I’m Not Going to Judge Disneyland’s New Walt Disney Animatronic Until I See It in Person

By Garrett Martin | July 15, 2025 | 12:46pm

Photos courtesy of Disney

Theme Parks Features Disneyland

I’m Not Going to Judge Disneyland’s New Walt Disney Animatronic Until I See It in Person

Walt Disney—A Magical Life opens at Disneyland this Thursday, July 17, on the 70th anniversary of the opening of the park. Located in the Main Street Opera House right by the entrance (the longtime home of Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln), the 17-minute A Magical Life caps off a film about Disney’s life with a first for the company: an animatronic of Walt himself, talking about the company’s rise from animation to filmmaking to theme parks, in a recreation of his office circa 1963.

Disney unveiled that new Walt Disney animatronic at Disneyland to the press yesterday, and it’s safe to say that the response has been mixed. Did they pull off a respectful tribute to the company’s creator, or mar his memory with an offputting robotic doppelganger? Well, that depends on who you ask.

People who have seen it in action seem to be impressed by the overall show, including all the things that aren’t really captured by a short online video. People who have seen only those videos or, worse, photos focus on how the animatronic’s head doesn’t really look that much like the real man; it’s bigger and rounder than the Walt we recognize from his TV appearances, and that obviously changes the shape of his face. Many think it looks less like Walt Disney than the version of him that Tom Hanks played in Saving Mr. Banks, and they’re kind of onto something.

Until I see it for myself, I’m inclined to put stock in the opinions of those who have seen it in action more than those who haven’t. Scott Gustin, who covers Disney on his Substack and for Nexstar, praises the overall presentation and impact of the show, including the animatronic’s lifelike motion, while noting the weirdness of the face. He also points out that seating is pretty important, with the sound and lighting changing how it plays from different angles within the theater. Tom Bricker at Disney Tourist Blog praises the wide-ranging nature of the audio excerpts used for Walt’s speech during the show’s animatronic portion, as well as the likelike motions of the animatronic, but reiterates that the face just isn’t right: “There’s just something slightly off about the figure. I’m not entirely sure what, or even if it’s one single thing. The face looks bloated, the cheeks and nose aren’t quite true to life, his neck is too stout—I’m not sure what else.” Writing for CinemaBlend, Dirk Libbey gushes over the overall show and the animatronic’s smoothness, but again finds the face to be the biggest flaw—postulating that it might be an intentional attempt to avoid the Uncanny Valley by making it not look too much like the real man. He also says that the face bothered him far less on a second viewing, so perhaps this is the kind of thing that everybody will just quickly get used to.

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Of course, far more people will see clips and photos online—and all the snarky comments that accompany them—than the actual show. A first impression is often all you get, even if that impression comes from a TikTok meme or anonymous Twitter account. It’s always possible that Walt Disney’s head will improve over time—Disney is constantly experimenting and iterating on their animatronics—but for many the damage has already been done. And given the controversy over the show’s very existence—some critics, as well as Disney family members, disagree with building an animatronic version of a very real man who was known and loved by many people who are still alive today—any flaw in this recreation of Walt will be greatly magnified.

This wasn’t some rush job, though. According to comments from Disney Imagineering Senior Creative Director Tom Fitzgerald at the press event, it took seven years to get Walt Disney—A Magical Life from concept to stage. And Imagineering rarely ever rests on its laurels. You can bet they’re already thinking about how to tweak A Magical Life, and conceptualizing how to eventually incorporate whatever technology they’re currently developing. That will no doubt take years to happen, though, and it’s also pretty foolish to be speculating on what changes might be made to an attraction that hasn’t even officially opened yet.

Initial reaction to this animatronic’s head recalls another recent robot version of a very real, very famous person. When Donald Trump was introduced to the Hall of Presidents at the Magic Kingdom after a longer-than-usual refurbishment in 2017, people immediately noticed something was off about his head. It was bigger, fuller, and rounder than the real man’s, leading some to speculate that it was designed for a Hilary Clinton animatronic before hastily being reconfigured for Trump. That conspiracy theory never passed muster, and I think the new Walt Disney animatronic supports that belief; apparently making a real man’s head more pumpkin-shaped than it should be is either an intentional choice by Imagineering or a weird byproduct of current animatronic technology.

Personally I’ll reserve my opinions on Walt Disney—A Magical Life and its headlining animatronic until I catch it myself later this year. Even if one part of the animatronic is a little off, the rest of the show sounds great, from the gallery of Disney memorabilia and personal effects in the preshow, to the newly edited version of Hollywood Studios’ Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream film that makes up the first part of A Magical Life, to the amazingly lifelike animatronic that caps it all off. Imagineering seems to have picked the perfect year in which to set this new show—1963 was one of the most monumental periods of Disney’s career. The company was deep into their work for the 1964 World’s Fair, where they debuted multiple attractions that eventually moved to Disneyland, including It’s a Small World and Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln; the Florida Project, as Disney World was known during its early development, was underway, with Disney scouting the resort’s eventual location late that year; Mary Poppins, one of Disney’s most iconic movies, was in production; and Disneyland itself was undergoing one of its first major expansions. And that was also when Disney himself was most visible in America, due to his regular appearances on TV as the host of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.

I don’t think Disney absolutely needed to make a Walt animatronic. Main Street U.S.A. is already a tribute to his life and memory, and more broadly you can feel his presence throughout most of Disneyland. I’m also a decades-long Disney nut who will often watch TV shows from 60 years ago in order to see the guy talk, though, so I definitely think about him more than your typical person. The vast majority of Disney fans and Disneyland guests aren’t built that way, so any effort to keep the memory of the man himself alive today shouldn’t be discounted or dismissed out of hand. That animatronic might look a little weird at first, but people who have seen the show and are passionate about Disney’s work praise the overall animatronic and the show it’s a part of, and I’m going to take their word for it until I’m able to get back to Anaheim myself.

Editor-in-chief Garrett Martin writes about video games, pinball, theme parks and more. You can also find him on Blue Sky.