Disneyland Paris News: Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival from July 2nd – What Will the 4D Bring?

If you cast your mind back to Disneyland Paris News Weekly #12, you may remember me talking of the rumoured Pixar film festival coming to Discoveryland Theatre this summer. Well that has now been confirmed by Disneyland Paris themselves, with some extra information to go along with it.

Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival will open June 18, 2016 in Discoveryland Theatre

We are pleased to announce that the Discoveryland Theatre (Disneyland Park) will host some of the most popular short animated films from Disney & Pixar, broadcast for the first time in 4D.

Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival will officially open June 18, 2016.

This new experience will highlight the visionary spirit behind some of the most iconic animated short films.

Once inside Discoveryland Theatre, guests can put on their 3D glasses and enter the imaginary worlds of three animated shorts – Get a horse ! , For the Birds and La Luna – which will come to life on the big screen.

Get a horse! is a short film mixing traditional animation in black and 3D CGI images, created from vintage images of Mickey Mouse with archive sounds recorded by Walt Disney himself.

For the Birds opens with a group of small birds perched on a telephone line. Comes a strange bird who is attempting to land on the cable. Birds can not help laughing at him. Laughs best who laughs last…

Finally, La Luna is a timeless tale, following the unusual learning of a young boy. For the first time tonight, his father and his grandfather take him to work. In an old wooden boat, they sail out to sea without land in sight then they stop and wait. A big surprise awaits the young boy who discovers the unusual work of his family. Will he follow the example of his father or his grandfather? Will he find his way amid their old traditions and conflicting opinions?

I’ve not been shy about letting my feelings be known on the underutilisation of this Theatre in the last 12 months, but at least the Ant Man preview is gone, at last. Three doesn’t seem like many short films given their length, but maybe this is just the start and we’ll see this line-up change as the summer goes on. What I am intrigued about is the 4D aspect, as many won’t even have seen them in 3D. That is one huge benefit of using the old home of Honey I Shrunk The Audience and Captain EO – it does have the capability to add that 4th dimension.

In the past we’ve had water, wind and movement – so what can we expect to be added to these three short films? We’ll know in under 2 months and as I’m going in August I may go spoiler free, just so that I can experience them and have the extra elements be a total surprise.

It’s not a new show that I would have liked, and to be fair we are getting our fair share of those this year as it is, but at least it’s a new take on something, rather than the carbon copy regurgitation of footage we have seen many times before. La Luna is a particular favourite of mine and one I saw for the first time in Videopolis a few years ago whilst having lunch. At least it fits with the surroundings in which it finds itself, and for now, the moon is back in Discoveryland.