MURPHY!!!!

I have recently uncovered these pictures and video of the new Fantasmic! dragon (known as Murphy or Bucky among staff). Scroll down for my comments.









I couldn’t wait to see anything of this new dragon, and it looks amazing. I’m sure it looks much better in person, so I can’t wait for the public debut of this amazing new animatronic. There was a preview of the dragon scheduled for this morning that would show off the new dragon for the press in preparation for its debut hopefully that night. However, the preview was cancelled at the last minute, and there is no word as to when the dragon will debut. By the looks of this, it will almost definitely be in the next two weeks. My only wish is that it moved a little bit more, and that the sword effect was a little more impressive. I have heard word that the effect will be more elaborate, but it doesn’t seem much better in the video. Thanks to Disneyland News Today and MiceAge/MiceChat for the info and MousePlanet for the Video and Pictures. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a trip to plan for October...

Happy *late* Blogoversary, and Other Things

Whoops, guess I missed this one.... Apparently my blogoversary was June 8th, but I completely forgot about it. Not that I've had much going on during the past year that would prompt me to remember. Or that I've really had time to post this summer.

Anyway, I start school tomorrow, and it really seems like I won't have time to update this blog. I know I say that a lot, but I'm just warning you guys. I'm not saying I won't be posting, but I'm not saying I will be either. Its up in the air at this point, but I will post interesting things that I find out during the year, as well as whenever I have time to.

The original point of this post was to talk about movies and what I've seen over the summer and what I've though about them. However, its been lone enough that it really doesn't matter any more. However, I was also going to update you readers on the going-ons surrounding the new Tron movie I showed a trailer for back a ways. Its now know as Tron Legacy, and its hoping for a late 2010 release. An updated HD version of the trailer can be found HERE, as well as the homepage for the viral marketing of the movie HERE. You can find out a bit more about what they've been doing with this movie if you check out these posts and this movie.

Guess that's all the time I have right now. Hopefully, I can post something else later.

Short Update and Matterhorn!

Welcome to another famously short blog post explaining why I have no time to update this blog like I need to. I'm actually getting rather jealous of my sister, who not only posts daily, but has the time to do it constantly. If you actually want to read something once in a while, check out her blogs at The Shady Glade and Disney World Girl.

Enough with the blatant advertising. I said in my last post that I would update during the summer after school got out. Well, school got out and I spent a month in Idaho, visiting family. Then I got home, ready to blog, but my summer homework caught up to me. So now I still don"t have time to blog. In fact, I should be working on it right now, but I'm taking what you could call a short break.

Now on to the main part of this post. In catching up on Disney news, I learned about quite a few new things. I'll start off with a few updates that you may have heard about already. Cosmic Waves over in Tomorrowland (the giant marble in front of Space Mountain) has recently been turned into a shady spot with some new planters. The Orange Stinger finally went down to be converted into the Silly Symphonies Swing. The Timon Parking Lot is closed and being torn up for the construction of Cars Land. The Blue Sky Cellar has closed temporarily to allow for new exhibits to be installed. It will reopen on July 16th, the day before Disneyland's 54th birthday.

Now on to some new stuff. Disneyland's Space Mountain will be closing for two weeks in September to install a Halloween overlay using equipment for the planned Rock-It Mountain and the eventual Rockin' Space Mountain. From Al Lutz:

"Yes the rumors are true, Team Disney Anaheim approved the money this week for a '09 Halloween overlay for Space Mountain, using much of the equipment installed in '06 for Rockin' Space Mountain. Based on the Ghost Galaxy version of the ride in Hong Kong, this version will now debut at Disneyland on September 25th, after a two week closure."

Interesting.... I will have to do some research on this Ghost Galaxy. Unfortunately, where I was able to see Rockin' Space Mountain, this I won't have the chance to see. I have posted a publicity picture of the Hong Kong version at the bottom of the post.

As well, the Matterhorn turns 50 this year. The OC Register ran a few articles on the Matterhorn, the most interesting of which included a graphic of the Cast area at the top. You can view the whole article HERE, but I have posted the graphic at the bottom of this post.

That's all for right now. I have yet to update the Picasa Albums, but I hope to find pictures of the updates I mentioned above and post them. I hope to get some daily posts going later, as I have finally found my Page-a-Day Disney Trivia calender that was lost in my move. As always, you can comment here on the blog, vote in my polls in the side bar, or email me at DisneyRikua@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!

Sad News

No, its not that I'm closing or anything, but I am putting my blog on hold until summer. I know I haven't posted often this year, and because I have been so busy recently, I haven't been able to post yet again, let alone try to catch up on Disney news or update my web albums. Due to this, I am putting this blog on hiatus for about another month, when summer starts. When that rolls around, I will update a little about what I've been up to, and then try to start daily small posts, with the possibility of weekly updates of the parks and news. No promises, though.

