No, Walt Disney is not cryogenically frozen. But he comes magically back to life at Disneyland

Anaheim California CNN For the first time since Walt Disney s death in guests at Disneyland can get a lifelike glimpse of the man who started the first animation studios in California planting the seed that would grow into an international media and entertainment empire Disney has recreated its founder in its largest part realistic Audio-Animatronics figure to date as part of a theater attraction about the humble beginnings and sometimes challenging periods of Walt Disney s life This marks the first-ever representation of Walt Disney in the medium that he helped pioneer Disney was fascinated with the equipment behind robotic puppets that move and talk in a fluid way In the s Disney and his group trademarked Audio-Animatronics as they applied the system in Walt Disney s Enchanted Tiki Room attraction and made Abraham Lincoln talk and move in a World s Fair attraction Using audio clips of interviews from Disney s lifetime the creative company spent seven years from concept to creation of the new Walt Disney figure using the the bulk advanced mechanism available The figure debuts in a new show Walt Disney A Magical Life on July the th anniversary of the park s opening The show featuring Lincoln which occupied space in Disneyland s Main Street Opera House for decades will be temporarily replaced by this new show and eventually be shown again in rotation While Imagineers and numerous fans have been excited about honoring their hero this way the concept was not embraced by all of Disney s family One of Walt Disney s granddaughters expressed concern that this robotic form of her grandfather would be dehumanizing CNN was invited to preview the final impact alongside the biggest Disney fans-turned-content creators and influencers They generally loved the advancement of instrument to allow lifelike features and endorsed having this way of introducing the story of Walt Disney to new generations who have had little exposure to the company s founder What audiences will see The show features a -minute film narrated by Disney CEO Bob Iger about Walt Disney s life through the early advance of his Florida resort After the film the curtains rise to reveal a recreation of Disney s office in Burbank California with the man himself leaning back on the edge of his desk The portion of the show featuring the Audio-Animatronics figure lasts only about seconds during which it moves at one point going from leaning to standing up then putting one hand on his hip as Disney often did in television appearances We really want to convey the quiet stillness of Walt in his office and that feeling that you re there with him It s personal and it s intimate disclosed Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz portfolio executive creative producer at Walt Disney Imagineering Easter eggs are peppered throughout the set with a replica of Disney s briefcase books on urban evolution a map of Disneyland with upcoming attractions and a photo of Abraham Lincoln all of which were in Disney s office in the early s Shaver-Moskowitz one of the lead creatives on the project noted that newer generations of Disney fans never had the experience of watching Walt Disney appear on television every week They may know the company he built but not the man who struggled to get it off the ground For example the film goes through setbacks like Disney losing the rights to his early character Oswald the Lucky Rabbit We really needed to sort of bring that connection of what we felt growing up with Walt to an audience this day Tom Fitzgerald senior creative executive at Walt Disney Imagineering narrated a group of journalists The life lessons that he learned are really amazing ones and key ones Follow your dreams Never give up turn setbacks into success and give the world your very best I mean those are messages that are as valid in the modern day as in Walt s time Artifacts in the lobby area of the theater show Walt Disney s early creations including Audio-Animatronics from attractions like Pirates of the Caribbean and Walt Disney s Enchanted Tiki Room Another room shows the original furniture he and his wife had in their apartment inside Disneyland above the fire station The show will initially use a virtual queue where guests can use the Disneyland app to reserve a spot What it took to make the Walt Disney figure While early Audio-Animatronics were pneumatic or hydraulic modern ones are electric Shaver-Moskowitz announced the older hardware has the power to make a character stand up more easily on their own An electric figure doesn t move the entire weight as smoothly even if the performance is more fluid and quieter without loud puffs of air But the squad did such amazing work on establishing new technologies in this figure that we now have our first all-electric figure that has that lean-to-stand motion Shaver-Moskowitz explained Disney commented their creative squad achieved plenty of innovations never done before in a humanoid figure including new methods to create more realistic skin and an actual twinkle in his eye Disney Imagineers also studied muscle structure and nuances of speaking and gesturing to mimic Walt Disney s mannerisms and movements How the Disney family feels about the project One of Walt Disney s granddaughters Joanna Miller strongly objected to the project in a post on Facebook in November In that post she reported that her grandfather never demanded to be in robotic form They are dehumanizing him she wrote People are not replaceable You could never get the casualness of his talking interacting with the camera his excitement to show and tell people about what is new at the park she wrote referring to his weekly show about Disneyland Miller shared with the Los Angeles Times a letter that she wrote to Iger I strongly feel the last two minutes with the robot will do much more harm than good to Grampa s legacy They will remember the robot and not the man But during a media preview of the show Kirsten Komoroske executive director of the nonprofit Walt Disney Family Museum founded by one of Disney s daughters revealed three generations of Walt and Lillian Disney s family saw the attraction and were so moved and so touched When requested about her own reaction to seeing the final project Komoroske declared I was absolutely gobsmacked The expertise and care that has gone into this is exceptional Sitting in the audience it looked like Walt was looking right at me and I felt the impulse to smile back at him