With apologies to the mods. Hall of Presidents, Donald Trump version, just got a soft opening. Sounds like it's a respectful, apolitical presentation. And great job by Disney of burying the story under a busy news cycle! Disney: Trump set for Hall of Presidents debut President Trump’s figure moved his head back and forth during the traditional roll call of leaders, motioned with his arms and gave a brief speech. The first part of his speech was a re-recording of the presidential oath of office. Then, with no small amount of his trademark talking with his hands, Trump — who recorded his words earlier this year — spoke about the spirit of the American people and the U.S. Constitution. “Above all, to be American is to be an optimist — to believe that we can always do better — and that the best days of our great nation are still ahead of us,” Trump concludes. “It’s a privilege to serve as the president of the United States, to stand here among so many great leaders of our past, and to work on behalf of the American people.” Lacking a “Make America Great Again” cap, his figure wears a dark suit and a diagonally striped tie. ... Rick Buck of Whitesboro, N.Y., said he loved the show and representation of Trump, whom he said he voted for last year. ... He said it looked like the president, down to “the tie that goes past the buckle.” Now I want to see this!
I'll check it out when I'm there in February. I am genuinely curious how audiences are going to react. Is there going to be cheering? Is there going to be booing? Is everyone going to sit quietly and listen? I guess we'll find out when it opens.
The bearded, bowtied fellow to the left (Grant?) seems to have an odd expression on his face. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't get to WDW very often (and with Ellen and GMR both gone, I have two fewer reasons to visit, just as I had two fewer reasons when Adventurers and the Comedy Warehouse closed). I was just there a little over a year ago, and it's unlikely he'll still be President by the time I make it back to WDW. Not because Trump is in HoP; because there are still so many places I've never been, and so many I want to get back to.
It's not a good likeness. They got hair but the face looks like an old lady wearing a cheap Trump mask. I guess it would look better far away. In all fairness, they couldn't do Ellen very well either. However Depp came out pretty well.
I've seen folks on twitter saying it looks like they were working on a Hillary Clinton animatronic and had to change course in the middle. Of course, all those closeup photos won't do the Trumpamatronic any favors - You aren't supposed to see him that close up.
I'll see in it person in a couple weeks, so I'm avoiding videos for the time being. I agree that the close-up images don't look great, but it's also not designed to be viewed that way. Stage makeup never looks great up close. The other modern Presidents also look a little different from what we're used to (due to a variety of factors) and we're so unfamiliar with the older ones that it's not too hard to match our general idea of what they're supposed to look like, so I really don't think this is out of line with the rest of the attraction.
And so it begins. I am honestly amazed that it took this long. From the Orlando Sentinel: "Random Walt Disney World Guest Interrupts Hall of Presidents Show to Scream at Robot Donald Trump" Disney World guest chants 'Lock him up' during Donald Trump's robot speech at Hall of Presidents
They should have let Garner Holt do the AA. Their latest AA is far more realistic than those Japanese sex bots.
Did Garner Holt not do it? I thought they had a long-term contract for all of Disney's AAs and their maintenance. It's not like Disney is building tons of other AAs at the moment that would spread resources too thin, so I wonder why they did it differently. Do you know who built it?
Anyone been to D-land lately? Remember the hallway we walk through at the end of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln with the pictures of "great American figures"? Are they "obligated" to put up a photo of Him? Honestly with this bipartisan political s--- only going to get worse Disney should just remove the traces. Bye bye Hall of Presidents.
I guess Disney doesn't do a life mask of the President but instead sculpts it by hand. They are probably not allowed to do a laser life scan either. That takes a certain amount of talent to do it and it might look perfect at that point. Then it's up to the guy putting the mask on the AA and how he adjusts it. I bet the mask just doesn't fit as well as they hoped on the armature.
That does really look good, especially the eye movements. And yeah, the Grant figure in #2 looks, shall we say, skeptical.
I saw the show in person last week and thought it was really well done. The wrap-around projection screens seemed better utilized than in the previous edition, with a variety of images stretching all the way across the massive theater. The structure of the show worked well and seemed slightly faster-paced than the previous one, but still about the same overall runtime In person, the Trump AA looked fine; it's not perfect, but it fits in well with the other AAs. The movement looked pretty good, though he seemed pretty distracted during the rollcall, at one point checking out his finger nails. The other presidents seem to have been reprogrammed with more movement as well; in the past they had subtle motions and nodded during their introductions, but now they all shift to look at the one that's being introduced. It felt more lively than the Obama show, while still maintaining the gravitas I was a little annoyed at how many times they felt the need to point out the attraction's history and connections to Walt. 2 of the lobby display cases were dedicated to it, along with introductory announcements from CMs, and a brief prologue on the screen. It felt like they were going out of their way to say "We really didn't want to do this, but we were forced into it." Given how Walt is only referenced these days in the most corporate ways to attempt to justify controversial moves, it just felt slimy to me (more than anything in the show itself). The show was well done; they should let it speak for itself rather than constantly justifying it And I should also point out that I saw the show with a completely packed house. MK was insanely busy (Stitch's Great Escape posted a 60-minute wait for much of the day) and we actually had to wait an entire cycle of the show to be let in. A uniformed park security guard was posted on either side of the stage, along with the regular CM at the hosting position, but the audience was better behaved than during any previous viewing I've attended. Even among people who aren't Trump fans, the show was well received
