First photos and video of the new 'heroic moments' scene debuting at Disney World's Fantasmic!

Nov 01, 2022 in "Fantasmic!"

New Fantasmic! scenes - November 2022
Posted: Tuesday November 1, 2022 6:43pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney has shared some early preview photos and video of the new scene debuting with the updated Fantasmic! at Walt Disney World on November 3 2022.



Watch the video below for a look at the new 'heroic moments' scene.

The new sequence replaces the former Pocahontas scene, bringing to life heroic moments from Disney stories such as “Moana,” “Mulan,” “Aladdin,” “Pocahontas,” and “Frozen 2.”

During the closure, work has been underway on refurbishing almost all areas of the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater, including new lighting and audio systems and rebuilding Steamboat Mickey.

The rebuilt Steamboat can be seen above, and some of the new show lighting can be seen in the image of Mickey Mouse below.

Disney Cast Members will be the first to see the new Fantasmic! with a couple of nights of previews planned just prior to the public debut on November 3. The opening week from November 3 to November 7 will see two performance each night, at 8pm and 9:30pm.

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Disney Maddux7 days ago

Well... I saw the second-to-last Fantasmic right before covid shut everything down. After waiting for 3 years (no longer a passholder), I was finally going to see Fantasmic again at the end of a long-planned Hollywood Studios day with friends (that was also supposed to happen before covid). Got the dining package, and... Show cancelled because of a storm. Now today, after a fun day mostly at Epcot for a friend's birthday, we decided to end it by headed to DHS and seeing Fantasmic, as they had never seen it before. Got front row seats, and all I can say is: Just as, if not more beautiful than the day I last saw it. Absolutely loved the new scenes, the fountains actually being used well now throughout the entire show, and that new lighting??? Phenomenal. Well worth the wait.

Squishy21 days ago

The DCA frozen show was using blacktrax I think.

gerarar22 days ago

I'm pretty sure they use the manual spots that are on those scissor lifts in the back and on top of the control booth, which are used during the intro, princess medley, Aladdin, etc. For Moana, I believe they use a combo of manual spots and lights on the overhead rigs that are time coded. Can see in this screenshot that one manual spot operated by a tech in the back stays on Moana through her run across the stage and until the "I Am Moana" lyric. Blacktrax would be interesting and nice, but they don't even use those in the stage shows at DL and WDW afaik.

Squishy22 days ago

I believe they're using blacktrax to track the performer, not manual tracking.

DCBakerFeb 23, 2024

Beginning March 10, Fantasmic! moves to an 8:30pm showtime through April 23. For the week of March 10 (except March 13 due to an After Hours event), the second showing of Fantasmic! is scheduled for 10pm.

RhinocerousJan 31, 2024

I have no knowledge of how the Fantasmic lights are set up. In modern theatrical lighting design, follow spots will typically be tied into specific light cues, the same as any other lighting instrument. The Fantasmic lights may very well be synchronized to the musical score, which would result in the light “timing off” when the cue changed.

gerararJan 30, 2024

Moana dropped the Heart of Te Fiti during her segment. Thought this was a pretty cool fail as the manual followspot stayed on her as she backtracked to pick up the prop. Interesting thing to note are the followspots are on a timer, rather than controlled by the tech operating it, since it turned off before the CM could finish their run across the stage. The static lights still ran as normal even though no one was there on cue.

imagineer97Jan 15, 2024

Join me on an investigation... : They only introduced the mines with the return of the show. Bear with me... 1999 - The Comets were as they are now (as of Jan 9 or 10): And in 2005 as well: And in 2011: And in 2017 (thanks @marni1971): And in 2020: HOWEVER, when the show returned in 2022, it had the mines: Hp1VoUmVgP4:1712 Therefore: It appears this change is a return to normalcy! Hurrah!

TouchdownJan 15, 2024

The new comets are more accurate to the short. I like them.

imagineer97Jan 15, 2024

Interesting, I think I like the new comets better. More majestic.

gerararJan 15, 2024

There's been some major pyro changes in the finale. The comets with mines have been replaced with larger comets with longer tails. This seems like the pyro/comets used in the previous version pre-Covid and before the 2022 version. Wonder if this is a "budget" cut or simply a change in pyro supplies. (1/7 old pyro, 1/13 new pyro) Not sure what I prefer, but the newer comets are brighter and "more" colorful in a way. Here's a comparison video I made. The pyro change happened sometime in the past week, on either 1/9 or 1/10.

Starship824Jan 14, 2024

The quality of the water screens heavily depends on the wind that night so if it's really windy it's they won't be very clear and will be a lot harder to see. They also upgraded the projections during the 2022 update.

bmr1591Jan 14, 2024

I’m not sure if it was just my angle, but the projections last night were the clearest I’ve ever seen. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed they upgraded them. Night and day difference from the last time I saw the show (Tuesday).

gerararJan 09, 2024

As @jrhwdw mentioned, there was no Sorceror Mickey appearance on top of the mountain during last night's (1/8) show! This is really super rare. Usually it's a case of the mountain lift not working. If it's weather/wind related, pyro would be also cut but none were cut last night, so leaning more into the lift being out of service. It's hard to come across footage of this, so had to save it of course lol. Awesome to see the rare B-mode choreography of Tuxedo Mickey. It slightly differs from DL's B-mode choreography when their lift is broken, which happens a lot over there. Timestamped livestreams: