I think they should force all EPCOT managers to watch every one of Martin's videos... to really get the back story behind the creation of what was there...to understand how to move it forward. I feel like the most recent management regimes don't even understand the scale of what they are tinkering with or what went onto it's creation... They have something in their hands that is more precious than they know, and continue to make uninformed decisions without seeming to understand the full scope of what EPCOT is (was) and what it represents...
Yeah, there are plenty of arguments to be made about how reverting to a 1982 mindset won't fix what ails EPCOT, but there's no denying the park's original success and how there are clear overarching ideas and potential moneymakers that should not be ignored just because they don't extend from pre-existing properties.
Back in the 80s there was an attempt to build a fully integrated EPCOT brand; a television magazine show, school curriculum materials, and I could be wrong but I feel like there were ideas for a quarterly publication or something that focused on tech, culture, and food. Given Disney's insatiable hunger for new brands to add under the umbrella, why not attempt to take advantage of EPCOT in a similar way? Again, marketing it similarly to 1982 may not work anymore, but there's clearly still something there.
It's been brought up again and again, but it really points to the overly conservative, low-risk approach that so many companies use these days, particularly movie studios; a fully fleshed out and cared for EPCOT could open up new revenue streams and in the case of characters like Dreamfinder and Figment could open up a new movie or TV franchise, but original ideas are simply not considered worth the financial risk if they don't hit in a big way immediately...which seems silly in the case of EPCOT, since even in its current downtrodden form it's still one of the most visited parks on the planet, and its placement within WDW means that they could put on a flea circus and draw a pretty huge crowd, let alone a much better cared for iteration of EPCOT. There are certainly limits to what would constitute a worthwhile financial investment, but I don't understand the seeming risk aversion when they've got a potential long term money maker on their hands.
