savvy and good about playing games,

but there are people who have never played a game in their life.

We had to design an attraction for everybody.

You get to have your own experience,

your own front row seat, which is a very difficult thing

for us to do considering capacities.

We checked off a lot of boxes there.

(SINGING) Midway Mania

You'll love this game It's so insaneia

MALE VOICE 2: Calling Buzz Lightyear. Come in, Buzz. Do you read?

MALE VOICE 3: The International Space Station are on an easterly

heading over the Southern Ocean.

Hi. I'm Greg Chamitoff, aboard the International Space Station.

Floating here right next to me is one of my crew mates, Buzz Lightyear.

We're very excited today about the unveiling

of the new Toy Story Mania attraction.

NARRATOR: The interactive experience boasted

more than a hundred and fifty computers connected by Ethernet...

that ran 56 real-time game screens.

But the Imagineers debated the risk between attracting tech whiz-kids

at the expense of adults whose childhoods remain preserved in memory.

Ho-hoo, way to play, everyone.

NARRATOR: For balance, Paradise Pier received a nostalgic

overlay of classic characters.

BOB: The heritage is still warm, it's still inviting,

it's still entertaining.

There's no need to discard it,

and there's no need to be disdainful of it.

There's also no need to be reverential to it,

because if you revere something I think you don't want anything to change

and you might as well relegate it to a museum case and leave it as it is.

I did not wanna do that.

NARRATOR: To overcome the lack of night-time entertainment,

the Imagineers updated the theme...

from a treasured Disney television show.

Bob Iger said to me,

he goes, "You have to relaunch this park.

"That World of Color is the first thing out of the gate,

"and it has to show the world that California Adventure

"is going to be new and spectacular. No pressure," he said.

And that's when fun becomes terror, because now you have to execute it.

I still love the fact that we do open with the big fanfare, you know,

Color, color, world of color

"Disney presents," you know, lights are on. Everything is on.

Wonderful world of color

Zing. Black out.

The world is a carousel of color

Color, color, color

Wonderful, wonderful color

Color, color

MALE VOICE 4: Walt Disney presents...

The wonderful world of color

We start into Pocahontas, "Just Around the Riverbend".

We hear that the world is changing in front of us.

The waterfall starts, the waterfall comes down,

and it makes the river.

And out of the river as we do kind of a splash

would come Pocahontas.

STEVE: Disney had never done a big water spectacular before

that involved fountains.

It sounds easy on paper, and then when it gets

into kind of the... the actual production of it, you realize, "Wow!"

The technicians who worked on this were amazing

at coming up with ways to put electrical vaults underwater.

We can light fountains up to 80 feet

and no one's ever done that before in full color.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

STEVE: When I first walked out there and they go, "Watch this,"

and they turned on the big giant grid

of 800 fountains and it just was like candy on the lagoon.

You just feel great. You feel like a little kid going,

"Wow, we have something really great here."

(MUSIC PLAYING)

-Show two, it says, Andy. Run show two. -(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

You put your heart and soul into it, and you just hope that everybody sees it,

and really falls in love with it like you do as you're working on it.

KEVIN: One of our biggest challenges in Imagineering

is to create ideas that have relevance

ten, 15, 20 years later that remain timeless in a sense.

When I was asked to come up with an idea for California Adventure,

it was beyond a dream come true for me,

because I have always been a car nut.

Cars have always been my thing.

One of my first memories was getting a little pedal car

when I was a little, tiny kid.

I remember fighting with my mom, because I didn't wanna get in bed,

I wanted to sleep in my little pedal car all night.

I just love the design of cars,

everything about them, the memories of them

going on road trips when I was a kid spending so much time with them.

When I was washing dishes at the Plaza Inn,

after a long shift, I would go out with my wife,

who wasn't my wife at the time,

and we would go out to that cast member parking lot,

and we would talk for hours. Sometimes until the sun came up.

This was the very place.

I'm a dreamer and I would always talk about,

"Boy, if I had the chance what I would do at the park,

"what I would do here, the kinds of rides I would help to create?"

And things like that. And you know a dishwasher would yell out,

like, "Right, that would never happen."

Carland is a brand-new land

that we're designing for Disney California Adventure.

You've heard the song, "Pave paradise, put up a parking lot,"

we're gonna do just the opposite.

NARRATOR: Kevin's initial idea celebrated mid-century

Southern California car culture.

A time of hot rods, drive-ins, and cruising the main drag.

An unexpected detour occurred when the Imagineers found out Pixar

was producing a movie about cars.

They switched gears and re-themed the entire concept with one story.