Until then, feel free to catch up on my older posts, especially my old Paradise Pier Rehab posts. Its really interesting to compare what was planned to do to what has actually happened. When I come back, I plan to do an update post on DCA. You can also check out my Picture Albums at http://picasaweb.google.com/DisneyRikua, or send me an email at DisneyRikua@gmail.com, detailing what you would like to see in the future. I will also add a poll to the sidebar asking what you want to see.

See ya real soon!

Some Rants and Other Business...

Hey there! I've needed to get a post done for a little while now, but during the one weekend I have time to, I don't really want to. But I know I need to keep posting here to keep up interest, so here goes.

The new header for the blog was created by my sister at The Shady Glade, and a big "thank you" goes out to her for doing that. Also, I have updated the pictures in my Picasa Albums. The Personal Photos section now contains most of the ones I took on my somewhat-recent trip in mid-January. My sister asked not to be in the album, so I had to take many of them out, including my getting Blackmailed into Pixie Hollow and other characters (though some of it was my own want). As well, the Refurb folder has been completely changed and I added some photos to the Disney Theme Park Photos area, so make sure you check all of those out.

In trying to make myself blog more, I've been thinking about having a short daily post or something along the lines of that. Now, one of the items I got for Christmas is a WDW Trivia Page-a-Day calendar, with trivia on the weekdays and activities on the weekends. I want to get a feel for how everyone would like something like this, so please leave a comment or email me at DisneyRikua@gmail.com to let me know how you feel about this idea. Of course, I also have ideas for longer weekly or monthly posts, but if you have any ideas, please let me know about those too.

Now for my rants: I wanted to get together a Trip Report from my last trip, but it fell apart at the last minute, and I have forgotten much of what I was planning to talk about. However, I did want to offer my opinion on some sore subjects. DISCLAIMER: This is only my opinion, and you can agree or disagree with me as you see fit. If you see things a different way, just leave a comment to let others know how you feel about things.

Our first topic of the day is DCA. I like all of the construction that they are planning, and the Blue Sky Cellar is really nice to see what's coming up. However, when I went in there and I saw that model of the new Paradise Pier, I was told most of it was not going to happen yet, if at all. Now, the Suits need to realize that these changes are GOOD, and that stopping the flow of cash into them is BAD. We all know the economy is bad, but they really can spare the cash. DCA is starting to lose money because people are saving their vacation until things are finished. That's when all the cash will start flowing back into their pockets. They need to focus on long-term profit, not just "How much money can we doing another useless yearly promotion."

Which brings us to our next topic: the Celebration Promotion. I agree that occasional promotions are fine, but for 5 years in a row? It's great the 50th got 2 years, it deserved that, but then moving right into YOAMD(Year of a Million Dreams) for another 2 years and then This new Celebration? Its a bit much. I think the Celebration promotion is better than YOAMD was, but can we just have regular Disneyland for a bit? Is that too much to ask? Why don't we save something for the 55th, just like in the early years of Disneyland. Course the competition wasn't as bad back then...

And our last topic will be...the new "it's a small world": I didn't get a chance to see it during Christmas, though there was plenty of photo documentation. To me, it didn't look like much had changed yet, and that the refurb before the holiday was just to deepen the flume and get the new boats. However, when it came time for it to reopen with the changes, nobody seemed to want to publish any pictorials, or videos, or anything beyond just rants at how wrong it was. I have formed some opinions of my own, but I still can't find much in the way of pictures, so they are a little short. I feel the characters in the ride were great additions. I'm sorry if you feel different, but I think they look great (even though the Stitch and Abu figures look unfinished). Though I don't mind the addition of the America scene, I don't like the scene itself. Instead of showing us multiple things going on in differing areas of the country/region, the America scene is very flat and has little going on in it. When I heard they were adding an America scene, I thought they would more just transplant the scene from Paris to here. But instead, they shortened it down to two flat scenes on either side of the river. If they want this to achieve acceptance, add more stuff to the area. Other than that, I don't know anything about the updated music or lighting, so I can't form any opinions on that.

To a bit of random things today: The Tron 2 trailer I released in an earlier post will be shown again at this year's Comic Con with filming starting soon. Also, the name is simply Tron 2, not the TR2N at stated earlier. Also, I finally got my hands on a copy of The Disney Mountains: Imagineering At Its Peak, which I enjoy immensely. It does contain a lot more concept art, but it's okay considering that the book covers around ten attractions rather than the one attraction per previous book.

Well, that's all for right now. Please let me know about what you think about possible future posts or anything else. As always, you can leave a comment or email me at DisneyRikua@gmail.com. Hope to see you just around the riverbend!