We're probably looking at a halo effect ?

Similar to concept car demoed at trade shows, we get an idea of Disney's technical engagement, and some of it will perhaps in some way or form get applied into future products/attractions.

The term for that is false advertising.

Amazon drone delivery comes to mind…

Eh, maybe. I have a less myopic view... I think their Imagineers just like pushing the envelope, and there's a difference between awesome tech vs things that can withstand the wear-and-tear of millions of guests.

Nothing about all that tech makes me think Olaf could withstand a hug from an excited kid.

Disney does a ton of R&D that doesn't directly make it into the parks, such as smokeless fireworks (they donated the patent for this) and their holotile floor (basically an endless VR room you can walk around). I imagine they don't know the practicality at the start, like any good R&D.

Defunctland is genuinely amazing and always a fun watch, and I never regret the time spent on their videos, they're kind of like a special occasion... though they're getting incredibly long... :)

There are a few older shorter videos in the half hour range, I highly recommend checking them out if you find some quiet time! (It's awfully hard for me too in recent times, I haven't gotten around to watch the Living Characters one myself, so I can't give the gist... I'm just glad I got the holidays off to finally catch up!)

The basic gist is that while the tech is cool, it just ends up being impractical for regular use in the parks. (But like the other poster mentioned, with Defunctland it's less about the tldr and more about the journey and fascinating segues he takes)

Totally get it's difficult to make time with kids, but depending on your kids ages... the video shows a LOT of Disney characters talking and doing things and the videos are colorful, so it could work as something you can listen to and they won't mind having play in the background!

One of the key reasons is that it would be really, really easy to accidentally injure parkgoers with any design big enough to interact with and engineered well enough to be reliable in a full day of appearances.

For example, the working WALL-E robot that's made a handful of PR appearances weighs seven hundred pounds. They absolutely can't risk that ever running across some kid's foot.

I worked with someone who had previously worked on park robotics, and apparently they had to guarantee that the character could not injure a child to be able to put them in parks - a particularly high barrier to actually doing so.

I know there’s BB-8 toys, but I’m talking about the version meant for the parks: https://youtu.be/RDgZjdZsc6g

Much like Olaf (and many before him… dinosaurs, WALL-E, talking characters, etc), it was implied he’d wander around the parks. But it tends to happen for a short amount of time, mostly for events, and fade away quickly. (The blog post even says that: Olaf will be part of a 15 minute temporary show, and then will visit Hong Kong).

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve seen this exact thing happen a dozen times over the past 20+ years. Watch the video I posted if you want to learn more!

R2D2 is an example of one that you can buy in the gift shop (for $20k!) that was promised to make it into the park but just comes out highly supervised, occasionally.