Pixar co-founder and Cars director, John Lasseter

was no stranger to the park.

A student of Walt Disney's storytelling,

John worked at Disneyland where he learned from the guests.

JOHN: I worked as a sweeper in Tomorrowland,

the summer Space Mountain opened, summer of 1977.

And it was the summer that Star Wars came out.

It was a space summer. It was great.

At the end of the summer, I transferred into ride operations,

and I became a skipper on the Jungle Cruise.

Of course, with that kind of history, to coming back

and having our... our characters that we've created

come alive at the parks.

But to have an entire land be built here, it's so exciting.

And for me, I'm just gonna wanna come here and sit and watch people's faces.

NARRATOR: John urged a small team of Imagineers

and their Pixar partners to motor west on a Route 66 road trip.

Only after having experienced the real place

could they create the authentic Radiator Springs.

KATHY: All this reinvestment was triggered by Bob Iger,

and he had to admit that there were flaws in the park.

And this is a very public admission of that.

And I think one thing he was aware of,

and we were certainly aware of the entire time we were in design,

is that we have one more shot at this,

that our guests won't let us...

make the same mistakes twice.

So, you're gonna have an entryway here and you have an entryway here.

And we have one that will come over from Bugs and Tower area, yeah.

BOB: Bob brought a desire for nothing to be ordinary.

If it's not great, it's not worth us doing.

If they get a sense in a meeting

that you're half-heartedly presenting something,

they all kind of just... pounce, 'cause they know

that if you're not confident, there's something that's not working.

They look for our self-confidence,

and they're quickly skeptical of anything that feels like

it just doesn't deliver.

In terms of trees on the...

on the basically, the big set piece, is what we're seeing

pretty much what you're envisioning?

MALE VOICE 5: I think we need to pepper that...

-BOB: Yeah. -...a bit more, so it's not so stark.

BOB: 'Cause I think this is gonna be in the... in the sun.

-MALE VOICE 5: Yeah. -This is really gonna reflect light

and be really, really big, I think that's my reaction, too.

I think you're gonna need more trees on the rock.

KATHY: We have a berm at Disneyland that closes out the outside world.

This park didn't have that.

So, you could stand in places of this park and see power poles.

You could see the Anaheim Convention Center.

You could see hotels.

And that's the first thing we did at Cars Land

was how can we situate this mountain and these tail fins,

and block out the world. That was really our first step.

What about the sight lines as far as the backgrounds

as far as the poles are concerned,

to keep it all, the immersive perspective.

These are 98 feet, and they've got to be,

hopefully completely covered from the guest point of view.

KATHY: We started off with a small-scale model,

about 164th scale. Very small.

And then we blew that up to an eighth inch equals a foot.

Then we took that model, which was carved out of foam,

scanned it, and then blew it up to a half-inch equals a foot model.

Much, much, much bigger scale.

We worked with the whole team up at Pixar,

the original production designers,

the sculptors, on really giving it the detail

and the authenticity.

And that model actually becomes our construction document.

We build from that model.

It's like a huge, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle.

It's really just huge, super-scale sculpting.

That's almost 300,000 square feet of hand-sculpted plaster,

and then hand-painted.

ZSOLT: My background as a sculptor helped me transition

into the world of rock work.

We have artisans from all over the world. Because this is such a specialized trade,

it's hard to find people who have enough experience

and understanding of the beauty of rocks,

which is the forms and the proportions.

We're trying to make it as believable as possible.

The secret is to create magic with steel and cement,

which are construction materials.

We started out spraying on, on a fairly wet material

and as the cement hardens, you know, you need to know exactly

what kind of tools you can use, what kind of brushes,

you know, you can shape it at this moment but later on you can't,

because it's too hard, and then you switch over to other tools.

It's a marriage of understanding construction,

yet, being able to focus on the artwork.

The view from that angle of the rock work.

It seems like you're 50 miles away from the rocks.

It just grabs you and then takes you immediately to a different place.

And someone said, "You know, even the air is cleaner in here."

NARRATOR: To visualize Cars Land before it was built,

the Imagineers utilized an emerging palette

of 3D digital tools.

MARK: Very early on in the process,

we realized that we could use the VR technology,

to help us in the design process.

We are very focused on computer graphics,

and then virtual reality-based pre-visualization,

which is the space that we're in here right now.

It's called the DISH, and that stands

either for the "Digital Immersive Showroom,"

or the "Disney Holodeck," depending on how you wanna skin the acronym.

