Disney Imagineer Lanny Smoot on Creating Real Life Lightsabers and the Groundbreaking HoloTile Floor That Could Revolutionize VR
The new inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame discusses highlights of his incredible career and matching Walt Disney in a way no one else at the company has.
He may not be an officially inducted Disney Legend just yet (though he clearly is well on his way to be) but Lanny Smoot is already a legend at Disney. Boasting a remarkable 106 patents and counting, Smoot has been an integral part of Disney’s Imagineering team for 25 years, and prior to that was already working on groundbreaking technology during his time at Bell Laboratories and Bell Communications Research.
At Disney, Smoot’s contributions past and present have included updates to the iconic Haunted Mansion that allow the head of Madame Leota to float, the lightsaber training experience at the now defunct Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser, along with the incredible “hero” lightsaber that ignites in front of your eyes, plus integral elements of Disneyland’s Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Epcot’s Journey of Water and so much more.
In a career that has garnered him many awards, Smoot recently received a particularly big honor, as he was named one of 2024’s inductees into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, which is a first for a Disney Imagineer. Though it’s not quite a first for the entire company, since Smoot is now just the second person from Disney to be inducted – after a guy named Walt Disney.
I spoke to Smoot about joining the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the oh-so impressive career that earned him a spot. We discussed his early days at Disney, his many different types of lightsaber inventions, what it’s like updating classic attractions, and one of his most recent inventions – the HoloTile floor, described as “the world’s first multi-person, omni-directional, modular, expandable, treadmill floor.” While no specific attraction or destination has been announced for this technology yet, the possibilities seem endless, as it allows the addition of true movement and environment to a VR experience that has been lacking to this point (and, as many have noted, seems like Star Trek’s holodeck come to life).
Oh, and I also got to the bottom of the confusing history of Smoot and BB-8. Smoot is often listed as a co-creator of the Star Wars droid, thanks to his development of a mechanism a few years before The Force Awakens came out that is the same type as used for BB-8. But Smoot is not officially listed as working on The Force Awakens. So what’s the deal? We discussed it…
First and foremost, huge congratulations on being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
I have to tell you, I'm honored, humbled, excited, all of those things at the same time. It's been wonderful.
When you get into your line of work, obviously you're not thinking ‘This will win me awards!’ But in your case it has done just that, multiple times.
It's just amazing. As I said, I've enjoyed it. I've had a little bit of notoriety, public exposure here, and had a ball being able to show off the HoloTile floor, which I suspect you have probably seen at this point, or at least in video. So it's been a rush. It's been great.
You are the first Disney inventor to be inducted besides the guy who gives the term ‘Disney inventor’ that name. How surreal is that?
Eric, here's the thing, and I'm not kidding… I didn't realize it! The way it came to me is that I had learned that I'm going to become inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. This is all great and I'm the only one [from Disney] and this is wonderful. And my ego is building and building. And then someone said, I think it was in media relations, ‘No, you're not the first person.’ So I start thinking. I know several creative people in this company who it could be, so I say ‘Who's the first?’ ‘Walter Elias Disney.’ I had a lump in the throat, just saying, ‘Oh my god, this is incredible.’ And a little bit of weight there because... Let's not mess this up!
I think you can still have a good ego about that, though, when it's just you and Walt.
You know, to follow in Walt's footsteps, come on!
Your path to Imagineering was different than some in that rather than start out early in your career with the company, they came to you. What was your history like with Disney growing up? Had you been to the parks?
Here's the thing, like everyone my age, I knew "M I C K E Y..." The Mickey Mouse Club was my introduction to Walt Disney. I still remember the original Mickey Mouse fan club. I remember vaguely The World of Color on channel 7 in New York City. But I had never been to a Disney park until probably I was in my mid-20s. It wasn't that kind of thing for my family. I grew up in Brownsville, Brooklyn, kind of tough neighborhood. We didn't spend a lot of time traveling, let's put it this way, at least not to Florida or California. But later, you fall in love with it. So you know a little bit about my background. I came up in Bell Labs and Bell Communications Research. Hard technology companies that made networking devices and telefonics and fiber optics. And coming to Disney, it's quite a quite a change. But the partnership that you can have here with people who complement the things I'm not good at... I'm very good as an engineer, I will say immodestly. But I am not an artist. And I am not the type of person who can make things look beautiful. I always say the things I design work but it may not look like you just want to put them into the parks. That's not quite the thing. But fortunately, I am surrounded by folks who can do that so much better than I can. So I always partner with people here. It's just a collaborative environment.
