D23 Expo

Hello everyone!! Welcome to my trip report of the D23 Expo!! There was a lot of information to go through, but I've finally sorted it all out and here I go!! I'm going to start with Day 1, which was Friday, August 9, 2013 and it was a fun-filled day!!



We woke up early on Friday morning and left our hotel by 4:30 a.m. to get in line for the big arena presentation that was going to be held that morning. Here I am, bright and early and ready to go!




We got to the convention center and got in line for the Arena. The first presentation that day was going to be presented by the Walt Disney Studios and they were going to present their new animated films by their three animated studios, Walt Disney Animation, Disney Toon Studios, and of course Pixar. Sadly, phones and cameras were not allowed so there's no pictures, but I'll give you all the information from it.

PIXAR - THE GOOD DINOSAUR (2014)Bob Iger came out first to give the opening address of the Expo and then he introduced John Lasseter to host the rest of the presentation. The presentation begin with discussing Pixar's new projects for the next couple of years. We started with their new movie due to come out in spring of 2014, The Good Dinosaur. Starring in The Good Dinosaur will be Judy Greer, Bill Hader, Lucas Neff, Neil Patrick Harris, John Lithgow and Frances McDormand. The main premise of the movie asks, "what if an asteroid didn't hit Earth, and the dinosaurs still existed? What would their lives be like?". To answer this question, Pixar decided that the dinosaurs would live on and become "farmers". Each different type of dinosaur has their own "farmer" role depending on their skills. The movie will explore our main character, Arlo (Lucas Neff), and his desire to explore the world beyond his normal life. Along his journey he meets an unexpected friend also looking for an adventure. A teaser trailer, clips, and rough footage and animation for The Good Dinosaur was shown and it looks very good!

PIXAR - PARTY CENTRAL - SHORT TO PLAY BEFORE THE GOOD DINOSAUR (2014)Next, Lasseter presented the new short that will play before The Good Dinosaur. The short, called Party Central, takes place at Monsters University showing Mike, Sulley and the gang of OK hosting their own version of a frat party! We got to see the whole short, and it was hilarious! I can't wait to see it again as a matter of fact.

PIXAR - INSIDE OUT (2015)We next got to hear about a previously untitled project about a journey inside the mind. That project now has a title and will be called Inside Out. The plot of the movie goes inside the mind where all the emotions of the mind where each emotion is embodied by a little character. Lewis Black will be playing Anger, Mindy Kaling as Disgust, Bill Hader as Fear, Phyllis Smith as Sadness, and Amy Poehler as Joy. The movie explores the inside of the mind as each emotion does their part in controlling your every move falling under their emotion. Director Pete Docter, and stars Bill Hader and Phyllis Smith came out on stage to talk about the movie as well. I think that this movie is going to be a great one, a couple clips and some concept art were show and it all looks fantastic, so I definitely am looking forward to this one in 2015.

PIXAR - FINDING DORY (2015)The much awaited sequel to Finding Nemo will be coming out in two years and is bringing back stars Ellen Degeneres and Albert Brooks as well. The movie will explore the backstory to Dory, and discuss where she came from and the life she had before the events of Finding Nemo and will have Dory setting off on an adventure to find her family. New stars to this movie will be Diane Keaton as Dory's mom, Eugene Levy as Dory's dad, and Ty Burrell as a new friend Dory meets along the way.

PIXAR - TOY STORY OF TERROR - TV SPECIAL (2013)As I'm sure most of you already know, this Halloween we will be getting a Halloween-themed TV special starring our favorite characters from Toy Story, called Toy Story of Terror. The special itself wasn't discussed, but instead we go to watch the first 10 minutes of it! Obviously I won't give anything away to you guys, but I can say it was awesome and I can't wait to watch the rest of it- especially since they left it on such a cliff-hanger!!

DISNEYTOON STUDIOS - TINKERBELL, THE LEGEND OF THE NEVERBEAST & THE PIRATE FAIRYI'm not a huge fan of the TinkerBell movies but the two new additions they announced do sound interesting. The first was The Legend of the Neverbeast which shows one of the fairies befriending a large, seemingly frightening animal when in fact he's not all that mean after all. The second movie that was discussed was definitely the more interesting seeming of the two and that was The Pirate Fairy. The Pirate Fairy stars Christina Hendricks as Zarina, and Tom Hiddleston as James. The film itself is centered around Zarina, the Pirate fairy and the captain of the ship, and James her cabin boy. The interesting part of this movie is that while James may seem like a modest cabin boy, he actually turns out to be James Hook, who will of course one day become the infamous Captain Hook. The Pirate Fairy brings us closer to the story of TinkerBell we all originally knew and it looks like it will be a fun movie, so I'm looking forward to that one.

