Magical Mickey Monday's: D23 Expo overview

hall D23 was made to seat 7800 people!

It is Monday so we are linking up with another Magical Mickey with John at run.geek.rundisney and Katie from Adventures by Katie.

The #D23Expo was BEYOND expectations. I remember last time in 2013 walking away a bit disappointed because not as much was shared and the panels were a mess. Now it was not perfect (A LOT can be improved in the panels which I will talk about later) but everything was incredible!My brain is a bit tired so please forgive me if I forgot some things I saw: as I remember, I will update them accordingly.

Where else in the world can I be in a presentation with 8000 of my fellow Disney crazies and have both Ginnfer Goodwin and The Rock tell me that we're all all family because we love Disney? no where! On to the panels!! 

WHAT I DID
Legends Panel: with surprise Johnny Depp! The musical performances were top notch (Ne-Yo sang Friend Like Me as a tribute to Robin Williams/Richard Sherman and Ashley Brown sang Kiss Goodnight/Josh Strickland sang You'll be in my Heart/Petra from DWTS danced to Sleeping Beauty). All of the other Legends were great too! 

Animation panel: it ran an hour over (always does) but the sneak peaks we saw prove that Disney animation is only going to keep getting better! 


PIXAR

• Inside Out will have a short called RILEY'S FIRST DATE?  on the Blu-Ray. We Saw it and was beyond adorable
• The Good Dinosaur is looks beyond beautiful-the background basically look real and the story is very touching and gave me all of the feelings. 
• Finding Dory looks just as good as the original and we got to talk to the cast: Ellen, Ty Burrell, Ed O'Neill and Kaitlyn Olson in new roles
•  Coco will be about Dia de Los Muertos and is just in production now. 
• and last but not least-Toy Story 4 is coming!! A story about buzz and woody set off to find Bo Beep! A love story :) 
  

WALT DISNEY ANIMATION 

• Zootopia looks hilarious and has a great cast with Ginnifer Goodwin playing the good bunny and Jason Bateman playing the fox. 
• Gigantic will be a story about Jack in the Beanstalk and looks adorable. The Anderson-Lopez song team from Frozen will be returning to write all new music! They sang a song for us and of course it was top notch. 
• Moana which will star The Rock will be about a girl growing up in the South Seas. 
  

Live Action panel-I was one of the last people to get a wristband at 6am but a lot of the overflow lines got in. Next time-need to be there by 5 at the latest!

MARVEL

• saw concept art from Dr Strange with video from Benedict Cumberbatch
  
• Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie came out for Captain America: Civil War and it looks incredible! It looks like most of the Avengers are returning including Ant Man and Black Panther 
  

WALT DISNEY PICTURES

• The Finest Hours is about the most daring Coast Huard rescue in history. The story sounds almost made up but it's not! 
• Jungle Book was definitely the highlight of this panel. I was concerned how they would do it but from hearing from the actors (Sor Ben Kingsley, Lupita N'onygo and the little kid playing Mowgli) I was really taken aback with all of the technology they used to bring this story to life. The trailer they showed was INCREDIBLE and when it was done, there was a standing ovation. 
• Beauty and the Beast looks to be coming along nicely with the small sneak peek we saw. 
• Alice through the Looking Glass was next and involves Alice having to meet Time (played by Sasha Baron Cohen) to help save the Mad Hatter. 
• And last but not least: Pirates 5-Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Men Tell No Tales with the big return of Orlando Bloom as Will Turner! Also Captain Jack Sparrow came out too and he was exactly as you would think
• There was a feel good movie staring Lupita that involves a girl from Uganda learning to play chess on a worldwide level 
  

STAR WARS

• Rogue One showed their first cast photo as they film
• Episode IX officially has a director with the guy that did Jurassic Park on board 
• There will be an origin Han Solo film still in the writing phase
• And for Episode VII, JJ Abrahms spoke at length and then invited some of the cast on stage including HARRISON FORD!! 
• Star Wars Land announcement! Being in the room when it was announced was electrifying. 
  

Parks panel

• Star Wars Land again in Disneyland and Hollywood Studios which should be roughly 14 acres at each park. Now word yet on where it will be or what will be closed but the most important news is there will be a Cantina!!! 
• There will be a Star Wars exhibit (I am assuming it will be where Innoventions was and will open around the time of the Avenger Half in November with a movie preview) 
• New scene coming to Star Tours by the end of the year from Episode VII 
  
• They will be redoing Jedi Training Academy to include a few new things
• Star Wars event-Season of the Force with new food. Disneyland will have Hyperspace Mountain (think Ghost Galaxy but with Star Wars) and DHS will get a firework show! 
• Toy Story Land in DHS including a slinky dog family coaster and a spinning ride with the aliens and the claw! And the already announced third TSM track
• Pandora:the World of Avatar with a new boat ride and flying ride. The land will come alive at night with bioluminosity and will glow. 
• Also at Animal Kingdom will be the Rivers of Light nighttime show and also projections on the tree of life. There will also be a sunset safari.
  
• Disneyland Paris will celebrate it's 25th anniversary
• Shanghai Disney will open with new lands including a Pirates land
• Hong Kong Disneyland will have an Iron Man ride (we saw the footage! think Spiderman and Transformers at Universal) and even got to see Stan Lee!

The one other big thing we did was the Silly Symphonies live performance. They showed 6 cartoons: Skelton Dance, Flowers and Trees, Three Little Pigs, The Old Mill, Ugly Duckling and Musicland with a live band. This was probably the most unique offering of the entire D23 and I enjoyed it immensely. 

We also spent a good time walking the floor. We made sure to visit the Shanghai Disney booth and Pandora exhibit (the model in there was out of this world. I'm so excited!) 

We all really enjoyed the Archives exhibit which was all about the past 60 years at Disneyland.

One of the cutest things on the floor was the John Lasseter shirt exhibit. 

I'm very surprised that rundisney didn't have an official booth! New balance was there selling the retro shoes.

Overall, I am EXHAUSTED! I will write a post later this week on how we survived and what we packed but my body is wrecked! I may need to get a massage soon because I'm not sure how I'm going to survive my long run this weekend. 

So that basically wraps up the overview of the 2015 D23 Expo! This was the best one yet and I can't wait for the next one in 2017!

See below for some more pics! 

Anyone else go to the D23 Expo? Any thoughts? 

Pandora: World of Avatar model

Johnny Depp!

CANTINA!