Take Me Home
Shrines Landing Page
Welcome to my Shrine for Epic Mickey, created by Warren Specter and his team at Junction Point Studios.
Determined to create a character he could use himself; he worked together with his partner Ub Iwerks to bring to life Mickey Mouse. For a few years Oswald was famous. He starred in a number of animated shorts and was loved by fans. Over time, Mickey quickly overtook Oswald’s success, leaving him in the dust. Today, Mickey Mouse is much more widely remembered in the popular lexicon.
The game Epic Mickey features Oswald as the antagonist. Left behind by the world that once loved him, Oswald struggles to find a place he can call home. From scratch he builds a world of his own. OsTown, Mean Street and Mickey Junk Mountain are all Oswald’s creations. Oswald isn’t the only one forgotten. Clarabelle Cow, Horace Horsecollar and many others were forgotten on Mickey’s rise to stardom. They too have made their home in Oswald’s creations.
Many of the characters remember fondly their time in the spotlight, reminiscing about the shows they performed in their youth. They have since resigned themselves with living ordinary lives gardening, running small shops, and taking care of those around them. I find this very comforting. When we are young we are often ambitious to become something for all the world to remember. If not achieved young, the older we get the more we let this dream fall behind us. Perhaps it wasn’t the dream we wanted after all?
For these reasons I relate to the characters on Mean Street and in OsTown quite a lot. I find it comforting interacting with them and enjoying the small things in life in a world ravaged with tragedy and destruction around them. This to me is the magic of the game. Finding ways to repair this damaged world with paint, one small step at a time.
Epic Mickey was created by Warren Specter and his team at Junction Point Studios. Over a century ago when Disney was first starting out, his first cartoons featured Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. When they started to become popular, he sold the rights to Universal Studios, one of the big five movie studios at the time. Universal took control of his creation making it copyright infringement for Disney to use a character that had once been his own.
The game begins with a cutscene. Mickey in Yen Sid's castle, the wizard from Fantasia. Mickey explores, wandering around when he finds a giant 3D diorama of a world Yen Sid created. Next to the diorama is bottles of paint, thinner and a magic paintbrush. Mickey grabs the brush trying to add additions to the world.
The game was originally much darker in tone. Warren Specter pushed his team to come up with the most sinister amalgamations they could dream of. The goal was to push the limits as far as they possibly could. In the first months of meetings with Disney, they showed the terrible creations they had come up with. Disney pushed back hard, forcing Specter's team to reduce the scariness one step at a time. Eventually both sides came to an agreement, leading to the game we got. Their are hundreds of pieces of concept art Disney deemed too dark to include in the game. Before the game was published some of this was leaked, leading fans to believe the game may be much darker then we ultimatley reccieved. Many fans, including myself found the possibilities found within this art to be much more appealing. Below is some of the art.