In 2017, The Walt Disney Company retired its longstanding nighttime presentation, Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams. Disney risked a great deal with this choice, as Wishes is one of the most beloved shows at any Disney theme park, highlighted by an unforgettable, catchy soundtrack. What it lacked is state-of-the-art graphics, an impossibility for a show that debuted in 2003.
Park officials felt confident that their chosen replacement for Wishes would revolutionize Disney fireworks shows. Their beliefs were quickly confirmed, as the digital projection technology of the new exhibition became a staple of other shows at Disney parks, too. Let’s go behind the show to learn about Happily Ever After’s groundbreaking innovations and stylistic choices.
The experience: A new kind of nighttime presentation
The Trick: Switching the focus from fireworks to digital imagery
At every Disney theme park in the world, guests expect some sort of fireworks show to end the evening. Disneyland had opened in 1955 and added a nighttime fireworks display by the summer of 1956. When Magic Kingdom debuted in 1971, it featured Fantasy in the Sky, which would run for 32 years. Yes, this park has always had a show since the beginning.
As the third nighttime presentation, Happily Ever After faced a great deal of pressure. Expectations were high for anything coming after Wishes. Park planners boldly chose to move away from the Wishes blueprint, though. Historically, the fireworks had starred in the presentation, as they lit up the night sky with their shiny percussive sights. For Happily Ever After, Disney went an entirely different way.
As Imagineer and creative director Michael Young says, “”For this show, we wanted the castle to be the storyteller itself.” Yes, Disney has deemphasized the fireworks in Happily Ever After, instead prioritizing the digital display on Cinderella Castle. In the process, they’ve redefined the nature of nighttime presentations. In the future, we might not even describe them as fireworks shows, as the story plays out on the castle, which is effectively the largest projection screen in Disney history.
The experience: the shiniest digital projections in Disney show history
The Trick: lasers, lights, digital mapping creating high-quality imagery everywhere
Image @ DisneyPrior to the release of Happily Ever After, Disney trumpeted it as “the most advanced projection mapping tech yet.” It sounds great until you realize that you don’t know what any of that industry jargon means.
In simplest terms, digital mapping turns any surface into a location where Disney can project imagery. You’re familiar with the basic version of this concept. You’ve seen a digital projector in operation. You know that it can show pictures on a screen. You’ve likely watched someone use a wall for the display. It’s the same premise taken to its logical extreme, only with more robust (aka fancier) immersive capabilities.
Image @ Disney
With digital mapping, Disney can have Tarzan swing into view, simulating three-dimensional motion on a flat surface. Imagineers had employed the technology starting in 2010, but they had never attempted anything on the scale of Happily Ever After prior to its 2017 debut.
When we describe digital mapping, you should think of Cinderella Castle as the canvas as the digital mapping software as the paint. Thanks to enhanced projection technology, Disney can turn any part of the castle into a stage where animated characters can interact. With this ability, they can show Lightning McQueen driving across the bottom of the castle or the house from Up soaring through the roof.
Image @ Disney
Perhaps the best example is Moana. With digital mapping, Disney can flood the palette with a massive volume of vibrant colors. On one part of the castle, Moana rows her boat into the unknown. Simultaneously, other symbols and images from the film are embedded elsewhere, giving depth to the emotion of the story. Even though this sequence only takes 70 seconds, the digital mapping in combination with music from the soundtrack creates the illusion that the castle is showing the movie, Moana…only better.
The experience: watching heroes overcome villains to live Happily Ever After
The Trick: combining countless Disney stories into a meta-story
Image @ Disney
After nearly 15 years of Wishes, Magic Kingdom needed some new stories. Disney had released a multitude of films during this time, none of which was represented in the prior show. To wit, Disney hadn’t even purchased Pixar when Wishes debuted.
The creative team on Happily Ever After faced a difficult task. They had to cull a list of dozens of beloved Disney animated movies into a single show, and they needed modern entries. Even while emphasizing 21st century productions, however, the show couldn’t exclude the classics from the Disney library. And the segments needed to join together to tell a new story. How does a show combine elements from the golden age of Disney, which began in 1937, up to a movie released in 2016, though?
Imagineers deserve a lot of credit for their inventive solution to this problem. They broke the story into seven distinct parts. The beginning of Happily Ever After is a kind of tribute to the previous fireworks show at Magic Kingdom. It’s called Wish aka Dreams, and it shows characters like Tiana (The Princess and the Frog), Aladdin, and Quasimodo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) wishing for better lives. Their sequences are set to musical accompaniment, generally the most famous songs from the movies.
Image @ Disney
Thanks to the digital projections, Happily Ever After displays memorable moments from some of the films. In other instances, Imagineers have created entirely new footage exclusively for the presentation. These segments blend together seamlessly to advance the underlying theme of each story segment.
