Winter Wonderland...

This lovely snow/ice sculpture(?) celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Tokyo Disneyland is from the Sapporo Snow Festival in Sapporo, in northern Japan and runs from February 5, 2009 to February 11, 2009.

Photo: Reuters.

Birth Of The Lamp...

On this date, twenty-three years ago...

George Lucas created a branch of Lucasfilm known as the Graphics Group in the Computer Division. Years later, in the midst of a painful divorce, George would sell the division in search of cold, hard cash.

The buyer was Steven P. Jobs and he rechristened the company "Pixar" with a plan for selling the innovative software that they'd been developing under Ed Catmull. Oh, an there was this side project where they were testing the animation with computer generated shorts by a newly hired guy named John Lasseter.

And here we are...

Happy Birthday, Lamp!

Artwork based on an original picture by Jon Eastwood.

Blue Sky Buzz: Electrifiying Changes...

Change comes in bits and pieces...

In small bits actually. Just like my info from Bothans. I've usually waited until I've gotten a rather large collection of it before putting out a BSB report, but with the economic changes and all, the new comes in at a much slower pace than usual. So I've decided to give you a series of more focused, localized reports on specific changes.

Sometimes change is good, sometimes it's bad and other times it's a mixture of both. Such could be the case with the changes coming to DCA's Electrical Parade later this year.

When the parade comes back it'll be a different parade. How different? Well, right from the start it'll be evident when you notice that the Blue Fairy no longer leads the parade. But just so you don't feel so bad, it'll still be lead by a fairy...

Tinker Bell. Yep, that little marketing bonanza from Pixie Hollow will be the first thing you see when you watch the new Electrical Parade. But it's not the only change. They're taking away all the circus elements. No more Dumbo or the clowns. But they will be adding two new floats. One will be a Seven Dwarfs float, so don't expect Snow White and those seven miners to be walking anymore. Instead they'll be waving from the float at you.

Gone also will be the classic music. The new tunes will be from a variation of Tokyo Disneyland's Electrical Parade Dreamlights, so go over to YouTube and take a look at theirs if you want to see the future of ours, music-wise. Not necessarily look-wise. But there's going to be a lot of tinkering with the electrical wiring and such, so you can expect a much improved show from even all the other floats.

Now this could be a good thing. Time will tell... Some of those floats are long in the tooth and much of the technology is twenty or more years old. So it's important to keep that in mind and be on the lookout for a whole different experience. The only thing I'm truly sad about is the Blue Fairy... I was kinda sweet on her. But nothing last. Time moves on and we have to adapt to the world. Even a Disney world.

Change is coming...

Watching Competition...

I'm really looking forward to Zach Snyder's take on the classic graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons...



So not a Disney film, but an example of taking an iconic comic book and bringing it to the screen. Hopefully Disney will listen to my suggestions for comic adaptions. Lord knows Atomic Fox has...

A Little More Color?

Coming Soon to a Japanese park near you?

Hmmm...

Serious Competition...

I'll be there...

Hat Tip to Superhero Hype.

Trailers Of Mice & Competition...

The Super Bowl this year holds very little interest since my team or any other team I even remotely like was in it, so...

As is often the case, the commercials will become the focal point and there will be plenty of interesting new films being promoted between the downs. Some of the studios have already released their commercials on the web. You noticed that Disney released Pixar's "Up" teaser on its website early yesterday and now the Mountain has released one for "Star Trek" here. Dreamworks/Paramounts "Tranformers" sequel is here. The Mountain's cheesy take on "G.I. Joe" can be downloaded here. It's something I'm cautiously optimistic about, despite Mola Rom's criticism of it. And I'm not sure what to think of Universal's Will Ferrell film, "Land of the Lost," which can be found here...

If you don't get to watch the game, at least you can watch the trailers.

Enjoy...