EPCOT Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind attraction confirmed for Epcot

[UNCgolf]

There's more merch, Disney branding, and upselling, certainly, but the corporate stuff has been toned down. I'm less bothered by Disney's own commercialism than I am by outside companies using attractions to push their services and products, though I realise others may not draw the same distinction.

Right, but I'm talking about this reviewer in general -- their complaint about commercialism seemed separate from any complaints about corporate sponsorship, considering they seemed to have as many (if not more) problems with the World Showcase as they did with Future World.

I don't think any of the EPCOT pavilions really pushed the sponsor's products, though. At most they pushed them in a more general sense, as in Exxon was an oil company so they were promoting fossil fuels, but that would work equally well for any oil company.

I would have been bothered if they were actually pushing specific products (e.g., if Carousel of Progress spent time talking about some specific model of a GE appliance and how great it was -- "I can now make toast in my General Electric E200 toaster and it makes it perfectly! You should get one for yourself; it's only $39.99!"), but the more general advertising never really mattered to me as long as it resulted in great attractions. It felt more like background noise than anything else to me.

EDIT: With that said, I still understand why that kind of corporate sponsorship, even in a general sense, makes people uncomfortable. I would prefer no corporate sponsorship (in fact, I hate even seeing brands like Starbucks in the parks), but I'd accept it if it meant more attractions like they built at EPCOT. I don't believe we will ever see that again, though.

 

[UNCgolf]

Wow that review is fascinating. $18 a day for adults. But there’s long, long lines. 15 minutes to a half an hour! How insane is that?!

That's something I think some people miss when they say people have always complained about long lines at Disney and it's not any different now.

They have, but what's considered a long line has shifted pretty dramatically. A 20-30 minute line now would be considered a short wait for standby for most attractions. Now long lines are at least an hour and often 2+. The whole mindset has shifted. I believe there were some 1 hour waits in that era at Disney, but they were few and far between.

 

[matt9112]

No one seems miffed about the auto showroom at the end of Test Track... So yeah if it were for Diapers or Paper Towels I might be miffed...But if it was presented by a tech company and it was soft pedaled the way the Home Of Future Living was, then I sure wouldn't have a problem with it...

Hey the first time i ever saw a robot vacuum was there...like a decade before i ever saw one in the real world. I was amazed.

 

[mergatroid]

My only real complaint about new Disney attractions is how much secrecy there is during construction. I know part of that is they are usually built inside a building. They market the ride heavily once finished but in between the announcement of the new ride and til it's finished they only say the odd thing.

I look at how other parks show off construction constantly when they are building a new attraction. Disney is the only one who goes out of its way to hide what they are doing. When Velocicoaster was being built, it was fascinating watching the construction of it. Vloggers would go out of their way to show it. I think out of all the Disney vloggers only Tim Tracker seems to show off construction updates.

How could they hide the Velocicoaster though, without shutting the entire park? Normally Universal says very little about it's attractions when they're being built just the same as Disney? Paging Mr Morrow often does updates on Tron as do several others.

 

[DCBaker]

 

[trainplane3]

I noticed that conduit there yesterday. I was wondering if there's more to the panels even if it only ends up being basic lighting.

 

[sedati]

Wow that review is fascinating. $18 a day for adults. But there’s long, long lines. 15 minutes to a half an hour! How insane is that?!

In un-themed switchbacks that often bled out into the open sun. UOE gave you the opportunity to feel like a photovoltaic cell yourself.

 

[sedati]

I've seen it said elsewhere that the original Universe of Energy read as a grand advert for and vindication of fossil fuels. Exxon clearly had a vested interest in selling such a message, regardless of how prominently featured its name was in the attraction itself.

Just compare the proposed version vs the sponsored version and see the impact Exxon had.

 

[sedati]

In UoE, besides the two signs in the pre-show area, the name Exxon is said exactly... once. At the beginning of the pre-show. (Exxon presents... with the tiger running towards you). The rest of the movie was about how energy moves from one type to another (and was projected on a screen made up of moving blocks).

The exit area had a huge logo and several enormous tiger murals that had nothing to do with the show itself and everything to do with the corporate mascot. And then there's the post show:

Yes it was across the path in Communicore (bad design or pure afterthought, I'm sure Martin could elaborate)but they directed you there as you exited.

 

[RSoxNo1]

At this point, the amount of pressure on this attraction to be great is tremendous.

At both the 2017 and 2019 D23 Expo's Bob Chapek talked about how guests wanted more things in the park for families. I reject that premise outright. EPCOT has more to do for families than any park other than the Magic Kingdom. The problem is, there is a ton of mediocrity there. Adding Ratatouille helps but I wouldn't put Ratatouille or any other current EPCOT attraction in the top 10 attractions at WDW. It has depth in its attraction lineup, but not strength.

Bringing this back to Cosmic Rewind, that puts all of the pressure on Cosmic Rewind... a roller coaster... to be the attraction that makes the park more family friendly? I don't buy it.

 

[Epcot82Guy]

At this point, the amount of pressure on this attraction to be great is tremendous.

At both the 2017 and 2019 D23 Expo's Bob Chapek talked about how guests wanted more things in the park for families. I reject that premise outright. EPCOT has more to do for families than any park other than the Magic Kingdom. The problem is, there is a ton of mediocrity there. Adding Ratatouille helps but I wouldn't put Ratatouille or any other current EPCOT attraction in the top 10 attractions at WDW. It has depth in its attraction lineup, but not strength.

