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Tuesday, February 04, 2020
Disney's animatronic Spider-Man will give you tingles
www.fastcompany.com: “The illusion was alarming. The tall, lonely man sits in a chair much as in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. But this is no cold stone figure; this Lincoln is man-size and so realistic it seems made of flesh and blood.”
4 comments:
Kaylie
said...
I have had a fear of animatronics all my life. The author of this article claims that the Lincoln antimatronic now looks incredibly unrealistic, but it is still realistic enough to me to be terrifying. When I went to Disney World for the first time during my senior year of high school, I was horrified by the Navi animatronic in the Avatar section of Animal Kingdom. Part of what makes these things so scary is the idea of the "uncanny valley" due to the inhuman nature of their movements, but these new animatronics are getting closer to reality. The more indistinguishable they become, the more they make my skin crawl. That said, this Spiderman stunttronic will be high in the air and far away from me if I ever go to visit. Being close to these creepy things is what makes me panic, so hopefully I will still be able to enjoy the experience. Clearly these things won't be going away anytime soon. Disney is insanely impressive for what their imagineers accomplish, I just hope our electronic overlords will remain in the theme park industry and not rise to their full potential.
This new “stuntronic” is absolutely amazing. The movements that the new animatronic can pull off as displayed in the video clips are so natural and human – it almost appears as if they had a living stuntman perform these incredible tricks and used CGI to replace the man with the animatronic. The most convincing moment is just before the launch, when the animatronic raises its head as if it is looking up to where it is about to fly. All that being said, this is Disney we are talking about, and with a total value of almost $200 billion as a company, with all its subsidiaries, the fact that they are able to engineer and prototype this kind of tech is not surprising. I’ve seen plenty of robots with the ability to do tasks such as walking, most notably from the company Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics have made some incredible robots with the ability to stand bipedally, walk, run, jump, and more. I think it would be interesting to see a collaboration between the engineers at Boston Dynamics and the Imagineers at Disney to see what kind of animatronic robots they could come up with together.
Disney Imagineers strike again with some creative ideas. In truth, animatronics freak me out quite a bit. The mention of Lincoln at the beginning of the article reminds me of the show at Epcot with all the animatronic presidents. If the robots scare me now, imagine how much worse it will be when they add President Cheeto himself to the lineup. Spiderman, however, is SIGNIFICANTLY more lovable than most other things in the world. Seeing him fly through the air at the parks is a creative way to ignite magic while putting the animatronics into action so they do not look so robotic (like the presidents at Epcot do). How cool would it be to hear Tom Holland having some kind of radio conversation with Robert Downey Jr., and then see him fly across the sky on his way to save the world? I do wonder about changes in weather and such, but I am sure Disney of all companies has thought ahead on this matter.
Hailing from (arguably) the theme park capital of the world, animatronics usually don’t cause me to bat an eye. Disney and Universal alike have pioneered the art of animatronics for animals, humans, and fantastical creatures, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. Human-like animatronics have gotten scarily good recently- in the new Rise of the Resistance ride, you’d swear that a hooded Kylo Ren has an actor under the costume. But even that’s a far cry from literally flinging a humanoid robot into the air and praying that it lands on a safety net. It’s a brilliant idea from Disney, to surround you with evidence of the Avengers living and working on the Campus. Movement and life are crucial elements to storytelling in a Disney theme park land, and I think the animatronic Spider Man will bring a wonderful dimension into the immersive experience that Disney always strives for.
4 comments:
I have had a fear of animatronics all my life. The author of this article claims that the Lincoln antimatronic now looks incredibly unrealistic, but it is still realistic enough to me to be terrifying. When I went to Disney World for the first time during my senior year of high school, I was horrified by the Navi animatronic in the Avatar section of Animal Kingdom. Part of what makes these things so scary is the idea of the "uncanny valley" due to the inhuman nature of their movements, but these new animatronics are getting closer to reality. The more indistinguishable they become, the more they make my skin crawl. That said, this Spiderman stunttronic will be high in the air and far away from me if I ever go to visit. Being close to these creepy things is what makes me panic, so hopefully I will still be able to enjoy the experience. Clearly these things won't be going away anytime soon. Disney is insanely impressive for what their imagineers accomplish, I just hope our electronic overlords will remain in the theme park industry and not rise to their full potential.
This new “stuntronic” is absolutely amazing. The movements that the new animatronic can pull off as displayed in the video clips are so natural and human – it almost appears as if they had a living stuntman perform these incredible tricks and used CGI to replace the man with the animatronic. The most convincing moment is just before the launch, when the animatronic raises its head as if it is looking up to where it is about to fly. All that being said, this is Disney we are talking about, and with a total value of almost $200 billion as a company, with all its subsidiaries, the fact that they are able to engineer and prototype this kind of tech is not surprising. I’ve seen plenty of robots with the ability to do tasks such as walking, most notably from the company Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics have made some incredible robots with the ability to stand bipedally, walk, run, jump, and more. I think it would be interesting to see a collaboration between the engineers at Boston Dynamics and the Imagineers at Disney to see what kind of animatronic robots they could come up with together.
Disney Imagineers strike again with some creative ideas. In truth, animatronics freak me out quite a bit. The mention of Lincoln at the beginning of the article reminds me of the show at Epcot with all the animatronic presidents. If the robots scare me now, imagine how much worse it will be when they add President Cheeto himself to the lineup. Spiderman, however, is SIGNIFICANTLY more lovable than most other things in the world. Seeing him fly through the air at the parks is a creative way to ignite magic while putting the animatronics into action so they do not look so robotic (like the presidents at Epcot do). How cool would it be to hear Tom Holland having some kind of radio conversation with Robert Downey Jr., and then see him fly across the sky on his way to save the world? I do wonder about changes in weather and such, but I am sure Disney of all companies has thought ahead on this matter.
Hailing from (arguably) the theme park capital of the world, animatronics usually don’t cause me to bat an eye. Disney and Universal alike have pioneered the art of animatronics for animals, humans, and fantastical creatures, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. Human-like animatronics have gotten scarily good recently- in the new Rise of the Resistance ride, you’d swear that a hooded Kylo Ren has an actor under the costume. But even that’s a far cry from literally flinging a humanoid robot into the air and praying that it lands on a safety net. It’s a brilliant idea from Disney, to surround you with evidence of the Avengers living and working on the Campus. Movement and life are crucial elements to storytelling in a Disney theme park land, and I think the animatronic Spider Man will bring a wonderful dimension into the immersive experience that Disney always strives for.
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