Disney Has Built a Walking Groot Robot

In what industry experts are hailing as a landmark in animatronic technology, Disney Parks has designed a fully mobile, lifelike robot version of Groot, the lovable tree-man from Guardians of the Galaxy, with an eye toward deploying it as a quasi-independent "robot actor" in Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Developed as part of a program dubbed "Project Kiwi," Groot moves, expresses, and walks in a realistic way, and looks just like he did during Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, when Baby Groot had been upgraded to Kid Groot (but before he became the Teen Groot fans got to know a little in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame).

Per Tech Crunch, this lifelike robot attraction is edging incredibly close to what they call the "holy grail" of themed entertainment, which is fully interactive and lifelike robots that look like they just walked off the screen. Certainly, per the image released by Disney Imagineering, Groot comes pretty close.

You can see it below.

Given the prominence of Guardians of the Galaxy in the Disney Parks, using Groot for this project is something of an inspired move. It fits the parks' theming, but beyond that, he's a character that doesn't have to have human-like skin (he's a tree, after all, and fake wood is something that was mastered years ago), and doesn't have to have a ton of different expressions to use when interacting with potential park-goers. After all, "I am Groot" would suffice for most interactions.

That said, it was developed platform first, so that the most important thing was getting the motion, the interactivity, etc., down. This wasn't something that came out of needing a Groot, but something that came out of wanting an interactive, lifelike robot, and Groot likely seemed like a good fit for the reasons outlined above.

It has been a big week for the parks, with Disney earlier this week announcing plans to construct a massive solar grid which will power as much as 40% of the Orlando-based Walt Disney World park and resort.

Disney was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as theme parks and cruises were forced to close and/or operate under strict restrictive parameters that cut profits and services. Disney has several theme parks still waiting to reopen /open, but that rollout has already begun.

Disney World was booked to capacity for Spring Break 2021, and the company has been working diligently through the pandemic to adapt its procedures with every bit of new knowledge gained about preventing infection and contamination.