Exclusive: I watched Disney’s next-gen audio-animatronic transform from a pirate to a skeleton

You could say Walt Disney Imagineering has been on a decades-long journey with audio-animatronics, which is essentially the tech underneath iconic characters at parks worldwide. What started with Tiki Birds has since grown to give us legendary looks at other characters, and in recent years, Walt Disney himself.

Just like the walking, talking Olaf roaming character, BDX Droids, or the Walt Disney animatronic, that innovation comes from a specific part of Walt Disney Imagineering, and that's the R&D (Research and Development) lab.

In late November of 2025, Imagineering gave us an early first look at next-generation audio-animatronic technology, one that could be expressive in brand-new ways due to the fact it was using front-based projection.

As Leslie Evans, Executive R&D Imagineer at Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development, told me, "We're really going after more tools to just tell stories in an incredible way."

Now, just seven months later, that same system is debuting inside a Disney Park for the very first time, and TechRadar has the exclusive first look, as I was one of the first to see it in Imagineering's R&D lab.

This next-generation pirate is making its debut at Disneyland in the iconic Pirates of the Caribbean ride, which reopens Friday, June 26, 2026. For the first time, guests floating past the treasure-filled grotto will witness a pirate atop a pile of cursed gold transform from a flesh-and-blood pirate to a skeleton in mere seconds.

Choosing Pirates wasn't accidental — as Evans explained, the team was "looking for a figure where creatively we could do a great transformation," and ultimately landed on the conclusion that "this pirate transformation would be a great, great first place to do it." And considering it's a long-standing ride at the original Disney park filled with countless audio-animatronics, it makes sense that this next-generation technology is debuting there.

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But let's roll it back from the ride itself and into Imagineering's fairly unassuming R&D lab in Glendale, California. I walked through a garage-like space with high ceilings and workstations, alongside generations of hydraulic animatronics — all the way through the A-1000 systems — before approaching a pirate figure elevated on scaffolding above a bank of workstations, Imagineers actively running it below. That staging is intentional — guests will look up at the figure from a boat, and the lab mirrors that sightline exactly.

The technology behind the illusion

That, in fact, was the new next-generation animatronic. At first glance, it reads almost deceptively simple. But as Evans explained, the ambition behind it runs deep. "How can we enable transformations that maybe previously are really challenging or in some cases impossible… I want characters that can blush, that can cry," she told me.

Unlike traditional Audio-Animatronics, which rely on complex mechanical systems for facial movement, this figure begins with a 3D-printed shell and almost no visible mechanical articulation in the face.

Instead, expression is driven almost entirely by a high-fidelity front-projected image mapped directly onto the character, and considering how far computer graphics and rendering have come, this dramatically expands what Imagineers can create with physical characters. Think of a person crying, laughing, grinning with emotion, and ultimately being more human.

What that process looks like up close is striking in its own right. During calibration, a blue and white mesh grid is projected across the entire figure — mapping the projection system precisely to every contour of the physical surface, from the brim of the hat down to the beads around the neck. It's a glimpse behind the curtain that makes the technology suddenly legible: this is how light becomes skin, or bone. Once that mapping is locked, the projected character snaps into place with a precision that's genuinely difficult to believe until you're standing in front of it.

With the installation at Pirates of the Caribbean, this next-gen audio animatronic system has various sensors that complete calibration daily, as well as the necessary compute system and projection tech, and redundancies for all of these. Considering it’s operating on a dark, water ride as well, there is a cooling system and a filtration system for the various components to keep them running day in and day out.

That simplicity, though, was deliberate — the result of rigorous testing. Evans and her team actually built and evaluated versions of this next-gen tech with individual facial features, including the nose, projecting onto them and asking a pointed question each time: "Is this adding anything? Is this extra bit of complexity getting us something from a creative standpoint?" If the answer was no, it got cut.

As Evans described it, "We started from that moment of 'let's test this, and we're only going to keep what we actually really need.'"

The nose didn't make it. The jaw did.

Disney's new blend of animatronics and game engines

Evans called it simply "a very exciting tool," and while she wouldn't be drawn on where it goes next beyond Pirates, that understatement might be the point.

That shift moves expressive detail out of mechanics and into real-time rendering — powered by a digital pipeline that connects Unreal Engine-based systems and animation tools. Evans talked about the moment those pieces converged. "When you really had animatronic technology, real-time game engines, and incredible CG assets all together… that's when we said, wait, we've really got something here," she said.

But getting there required pulling every discipline together. As Evans put it, "That's what's just absolutely magical about this team of people… when you bring them all together and say, 'this is the North Star, what are those key components that we need to go make it happen?'"

What that unlocks is a character capable of real-time visual transformation. Because the projection is dynamic, the character can shift emotional tone and surface detail in ways traditional animatronics simply can't — from subtle expressions like sadness or joy, to more dramatic changes that reshape how the character is perceived entirely. In Pirates, that means watching a single figure move between pirate and skeleton in real time, telling a fuller version of a story.

The physical system underneath is still there, but simplified. The body retains enough traditional mechanical motion to interact with the environment, while the face becomes a canvas for projection-driven expression. Redundant projection systems are also built in for reliability — essential for a high-throughput attraction like Pirates of the Caribbean.

And while Disney wouldn't go into full technical breakdowns, the compute setup running it sits closer in architecture to a high-end gaming PC than traditional show-control hardware. Though, as we’ve seen with Smugglers Run and Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, the blur between ride systems and gaming is blurring.

Disney engineers even mapped the ride path physically inside the R&D lab to simulate what guests will see from the boat vehicles, ensuring the transformation reads correctly from multiple angles.

A platform, not just a pirate

Evans was clear about what drives all of it, telling me, "We want them to believe it's real… we're trying to make people feel."

She added, "We don't build technology for technology's sake. Everything is about telling a great story to our guests."

Proof that it works came not from the engineers who built it, but from the first people who hadn't. Evans described watching fresh audiences encounter the figure for the first time. "Our folks are standing in front of this character for minutes, just watching this cycling transformation happen over and over and over again, and are still kind of mesmerized by it. That's when we got that moment of going — yeah, I think we did something good," she said.

And I can echo that. After the first glance, I stood in front of it, walking around from different angles, watching this pirate cycle from human to skeleton after taking the bait from a gold coin. It drives a genuine reaction of joy — it's deeply impressive, and I look forward to seeing it running at Disneyland alongside the other animatronics that have defined that ride for decades.

It's a meshing of past, present, and future in terms of tech. And that's where things start to open up beyond Pirates. What Disney is building here is not a single animatronic, but a platform for bringing real-time characters with far more detailed expressions to physical environments and attractions in a very scalable way.

So if a pirate can transform from human to skeleton in real time, the question becomes what happens when that system reaches the rest of Disney's universe of characters. Pirates of the Caribbean is where guests will see it first — but if Imagineering's trajectory is any indication, it won't be the last.

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Jacob Krol is the US Managing Editor, News for TechRadar. He’s been writing about technology since he was 14 when he started his own tech blog. Since then Jacob has worked for a plethora of publications including CNN Underscored, TheStreet, Parade, Men’s Journal, Mashable, CNET, and CNBC among others.

He specializes in covering companies like Apple, Samsung, and Google and going hands-on with mobile devices, smart home gadgets, TVs, and wearables. In his spare time, you can find Jacob listening to Bruce Springsteen, building a Lego set, or binge-watching the latest from Disney, Marvel, or Star Wars.