MARK: We use our head-mounted display and our tracking technology

and that allows you to walk down

the Main Street of Radiator Springs in the virtual world.

We use this for evaluating

the layout of the land and the sizes of the buildings.

We have another simulation, which is a detailed simulation

of the Racers ride itself.

And you can hop into any one of the cars

on the track and ride it around,

and we use that to make sure that we've got the timing,

the story beats, and the ride all worked out.

LUIGI: On your mark, get set, go.

BOB: Cars run on the road, on rubber tires.

They don't run like a roller coaster that's nice and smooth.

There were lots of proposals to try to do this

in a more Disney Space Mountain type way,

with high speed, but doing it on rails or something like that,

but we kept coming back to the fact that that's not what a car feels like.

JOHN: We rode the GM test track at EPCOT, and we kept saying...

"This is it, this is the ride system."

Because you could start and stop and you'd be able to do the storytelling,

and then it accelerates, and you go really fast, for the thrill.

KEVIN: We cheated the track a little bit, so it's not a natural curve,

it's actually kind of a forced curve.

Even though I think you're going like 27 miles an hour,

it feels like (CHUCKLES) you're going about a hundred.

GREGORY: We're taking the test track vehicle

and adding to it to make it look like a passenger car,

and giving it a lot more personality.

We'll have about 37 different varieties of vehicles.

NARRATOR: The six-year collaboration with Pixar animators

helped the Imagineers translate the onscreen characters

into real figures,

affectionately known as Automatronics.

BOB: Cars Land is an example of the precedent that we set

with Disneyland Pirates of the Caribbean,

where you'd tell a thorough, thorough story.

You have animated figures that looks like a '48 Hudson.

-Come on, Rookie. -BOB: That '48 Hudson is just

as much a character as the pirate.

All developed in the same storytelling way

that's extremely thorough and all its technical

and show details.

Come on in, Rookie. Shiny paint don't win a race.

Now, get out there and do us proud.

BOB: All that's traced back to that 1966 Pirate ride design

that Walt lead us into.

(CAR ENGINE ROARS)

MCQUEEN: Touchdown.

KEVIN: After the Land opened, I just had this

tremendous separation anxiety.

I just hated to walk away from that.

When I went back to work at Imagineering in Glendale,

and I was sitting in traffic one day,

and I happened to look out my window,

and I looked up at the clouds, and I'm not kidding,

there was a cloud in the very shape of the radiator cap butte.

I mean, you can't make this stuff up.

It was almost like this cosmic connection, it was just, it was fantastic.

NARRATOR: The new Disney California Adventure received rave reviews

from critics and guests.

The overall success of Cars Land proved Bob Iger's theory,

there's no substitute for good creative content.

BOB: The perception of DCA as a park

became much grander, because the whole park felt bigger.

Not just Cars Land.

It feels good when you come in, it has great nighttime,

it has landscaping, it has new attractions,

but something about the whole vibe had changed.

And that's what had to happen.

NARRATOR: But there lies the never-ending Imagineer dilemma,

to what degree should a park,

or even a cherished attraction be altered?

MARTY: The big dynamic in our lives really is change.

Walt Disney had one foot in the past and one foot in the future,

because he loved the nostalgia,

and he loved the technology and what it enabled.

That marriage is still very, very strong, and it lives here at Imagineering.

KIM: Our guests want everything to stay the same,

just as they remember it the first time they ever came. (INHALES)

But that's really not a good idea because things become stale.

Walt wanted all of these attractions to be updated, you know

again, relevancy, he kept saying,

"You got to keep this thing live, and fresh, and new."

You can change something but it needs to be as good,

if not a lot better than what was (CHUCKLES) there before.

You can't take away.

What is this?

STEVE: We were asked to re-conceive Christmas.

And the idea of putting holiday

into the Haunted Mansion is crazy.

Back then the Nightmare Before Christmas product was fine.

It had a very niche market, and it took three years

to finally, finally get an okay to do it.

It was terrifying because it was also the onset of the internet.

And so, we were watching the internet just blow up, you know,

"They're attacking our sacred ride." You know, "What are they going to do?"

"Terrible entertainment."

So... we were very cautious in everything that we did.

NARRATOR: The Imagineers modernized Disneyland's original home of illusions.

Kim Irvine kept the family tradition alive

by reprising her mother's role for the seasonal holiday overlay.

This time, the rear projected head of Madame Leota

conjured the 13 days of Christmas.

On the 13th day of Christmas,

my ghoul love gave to me...

NARRATOR: Crowds screamed with delight,

the gutsy decision worked because an already familiar property

resurrected the space into a fresh, scary,

but fun experience.

