For the past few years, the Magic Eye Theater portion of the Imagination Pavilion has bounced between upcoming film previews and Captain EO. But now that EO is part of Yesterdayland it looks like for now we have the Short Film Festival.
This attraction is obviously set up to be a people eater during the busy time, but it is done very well. With new signage and waiting area artwork, I see this sticking around until next spring when it comes time for previews for the next big releases.
The waiting area has some beautiful concept art of the three shorts along the wall. This is set up very much like it was an actual film festival making it feel special.
The preshow area remains the same as it has been for years with monitors overhead and standing on an awkward incline.
The actual preshow consists of two films, the first covering the history of shorts within The Walt Disney Company. It contains Walt voice overs about Mickey Mouse as well as the Technicolor process that changed everything during the creation of “Flowers and Trees.”
Once the Walt Disney Animation portion is over, the video moves onto the history of Pixar with John Lasseter talking about how the first shorts were what really helped establish Pixar as a film company and their use of technology forward.
Once inside the theater, a cast member gives a brief announcement and the shorts began.
The festival kicks off with the Disney short “Get A Horse.” This mix of 2D and 3D Mickey Mouse short was released with Frozen in 2013. It makes use of the motion base system, still in place from Honey, I Shrunk The Audience attraction, but only briefly. Unfortunately, the water effects were removed from the seats over a year ago but would have fit perfect for this short.
Next up we have the Pixar short “La Luna” that was released is 2012 with Brave. This beautiful short uses the lighting effects to set the theater a glow in “moonlight” and calm the audience after the nonstop laughter of the previous short and give them time to catch their breath before the grand finale short
With any great film festival, you have to leave the audience either laughing or cry and the Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival most definitely leaves the audience laughing with the “for the birds“ short originally released with Monsters Inc. in 2001. This short has no in theater effects, but, with it being the shortest in length of the three films, you don’t really have time to notice.
Overall the Short Film Festival works as a perfect escape from the busy Epcot for 20 minutes and provide a few laughs.
