By Robbie Graham
Earlier this year, Silver Screen Saucers asked: “Could
it be that Disney is producing a dramatization of the flying saucer fever that swept America
in 1952?” That question was prompted by the
enigmatic title 1952 – a “top secret” Disney
production quietly announced by the House of Mouse back in June of 2011. We were
told that a script was being penned by Damon Lindelof (Prometheus, Cowboys and Aliens), and nothing
more. We subsequently learned that Brad Bird (The Iron
Giant, The Incredibles) had signed on to
co-write and direct.
But yesterday (Oct. 17) saw some
intriguing (and confusing) developments when Vulture reported the
following:
Despite its title, 1952 is largely set in the
present day.
Its
plot will focus on aliens visiting Earth for the first time.
The
film will also reportedly follow a man in his late 40s through this alien
ordeal.
Lindelof and Bird
are aiming to re-create the magic of Close Encounters of the Third
Kind.
1952
co-writer Damon Lindelof
Vulture also reported on the movie’s
mysterious back-story, which goes like this: last spring, Disney’s head of production, Sean Bailey, arranged for screenwriter
Lindelof to be given access to “one of the studio’s odder curiosities: a
banker’s box of files and documents that had been left moldering in Walt
Disney’s personal development lab, WED Enterprises, which later became the
studio’s vaunted Imagineering department.”
According to Vulture’s “spies”, the box was
originally labelled with the title of Disney’s 1965 comedy That Darn Cat!, which had been
crossed out and in its place was written “1952.” Apparently, inside the box was
a “collection of documents and primary source materials that, when looked at all
together, indicated that someone had been working on a project (movie? Theme
park ride?) about alien contact."
The identity of this “someone” from
Disney’s bygone era working on a project about alien contact has not been
specified. As it turns out, though, we may already know... the name “Ward
Kimball” springs to mind.
While at a MUFON symposium in 1979,
Oscar-winning Disney animator and Imagineer Ward Kimball (the man behind Jiminy
Cricket, The Mad Hatter and Pinocchio) claimed that the United States Air Force
(USAF) had approached Walt Disney himself during the 1950s to request his
cooperation on a documentary about UFOs that would help acclimate the American
public to the reality of extraterrestrials. According to Kimball, in exchange
for Disney’s cooperation, the USAF offered to furnish the production with
genuine UFO footage. Kimball claimed that Disney accepted the deal and – ever
faithful to Uncle Sam – began work immediately on the USAF project. It wasn’t
long, however, before the USAF reneged on its offer of UFO footage. When Kimball
challenged the USAF Colonel overseeing the project he was told that "there was
indeed plenty of UFO footage, but that neither Kimball, nor anyone else was
going to get access to it." The project was then abandoned and eventually
forgotten by all but the few who had worked on it.
Walt
Disney's most trusted animators - his "nine old men" - included Ward Kimball
(pictured far
left, front).
So, could Disney’s mysterious 1952 be a 21 Century revival of its
aborted 1950s UFO acclimation project? Based on the information thus far presented, there
would certainly appear to be a connection... but hold on there, because here’s
where it gets confusing...
Within hours of publishing his
inside scoop on 1952, Vulture’s Claude Brodesser-Akner posted the following correction to his
report:
“Apparently I misunderstood my source for this story, who contacted me
after it was posted to clarify that while it is true that 1952 is very much in the
spirit of Close Encounters (and
centers around a Roy Neary-like protagonist), it is not in fact about an alien
encounter. My apologies for the erroneous plot
description.”
Roy Neary
(Richard Dreyfuss) making first contact in
Close
Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Hmmm. So when the unnamed source
told Vulture: “It
will be set largely in the present day and it is about aliens making contact
here on Earth,” and that the aborted Disney project that inspired it was “about
alien contact,” apparently this was just a miscommunication. And yet it is just like Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Hmmm. Could it be that Vulture’s
source (almost certainly an official viral ‘leaker’ for Disney) spilled one too
many beans in his revelation of the movie’s alien aspect, has been reprimanded
by the studio and has subsequently issued a rather implausible
“correction”?
It’s hard to say for sure, but given
the past UFO-themed credits of screenwriter Damon Lindelof, and in light of
Disney’s longstanding fascination with the UFO
enigma – not to mention the strong UFO-related connotations of the 1952 title – my money is still
firmly on this movie being about aliens.
In terms of the movie’s marketing, Vulture also reported the
following:
“The collaborators are planning an
elaborate, very J.J. Abrams–like advanced marketing campaign that will start
before filming even begins. The idea is to stage a treasure hunt for intrigued
moviegoers that will gradually reveal clues about and build intrigue for the
film right up until its release, and which may or may not be related to the
contents of the box.”
Perhaps, then, the “box” is just a
viral marketing device vaguely inspired by Kimball’s story? Or perhaps it is, as
the source originally stated, a real box with real photos and documentation that
have directly inspired a new and highly secretive Disney project? Perhaps the
box is a remnant of the aborted Disney UFO documentary?
Indulging the latter assumption for a
moment – that this new movie will feature real photos and/or footage of UFOs and
perhaps even their occupants – what would be the point? If presented in a
fictional context (as apparently it would be), said material would immediately
be fictionalized by way of its presentation in a “science-fiction” movie. Also,
in today’s world of photorealistic CGI and Performance Capture technologies,
debates surrounding “real” and “faked” footage would be very difficult to
resolve. We could be looking at genuine alien landing footage from any time
during the modern UFO era and automatically assume it to be
CGI.
So again I’ll say, “hmmm.” Intriguing
stuff, for sure, but until Disney hits us with more info on 1952, I’ll quit with the
speculation. Watch this space...
1952 is scheduled for release in
2013.