Not to mention, it was only temporary.

Fans could rest in peace.

KIM: Our fans are a blessing and sometimes not so much,

because I love their feedback,

I love to hear what they think about things,

but it's also very difficult to... please them

and to convince them that they need to trust us,

that we love this park as much as they do,

and we try very hard to, you know, do the right thing.

NARRATOR: When word got out that 29 dolls

based on Disney animated characters would be added to a theme park classic,

it caused a small world war among fanatics.

The Disney faithful believed inserting fictional figures

into real world communities detracted from Walt's original intent.

While this was happening, I was afraid to go out

on the street... (CHUCKLES) ...at night, it was really, seriously,

people were very upset about it.

What we did is just carefully, carefully work each one

into the country where their story is actually from.

So, Alice is in England, Cinderella is in France.

Once we started working on them,

and I could see them transforming into something

that fit seamlessly into it,

I felt more comfortable with it.

NARRATOR: Although Kim Irvine replicated Mary Blair's

original character design,

the outcry increased, prompting Imagineer legend Marty Sklar

to respond with an open letter.

"We're not turning this classic attraction

"into a marketing pitch for Disney plush toys.

"The opposite is true, we want the message of brotherhood

"and goodwill to resonate more with today's young people."

KIM: Once the guests saw it, they went,

"Oh, we like that, that's really cute.

"We like that. We have fun going through and finding the different characters."

But beforehand, it's pretty rough. (CHUCKLES)

NARRATOR: Bound by the philosophy of plussing,

the Imagineers altered another perennial favorite,

Pirates of the Caribbean.

They added the popular movie character Jack Sparrow...

and later, carefully adapted the story

to fit the changing cultural times.

Drink up, me 'earties! Yo ho!

NARRATOR: No matter the initial response to change,

the wave of guest demand only grew.

To meet the future, Bob Iger went on a franchise-spending spree,

buying some of the most revered pop culture properties ever.

BOB: Today, I'm happy to announce

that Disney has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment.

NARRATOR: He also licensed the theme park rights to Avatar

from Lightstorm Entertainment.

And bought Lucasfilm, the home of Star Wars.

(CHEERING)

JON: Now when you think of things like, like Star Wars,

like Marvel, suddenly, it's like...

"I don't think that our audience is satisfied

"with saying, 'This is just for our kids, it's for Mom and Dad as well.'"

It's kind of cool that we have this technology platform

and all this strength in technology, because they're properties that are about

looking at the future, about looking at the world

in kind of a magical way.

It gives us a real first step into kind of next generation

of themed experiences and immersive experiences.

NARRATOR: But with those plans years away,

Bob may clear his expectation.

Progress waits for no one.

The second pillar of his strategy emphasized technological innovation.

Even the untouchable attractions could benefit from an overhaul.

CHARITA: Our mission was to just think about how we do our attractions.

Projectors are getting smaller and smaller.

Is there an opportunity to look at what's happening out there,

and bring that technology in house

to create a larger and more expansive toolbox?

It's really helpful to think of the projector as a lighting device.

One of the things that it brings to the table,

is allows you to animate in addition to lighting a scene.

It's completely scalable,

so whether it's something that you're looking down on,

and it's a dimensional model-like setting, or if it's something like

the side of a building, it's very, very versatile.

That eventually led to something we call projection mapping.

With Indiana Jones, when you go in

and you see those different manifestations of Mara,

and the different paths that the guests can take,

you've got something that's very sweeping and compelling, and animated.

And so, that's the case where, you know, the vision

was always there, and by revisiting it with new tools,

we could continue to really just hone it in

and just... That's where the magic happens.

NARRATOR: Once the Imagineers demonstrated

it's bang for the buck,

they implemented projection upgrades far and wide.

This revitalized both the nighttime shows

and the dark ride classics.

WENDY: But, Peter, how do we get to Neverland?

-We fly, of course. -Fly?

It's easy.

LARRY: This is one of the most favorite attractions in the park,

and one of our guest favorites that they run for in the morning.

We have a heavy obligation here to make sure that the magic stays intact.

This is a really beautiful scene when it's done.

We've got all the fiber-optic stars

and you look like you're floating in space over the island.

-FEMALE VOICE 2: Attention in Peter Pan... -There's...

FEMALE VOICE 2: ...show lights will go on in one minute.

ELIZABETH: Some plumbing backed up,

so where pipes are supposed to drain, instead they were flooding

in our scene with water, so we had a little leak here,

and appropriately, a mother duck and five ducklings found the lake.