I’m so curious about that, because you join the company and you already have all of this knowledge and creativity, but then at Disney, of course, it's going to be blended with storytelling in a lot of different ways. What was it like developing that approach and collaboration?
It took a little while to figure it out. Because the other thing that's sort of funny is that when I worked at Bell, my boss was an engineer. That person's boss was an engineer, the boss of that person was an engineer, and the president of the company was an engineer. So you had a certain mindset which was really locked and pretty similar in the big sense. But even when I was at the Bell companies, I was always creative, and wanted to do things that were breaking barriers and different from others, so I was already a bit of a rebel. And here, it became like ‘Oh, I'm finding my home.’ And now I can really do the other part of this, the stuff that is way out in different areas, and is considered magic.
I read that you originally worked for Disney out of a Long Island, where I didn’t even know they ever had facilities. Were you, at that point, involved with Imagineering? Or did that happen as you went along?
No, I was hired right into what is R&D for Imagineering and that was at the eastern tip of Long Island. I always say ‘Oh, and I ran that site’ and people say, ‘Wait, there was a Disney in Long Island?’ There was and I was quite proud of it. I did a lot of interactive things. I made interactive table tops, touchscreens.... I worked, believe it or not on windows. I haven't said this recently, but I worked on the windows for Good Morning, America. Our location designed those window systems and they are actually automatically cleaned in a special way and they are super strong. That was one of the first projects I worked on. I hardly ever mention it, you just made me think back to it. We were also instrumental in getting digital cinema going. You know, 30 years ago or so, giant film wheels were delivered to theaters to be put onto giant film machines. And we and others pushed to get digital cinema going where basically a digital signal can be sent to a movie theater, or a couple of disks can have the whole movie on them. So that was something we got going. And also oh my goodness, a lot of other interactive touch walls. .
I later developed a thing called Where's the Fire? -- I was just thinking about this -- where guests in the parks learn about safety hazards in a building where they can use a magical flashlight that can see through walls, an X-ray flashlight. And families would compete to find safety hazards in these houses that resembled what you would have at home. So was their nail driven into a wall that might be going into an electrical wiring system or is there a fire smoldering in there and that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, when you are inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, you choose a patent that you want. I have 106 of them, so I have a little variety I can choose [from]. And I chose the patent on Where's the Fire? because it helped tens of thousands -- and more, I suppose -- of people to learn how to be safe at home with things that can go wrong.
I think it often surprises people learn all the different things Imagineers are involved in because they probably first think only of the theme park attractions. But there are projects you've worked on located at Disney restaurants and hotels and on the cruise line. Is part of the fun of the job how varied it is?
It is wonderful. I can wake up in the morning and have an idea that might help on a cruise ship. A little later in the day, 'Oh, could we do something in hotel rooms?' Like a Mickey's Magic Mirror sort of thing, which we did. Can we do something that might be a toy? As a matter of fact, I don't know if you know what this guy is? [Note: Smoot held up a Disney Infinity Luke Skywalker figure at this point]
It's an Infinity figure. I designed the light-up portion of this, taking energy from the base. My circuitry is in all of these. I wish there were more of these out there. But any of these figurines, I designed the electronics that makes those lightsabers light up. I think I've had a cottage industry on lightsabers. Little lightsabers like that, extending lightsabers like the classic one that our chairman, Josh D'Amaro, often shows off and then was used at Starcruiser. All of the lightsabers in the Launch Bay, the predecessor to the Star Wars entree into our parks. And by the way, the two lightsabers that were at the Stacruiser, the hero one is a completely different technology, as you may know, than the one that you use to fend off laser blasts, but I designed that experience and the other lightsaber, which is what we would call our hero lightsaber for the show.
I got to visit Galactic Starcruiser and see your lightsabers firsthand. Is that an interesting process, since we all know the movies, but you need to figure out how to evoke that feeling that people have watching Luke Skywalker block blasts onscreen?
