Michael Jackson's "Captain EO" Returns to Disneyland Feb. 2010

This Is It's limited theatrical run may have ended, but we won't have to wait long to see the King of Pop on the big screen again: After a 13-year hiatus, Michael Jackson's 3-D sci-fi adventure film Captain EO will return to Disneyland for a limited engagement starting in February 2010, Disney's Parks Blog revealed this weekend. It's been long rumored since Jackson's June 25th death that Captain EO, which screened at the Disney family of parks from 1986 until 1997 (or 1998 in Euro Disney), would be returning to the original home of Mickey Mouse.

Look back at Jackson's epic career, in photos.

Captain EO isn't your typical music video: The 17-minute film was directed by The Godfather's Francis Ford Coppola and co-written by Star Wars mastermind George Lucas. In the film, Jackson stars as the title character who must deliver a gift to the wicked universe-enslaving Witch Queen, played by Anjelica Huston. Of course, Jackson's EO has ulterior motives, namely delivering freedom to the universe and ending the Queen's reign.

The film featured two Jackson songs, "We Are Here to Change the World" and "Another Part of Me," and the latter later featured on Jackson's Bad album. To use the parlance of the times, EO was to the mid-'80s what Avatar is to the present, with Jackson's film utilizing not only 3-D technology but smoke and lasers to add a "fourth dimension" to the entertainment, something hitherto unknown to audiences.

Related Stories:
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Song Stories

“Smells Like Teen Spirit”

Nirvana | 1991

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," named after a brand of deodorant marketed to girls, was Kurt Cobain's attempt to "write the ultimate pop song," he said, using the soft-loud dynamic of his favorite band, the Pixies. Cobain "had that dichotomy of punk rage and alienation," the song’s producer, Butch Vig, told Rolling Stone, "but also this vulnerable pop sensibility. In 'Teen Spirit,' a lot of that vulnerability is in the tone of his voice." Sadly, by the time of Nirvana's last U.S. tour, in late '93, Cobain was tortured by the obligation to play "Teen Spirit" every night. "There are many other songs that I have written that are as good, if not better," he claimed.

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