Unfortunately, pooping all over our freshly painted show floor,

so everything according to plan, yeah.

JON: You have to build the best technology you've ever built in your life,

and then, you have to make it invisible. (CHUCKLING)

If somebody walks out of one of these experiences,

saying, "That was an amazing machine, that was an amazing robot,

"that was an amazing, uh, simulator," we failed miserably.

NARRATOR: The Imagineers answered the call to make make-believe believable.

Stars in the nighttime sky multiplied with more fiber-optics.

Tinkerbell sprinkled laser particles,

pixelated water flowed through hidden LED panels,

while animation lived inside the clock tower.

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said,

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

DAVE: This quote by Arthur C. Clarke

is actually a vision statement for our department.

Our job is not about technology,

even though that's what we work with almost every day,

it's not about the technology, it's about the experience.

We still use fiber-optics everywhere, smoke and mirrors,

but our ability to re-invent the way it's presented,

by scaling it up, scaling it down, figuring out a way to...

trick guests into believing it again, you know,

believing something they've seen before to believe it again.

MALE VOICE 6: This is a flying trip on a pirate ship

over the moonlit City of London to Peter Pan's Never Neverland.

LARRY: I've experienced this attraction since I was a little kid,

then bringing my kids through after the '83 enhancement,

and just, you know, marveling at how they had made it

so much better, but still respected the original,

and now we get do to the same thing.

So, that's what excites me, is just being part of this,

that's been part of my childhood,

and... never would've dreamed I'd be able to do this.

It drew the great writer Ray Bradbury to write Walt immediately a post card,

saying, "I will be eternally grateful.

"Today, I flew out of a child's bedroom window

"in a pirate galleon,

"and set sail for Neverland over a moonlit London."

That says it all. Who wouldn't wanna do that

any (CHUCKLES) possible time that you could?

(SINGING) You can fly

You can fly

You can fly

KARL: The Disney Dream is destined to be one of the most unique

and innovative ships afloat.

NARRATOR: Bob Iger doubled the Disney fleet

by ordering two new ships,

the Dream and the Fantasy,

whether for entertainment or for convenience.

He believed the rising tide of smart technology

should lift every experience.

Walt and the original Imagineers got it right... (CHUCKLES)

in a big way when they designed Disneyland.

We didn't forget that when we thought about designing these ships.

The great thing about timeless things is that they can be mixed in

with the most modern elements, and hold their own.

They add a richness and permanence to the modern elements.

The sense that there are roots deep in the ground,

that this tree that you're looking at now has grown from.

We've got artwork throughout the ship, for instance.

Certain pieces of this artwork will come to life when you stand in front of it.

And since it's a piece of artwork that you stood in front of,

it is performing for you on a one-on-one basis.

So, here you are on a giant ship (CHUCKLES)

with thousands of other guests,

and you're getting this very intimate experience directly.

NARRATOR: Making this kind of personal connection

with a captive audience at sea was one thing.

Achieving that in a theme park proved much harder.

BRUCE: People don't like to wait in lines anymore

so, you know, we're working on lands that have no... no queue lines.

People would still be waiting,

but they just won't be standing in queues, they'll be doing other things.

And the challenges for that kind of stuff are...

queue lines are very efficient use of space.

You stack people in, you know, they get very tight,

and now you can fit more people in your park

because they're very efficient use of space.

There's just a really bad guest experience,

and the tolerance for that is getting less and less and less and less

as people don't have to wait so much for things.

JON: We're living in a pretty amazing time

where everyone carries around what literally

was a supercomputer a couple of decades ago.

We've entered a new world.

And I think that that will start to shape more and more

the in-park experience.

NARRATOR: Since the advent of social media,

guests share their experiences instantly.

On the plus side, Disney Castles became

the most Instagrammed spots in the world.

On the downside, the brick and mortar park designers

vied for attention.

I always say I win if I can get everybody off their phone for a minute,

to stop and focus.

I mean, can I create something where they're not...

doing this all the time.

TOM: The acceleration of technology is happening so quickly...

that it's hard to keep up with it.

When you build a theme park, and it takes three to four years

to get it open, and you have to specify equipment

eighteen months into the design, it's pretty sure guaranteed that

what you install will be obsolete in the real world.

The bar is higher because cool illusions are becoming ubiquitous.

That's the challenge,

is staying nimble enough to stay ahead of the technology curve.

CHRIS: Our audience has evolved through those decades, too.