It’s funny, that started out many years ago, when I was looking for something that allows you to, believe it or not, raise your hand at a theater and be detected and that sort of thing. It evolved to being the ability to ward off laser blasts. But that's how ideas are, they go in all kinds of crazy directions. I’m working on solving one problem and I wind up finding the solution to a problem that I had before, or one that I didn't even know I had yet. Then you find out ‘Oh, this thing is good! I'm glad we made this.’ So ideas are always interconnected and I like that.
You said originally that technology was meant to detect people? What was it for?
It was so that you could sort of shoot beams of light out of your hands. And you can then also use it for other things like lightsabers and for beams of light and that sort of thing. So it started completely differently.
If you were to venture out into my living room, you'd see a lot of Haunted Mansion art my wife and I have up on the walls, since it’s a big love of ours. What’s it like for you when you're working on something already established in the parks? Like Walt always said, Disney is never done…
The parks are never done as long as creativity is alive, yeah!
But of course fans have a preconceived love of something and are always wary of changes.
You just hit on a point that is super critical in what I do. Tom Fitzgerald, one of our senior folks here in Imagineering, said, 'Hey, we want to update some of our classic attractions. Let's bring some new life to the Haunted Mansion.' And I noticed Madame Leota is cool but sitting on a table... ‘Can we fly her around?’ And that's one thing. So I can say that I made Madame Leota fly. Also, the changing portraits didn't change quickly, which was Walt's initial desire. He wanted lightning to hit and whatnot. And also, believe it or not, the equipment that supported the initial changing portraits in the haunted hall there filled rooms of equipment. There was a giant room behind the paintings. And I was able to simplify that and eliminate a lot of moving parts and make the transition instantaneously. Now, you could have just placed a big monitor there, but no, we can never ruin the wonderful memories that parents have when they take their kids. That Haunted Mansion has to look the same vintage and where it was created and the years that it represents and you can't ruin that. So the challenge a lot of times, especially if you’re refurbishing or bringing a technology like Haunted Mansion up to date, is you have to keep the initial feeling and the initial emotion that when you see it, you say ‘That's still the Haunted Mansion.’ It's plussed, as Imagineers say, but it's completely out of the vein of what it was.
Right before we signed on to chat, I realized I have a BB-8 figure over my shoulder. And I wanted to ask about him…
I'm gonna tell you a little funny story here. [Note: Smoot held up what looked to be a blueprint of BB-8 with a patent number in the corner] Now what's funny is, okay, I have a patent. This is my actual patent number. You can probably read it there. This is from my patent. The director, J.J. Abrams, that [BB-8] was his fictional thing. I designed, coincidently, two years before the movie was made, the mechanism that you can use for BB-8. So someone found my patent and thought it was the one for the one in the movies, and my admin bought this thing just to embarrass me.
Okay, because I was so curious about that, because I didn’t think you’d worked on a Star Wars movie specifically.
Well, you know, it's funny, I kind of did, because I did some consulting about BB-8. But later, after the movie was done, for the physical one. And we wound up partnering with the crew who did it, which is the London based Creature Shop, who did BB-8. So I did consult a bit to the London based Creature Shop. They would say probably a little bit, I would say hugely. [Laughs]
Well, I think your Star Wars-related contributions are pretty set at this point with those lightsabers! So your patent for that type of design exists, but it wasn't related to BB-8 specifically.
I called my colleagues in legal here and I said ‘Yeah, it's not me. I didn't do that!’ Just the funny things that happen in life.
You mentioned at the top the HoloTile floor and I did indeed see a video of you using it. We don't know yet where that'll end up being but everyone is already talking about all these different possibilities. How exciting is that?
I am overjoyed that the company allowed me to show that because it's probably the thing I'm most proud of in my recent career. It is, I think, the real solution to VR applications, for theatrical applications.
I always say, if you're wearing a VR headset, my goodness, you can be anywhere in the world, anywhere in the universe, it's wonderful. It's great until you walk into your bedroom and crash or fall on your face or something. Or you want to bring your friends with you on an experience where we're all going some direction and I want to go in my way and your way, but I want you to be somewhere... We, I think, have a really good contribution to, certainly, the hoped for future success of virtual reality in a big way. Because we have the only floor surface that will allow any number of people to walk in any direction, at any speed. I noticed some of the coverage of it said, ‘You walk slowly on it.’ I just happen to be walking slowly. [Laughs] Hey, I'm an old guy! You can run on it, you can do anything you want on it, and it will keep up with you.
