Former Walt Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde to be honored as a Disney Legend at D23 2024

Mar 19, 2024 in "D23 - Official Fan Organization"

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Joe Rohde Disney Legend

Posted: Tuesday March 19, 2024 12:32pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Former Walt Disney Imagineer Joe Rohde will be honored as a Disney Legend at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event on Sunday, August 11, at the Honda Center, and hosted By Ryan Seacrest.

Joe Rohde Disney Legend

Most recognized as the creator of Disney's Animal Kingdom, Joe retired from the company in 2020 after a 40-year career and created some of Imagineering's finest work—most recently as the lead on Pandora—The World of AVATAR.

Filmmaker James Cameron, whom Rohde worked on the Pandora project at Disney's Animal Kingdom, is also being awarded as a Disney Legend.

James Cameron, Joe Rohde, Tom Staggs, Meg Crofton tour Animal Kingdom

Other notable recipients include Harrison Ford, Frank Oz, and John Williams.

Here are all the Disney Legend's for 2024. These individuals are being recognized as Disney Legends for various contributions in their fields, including costume design, film and television, parks and resorts, publishing, animation, Imagineering, and music.

Colleen Atwood
Angela Bassett
Martha Blanding
James L. Brooks
James Cameron
Jamie Lee Curtis
Miley Cyrus
Steve Ditko
Harrison Ford
Mark Henn
Frank Oz
Kelly Ripa
Joe Rohde
John Williams

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MrPromey14 days ago

Oh, it is. It's just that you've made everyone here well aware of how triggered you are by the "asphalt" of Dinorama and the exterior of Mission Breakout to which I've seen nobody actually disagree and yet you keep going with it. At this point it's becoming difficult to tell if it's trolling or something more serious. :oops:

Epcot81Fan14 days ago

Ha! I'm sorry, I thought this was a thread about Joe Rohde! My bad!

MrPromey14 days ago

With soaring home prices and cost-of-living at an all time high, it's so nice you've given Joe a place to live rent-free!

HauntedPirate14 days ago

What was that again? One is deserving, one I don't know, and the other three are so far from deserving of praise it's not even funny.

Epcot81Fan14 days ago

PREMiERdrum14 days ago

If you don't already, give Rohde a follow on Instagram and study his posts. His understanding of the confluence between physical design, human experience, and thematic nuance is staggering, and his ability to educate others in a simple but meaningful way is incredible. A fun aside. In 2019, we used a song from Rivers of Light in our primary show for the marching band I work with. I reached out to Joe on a whim to discuss some of the visual concepts we were working on, and he replied thoughtfully and helpfully a few times throughout the process. An unreal experience to gain a personalized peek into his design mind!

mickEblu14 days ago

Great news. Now he’s up there with Anthony Anderson and all the other Disney Legends. They need to come up with a new honor for legends that’s worked on the parks. Only a window on Main Street means anything now.

yensid196714 days ago

I would rather have the concrete and the FoN back than what they built! As far as the Festival building...they could have torn down the one section where Moana is and renovated the other side where the Festival Building is now! And why are they calling it a Festival building when there is no spaces for a Festival...just a stage, test kitchens and a Meet 'n Greet!!?? I guess they are saying that the test kitchens make it a festival building?

yensid196714 days ago

And am I still mad for them tearing out the Fountain of Nations and NOT REPLACING IT! But I guess Moana is suppose to be the replacement!? HA! Far from it!

THEMEPARKPIONEER14 days ago

Y You’re right all the ground around it was terribly landscaped and I wasn’t even a fan of the flower beds that they had around it, what they have now and this would be fantastic. It wasn’t even the shows it was the waterfall itself, the sound and even the air that was produced by that flowing water is the only thing that saved that area and a cascading water feature like this would make that nature setting there going for now all the better. That would really make this better is if they had the guardrails right on the ends of the bottom pool closing in the flower beds around it. Sitting in greenery and feeling the output of that waterfall would be incredible.