I enjoyed this watching very early this morning, but even more so watching Steve's video again after some kip, perhaps as it was by our usual viewpoint.
There's many obvious corrections that have been made for this show which have served it well. Not showing all it's tricks at once is a big one.
I think the narration is fine, and as has been said already, is probably another correction for those who need it and failed to understand what Reflections of Earth was about for example (philistines
). Could it have worked better as a pre-show narration, maybe, I don't know. Initial thought was it being similar to the style in SSE, obviously not Dame Judi or Jeremy Irons but I thought the narrator's voice suited it well.
I also think they have made a correction in the tone of the show. It maybe isn't just as sophisticated / classy in a way as RoE was, but it's certainly a quieter, reflective show with emotion to it and clearly made for a target audience of adults which in many ways RoE was too. A show designed to end a day. One they've tried to give a message to It's a very clear step away from the loud HEA style of Harmonious and gives the park a different show to Magic Kingdom.
The Friend in Me section is a bit like the above, and I wonder if something else would have fitted better there, but its 2 mins of the show and can see past that.
To me, and my taste, it was certainly better than Harmonious which sometimes I passed up for photos at the front of the park, and sometimes walked in just for the finale. I actually feel I want to see that again - as I did with Epcot Forever actually.
As has been said, the opening and finale are excellent and I really like the chorus echo effect at the start of Into the Unknown. Volume up helps, but i'm really taken with this show.