D23, named after the year the Walt Disney Company was founded, was started as fan service. For most people, Disney is the films they grew up with and watched with their parents, and watch with their children – or even by themselves – and Disneyland (especially if you don’t live in California) is a place to go to once, maybe twice. For the D23 crowd, Walt Disney and its various products are a lifestyle choice. The hardcore run the gamut. From babies to the very old, from the physically fit to the couch potato, being at D23 means you probably have a season pass to Disneyland.

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Though The Odd Life of Timothy Green and the nature film Chimpanzee had trailers shown (and Jennifer Garner talked briefly about Green), the majority of attention for Disney’s live Actions films at D23 went to The Muppets and John Carter. The Muppets went over like gangbusters, while Carter just busted. There was also a brief presentation on Oz: The Great and Powerful, which just started shooting. Our report follows.

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Saving the best for last, D23‘s movie panel concluded with footage from The Avengers, which is still shooting and has two weeks left to go. Though some of the cast was unavailable, Disney brought out Robert Downey Jr., Scarlet Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston and Colbie Smulders to wave at the crowd before they showed the footage twice. Here’s the breakdown…

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Though no longer the crown jewel of the Disney stable, the Disney animation department are still working on aniated features (often computer animated) that aren’t under the Pixar brand, and some Direct to Video titles. The D23 presentation of films started with talk of the Straight-to-Video spin-off Planes, which features the voice talents of Jon Cryer, with a trailer that emulated Top Gun, and features the song “More Human than Human” by Rob Zombie. But the pleasant surprise of the panel was information on the film Wreck-it Ralph, which stars John C. Reilly as the bad guy in a video game. And there is also Tim Burton‘s stop-motion Frankenweenie.

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For D23, there were a number of film presentations, but the highlight was much of the Pixar material. On top of the two newly announced titles, their slate through summer of 2014 was discussed, from the upcoming Brave through to those two announced untitled projects. John Lasseter was the tour guide through the animated material, but here’s a round up of the Pixar presentation.

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D23 had some high and low points in terms of its film presentations, but one of the clear winners in terms of fan support and interest was the Pixar presentation – which ended with each audience audience being given a cupcake. Two new projects were announced: director Bob Petersen and producer John Walker are working on “The Untitled Pixar film about Dinosaurs,” and director Pete Docter was producer Jonas Rivera are working on “The Untitled Pixar Movie that Takes You Inside the Mind.”

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For those hoping for scoops, D23 has not offered that much new information. The big news of the day was that The Muppets will have a Toy Story short in front of it. That short is called “Small Fry” and will feature the voice of Jane Lynch. The day was mostly mellow in terms of big guns (which should be unleashed tomorrow), as it was meant more for the fanatics, who wanted to buy as many of the collectables as they could. But there were some neat costume displays in the upstairs showrooms, and one was dedicated to costumes from Disney films and TV shows. Here’s a look at some of the retro outfits and props.

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D23 was supposed to be Disney’s answer to Comic-con, or at least that’s what some thought when Disney – for the most part – pulled out of the San Diego event earlier this year. And yet 2011′s D23 is surprisingly mellow, geared more toward the superfan than the casual Disney consumer. And in terms of hype, there are no booths set up highlighting upcoming titles like The Muppets or The Avengers. In fact, there’s little presence currently for upcoming movies on the floor. The movie with the biggest layout is Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

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D23 finished up yesterday with Toy Story and Cars, Director John Lasseter heading a presentation for Disney’s upcoming animation and Pixar films. Although they mainly rehashed news from the opening day announcements and re-confirmed the casting of Timothy Dalton as Mr. Pricklepants, Lasseter also  confirmed quite a bit of casting news…

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