83 pages • 2 hours read
Ridley PearsonThe Kingdom Keepers: Disney After Dark
Ridley PearsonFiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Background
Cultural and Historical Context: Walt Disney World
Film animator Walt Disney had his first big hit with the 1928 cartoon Steamboat Willy, starring Mickey Mouse. Disney’s studio churned out many more cartoons, including the Silly Symphonies series that introduced Donald Duck and the Three Little Pigs, whose song, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” became a hit in the U.S. during the Depression Era of the 1930s.
In 1937, Disney produced the first American feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which became the biggest-selling movie up to that time. Many animated films followed: Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, and more, alongside nature documentaries and live-action adventures and comedies. As of 2021, Disney Animation Studios has released 60 animated features.
These films, and especially their characters—Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, Mister Toad, and others—became the theme material for a California amusement park, Disneyland, that opened in 1955. The park features a central Main Street styled after a late-1800s American downtown, surrounded by four “lands”—Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Frontierland, and Adventureland—with rides, restaurants, and other features based on each land’s central theme. Disneyland is noted for its groundbreaking realism, thoroughness of detail, and continuous state of cleanliness and repair.
Frustrated by the limited few hundred acres of Disneyland, Walt Disney bought up nearly 40 square miles of land in central Florida for a new resort that would contain several themed parks. He died before construction began, but his brother Roy oversaw the completion of the project, and the first part of Walt Disney World opened in 1971. Today, it includes four theme parks: the Magic Kingdom, an enlarged version of Disneyland; EPCOT (originally EPCOT Center), which features futuristic technologies, worldwide cultural exhibits, and rides based on Disney intellectual properties; Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where a replica of Hollywood Boulevard anchors Star Wars and Toy Story rides, among others; and Animal Kingdom, which features animals and exotic lands, real and imaginary. In addition to the theme parks, Walt Disney World encompasses 40 hotels and timeshare properties, golf courses, water parks, a camping resort, and a shopping district.
Scientific Context: Holograms
A hologram is a 3-D recording of an object or scene. It’s made by reflecting light, usually a laser, off an object and recording it onto a film or other sensor while a second laser beam shines directly on the sensor to create an interference pattern. When this pattern is replayed and the second laser beam again bounces off it, the 3-D image gets revealed. Each tiny part of a holographic recording contains an image of the entire photographed object from that part’s point of view. All the parts together create a likeness that contains cues that the brain converts into a 3-D image.
To record Finn’s performance as a Disney host, technicians dress him in a green suit covered in reflective buttons. Computers record the motions of the buttons and, using a holographic technique, transform that information to create a realistic 3-D version of Finn’s performance. The computers also can manipulate the data to have Finn perform in new ways, should the script be changed later on. Finn’s green suit matches a green screen behind him, so that background and clothing can be erased digitally and replaced with whatever the producers need: casual clothes in summer, a Santa suit during the holidays, a fireworks display in the background, and so on.
A realistic hologram of a person walking among Disney resort guests is, at the time of the revised book’s publication in 2020, still a thing of the future. Entertainment companies have, however, created simulations that resemble holographic performances. One example is pop group ABBA’s 2022 virtual residency in London, which featured sophisticated motion-capture technology that created recorded “ABBAtars” who performed onstage as if live. This system used mirrors and other techniques that resembled a holographic effect.
The idea that the Kingdom Keepers are part-human and part-hologram is a literary conceit, or arbitrary device, that makes the story possible. As well, the “magic” of the Magic Kingdom brings to life Disney characters after dark. Holograms and magic thus combine to set the book’s adventure-thriller genre somewhere between fantasy and sci-fi.
Literary Context: Books as Marketing
The Kingdom Keepers book series is unusual for Disney entertainment in that it’s self-referential: These are stories about Disney personnel doing battle in Disney resorts against Disney fictional characters that somehow have come to life.
The Walt Disney Company produces movies, TV shows, books, games, sound recordings, and collectibles; the firm also runs several major theme parks and a cruise line. Most of the company’s thematic material derives from stories and characters it has invented or borrowed from fairy tales and other sources. These resources become fodder for the Kingdom Keepers adventures.
The series is popular with readers and Disney fans, but the books also serve a second function: They’re marketing devices that promote both the Disney character set and Disney’s theme parks. The first novel visits most of the main attractions at the Magic Kingdom and mentions a number of Disney characters. Readers who enjoy the resorts and fictional universe described in the tales may be inspired to supplement this experience by purchasing other Disney products or by visiting Disneyland, Walt Disney World, or another of the worldwide theme parks.
The story occasionally pokes gentle fun at Disney tropes, but it doesn’t ridicule or disparage Disney staff or the resort locations. Disney publishes the book and doesn’t want its value diluted in that way. The novel nonetheless is well-written, the marketing aspects are very low-key, and the story stands up quite well on its own. Readers can feel free to enjoy it, whether or not they wish to respond to its promotional aspects.
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