What they've come to expect, what they can experience at home,

on Xbox or a PlayStation, the adventures that they can go on,

without ever leaving their house...

it's a very daunting task for us to be able to not just keep up with it,

but exceed, and keep surprising our guests.

Keep our guests asking the question, "How did they do that?

Like, "How in the world did Lumiere just... It's a candlestick.

"How did he just come to life on the mantle?"

Shh... I shall call her in, and when she enters,

we'll all shout, "Surprise!"

JON: We believe that if we...

use, you know, machine learning and artificial intelligence,

and advance robotics,

we can build a character that you can have a conversation with.

And that's not the kind of thing that you say and then,

tomorrow afternoon, you produce it.

It means that you're interacting with scientists around the world. It means

that you're, you're bringing a lot of people in house.

You're doing a lot of experimentation.

You're taking things to the park to test them,

and it's a multi-year process.

Let's invest long term, and make sure that every time a new project starts,

the most advanced technology available is at their fingertips.

IAN: As Imagineers, we have to try to keep up with that technology.

Hong Kong is... a very dynamic city.

Technology is forefront.

The local market demands that level of innovation.

NARRATOR: Since opening in 2005, the small Hong Kong Disneyland

had endured outspoken criticism, and operated at a deficit.

Despite this, Bob Iger decided to expand the park by 25 percent,

a size equal to Cars Land.

His third and final strategic pillar

stressed the importance of international growth,

just the pledge to bring an exclusive attraction to Asia

caused attendance to rise.

Unlike an attraction based on a movie,

where the guest comes with a known emotional connection,

it's more difficult for Imagineers to strike the right cord

with an original concept, especially in a foreign country.

JOE: There was a desire to do a Haunted Mansion.

The Chinese have a very different way of thinking about the afterlife.

Singing happy ghosts really wasn't part

of what they thought about in the afterlife.

Now, we were liberated. We said,

"Okay. We don't have to do that story."

Starting from... from scratch and really developing a brand-new concept

and brand-new characters, personally, as a designer,

to me, that's the most exciting thing that we get a chance to do.

What made Disneyland in Anaheim, you know, great and unique

as a... as a theme park, and set itself apart,

was going back to storytelling,

and creating characters that people resonated with.

Mystic Point is an estate that belongs to Lord Henry Mystic.

He's an eccentric world traveler.

He loves collecting fine arts and antiquities.

He's willing to let any guest, anyone who's coming to Mystic Point,

who makes the arduous journey out here,

he's opening up his home to share his collection with them.

NARRATOR: This 21st Century version of the Haunted Mansion

heightened the mystery with the free-ranging ride system.

MARK: It's a trackless system,

and it's run by a series of RFID tags embedded in the ground.

And then, it's alternately controlled by a wireless system off board

through a series of computers that's telling these vehicles

which direction and which path to take.

NARRATOR: Similar to a Haunted Mansion Doom Buggy,

the vehicle acts as a camera, while the programmer acts as a magician.

They have full control over the guest's point of view

without them realizing it.

Cutting edge black light technology, fog effects,

and projection mapping fill the grand illusion hall.

JOE: What we've been discovering here is it's really more

about how to communicate an idea,

basically, without words, and with visual communication,

which for me... goes all the way back to the core

of what this company is about with animation,

I mean, Walt started...

with the Mickey shorts, with no sound.

It was just all about creating, you know, stories and gags,

and moments that communicated visually.

NARRATOR: Show writers avoided multiple language barriers

by limiting a tiny amount of dialogue to the beginning and end.

Every scene in between relied on music.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Okay. Very good.

Um, the woodwinds, please. Same thing.

DANNY: I remember those story rides like...

Pirates and Haunted Mansion.

where there was like a vibe and

a musical tone...

that kind of stuck with me.

And so, those are the ones I really liked. Their narrative,

they had a single melody that played through the whole thing,

and helped tell the story.

But, what I really remember in my subconscious are these tunes.

NARRATOR: The Haunted Mansion soundtrack came courtesy

of prolific composer, Buddy Baker,

who, for decades, scored dozens of attractions

from EPCOT to Tokyo Disney Sea.

Danny sought to emulate Buddy's ability to unify multiple scenes

into a single macabre masterpiece.

This is probably one of our largest scenes in the attraction.

It's our arms and armory room.

And the music might even imply that we're in a little bit of danger.

Absolutely. I think at this point in the... in the attraction,

we wanna start to heighten that idea that, you know, anything can happen.

DANNY: There was a lot of technical issues that had to get solved.

That were really tricky, the puzzle

of how the music for each room interfaced with the next room

with four cars.

That made it really complex, okay?