DISNEYTOON STUDIOS - PLANES (2013) & PLANES: FIRE & RESCUE (2014)Of course Planes was already completed and released on this particular day of the Expo as a matter of fact, but they were there to announce the sequel to Planes to be released next year called, Planes: Fire & Rescue. This movie will find Dusty giving up his racing career and looking for something new to do, when he decides to become a Fire & Rescue plane. A small clip and some concept art was shown, and while I can't necessarily say I'm too excited for it, it did look like a fun movie.

WALT DISNEY STUDIOS - NEW MICKEY MOUSE SHORT, GET A HORSEThis was by far one of the highlights of this presentation as we got to see the United States debut of the new Mickey Mouse short called Get a Horse. The short is outstanding, and one of the best parts of the short is that the voice of Mickey Mouse is Walt Disney himself, thanks to technology of being able to piece together old clips of him voicing Mickey to use for the new short. I'm not going to talk too much about it because they asked us not to spill too many details, but I can tell you it's amazing and I look forward to seeing it again, and again, and again, and I will be able to soon as it will be playing before Frozen this fall.

WALT DISNEY STUDIOS - BIG HERO 6 (2014)Big Hero 6 is of course a story taken from a comic book series of the same name and is being adapted into an animated film. The movie is set in this beautiful landscape of a city created by animatorscalled San Fransokyo which is obviously a mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo, Japan, and the art shows that this city looks exactly like what a mashup of those cities might look like. The movie itself tells the story of a young boy, Hiro Hamada who is a normal boy looking for adventure. To find this adventure he puts together a team of other normal people to create a "superhero" team. Included in his team is his robot, created to take care of Hiro, named Baymax. Baymax is an adorable and loveable character who also looks pretty awesome as a superhero robot, he is going to be a great character. This movie will definitely be pretty cool and I'm looking forward to it.

WALT DISNEY STUDIOS - ZOOTOPIA (2016)Walt Disney Studios then announced their next animated film to be released in 2016 called Zootopia. The movie will be directed by Tangled director Byron Howard and was described as an action comedy set in world inhabited by animals who act like humans, but humans have never existed in this world. The world itself is created and run by animals so all the different places are very interesting to see. The movie is extremely early in the process so not a whole lot was talked about, and I'm going to reserve judgement on it until more can be learned.

WALT DISNEY STUDIOS - FROZEN (2014)Frozen is of course coming out in just a few months this fall, and I was already looking forward to it but I'm even more excited for it after this presentation. The only thing most people have seen so far is the teaser trailer starring Sven and Olaf and a lot of people are being negative about it. I don't know why, because I found it hilarious and the character of Olaf is adorable and hilarious and I just love him! A clip was shown of a musical number performed by Olaf, and once you see it I guarantee you're going to fall in love with this character. He is a perfect blend of comedy, innocence and overall genuine kindness so don't be too harsh on him just yet! We also got to see a longer clip of the movie itself and the movie looks gorgeous, the landscape and art is beautiful, and the characters are original and look awesome as well. To wrap up this presentation, Idina Menzel, who plays Elsa, came out to perform a song from the movie called "Let it Go". The music seems beautiful for this movie, and this song was gorgeous and powerful and I can't wait to hear it again in the movie!! Bottom line, this movie is going to be a great one and I can't wait to see it this fall.



I spent the next few hours at the Expo exploring the show floor so I'm going to post some pictures of that here for you.



BROADWAY AND BEYOND PRESENTATION

The last presentation of the day was the Broadway and Beyond presentation. I attended this and it was pretty awesome! The panel had Disney broadway stars Heidi Blickenstaff (The Little Mermaid), Ashley Brown (Mary Poppins), Josh Strickland (Tarzan), Merle Dandridge (Aida, Tarzan), and Alton Fitzgerald White (The Lion King). The presentation was more like a concert as the stars of the various Disney broadway shows performed some of their own songs and songs from other shows. This presentation was a lot of fun, and the songs were gorgeous. The highlight of this presentation was the last song which was a preview of a new song for the new Aladdin broadway show that's in the works. The song was one that will be sung be Genie and Aladdin after Aladdin uses his final wish to free Genie, just like in the movie.



Well that was it for the first day of the D23 Expo and it was a lot of fun!! Stay tuned for my post on the second day which should be up soon!! I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope to see you back here soon!
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