The structure of each segment is noteworthy. The second part, Adventure aka Journey, emphasizes the Pixar library. A Bug’s Life, Brave, Cars 3, Finding Nemo, and Up are represented during this portion. The most recent Disney animated film shown in Happily Ever After is part of this segment, too. Moana, a film that celebrates explorers, is a perfect fit to close out this act.
Image @ Disney
During the Friendship segment, Disney integrates some of their most beloved 1990s tales like The Lion King, Tarzan, and Aladdin with more recent titles like Big Hero 6, Wreck-It Ralph, and Zootopia. A couple of Pixar films are present here, also. The purpose of this story arc is to remind everyone that friendship is at the core of most Disney films. Why, the only thing more like likely is…
Love is the fourth segment. As you might imagine, a LOT of Disney movies are in play here. Disney chose this segment to highlight its classic titles. There are appearances by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella here. The most beloved modern classic with this theme, Beauty and the Beast, is part of this arc, too, as is The Princess and the Frog.
Happily Ever After experiences a tonal shift in the next act. The villains appear during Adversity. Their goal is to bring down the heroes shown in Happily Ever After. Before any truly heinous actions can occur, the show leads directly into its sixth phase, Heroes Fight Back aka Triumph.
Image @ Disney
This segment is exactly what you’d expect, albeit with one surprising choice. Pirates of the Caribbean is part of this sequence. It’s the only live-action film appearing in the entire show, and the unforgettable fight music from the movie blends perfectly with the scene.
Thanks to the bravery of the heroes during the sixth act, the Happily Ever After climatic sequence comes next. It’s a hodgepodge of many of your favorite Disney characters, all of whom look vibrant and ecstatic as their images are projected onto the front of Cinderella Castle. It’s an enchanting crescendo punctuated by upbeat narration and a familiar sight.
In all three nighttime shows at Magic Kingdom, a highlight has signaled the end of the festivities. Tinkerbell flies away on a wire. It’s a show-stopping moment, and the creative team for Happily Ever After wisely kept it. Fittingly, the musical accompaniment is You Can Fly from Peter Pan. As you’re about to see, Disney carefully selected the songs for the show. This one was a no-brainer, though.
The experience: Singing along with new symphonic versions of your favorite Disney songs
The Trick: Picking and recording the perfect Happily Ever After soundtrack
Image @ Disney
Given the choice of films used during Happily Ever After, the musical accompaniments fell into place fairly easily. Park planners chose the most popular and timeless songs from the films, paying attention to whether these brief snippets of music would integrate well visually. Anything that didn’t lend itself to a quick storytelling segment had to go.
Happily Ever After is an 18-minute show. During the presentation, 25 different songs play, some of them twice. With so many musical accompaniments in such a short timeframe, most of the tunes are choruses that you know by heart, but Disney updated them for dramatic effect. The company hired a 75-piece London orchestra to create grandiose versions of the music pieces.
Happily Ever After does have one commonality with Wishes. Both productions required the performance of an entirely original piece to anchor the story. But Disney cheated with Happily Ever!
Image @ Disney
The company had commissioned a song for the 10th anniversary celebration at Hong Kong Disneyland. They named the event Happily Ever After and performed versions of the title song in Cantonese and Mandarin. Since they wanted to tell a story based on the premise at Magic Kingdom, park officials hired rising singer Jordan Fisher and country musician Angie Keilhauer to perform Happily Ever After. The show plays snippets of the song at three intervals, including the start and finish. You will notice something about the rest of the tracks listed here:
- Happily Ever After – Jordan Fisher and Angie Keilhauer
- Down in New Orleans – The Princess and the Frog
- When You Wish Upon a Star – Pinocchio
- Part of Your World – The Little Mermaid
- When You Wish Upon a Star – Transition
- Out There – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- Touch the Sky – Brave
- One Jump Ahead (Reprise) – Aladdin
- How Far I’ll Go – Moana
- Friend Like Me – Aladdin
- Trashin’ The Camp – Tarzan
- Hakuna Matata – The Lion King
- I’ve Got No Strings – Pinocchio
- You’ve Got a Friend in Me –Toy Story
- The Bare Necessities – The Jungle Book
- That’s What Friends are For – The Jungle Book
- You’ve Got a Friend in Me –Toy Story
- Love is an Open Door – Frozen
- Can you Feel the Love Tonight – The Lion King
- You’ll Be in My Heart – Tarzan
- A Whole New World – Aladdin
- I See the Light – Tangled
- He’s a Pirate – Pirates of the Caribbean
- Go the Distance – Hercules
- Happily Ever After (Reprise)
- You Can Fly – Peter Pan
- Happily Ever After (Reprise)
In reading this list, most of the songs should have immediately played in your head. Disney chose the most memorable tunes to enhance the relatability of the show. It’s the final piece that pulls the story of Happily Ever After together.
