Movie Details
| Title: | Disneyland Handcrafted | |
| Director: | Leslie Iwerks | |
| Year: | 2026 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 06.19.26 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 06.19.26 | Internet | This movie tells the story of Disneyland's construction and opening showcasing newly unearthed what-looks-like 16mm footage. I feel like Disney+ already did a whole mini-series on the disney parks as well as a couple seasons of a show focusing on individual rides each episode, as well as releasing the original Disneyland opening tv special way back when on DVD as part of those tin-case Disney Treasures releases, but like I said, this has color footage (some of it used for those black and white tv broadcasts) so let's revisit the story to look at this footage. As a person who grew up going to Disneyland as a kid and still has very very fond memories of it, I do not mind one bit. It seems like much of modern-day Disney and many Disney fans really idolize Walt the person and build up mythic importance and distinction of, like, these are the rides Walt touched or this has Walt's ideas in it, stuff like that. And I don't know if that's always called for, but watching a doc like this really makes you feel like Walt was a true visionary and worthy of all that worship. Disneyland was a gigantic bet, he set an impossible deadline, no one outside the company really understood it or thought it would succeed but, as we all know, it was a huge success. I haven't been back for, I dunno, 30, 35 years? but I still think of that place containing magic. Not mystical fantasy magic but actual human-made magic. One person said "hey what if there was a place where you could go that was specifically engineered to make you happy?" And a bunch of people that worked for him nodded and made it happen and a bunch of kids went there and grew up wondering how it worked and eventually got their chance to build on that magic. Now, I know it's super expensive. I watch the youtube videos of the disney-adult vloggers going there every week complaining that the water's turned off at the Materhorn or the lightning lane economy ruins some ride queues and all that. And I'm also aware that there were amusement parks before Disneyland... but here's the thing. Let's talk about the sword in the stone. In front of King Arthur's Carousel there's a sword stuck in a stone and you can walk up to it and try to lift it and most likely you can't. But sometimes, a kid walks up there and tries and CAN lift it up partway out of the stone, much to the amazement of their parents and friends and anyone who notices. It's not a trick of the hand or a matter of strength or leverage, it's not because of the temperature or humidity or weather. It's because there's an employee incognito keeping their eye on the sword and they have a little radio transmitter in their pocket that releases the lock whenever they want to, and they're trained on whatever criteria Disney set up about when and for whom to hit the button and make that person's day. As far as I know, you can't pay to get the upgraded experience where you're guaranteed to pull the sword from the stone or anything like that. It's just up to the Disney employee's judgement on when to create a special moment for some lucky guest. That shit is special. Six Flags does not do that. The kids that manage to pull the sword from the stone hopefully remember that forever. So I'm a Disneyland fan. I liked spending 80 minutes watching construction footage of the Jungle Cruise and the berm and the Casey Jr. Railroad, people painting the horses for the Carousel, people constructing Sleeping Beauty's Castle and the Mark Twain river boats and pouring concrete on Main Street USA. I think that's the only audience for this doc but what the hell, what's Disney+ for if not to provide a home for ultra-specific Disney-related fandom. |
