If anybody deserves to be a Disney Legend, it’s legendary former Imagineer Joe Rohde. And he’ll quickly obtain that honor, throughout the 2024 D23 Expo. This put up shares the total slate of upcoming honorees on the upcoming awards ceremony, plus why that isn’t the stage we wish to see him on throughout the ‘Final Fan Occasion.’
Let’s begin with the fundamentals of the Disney Legends Award Ceremony, which will probably be offered on the finish of the D23 Expo on Sunday, August 11, 2024. The Disney Legends Award honors artists and visionaries all through the corporate’s historical past who’ve pushed the envelope of creativity, challenged standard knowledge, and damaged the restraints of the established order seeking new prospects and excellence.
“To be named a Disney Legend is the very best honor our firm can bestow on anybody, reserved for these whose expertise and achievement have earned them an everlasting place in our historical past,” stated Bob Iger, Chief Govt Officer, The Walt Disney Firm. “The fourteen people to be honored as Disney Legends this 12 months have every made extraordinary inventive contributions throughout the worlds of Disney and we look ahead to celebrating them at D23: The Final Disney Fan Occasion.”
The 2024 Disney Legends Award honorees embody Colleen Atwood, Angela Bassett, Martha Blanding, James L. Brooks, James Cameron, Jamie Lee Curtis, Miley Cyrus, Steve Ditko, Harrison Ford, Mark Henn, Frank Oz, Kelly Ripa, Joe Rohde, and John Williams.
Ryan Seacrest, the host of American High 40, in addition to American Idol and Dick Clark’s New Yr’s Rockin’ Eve on ABC, will host the 2024 Disney Legends Awards Ceremony that will probably be full of heartwarming tributes to every of the honorees, together with particular friends, performances, and a legendary manufacturing like no different.
The Disney Legends Awards program is a 37-year custom of The Walt Disney Firm, which started when Fred MacMurray (The Shaggy Canine, The Absent-Minded Professor, The Happiest Millionaire) was honored in 1987. The awards ceremony is simply one of many many occasions followers can get pleasure from throughout the three-day D23 Expo in August 2024.
Right here’s a visible of the 2024 class of Disney Legends:
On Instagram, Rohde had this to say about being named a Disney Legend:
Test it out! I’m honored together with another fairly cool people to hitch the 2024 class of Disney Legends at D23: The Final Disney Fan Occasion…in the event you’ve by no means been, take it from me, it truly is final.
Whereas I’m flattered and proud to obtain such recognition, the true honors go to the individuals who gave me an opportunity, the individuals who mentored and guided me, the individuals who forgave me after I did silly issues, the individuals who trusted me to direct them and lead them, the individuals who truly did the work with their very own arms, my household who put up with a long time of my coming and going, and never least the friends and audiences who obtain all of our work with such enthusiasm.
And, no matter no matter accomplishment warrants this honor, there can be no Disney Legends in any respect if not for probably the most legendary, Walt Disney himself, whose inventive influence on a complete century will all the time far outpace any legends who path in his wake.
As for me, I should resolve whether or not I wish to memorialize my handprints, or work out some technique to press the aspect of my head with my earrings into the cement. …in any case…see you there.
Chopping to the chase of this put up, that is good and all…however what we’d truly wish to see is Joe Rohde introduced again to Imagineering.
With the return of Bruce Vaughn final 12 months, we speculated that Bob Iger was engaged on rebuilding Imagineering. It’s value remembering that Walt Disney Imagineering was hit actually exhausting in 2020-2022. This began with precise layoffs, and continued with layoffs in disguise through WDI’s deliberate transfer from Glendale, California to Lake Nona, Florida. As you doubtless know, that transfer didn’t occur.
Our hypothesis has been that Bob Iger is gearing up for an additional growth cycle and needs an ally at Imagineering. Iger and Vaughn labored collectively over the last large increase for the theme parks, so this might not be even a remotely far-fetched situation. With the latest departure of Barbara Bouza, the President of Walt Disney Imagineering, this appeared much more believable.
That Vaughn may have a better time working with or luring creatives to return than Bouza, who was an out of doors rent made proper as all of the layoffs began and relocation plans have been revealed. None of that was her fault, clearly, however she might “symbolize” a foul period for Imagineering and be a casualty consequently.
This all pertains to Joe Rohde as a result of he was one of many high-profile retirements throughout the darkish days of Imagineering in 2020 which may have truly been “retirements” (with heavy air quotes). Joe Rohde and Bob Weis shortly getting new jobs after leaving Disney means that these have been “retirements.”
Quick-forward to 2024 and the surroundings is dramatically completely different. Chapek is out. The Lake Nona transfer will not be taking place. Disney is not in a holding sample on new growth. Vaughn and Iger are each again. Animal Kingdom is on the precipice of the park’s greatest enlargement since (not less than) Pandora – World of Avatar.
Heck, even Tom Staggs is as soon as once more working with Disney in a consulting capability. (Rounding out the trio within the pictures, James Cameron remains to be on the market doing James Cameron issues, like being a submersible knowledgeable…and likewise being named a Disney Legend. Hmmm.) It’s like 2014 yet again. Few might fathom Disney can be at this level again within the darkest depths of 2020 when Rohde “retired.”
