Hong Kong Disneyland Resort Ambassador Tony Dick confirmed via the Ambassadors’ Instagram story that the Sword in the Stone will be removed from the park to be replaced by the new Dream Makers statue featuring Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.
Sword in the Stone & Dream Makers
“I need to prove myself worthy one last time before this sword disappears!” Tony Dick said in the Instagram story before attempting to remove the sword from the stone.
As at other Disney Parks, the Sword in the Stone is located in Fantasyland, behind the park’s Castle of Magical Dreams and in front of Cinderella Carousel. The Sword in the Stone has been part of Hong Kong Disneyland since it opened in September 2005. A ceremony featuring Merlin from “The Sword in the Stone” has periodically been performed as the wizard seeks the rightful King of England.
Concept art of the new Dream Makers statue implied it would go where the Sword in the Stone currently is, but this wasn’t confirmed until now. While other Disney Parks usually have their Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse statues in front of their castle, this statue will be behind the castle.
Dream Makers honors the moment when Walt, sitting on a bench and watching his daughters on a merry-go-round, dreamed up the idea for Disneyland, hence why it’s next to Cinderella Carousel.
Walt Disney Statues at Disney Parks
Several Disney Parks feature statues of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse. The most famous is the Partners statue created by Blaine Gibson. The original was unveiled in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland on Mickey’s birthday, November 18, 1993. A plaque below it reads, “I think most of all what I want Disneyland to be is a happy place…where parents and children can have fun…together.”
Versions of Partners were eventually installed at Magic Kingdom (1995), Tokyo Disneyland (1998), Walt Disney Studios (2001), and Walt Disney Studios Park, Paris (2002).
Gibson said of the statue, “I chose to depict Walt as he was in 1954. I think that was when [he] was in his prime. It was tough trying to match the media image of Walt Disney, the one the public knows, to the real Walt, the one we knew. I think Walt is admiring the park and saying to Mickey, ‘Look what we’ve accomplished together,’ because truly they were very much a team through it all. ‘Look at all the happy people who have come to visit us today.’”
Gibson also sculpted Sharing the Magic, a statue of Roy O. Disney and Minnie Mouse, which was installed at Magic Kingdom in 1999.
The Storytellers statue, designed by Rick Terry and Ray Spencer, was installed in Disney California Adventure in 2012. Storytellers depicts a younger Walt as he would have looked when arriving in Los Angeles in 1923, and an earlier design of Mickey. Versions were added to Tokyo DisneySea (2013) and Shanghai Disneyland (2016).
The finished Walt the Dreamer statue was unveiled at D23 Expo 2022. It will be installed at the new Dreamers Point in EPCOT. Unlike the other statues, Mickey doesn’t join Walt as part of the Dreamer statue.
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