Well, if I ride it so, this happens at this moment,

but the next car is coming through, that's not gonna be their experience.

Which pieces do we wanna synchronize for all four cars,

which will be synchronized for two out of four cars?

That's all puzzle making.

MARK: And we actually created this third character called the Music Dust.

And it's part of the folklore of the music box,

which is Lord Henry's latest acquisition that's on display,

and of course, his companion, Little Albert,

mischievously gets into the box, and releases the Music Dust,

and so, that visual element that's traveling through the rooms

is basically pulling us forward through the different scenes.

NARRATOR: From behind the curtain, the Imagineers shined points of light

onto physical but transparent mesh,

that descended from the ceiling, invisible to the guest.

The glowing light appeared to hover and swirl in mid-air.

IAN: Mystic Point has R&D projects

that were developed a few years ago, which are now reality.

We're constantly trying to give the local market that new technology,

that special wow factor

because they appreciate it so much.

NARRATOR: The multiple area expansion plan made the right impression.

In 2012, Hong Kong Disneyland enjoyed its first ever profitable year.

With its future secured for the time being...

Imagineers turned their attention toward the last remaining black sheep

of the theme park family.

In desperate need of a new identity, Walt Disney Studios Paris

still lacked a distinct, one-of-a-kind anchor attraction.

The design recipe called for just the right cultural ingredient.

Wouldn't it be fun if we could do a modern-day Mr. Toad's Wild Ride?

We saw that scene where Remy fell through the window,

that's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

That gauntlet of Remy going through the wheels and the footsteps,

and, you know, almost getting stepped on, and then going into the restaurant,

and... it seems like that would be a fun ride.

CHRISSIE: We worked really hard with scale...

and scale was one of the first things we had to overcome.

FARMER: Based on the movie, he's maybe eight inches tall.

How does that translate to a ride?

How does everything look... in Remy's world?

If we're standing on the floor, if we're Remy and we're standing

in the kitchen, and we're looking up, we are six foot tall,

in a kitchen that's potentially 70 feet tall.

TOM: You know, when we're little kids,

and you can walk underneath the dining room table,

and everything seems gigantic,

we sort of lose that as adults, but I think in, you know,

something like this, it puts us all back in that world of, "Wow.

"The world is... is huge."

We tried to do it all with theatrical sets,

and we couldn't get what we wanted from

illusion perspective, from a storytelling perspective,

and so, we made the leap to 3D animation,

combined with show set pieces, because we wanted to blur the line

between what's digital and what's real.

CHRISSIE: 3D is all about the sweet spot.

The first thing we did was, we had elements up on the screen,

so that we could figure out

how to create a sweet spot in all three vehicles.

That's done with the blending of projection.

That's done with a moving eye point analysis,

where they figure out how that's going to move

from vehicle to vehicle, and also, the vehicles don't stay still.

So, the minute the vehicles move, the eye point has to go with them.

How do you make them move?

How do you make them accelerate and decelerate,

seamlessly, along with the media?

TOM: When you have technical people and you have creative people,

we don't necessarily speak the same language.

They might say, "Well... what velocity would you like this to spin?"

I don't know.

To figure it out, we sat there, and they would dial it up

and say, "Okay, now I'm gonna spin you at this rate."

"All right. Let's try it faster."

And it was sort of a Goldilocks, not this much, that's too much.

That was a little bit scary, you know, committing long before

you'd put it together.

NARRATOR: After 11 months of fine-tune

calibration in separate warehouses, all the elements arrived in Paris.

The 4D effects demanded meticulous synchronization.

To engage all the senses,

a near miss with the mop sprinkles water at just the right moment.

A broiler radiates heat when the vehicle scurries beneath it.

And smells of freshly baked baguettes waft through a pantry.

Pixar provided the five-minute animation, which took longer to render

than the entire Ratatouille feature film.

TOM: We mixed up the, uh, animation in every scene.

The screens, shapes, and sizes are different.

Some are rear projections, some are front projections,

some are shadow projection, some are Pepper's ghost projections.

You know, we just keep mixing it up, so that you don't get a conscious feeling

of, "Oh, I get what's going on."

We don't want that to ever happen.

You know, we want you to just be wrapped up in this gauntlet of,

"Oh, my gosh, and now we're here. And oh, my gosh. Now we're here. No!"

Now, this is happening to us.

NARRATOR: Rather than the signature exit through the gift shop,

guests emerged from the attraction inside an authentic French Bistro.

The Disneyland Paris Resort became the number one tourist destination

in Europe.

More than twice the amount that visited the Eiffel Tower.