Name me loopy, however I feel the stage ought to be set for Joe Rohde to return to Disney. It’s not any one in all these particular person issues, however the totality of them. Naming Rohde a Disney Legend was an inevitability, so it’s actually not simply that. However after all, honoring his storied profession actually doesn’t damage–and is one other instance of excellent ole usual bridge rebuilding that has occurred throughout the second Iger regime.
(I’ll as soon as once more say that I feel a few of you who view Iger and Chapek as interchangeable “villains” actually underestimate simply how a lot invisible harm Chapek inflicted throughout his reign of terror. There’s a motive so many individuals inside the firm cheered Chapek’s ouster and Iger’s return…and likewise again Bob within the proxy battle, for that matter.)
Designing and constructing theme parks is a extremely collaborative endeavor, they usually’re by no means the singular imaginative and prescient of anyone individual. It’s the intersection of artwork and commerce, with a bunch of various stakeholders (inventive and in any other case) all having enter. However to the extent that there has ever been a theme park auteur, it’s Rohde with Animal Kingdom.
He has been the guardian of Animal Kingdom and safeguarded the park and its authentic imaginative and prescient. By and enormous, Animal Kingdom nonetheless is at the moment what old-fashioned EPCOT Heart followers want that park nonetheless was: thematically pure. There have been a few shut calls through the years, however Rohde all the time managed to work his magic and make alien additions really feel like good suits.
That’s the criticism when Pandora – World of Avatar was first introduced, and it was completely scathing. Walt Disney World followers as an entire questioned a land about Blue Alien Intercourse Cats, and Animal Kingdom purists have been furious {that a} supposedly inconsequential blockbuster film can be added to their beloved zoological theme park.
And but, Joe Rohde silenced the haters with Pandora. It’s not good, nevertheless it’s a greater and extra thematically coherent addition to Animal Kingdom than it has any proper to be. Imagineering wants Joe Rohde to make sure the identical for the upcoming Tropical Americas challenge (and past).
In our view, the important thing distinction between Pandora and upcoming enlargement is that Joe Rohde and his deft contact have since left Imagineering. This is the reason we’ve expressed skepticism about blue sky daydreaming for Animal Kingdom enlargement over the past couple of years. (We’re additionally dissatisfied that Disney has achieved dinosaurs soiled, however that’s one other matter for an additional day.)
Truthfully, the very same announcement about Animal Kingdom getting Encanto or Indiana Jones might’ve been made, but when Joe Rohde have been the one up on stage providing reassurances, I’d felt a lot better about it. He is without doubt one of the few fashionable Imagineers to have earned that belief, and his capability to world-build and thoughtfully combine mental property the place it in any other case may not belong was fairly unbelievable. He’d get the little particulars and placemaking proper, making certain that the tales Tropical America tells are usually not simply extensions of films, however befitting of Animal Kingdom.
That is exactly why Imagineering must convey Rohde again. He made Avatar work in Animal Kingdom, so he can actually make Encanto and Indiana Jones work. These IPs are a cakewalk as in comparison with Avatar. I don’t doubt that there are different Imagineers who can weave them into Animal Kingdom tastefully, however nobody can do it like Rohde.
In the end, that is all a little bit of wishful pondering…but additionally appears logical and conceivable in a method that it didn’t when the plans have been first shared for a since-shelved Moana and Zootopia enlargement of Animal Kingdom on the 2022 D23 Expo. The celebs have aligned within the final two years, and Rohde’s return appears affordable. He wouldn’t be the primary, and possibly not the final.
After all, there’s the counterpoint that possibly the dude is on the market having fun with retirement, residing his life, and doesn’t wish to get again into the company politics of Disney. That’s nonsense. Joe Rohde is the Tom Brady of Imagineering. The person’s a baller who very clearly nonetheless has the hearth, the inventive drive, and the sense of satisfaction in what Animal Kingdom is and aspires to be. Additionally like Brady, he additionally presumably discovered the fountain of youth on his adventures, so he has not less than a couple of extra a long time within the tank.
Rohde actually believes within the energy of themed design, and nonetheless has one thing to contribute. Whereas I doubt he would choose up the decision to work on one thing superfluous at Avengers Campus, I imagine he’d completely return for Animal Kingdom. (And never simply in a superficial sense or to pay him off so he doesn’t say imply issues about Animal Kingdom’s route on social media.)
It’s doubtless Rohde would return if he thinks his very precious enter would truly be heard, and he has the possibility to make a significant influence in serving to to form the way forward for Animal Kingdom in a significant method. Now it’s as much as Disney to choose up the cellphone, and produce Rohde up on stage the evening earlier than the Legends ceremony for a way more essential presentation.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you consider legendary Imagineer Joe Rohde being honored (formally) as a Disney Legend? Suppose this–and different issues–are indicators that Rohde will return to work on the Animal Kingdom enlargement? Or is that merely wishful pondering on our half? Do you agree or disagree with our commentary? Any questions we will help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even if you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!
