This Fall, the original Mickey’s Philharmagic at the Magic Kingdom should be closing to receive a long-needed digital film upgrade.
While no exact dates are known as of yet, the attraction has finally been given a budget to add digital projectors and a remastered version of the beloved film. Mickey’s Philharmagic has been running on old-school film projectors since it opened back in 2003. Kids, ask your parents what film is.
Digital versions of the Philharmagic film were recently developed for Disneyland Paris and Disney California Adventure. Sadly, the film was horribly cropped to fit in the preexisting theaters in both of those parks. While those digital films were bering produced, time was also taken to digitize the Magic Kingdom film version at the full, intended resolution.
These upgrades are part of rolling refurbishments happening at the Magic Kingdom leading to the park’s 50th anniversary in 2021. More are coming, and we’ll talk about those at a later date. Stay tuned!
GREAT! I had a friend visit a few weeks ago, and after the show she commented that it was a great attraction, but the image itself felt really old. I explained that it was old equipment and that hopefully an upgrade would come soon. Hope this pans out, it’s still a great show!
I really hope they give love to the queue and the theater itself. It’s been so neglected.
The one at California Adventure looks great. Not sure I would use the adjective “horrible” to describe the crop. Looking forward to the updated one at DL
Digital projectors are not inherently better than film projectors. It really depends on the image and digital isn’t necessarily better there either. It really isn’t until 4k digital resolution that you even approach 35mm film quality. If they’re not planning on that level of digital quality and projection (most movie theaters don’t), then it’s not really an upgrade.
Yeah, but digital 3D is far superior and easier to maintain high image quality than film. Philharmagic will really benefit from this upgrade if it happens. I’ve seen the DCA version and (other than strange framing choices) it looks great!