Ratatouille reinforced that when customized to fit a culture,

a park can develop into a national treasure...

or even a safe haven.

MALE REPORTER: Terrifying pictures out of Northern Japan,

an earthquake-triggered tsunami sent a destructive wave

across the northeast coast.

The wave washed across farmland, carrying entire buildings with it.

NARRATOR: One thing Disney designers have no control over

is external forces.

Whether bracing for a natural disaster, riot, or epidemic,

they must prepare for the worst.

The events of March 11th, 2011, tested that resilience.

MALE ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please.

-We have just experienced an earthquake. -(CROWD CLAMORING)

MALE ANNOUNCER: Please move away from the buildings to an open area.

Please be assured that the park has been designed

with earthquake safety in mind.

DANIEL: There were about 70,000 people in the parks

at the time of the earthquake hit.

And they were all taken care of, and brought back home safely.

That told all of Japan...

that Tokyo Disneyland Resort is safe and reassuring.

NARRATOR: The park survived the devastation with no major damage.

Minor flooding occurred due to its being built on a landfill.

But the structural integrity held strong.

Only the parking lot pavement showed significant cracking and shifting.

While the nation mourned, the two theme parks

remained closed out of respect.

DANIEL: After 9/11, the president can come out after a period of time and say,

"Hey, we're back on our feet."

And the country feels like, "Okay. We're... We can get back to our business."

In Japan, no one announces that.

Tokyo Disneyland had to open...

for the country to begin to heal.

After being closed for about a month, a month-and-a-half,

our guests came back in droves.

We had people running to hug Mickey...

(SIGHS) and thank him.

(SOBS) And you go, "This is... (CHUCKLES) This is what we do."

Right?

KIM: I spend a lot of time out in the park.

I have such a pride in being able to create a place

that brings that much happiness to people.

TOM: You see the smiles on everyone's faces.

It's... It's pretty powerful.

I mean, this... this is a dream that started in California, in Anaheim,

that's traveled the world.

While I think there's a belief that people are different around the world...

they're really, at heart, not very different.

MARK: That is probably the ultimate satisfaction.

So, being able to take something from the drawing board,

through mock-ups, and through staging, and warehouse and factory visits,

and then, that opening day when the guests actually

get on the ride for the first time...

(INHALES DEEPLY)

(SOBS) That's good. (CHUCKLES)

(CHUCKLES) You can't use that.

NARRATOR: In 2015, Disneyland turned 60 years young.

The crown jewel of the theme park industry appeared immaculate.

New color schemes and fresh paint brightened every inch.

TOM: Disneyland and Disney Parks in general are places where you can go...

and they get better every time you go.

They defy entropy.

They are not getting old, and that makes you feel youthful.

Maybe you'll somehow by osmosis, get some of that magic on you

and you will defy

all of the things that time and age bring,

because Disneyland is better than it was when it opened,

and it's better than it was 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago.

NARRATOR: Throughout theme park history, critical observers viewed Disney Kingdoms

as Pollyanna fluff or escapism.

But the Imagineers contend they build a better reality.

One based not on chaos and contradiction, but on order and harmony.

I once asked John Hench. "What does all this mean?

"What's the deeper meaning of all this?"

And he said, "The meaning of the parks is very simple.

"It's, 'You're gonna be okay.'"

By that, he meant, it doesn't matter what's happening in the world,

it doesn't matter how screwed up your life is,

or whatever that might be, it's reassurance.

That sense of comfort.

That intangible... is what we have to do.

KEVIN: If you think about in history,

if you think about the Great Depression, for example,

everybody back then,

as hard as the times were, they spent money on two things,

they spent money on food and entertainment.

Maybe not necessarily in that order.

And people always need to be entertained.

People always need the reassurance that it's...

it's fun to have fun, that you can, that you can go to a place and...

and enjoy your friends and family.

And we need it more than ever.

Take us into 2016 for the Walt Disney Company and beyond that...

what are the big projects that you're excited about?

Whether it's technology or theme parks or...

The biggest priority for us in 2016 is Shanghai Disneyland as a company.

Certainly for me, Shanghai Disneyland looms the largest.

NARRATOR: Since 1999, Bob negotiated with the Chinese government

for permission to bring the western media brand

to the mainland market.

Discussions revolved around control, cost, and culture.

A reminder that creating happiness is serious business.

Above all the acquisitions of content,

and above all the advancements in technology,

Bob Iger staked his personal legacy

on opening an ambitious new magic kingdom in Shanghai, China.

In his eyes, the company's future depended on it.