Disney went all-in on the project, bringing in producer George Lucas and director Francis Ford Coppola for what was essentially a multimillion dollar minute-long music video. The plot featured Jackson as a space captain battling an evil queen Anjelica Huston , while surrounded by a crew of furry, goofy alien puppets and robots right out of the George Lucas interplanetary comic relief playbook.
When Captain EO finally opened at Disneyland in September , EO had achieved the distinction of being, on a dollars-per-screen-minute basis, the most expensive film ever made. In November, Disney announced that Captain EO — which has run at four parks over the last three decades — would shut down on December 6, replaced by new Pixar and Disney attractions. This is the story of Captain EO , and all the behind-the-scenes trials, tribulations, and tickle-bouts it entailed.
In , Michael Jackson could be anything he wanted — and he wanted to be a movie star. His adviser, record executive David Geffen, suggested the singer meet with Disney. Michael Jackson from his memoir, Moonwalk : Disney Studios wanted me to come up with a new ride for the parks. I love the movies and have since I was real little. For two hours you can be transported to another place. Films can take you anywhere.
The second [idea] focused on our understanding that Michael loved various characters and attractions around the park and movies — Peter Pan was one that he was fond of. So we developed a fantasy that was somewhat similar to The Music Man idea, but focused on a band of characters that were more fairy-like and fantastic.
We knew that Pirates of the Caribbean was an attraction [at Disneyland] that he really loved. Jackson from Moonwalk : Pioneering new ideas is so exciting to me, and the movie industry seems to be suffering right now from a dearth of ideas.
So many people are doing the same things. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are the exceptions. Jackson wanted Lucas and Spielberg to produce and direct the project, and Lucas agreed to oversee it.
But EO still needed a director. Jackson had requested that Steven Spielberg direct the project, but he was unavailable, so Lucas brought aboard Francis Ford Coppola, his old friend and mentor, who was coming off a rough box-office run, thanks to back-to-back flops Rumble Fish and The Cotton Club I think George was very proud to be able to do that for his friend. Francis Ford Coppola director : There was a period in my career when I had gotten into financial trouble over One From the Heart [].
I was in a tough, pseudo-bankruptcy situation. I had to do one movie after another to pay the bank and get them off my back, which I eventually did. Ellenshaw: Disney was known for its effects — look at Mary Poppins , and all the incredible work for the parks. But they were behind the times. Nobody outside of Disney came to Disney to have their effects done, and that was a big issue for this new regime. They wanted to be such an important player that they [would attract] outside business.
I had come off of working on Tron , and I had a little bit of a positive reputation. I remember my first meeting with Francis. Michael Jackson had an idea, and George Lucas had an idea, and Disney had an idea. Ellenshaw: The title of the show was Space Knights at that time.
Francis started to talk about the main character that Michael would play. And something like that would fit a character who comes to a dark, ugly planet ruled by an ugly evil queen, and change it all with song and dance and magical light beams that transform everything into great beauty.
Lemorande: Michael was very intense about the evil queen — he wanted it to be very scary. He really believed that kids loved scary entertainment. He loved Alien , he loved Snow White. The scarier the better.
Shelley [Duvall] was the first choice to play the Queen. The makeup people met with her to put on the plaster casting. Terri Hardin, puppeteer : When they went to do the face cast for Shelley, they were going to do pretty much a three-quarter-to-full makeup. Lemorande: She expressed a sudden disinterest in doing [the movie]. The next idea was a far less important actress: Anjelica Huston. It was very easy to get her because Francis and George were a big deal.
I had a dream about a month before I was offered this movie that I was having a wonderful love affair with Michael Jackson. And we were in a desert and we were suspended [in the air]. He was suspended, parallel above me in a landscape, and we were just sort of floating there in midair. And behind us, a stampede of elephants came to us and made a tunnel with their trunks around us.
