Sorta OT: Captain Eo's Back

The website MiceAge (guessing it's a Disney fan site) has posted that Disney will announce at this upcoming weekend's D23 convention the return of the 3D '80s chestnut "Captain Eo" to Disneyland in January.

One obvious reason why they're bringing back the short flick: post-mortem Michael Jackson mania. A second unspoken reason: 3D has made yet another comeback. For those of you who never set foot in a Disney park between 1986 and the mid-1990s, "Captain Eo" starred Jackson at the height of his fame along with Anjelica Huston. It was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and was produced and co-written by Papa George, ergo the reason why I'm posting it here. I think ILM did the effects, but I'm not 100% certain. I'd seen it a couple of times at Epcot during the eight-year run there. I thought it was pretty entertaining if a bit hokey.

As of yet, there are no plans to bring "Eo" back to the other parks. I guess they'll see how it does in Anaheim first.

Celebration V News and Speculation

As you might have noticed, there's no announcement at DragonCon on Celebration V. Examiner.com columnist Bryan Young decided to corner Steve Sansweet at the convention and get some answers out of him:

http://www.examiner.com/x-2730-Star-Wars-Examiner~y2009m9d8-The-lowdown-on-Star-Wars-Celebration-V

So, that means any West Coast location like Anaheim is out. Dallas or any other place in Texas is likely out too. So, that leaves the following possibilities of rumored candidates: Chicago, Indianapolis, Orlando, or Baltimore. Of all of those places, I think Indianapolis remains the most likely. There were two Celebrations there in the past, people seem to really like the location, and Indy recently rebuilt and expanded its convention center. I've heard the city is trying really hard to woo Celebration back. I think Orlando is the least likely. Why? It has the same problem Los Angeles had...it's a very spread-out city without too much close to its convention center. Unless it's at Universal (fat chance) or at Disney, Orlando's not a great locale. Disney already has Star Wars Weekends, likely held around the same time. They could try to combine the two events but having been to a crowded Disney Hollywood Studios park, I can't see an additional 35,000-40,000 fans along with the hundreds of thousands of regular folks. It would be chaos.

I'm kind of meh on Chicago. It's an easy and cheap flight from just about everywhere in America as well as international flights, there's transportation aplenty, but the weather there can be very unpredictable in late spring. Hotel rooms would be far more expensive than they would be in Indianapolis.

As for Baltimore, don't write it off. If Indianapolis doesn't get it, I think this is the second-most likely possibility. Why? There has never been a Celebration right on the East Coast. Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International is the cheapest airport in the Washington-Baltimore region, with some international flights. There's easy Amtrak and commuter rail access, and it's right on I-95. By car, it's less than an hour from Washington, D.C., just over two hours from Richmond and Philadelphia, about three hours from Pittsburgh, about four hours from New York City, and about six/seven hours from Boston. The downtown area has the Inner Harbor and Fells Point, full of restaurants and bars. It would be cheaper to hold the con there than in just about anywhere else on the East Coast. The downsides though are the smallish convention center and the fact you really don't want to go more than a couple of blocks outside of the Inner Harbor area, especially after dark.

Of course, they could totally surprise us and put the darn thing in Atlanta or Cleveland.

One thing that concerns me is that we're in September and there's no licensing partner to put on the convention. The last time they signed for a con "six months out" was when they put on Celebration I. You remember, the Great Denver Mud Party held at a museum because the NRA already had booked the convention center a year or so out? I realize we're in a recession and there may be plenty of convention centers still looking for a show to book. But the ideal locations might be gone for the ideal times.

Get crackin'.