Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I’m currently in New York attending a big Disney presentation hosted by John Lasseter. He’s showcasing Disney Animation and Pixar releases over the next few years. Here's a layout we were handed upon leaving the presentation:

They opened with half an hour of Wall-E, but the real news followed that immediately. He said he was going from one extreme to the other. WALL-E comes out in a few months, so he wanted to follow-up that presentation with his Christmas 2012 release.

WALT DISNEY’S KING OF THE ELVES, based on the Philip K. Dick story about a gas station attendant who receives a knock on the door one rainy night. It’s a group of elves. Small, maybe a foot tall each. They are all green, with leaves and foliage growing off of them.

They beg him for shelter from the storm. Despite his better judgment he allows them to stay and as reward he is made king of the Elves.

Directed by Bob Walker and Aaron Blaise. It’s pretty far out from release, of course, but they showed some art. The elves I described a little above. The art was very painterly and the idea is that these little green buggers live in modern day Mississippi and have been undiscovered based on their appearance. With the leaves growing on their bodies if a human enters their domain they can just ruffle their foliage, duck their heads down and be completely undetectable.

There aren’t just small creatures in the forests. We saw art of huge moss covered man-like tree giants.

There was no word on if it’ll be traditional animation or not. I’d assume CG animation because the only project they showed that was 2-D cell animation was THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG and they made a big deal talking about it as a return to classic Disney animation.

So, Disney and Philip K. Dick. Bizarre. Looked really nice, though. Something to look forward to… in 4 years…

Look for more coverage of this event coming tonight and tomorrow. I’ll have word on BOLT, the direct to video TINKERBELL series (4 movies), RAPUNZEL, WALL-E, UP and lots more more!

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com