A month later I got the call to do Captain EO. Lemorande: We suddenly had a way bigger star. She became famous very quickly after Captain EO. We cast a beautiful black girl who was transformed from Shelley Duvall, and that would work, everyone would know it was a fantasy. So we said, the evil queen can transform into a beautiful version of herself, with makeup and lighting and all of that. On their first day together, Coppola had his actors improvise in order to get comfortable together. Behave, behave!
A lot of that was early on, very clearly conceptually laid out. Then there was a lot of work that went on between Francis and Michael and our team to develop the characters. When I was a kid, I had a fantasy miniature elephant and I made him, in my mind, crawl up my pencil and live in the inkwell. The puppets were not very complicated. The only one that was complicated was Fuzzball, which was moved with cable, and that was done by Rick Baker.
Michael just loved that character so much and wanted that character to get as much screen time as possible. Rick Baker puppet designer : [Lighting consultant] Vittorio Storaro decided at the last minute that the aliens should all be like the colors of the rainbow, and they wanted Fuzzball to be red.
But it was just that one character. Kirkland: Michael loved the creatures. He was more fascinated with those than anything, really. They were like toys to him. Jeff Hornaday choreographer : [Michael also had] a real playfulness. I remember we were up at the Lucas ranch while they were editing, it was just us going over footage and sequences. I looked over and Michael was giggling. I come down to earth and say, for all your goodness and kindness, I want to grant you three wishes.
So what would they be? Though it was only a short film, and not nearly as epic on the scale of, say, Apocalypse Now , Coppola approached the production with a number of grand ideas. Ellenshaw: It was the first day of production, and Francis had insisted that we put the interior of the spaceship on a gimbal [with] big hydraulics.
It was hugely ambitious, and cost a crap-load of money. You have to raise [the gimbal] up, get these hydraulics underneath it, and pump pumping water in and out to make it go down. Peter Anderson cinematographer : As Michael starts to rise up, the ship lurched and then tilted precariously, and then the lights start going out. One of the high-pressure lines had ruptured, and it was hosing down the whole stage.
Michael Jackson was at the height of his career. His album Thriller , already the best-selling album of all time, was still on the charts. In , Jackson had debuted the moonwalk. He was a cultural phenomenon. They brought their movie experience to the parks too. That would now change. The third idea we came up with for Disneyland was to create something with Michael Jackson, who appealed to teenagers, but also to young kids, and even their parents.
Jackson was a huge fan of our parks, sometimes visiting several times a month, in and out of disguise. Our notion was to put him in an extended 3D music video. Ultimately, Lucas decided to produce the video and recruited Francis Ford Coppola to direct. Most guests reacted favorably to Captain EO. A few newspaper articles were more critical. The movie thrusts its characters into danger immediately. They are flying into your face, lasers blasting, just as you learn their names.
But the novelty of the 3D effect is enough to occupy you through the start, though the plot is overcomplicated for the time available. Over the years, the crowds disappeared. Movie-based attractions tend to have less repeat appeal than rides. In late summer , the Captain departed from Paris as well. Michael Jackson died on June 25, , at age In the years leading up to his death, Jackson had been in the news for his behavior in public and allegations of what he might have done in private.
But after his death, there was a renewed interest in his music. The King of Pop left behind an extensive catalog of Jackson 5 albums, solo albums, and compilations. His CD and music download sales soared. Meanwhile, at Disneyland in , Honey, I Shrunk the Audience had trouble filling seats, even on busy days.
After it had played more than a decade in the Magic Eye Theater, few Disneyland guests were eager to see the aging 3D film based on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids , a largely forgotten movie from This disparity of popularity was not lost on Disneyland management. In September , the Magic Eye Theater was temporarily closed to the public for several days. But it was also an opportunity to test the feasibility of bringing back Captain EO for a public run. Well, technically Captain EO did not come back to Disneyland.
The version of the attraction was called Captain EO Tribute. Let's stay in touch:. Related Articles. Lost Treasures - Discoveryland. New Articles.
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