We mentioned before how the job lets you work on things that are for so many different locations and aspects of the company. What’s it like to know that right now someone is on a Disney cruise, or someone is at a hotel in Hong Kong, or someone's at Disneyland and they're all getting to interact with these things you’ve been a big part of creating?
It's super rewarding. At the Moana experience [at Epcot], I have a magic water harp where you play the strings of water like you would in a harp, and it's a musical instrument. There's several of those in the new Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana. And that's a pretty late thing. That's something I've just gotten to the parks recently. And if I see videos of people enjoying it, I always have to smile. I've seen it when it wasn't quite clothed and it was all in its electronics glory. But it's just so fun to see people enjoying things that I've done.
I am guessing it’s maybe like choosing your favorite child but do you have a favorite project you've worked on at Disney?
I have to say lightsabers because, to be honest, it was a surprise that the lightsaber has made such a difference. Whenever it's demonstrated, people clap or cheer. But I think the one that's going to make the most effect in the world is the HoloTile floor. Because it is one of those things that solves so many problems. I always say, I can dance, but I'm not Michael Jackson. But I can moonwalk on the HoloTile floor without a problem. So it can make anyone talented. We can move anything around on its surface. It allows a guest to feel like ‘Oh my god, I really am using the Force. I'm moving things easily.’ It does all of the things that I think are gonna be critical both to Disney and maybe to the rest of the world, I'd hope.
While Galactic Starcruiser is unfortunately no longer open, it feels like those lightsabers have to pop up again.
We're not throwing the sabers out, believe me. That’s gonna stay.
What is a favorite Disney project you didn’t work on and just get to appreciate yourself from afar?
Wow, I haven't been asked that! You know, I like the fact that many of our attractions are changing to sort of represent the people who are going to the parks, like Tiana's attraction. Just so many things that are changing now to keep Disney on the forefront of being a truly good company, doing good things.
Imagineering has all of these wonderfully creative minds but some of you are working on very different projects. Are you able to peek your head in and get glimpses of what other people are working on along the way?
Oh yeah, of course. One of the things that drives my own creativity is I'm curious to see a thing and I'm especially curious to see something that I have in my mind and that I can bring into the real world. I work with people who have similar sorts of interest, and they may be creative in a slightly different direction. And sure, there's a lot of 'What are you doing in there? Oh, that's so cool!' But also, there's a lot of collaboration here. I'm very good at physical things. I'm very good at electrical engineering, design, etc. I'm not the best artist but I don't have to be. I work with the greatest artists in the world. I have a good understanding of architecture, but I don't build buildings. We build the best buildings in the world. I program, but I'm not the world's greatest programmer. I look out my window, literally here, and I can see some of the finest computer scientists in the world. Come on! it's great.
As we wrap up, I wanted to mention how we’re talking to each other over zoom. And I saw that early in your career, you worked on developing video conferencing.
Large screen video conferencing. I was the first with these wall-sized... We walk into a conference room now we see people life size, etc. I was doing that 40 years ago. I was doing desktop conferencing 40 years ago, video on demand. With streaming, we watch any movie that we want now. I worked on the early video on demand systems, all at Bell. We built so many new things. In fact, some of the first mass used fiber optic transmission systems are due to me. Fiber had been doing some stuff in what's called the internal network between central offices but not out to where customers are. That was done still with just wiring. I did some of the first fiberoptic systems that actually got close to the customer.
You’re doing amazing things with Disney now, but is it just fun for you to see the evolution of this other technology and think, ‘Wow, I was there at the start of what has become the norm for everyone?’
Yes, I love it. And people say ‘How did this happen?’ And I say, 'Well, you know, I did some of that stuff...' And as a matter of fact, I always tell this story, but one of my inventions that never caught on -- I'm still going to try with this -- is I designed a thing called the electronic panning camera. The idea was that all people at home could change their camera view and look at where they want, instead of having the director or the television station send you the image. And I bumped into a fellow from Disney who loved that. Disney used it for a trial and it turned out they liked the inventor even more than they liked the invention. And that's how I arrived at this company. So there you go.
But maybe there still might be a place for that invention that got the Disney portion of your career started?
I'm still thinking about it. We do have streaming services at our company but I think my patent may have expired. We'll see. I may win yet!