If you thought World of Color was impressive in 2010, the technical wizards at WDI will blow you away again with the new “World of Color – Celebrate!”. However, they seemingly got caught up in the new technology and forgot what kind of show they were making.
Let’s start with the good: new lightning, laser, fountain, and smoke effects make the show brand new again and set the stage for future shows that can do things that the 2010 infrastructure never could. The bad: the show is horribly disjointed and breaks away from any sense of the theme advertised at several points.
The show is meant to celebrate Walt Disney and is hosted by Neil Patrick Harris and Mickey Mouse. The theme is perfectly executed in the early segments featuring Mickey Mouse and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but collapses when a montage of Disney Animation starts to nondescript music and no actual dialogue from the films. The touching montages of the former show aren’t replicated here, although there are some sure-to-be-emotional moments where we see Walt talking about his creations or a lovely look at Disneyland through the years. But overall, the show is stopped dead in its tracks for a random Frozen musical number or a clip show of Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer moments. It just doesn’t make sense and it isn’t intended to just be a trip through movie moments like the old show. The theme of the show essentially changes several time, and by the end it is hard to tell if we are celebrating the achievements of Walt Disney or Bob Iger and John Lasseter.
In the end it feels like they got ten minutes into the show and realized they only half a show to cover another 70 years of Disney legacy. It also seems there may have been some demands from management to include larger segments with contemporary characters and upcoming films.
Regardless, the future looks bright for the Paradise Pier lagoon with all of the new tricks the show has up its sleeves, but for now, we will have to live with the slightly shorter and more disjointed “World of Color – Celebrate!”.
See video of the show from the Dis:
It’s disappointing to see Disney Parks continue to copy and paste the movies into their million dollar venues. What a waste. I would point out this show does have a lot more original content than the previous one.
It seems like there was a disproportionate amount of time spent on Frozen and (to a lesser extent) Star Wars. And the ending falls flat. But overall, I thought they did a really nice job. The colors and choreography are beautiful. And, while a Walt purist myself (someone who definitely wants more Walt in Disney parks and Disney corp. philosophy), I thought the show did a decent job telling the story of his beginnings from Mickey & Snow White on…loosely connecting today’s Disney with the studio he & Roy started. I doubt I’ll get to see it in person, so thanks for posting the video here.
I completely agree. You forgot to mention that horrible Forever Young sequence with footage from the disney parks commercials. That’s what really sums up this show for me. Too much NPH as well. Its going to be a long two years before the original show comes back.
It’s more of a Disney commercial than it is a Disney spectacle. Very disappointing
My family refuses to waste precious Disney time with this show ever again. The original World of Color show was almost up to par with the timeless Fantasmic but this new obnoxious water fountain is nothing but annoying. All they needed was Neil Patrick Harris’ voice, I didn’t need to see him dancing around on a 60 foot water screen while they shoot water and fire and lights and all of their arsenal into the air at the same time. I’m all for the sentimental Walt stuff, I usually love it, but this was barely a tribute. They highlighted all of Walt’s achievements but then showed Frozen and Star Wars in a huge spotlight in order to please the crowd. I couldn’t have been more disappointed by the new celebrate edition and I am committing to boycott what could have been an inspiring celebration until they bring the show back that was actually worth celebrating. Anybody know where I can start a petition to bring back the magic?