If you thought the Big Mouse had run out of ways to repackage nostalgia, think again. This summer, Disneyland is preparing to unveil an animatronic Walt Disney, promising parkgoers a glimpse of “what it would have been like to be in Walt’s presence”—an announcement first floated at last year’s D23 convention, according to the Los Angeles Times. Set to coincide with the park’s 70th anniversary, the experience will reportedly bring visitors face-to-blinking-face with the legendary founder in the form of a lifelike robot.

That tidbit alone might prod a raised eyebrow or two, but the wry cherry on this uncanny sundae comes from Walt’s own granddaughter, Joanna Miller. As described in both the Los Angeles Times and The Daily Beast, Miller responded sharply on social media, declaring the would-be Robo-Walt an “imposter” and calling the move “dehumanizing.” In her now-viral Facebook post—which quickly reached the desks of Disney executives—she insisted, “People are not replaceable… you cannot add life to [a robot] empty of a soul or essence of the man.” With reactions like that, it’s fair to say she won’t be first in line for rehearsal previews.

“Grampa Did NOT Want To Be a Robot.”

Miller’s objections go beyond mere discomfort with technological spectacle. She maintains—based on family stories and her late mother’s repeated refusals—that Walt Disney explicitly did not want to be made into a robot. The Los Angeles Times recounts how, when the idea of a Walt animatronic was raised during planning for the Walt Disney Family Museum, Miller’s mother immediately shut it down: “‘No. No. No. No.’ Grampa deserves new technology for this museum, but not to be a robot himself.” Miller herself recalls that Disney’s own casual cadence and warmth simply can’t be replicated by gears and programmed gestures. She underscores her stance in a letter to CEO Bob Iger, writing, “I strongly feel the last two minutes with the robot will do much more harm than good to Grampa’s legacy. They will remember the robot, and not the man,” as the Times details.

Meanwhile, the Daily Beast notes that Miller’s post may have been intended as a minor vent among friends, but it took off, quickly becoming a point of discourse among Disney fans and drawing a real response from the company’s top brass.

The Limits of Family Ties (and the Power of Ownership)

The LA Times also outlines just how little practical say Miller and her siblings now have. The Miller family sold the rights to Walt Disney’s name, portrait, and likeness to the company in 1981 for $46.2 million worth of stock—a transaction that might have seemed innocuous at the time, but has since left living descendants with no direct control over his public image. Miller characterizes this as the family’s greatest misstep, emphasizing that, outside a barrage of press attention, there’s little she can do to block the project.

In coverage by both sources, Miller’s predicament is gently paradoxical: She has intimate, joyful memories of Disney as “grampa,” from childhood Christmas cards to riding around backlots in Autopia cars. But she stands virtually alone (her letter notes she doesn’t speak for her five siblings or all descendants) against one of the most relentless memory-making machines of the modern era.

Animatronics and (In)Humanity

The company, for its part, frames this as an act of preservation. The Los Angeles Times describes how Disney Experiences chairman Josh D’Amaro, in announcing the project, referenced the “sense of what it would have been like to be in Walt’s presence.” Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald also gave his take: the two Walt Disneys—public “Uncle Walt” and the complex founder—are rapidly fading from public consciousness, and an animatronic encounter can bridge that gap. Fitzgerald explained, “I grew up watching Walt Disney on television… He came into our living room every week… But a lot of people today don’t know Walt Disney was an individual.” The outlet also notes, however, that Info on Disney’s real persona—the TV broadcasts, interviews, and even Christmas cards—still exists in abundance.

Miller isn’t entirely unsympathetic to Imagineering’s creative constraints; she admires their work (notably “Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge”), but questions the logic. If preserving Walt’s true legacy was the goal, wouldn’t it make more sense to widely stream his original weekly show or create immersive exhibits grounded in authentic archival footage? As she points out, mechanical Abraham Lincoln works because we lack direct recordings; in Disney’s case, the man is already vividly preserved on film and tape.

As relayed by The Daily Beast, Miller visited Imagineering to see the robot firsthand after her protest attracted corporate attention. Her reaction was immediate and emotional: “I think I started crying,” she told the Times. “It didn’t look like him, to me.” For Miller, the risk isn’t just a technical failure—it’s that the animatronic will reduce Disney to the level of an overly polished, unnervingly lifelike souvenir, supplanting complexity with kitsch.

Echoes and Ironies

The debate isn’t just a private family feud—anonymized former Imagineers told the Los Angeles Times that “the legacy of Disney is ‘precious yet vulnerable,’” affirming the sincerity (if practical futility) of Miller’s campaign. The company insists that, in researching Walt’s wishes, they found “no documentation” that he opposed a robot likeness, according to Imagineer Jeff Shaver-Moskowitz. Miller concedes that most of those who might have confirmed her grandfather’s private wishes—her parents, old family confidants—are now gone. That leaves her advocacy resting on personal conviction and a lifetime of small, often invisible, family moments.

Disneyland’s “A Magical Life”—complete with stories, archival footage, and an animatronic Walt speaking in his own sampled voice—will open July 17, as both The Daily Beast and LA Times document. The show’s format echoes the park’s long-running Abraham Lincoln attraction, but with one important difference: Walt Disney was not a distant historical icon. He was a recent patriarch, a familiar voice, now rendered in moving plastic and metal.

So is this a heartfelt act of remembrance, or just the next step down the road of turning human legacy into merchandise? The real Walt Disney loved innovation—yet, as Miller contends, he might have drawn the line at watching his “soul” rendered in servo motors. Is there a point where homage morphs into uncanny mimicry?

When the boundary between tribute and exploitation blurs, the only certainty may be that, for some legacies, the magic lies in what can’t be replicated—even by the finest Imagineering.