Ooh good and challenging question. If it were up to me, I would do as much as I can to restore the "60's kitsch" future of the 90's New Tomorrowland. I really liked that theme - MUCH better than the overdone steampunk Discoveryland theme that sometimes pops up in Tomorrowland. 90's New Tomorrowland had humor, optimism, and fun. Here's a list of what I would do to "fix" Tomorrowland
- Cleanup and restore Carousel of Progress
- Restore the kitschy announcer to the PeopleMover
- Add new theming to the entrance/exit to Space Mountain
- Convert Tomorrowland Terrace to the Astronomers Club
- Move Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin to where Stitch's Great Escape currently sits
- Create a new E-ticket dark ride in the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor/Buzz Lightyear building
I would theme the Space Mountain queue to a fun, alien-filled spaceport, with animatronic gags based on modern airports. Like maybe have a shoeshine station where an alien with two-hundred legs is idly reading an alien newspaper, and the poor shoeshine droid is sparking and smoking trying to shine all those shoes. We might also see a Best-Buy-style vending machine selling earbuds for every conceivable sensory organ. A long angry line of aliens with mixed-up luggage might be fuming and yelling at the poor bespectacled starline droid at the customer service counter. There would also be a Starbucks. The Star Tunnel music would stay, because it's awesome.
I would convert the Terrace into a two story restaurant with table service at the top and counter service below. Instead of going for a steampunk theme, which would not be as "transitional" between Main Street and Tomorrowland as Disney might think, I would go for a classical Greek theme, which goes well with
everything. The Astronomer's Club would be themed around the ancient Greek and Roman fascination with the heavens, and would feature Greek and otherwise Mediterranean cuisine. The ceiling would be a full-functioning planetarium (Planet Hollywood or no Planet Hollywood) and everything would be stately white columns, greenery, and frescoes depicting constellations and planets. Plaques below each constellation would explain the myth - Orion, Scorpius, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major all get their "back stories." Telescopes placed around the lower story would allow kids to peer out and see animated alien gags.
The most challenging piece of the puzzle is Avenue of the Planets - of the three current attractions, I hate one, love one, and feel kind of meh about the third. So I would upgrade Buzz Lightyear to be a bit more like Disneyland's Astro Blasters and move it to the Stitch's building (which might require the removal of the adjacent shop - but I feel like it could be done). Across the Avenue, though, I would want a whole new ride... but what?
My first temptation would be to do a pulp-horror themed ride like "Attack of the Mutant Spider Monsters," which I would love, but probably wouldn't go over well in Magic Kingdom (see: Alien Encounter). So instead, I would try to do a ride that combines the beauty of Peter Pan's Flight with the optimism of Horizons - I'd call it something like "Flying Saucer Adventure." The idea would be that guests board flying saucers that soar, swoop, and dip through a full-scale, night-lit recreation of the towers and spires of Progress City. The soundtrack should be suitably epic - like a combination of John Williams' "Theme from Hook" and space rock. We would see gags like families and dogs with jet packs, jet-powered surfboards, pneumatic tubes and conveyer belts, and other animatronic recreations of far-out technological dreams.
What do you think? ;p
