Jul 4, 2009 02:00 PM
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Tue Feb 9
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To those who fear that President Barack Obama may be a robot sent here from the future to plunge us into a horrific machine-led dystopia/save John Connor (Delete as applicable), Disney has a message for you: You're right. Well, almost.
Admittedly, they're talking about the new animatronic Obama that provides the news hook for their revamped Hall of Presidents attraction in Florida's Walt Disney World. His selling point? Apparently, that you can't tell the difference between this Obama and the real one, even down to muscle dominance:
Imagineers traveled to the Washington, D.C., to record Obama's voice for the show. They also worked with White House staffers to make sure his wardrobe, hair and mannerisms were portrayed as accurately as possible. "He's very tailored and very well-dressed all the time so that's what we were trying to achieve, and I think we did," said Janice Jones, a costumer at Walt Disney World.
Disney sculptor Valerie Edwards created the Obama figure's likeness. "Well, it's a great pressure of course to completely do an accurate job of somebody that's in the media so often," Edwards said. She used an array of pictures and video of the president to capture even the slightest facial expression. "I can watch the different speeches and I can watch his cadence as he speaks, I can watch his muscles as they move, I can see how his face changes as he speaks to see if there's any dominance in muscle," Edwards said.
Disney call Robot Obama "the most dynamic figure Disney has ever created," which makes me convinced that - midway through his speech - he's going to suddenly leap into action and punch Robot Lincoln in the jaw or something.
The revamped Hall of Presidents opens today.
Disney adds robotic Obama to attraction [CNN]
Send an email to Graeme McMillan, the author of this post, at graeme@io9.com.
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