Between Books - The Story of Disney: 100 Years of Wonder

No hologram Walts here my friend!

The Story of Disney: 100 Years of Wonder by John Baxter, Bruce C. Steele, and the Staff of the Walt Disney Archives is a companion book to the Disney100: The Exhibition which began traveling the world in 2023 to coincide with the Walt Disney Company’s 100th year. The book is broken into topics that include the foundation of the company, adventure, innovation, the parks, sound, and others. Since the book is topical, each chapter generally covers large spans of the company’s century of history and multiple subtopics. Each chapter comes across as an essay with a variety of supporting color images and interstitials that highlights historic people or moments.

This text is trying to capture in a visually pleasing way 100 years of history. This is a drinking from the firehouse situation. As a reader, you will get deep on nothing. But you will glance off a lot of Disney creations as they get namechecked for their historical contributions. It does at times feel like films and tv get more space than parks, but the parks-specific essay is in the last half of the book. If one was to teach a course on Disney history, The Story of Disney: 100 Years of Wonder could serve as the textbook. But other texts would be required to ensure that students could learn deeply on specifics. The images are visually wonderful, as one would expect from the Disney Archives.

I do find it interesting how Bob Chapek is managed in this book. The book was being completed during the time that Bob Chapek’s tenure began to sour and eventually Bob Iger returned as CEO. Chapek is thanked for his interviews…but he’s never mentioned in the text of the book. But Bob Iger is really prominent as he adds color to the company’s history. I speculate that much of the real estate given to Iger speaking as the company’s leader may originally have been reserved for Chapek. And with him leaving the company, he was replaced and removed from the history. Disney can be very controlling of their history’s image. And I wonder if, like Michael Eisner, who is mentioned once, we will see Chapek have a historical return in a few decades, especially for his work in home video.

The Story of Disney: 100 Years of Wonder by John Baxter, Bruce C. Steele, and the Staff of the Walt Disney Archives is a celebration of 100 years. It is visually appealing with text that varies between historical examination and marketing speak, as one would find in D23 Magazine. And that is not shocking with contributors that are often asked to fill this assignment of informing fans about and marketing Disney products.

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Between Books - Walt Disney's Ultimate Inventor: The Genius of Ub Iwerks

Disney history is full of larger-than-life characters such as Bob Gurr, Marc Davis, Rolly Crump, and even Walt Disney himself. But while Ub Iwerks may not be a name known to every Disney fan, his contributions to early Disney history are irreplaceable and placed next to Walt and Roy O. Disney on the Mount Rushmore of Disney legends.

Walt Disney’s Ultimate Inventor: The Genius of Ub Iwerks by Don Iwerks is a highly visual history of the co-creator of Mickey Mouse. The text is broken into six key sections highlighting different phases of Iwerks’ life. The opening outlines Iwerks early life and animation work which included meeting Walt Disney in Kansas City, a failed partnership, and Disney asking him to join him in California. During this first stint at Disney, Iwerks would create the Mickey Mouse design and lead the development of the innovative Silly Symphonies. After a disagreement, Iwerks formed his own studio best known for Flip the Frog. Iwerks would return to the Walt Disney Studio, not as an animator but using his skill and curious nature to create special effects which included Aerial Image Optical Printers, sodium traveling matte, and Xerox processes in animation just to name a few. As Walt Disney expanded his parks, Iwerks used his knowledge of cameras to create Circarama and Circle-Vision 360. The younger Iwerks provides images and schematics along with personal know-how to explain the innovations that helped define his father's genius.

This book is personal and visual. Disney Legend Don Iwerks is writing a very personal story about his father. Oh yes, there is definitely respect and nostalgia. But Don as a member of the machine shop was also a colleague to Ub. So along with understanding the personal man, he also understands the very complicated inventions that his father dreamed up. In many ways, it’s the best of two perspectives, and Don makes his bias clear. Though that bias never seems to get in the way of his writing. And technical expertise is really needed to help explain these numerous mechanical changes. For example, I am not a camera expert. I don’t believe that most readers will be. So having Iwerks walk us through the tech, as someone who often contributed to the manufacturing of them, is completely necessary. Luckily this oversized coffee table book has numerous images which help illustrate the developments. For those who are not interested in technical details and want another starting point on Ub Iwerks’ life, The Hand Behind the Mouse is likely a better starting point and is co-written by his granddaughter.

Walt Disney’s Ultimate Inventor: The Genius of Ub Iwerks by Don Iwerks taught me a lot about cameras…and Ub Iwerks. While I have read biographies of this legend, this text has a personal touch and technical understanding that I would urge Disney history fans to not sleep on. And while we may struggle at times with technical developments, Don Iwerks helps us overcome them to better understand his father’s genius allowing us to better understand an innovator that has helped shaped animation, cinema, and theme parks. 

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Between Books - Star Wars: The High Republic Quest for the Hidden City

Welcome to Gloom, a world of ruins and monsters.

I mean, welcome to Gloam, a world of ruins and monsters.

Star Wars: The High Republic Quest for the Hidden City by George Mann is part of the second High Republic story campaign, which chronologically is before the first wave. This volume is for older child/young teen readers. In short, bad things are happening on the gloomy planet of Gloam. On this world a Jedi unit of Pathfinders, a father/son pair of hyperspace prospectors, and monsters all intersect for an adventure during the High Republic.

Yeah, my summary is short, It’s a pretty straightforward story of getting different groups onto Gloam and then pushing them all together. The story has a horror element, which I am not a fan of, but I didn’t get too scared. It reminds me a bit of the now non-canon Star Wars: Death Troopers or Star Wars: Red Harvest meant for older audiences but also giving a feeling of creeping doom.

I scratch my head about how this is all to come together. There are mentions of the Forever War and Jedha which are found in other books or mentioned. But all of the Jedi and non-Jedi characters are new. I am finding it very difficult to create a literary relationship with any new characters. Mann’s writing is fine and very much at the reading level of his audience. I just wonder if we replaced the word Jedi with Wizard if some of these books would be better off on their own without a Star Wars label.

Oh, do not worry! I am not done with these Star Wars: High Republic wave two books. Star Wars: The High Republic Quest for the Hidden City like it’s predecessors failed to be the key to open up this new chapter of Star Wars literature for me. But maybe the next offering will get a less gloomy opinion from me.

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Between Books - Marvel's Thor: The Dark World - The Art of the Movie

I like Thor: The Dark World more than you!

I’ve never met anyone who legitimately seemed to enjoy it, to the level I did. So a few years ago I bought a copy of Marvel's Thor: The Dark World - The Art of the Movie because for that devotion and being a collector I had to catch them all after reading a few others. Then it sat on the Between Shelves, and I saw the prices of the rest and there was no completionist urgency in the world to get me to finish the whole set. And so that pages figuratively rotted on the vine till now.

Marvel's Thor: The Dark World - The Art of the Movie by Marie Javins and Stuart Moore takes readers through the journey to construct the movie of the same name. The book discusses general story settings of the journey such as looking at Asgard and Svartalfheim. A big emphasis is really on the scenery and the breakdown of scenes, where character development explanations are generally smaller portions of the book. The text is filled with a lot of concept art and storyboards.

I have read a few Art movie books. And this was generally not a favorite for me. As I mentioned, this book is a lot about the scenery and I feel like a lot of Art books give us greater detail on how the plot is developed. This book goes deep into how the worlds were physically and virtually built and not the story. The characters are also not fully discussed in their evolutions either. For example, the book discusses the replacement of metal with rope and fabric in Thor and Odin costumes but I don’t believe it really explained how the characters softened internally. And while one of my favorite model breakdowns was creating the dark elves, the evolving models did not really build characters but really attempted to show a visual representation of stock not-nice elves.

And while the art is beautiful and grand in scope, especially when showing backgrounds and scenery. But I also think there are too many black-and-white storyboards in this volume which cover numerous pages of the book. They are to me not as visually interesting as the giant splash images. And while I can see how concepts moved from page to screen, they did not differ to me enough to show me an evolving thought process which is often the most interesting thing in these books.

As someone who collects, completing a full set of Marvel Cinematic Universe art books seemed impossible to me. The secondary sales of some of these volumes were well beyond any price I might consider. I think this is why this volume sat unmoving on my shelve…why read it when I can’t catch them all. But hope has returned as Marvel has announced a new printing of 24 volumes of MCU “Art Of” books. Though I think I may have lost the desire to fill out the full set. 

I’m a weirdo. I may have liked Thor: The Dark World more than Marvel's Thor: The Dark World - The Art of the Movie. It is a fine volume. It does what it is asked to do by giving a visual description of how some concepts went from page to screen. But it lacked the discoveries that I really enjoy in this book genre.

 

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