As Dreamers Do: The Amazing Life of Walt Disney, is one of those movies that you just happen upon, yet captures your mind, your imagination, and teaches you a thing or two about perseverance. I was looking at my iPad, picking something out on my Amazon Instant Video app that I have, and I just searched for Disney, and came across this movie. I had never heard of it, or if I had, I had forgotten all about it, and I was just looking for something to watch while I was on the treadmill.
The story covers the young Walt Disney — not the one that we all know, the one that created Disneyland and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and all of that. No, this movie is about the Young Walt Disney, the child before he became a man. Narrated by Travis Tritt, the film stars a lot of actors that I haven’t heard about before, but that just adds to this experience. Since I was watching it on my iPad while doing my treadmill walking, I broke it up into three sessions. The movie is right around an hour and a half long.
Dreamers covers some fantastic moments that occurred in Walt’s life, such as the time he and his sister Ruth painted the side of their house — in tar instead of paint! The movie does such a good job of telling the story that you really can imagine that Walt didn’t realize that he was using tar. Being the Dreamer that he was, Walt was often found drawing or painting or anything like that.
The story covers moments in Walt’s life, such as when the family moved to Marceline, and later on to Kansas City. It covers the period of Walt’s life when Roy was in France fighting in the war, and Walt wanted to join him — but was underage — so he had join the Red Cross instead, and took up smoking. The movie also covers the period of time when Laugh-O-grams was around, and he and Ub Iwerks were in business together. It also covers the period of Walt’s life where his business ventures didn’t work, and he was living out of his office.
Through it all, though, no matter what life event was bringing Walt down, Walt was never down in the dumps for long. The greatest legacy of Walt Disney is not his Parks, or his movies, or Mickey Mouse, or any of that — the greatest legacy of Walt Disney was his eternal optimism, his belief, perhaps his faith, in knowing that it was all going to work out all right in the end.
The movie concludes with Walt finally taking the advice of Roy, and moving to California to start the next adventure in his life journey. It was in California that Walt’s ultimate dreams came true, but they were forged years before his his childhood upbringing.
If you haven’t seen As Dreamers Do: The Amazing Life of Walt Disney yet, I urge you to check it out. You will learn a new appreciation for Walt Disney, and fill in some of those blanks that may exist in you like they did in me, without me even knowing. If you have seen this movie, please tell me, what did you think? Leave me a comment, and thanks for stopping by! Here’s a trailer for you to watch. Thanks for stopping by!
