Cars’ Land Luigi’s Leaning Tower of Tires Installed at California Adventure

We just learned that parts of Cars’ Land at California Adventure will open in summer 2012 . Work is progressing at a frenzied pace and the details in Cars’ Land are coming into focus. One of the most important touches will be the recreation of Main Street Radiator Springs.

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Cars’ Land Luigi’s Leaning Tower of Tires Installed at California Adventure

Time-Lapse Video of New Fantasyland Construction Progress

Walt Disney Imagineering has released a new time-lapse video showing the progress of New Fantasyland. If you look close you can see the crane used to put Holiday Lights up on the castle last September. Also note that the video actually ends a few months ago, as the current state of the Fantasyland expansion includes painted rocks and a visible castle wall expansion leading out close to Dumbo

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Time-Lapse Video of New Fantasyland Construction Progress

Imagineer Joe Rhode Video Tour of Aulani – Disney’s Hawaiian Resort

Walt Disney Imagineer Joe Rhode moved to the Aulani project a few months into its life. Since then he’s focused on adding the sort of details that Disney’s Animal Kingdom became famous for under his leadership

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Imagineer Joe Rhode Video Tour of Aulani – Disney’s Hawaiian Resort

Imagineer Joe Rhode Video Tour of Aulani – Disney’s Hawaiian Resort

Walt Disney Imagineer Joe Rhode moved to the Aulani project a few months into its life. Since then he’s focused on adding the sort of details that Disney’s Animal Kingdom became famous for under his leadership. With the hotel’s grand opening coming August 29th, Rhode took some time to make a quick video showing some of the magic you’ll find at the resort Previously : Video of Lobby and Water Play area and Aulani photo update

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Imagineer Joe Rhode Video Tour of Aulani – Disney’s Hawaiian Resort

Castle Topping – Disneyland Paris

A similar video made the rounds a few years ago, but it’s always fun to watch how Imagineering makes the magic. In this case it’s the “Castle Topping” ceremony when the highest spire of The Chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty Castle) was lifted into place on August 2, 1991. Last time I was in Paris was July 1991, I was just a bit too early to visit Euro-Disneyland.

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Castle Topping – Disneyland Paris

Disney Research Rocks SIGGRAPH 2011

Randy Pausch, CMU Profession, Disney Imagineer, "Last Lecture" author About 15 years ago Disney cut large chunks off the budget for the the Research and Development arm of Walt Disney Imagineering. All the big names WDI had attracted either saw the writing on the wall and left or were let go by Disney during this belt-tightening phase.

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Disney Research Rocks SIGGRAPH 2011

A Glimpse at 1988 Walt Disney Imagineering as it plans for Euro-Disney

A fascinating video from 1988 provides a look inside Walt Disney Imagineering as it plans to build Euro-Disney, aka Disneyland Paris.

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A Glimpse at 1988 Walt Disney Imagineering as it plans for Euro-Disney

Behind the scenes of Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid at Magic Kingdom

Disney has released a new video hosted by Imagineer Chris Beatty who gives us a sneak peek at the making of Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid. The video includes some never-before-seen sketches, artist renderings, attraction maps and more, and shares some details on Prince Eric’s castle and the attraction’s creative queue

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Behind the scenes of Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid at Magic Kingdom

Carsland – Pre-viz Drive Through from Walt Disney Imagineering

Time was when Walt Disney Imagineering would painstakingly create a scale model of whatever attraction or themed area they wanted to build. Yeah, they still do that, but it has its limitations. For instance you can’t really get a feel for line of sight and how buildings in the background will appear

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Carsland – Pre-viz Drive Through from Walt Disney Imagineering

Tony Baxter relays the untold history of Star Tours, the original

Tony Baxter, Senior VP Creative Development for Walt Disney Imagineering, recently chatted with the ForceCast, one of the more respected Star Wars fan podcasts, about Star Tours. They discussed the new version a bit, but Baxter was really excited to explore some of the history of the original Star Tours attraction, including tidbits I’ve never heard before. You can listen to it here , or I’ve included some of my notes below the jump: The podcast interview starts off with Tony explaining how he was involved in the original Star Tours going back to how they got the original attraction off the ground starting from pretty much nothing

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Tony Baxter relays the untold history of Star Tours, the original

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