Bringing this back to Cosmic Rewind, that puts all of the pressure on Cosmic Rewind... a roller coaster... to be the attraction that makes the park more family friendly? I don't buy it.

It's modern Disney. Of course you buy it. You have to buy everything!

 

[UNCgolf]

At this point, the amount of pressure on this attraction to be great is tremendous.

At both the 2017 and 2019 D23 Expo's Bob Chapek talked about how guests wanted more things in the park for families. I reject that premise outright. EPCOT has more to do for families than any park other than the Magic Kingdom. The problem is, there is a ton of mediocrity there. Adding Ratatouille helps but I wouldn't put Ratatouille or any other current EPCOT attraction in the top 10 attractions at WDW. It has depth in its attraction lineup, but not strength.

Bringing this back to Cosmic Rewind, that puts all of the pressure on Cosmic Rewind... a roller coaster... to be the attraction that makes the park more family friendly? I don't buy it.

Spaceship Earth would be in my top 10 (easily), but I agree with everything else.

 

[flynnibus]

Right, but I'm talking about this reviewer in general -- their complaint about commercialism seemed separate from any complaints about corporate sponsorship, considering they seemed to have as many (if not more) problems with the World Showcase as they did with Future World.

I don't think any of the EPCOT pavilions really pushed the sponsor's products, though. At most they pushed them in a more general sense, as in Exxon was an oil company so they were promoting fossil fuels, but that would work equally well for any oil company.

i think if you were more familiar with the ad pitches of the 50s and 60s you’d see how blatant CoP for instance. Remember back then people didn’t know they really ‘needed’ this new gadget… the ad campaign was sbout how an electric xyz would change and improve your life. I mean… it’s pretty much the recurring punchline in every scene!

Epcot pavilions were very much brand pushes - especially in the post shows. WoM post show had new car models in it for crying out loud UoE pushed the company agenda and PR pitches for their industry. The film at Imagination was basically a giant kodak commercial as was its preshow. SSE postshow was all about the company’s services. The Land was the one i think where the commercial pitch was furthest removed.

yes WoM and SSE stories were not really product/brsnd specific - but the pavilions including post show were highly so.

the kind of marketing and scale of business disney was trying to attract was corporate marketing- not your individual product line stuff. Tho WoM did alot of that in their car exhibits

 

[flynnibus]

I believe there were some 1 hour waits in that era at Disney, but they were few and far between.

Hourwaits were common. It’s why the WDW evolution of entertainment in the queue in the 90s was such a big addition.

go watch the duration of the preshow loops for attractions like the studio tour. Or look at how big the queue space was for like rides like BTTF.

the biggest delta between now and then was the difference between low and busy periods - something disney has very successful eliminated. Second biggest is the percentage of rides with long waits. Many attractions now have significantly longer waits then they used to. But what was a long wait (1-2hrs) was still out there and common for popular attractions.

 

[flynnibus]

In UoE, besides the two signs in the pre-show area, the name Exxon is said exactly... once. At the beginning of the pre-show. (Exxon presents... with the tiger running towards you). The rest of the movie was about how energy moves from one type to another (and was projected on a screen made up of moving blocks).

The whole thing was like a giant API reel - pitching how critical their industry is and all the great things they do.

it’s like most corporate marketing- convince people your thing is needed and then make them believe you are the right choice for that thing.

the lay in 1979 think of exxon as the oily station on 3rd street. UoE sets the stage to think of oil companies as this global force evolving energy and saving the world. That they are more than a gas station and tanker trucks. That there is more to oil companies than ‘who has the lowest price’…. Who is making a difference? Here… it’s our friend exxon here….

just because they aren’t talking about exxon flags everywhere doesn’t mean they are pushing the corporation. Just tgey are doing it more discretely by selling you on their mission first, rather than the name first.

 

[UNCgolf]

i think if you were more familiar with the ad pitches of the 50s and 60s you’d see how blatant CoP for instance. Remember back then people didn’t know they really ‘needed’ this new gadget… the ad campaign was sbout how an electric xyz would change and improve your life. I mean… it’s pretty much the recurring punchline in every scene!

Epcot pavilions were very much brand pushes - especially in the post shows. WoM post show had new car models in it for crying out loud UoE pushed the company agenda and PR pitches for their industry. The film at Imagination was basically a giant kodak commercial as was its preshow. SSE postshow was all about the company’s services. The Land was the one i think where the commercial pitch was furthest removed.

yes WoM and SSE stories were not really product/brsnd specific - but the pavilions including post show were highly so.

the kind of marketing and scale of business disney was trying to attract was corporate marketing- not your individual product line stuff. Tho WoM did alot of that in their car exhibits

Oh I'm very familiar with 50s and 60s ad campaigns -- I think you misunderstood my post. I didn't say there wasn't any advertising.

I'm saying that kind of advertising doesn't bother me because it's background noise, compared to actual product hawking. I just don't mind that style of advertising. I also think it was almost completely removed from the actual attractions at EPCOT. The post show pavilions varied in how much they advertised the corporation, but even then, most of them focused on general ideas rather than any specific corporate products (WoM excepted) -- the Imagination Pavilion sponsor could have switched from Kodak to Polaroid or Fujifilm and I'm not sure they would have needed to change anything beyond signage.

Regardless, that's all irrelevant to my overall point. Disney has historically built better attractions without IP, regardless of whether they are corporate sponsored or not. As I said, I'd prefer to not have corporate sponsorship, but if that's what it takes to get the kind of great attractions they built at EPCOT, then I'd take it over the alternative.

 

[UNCgolf]

Hourwaits were common. It’s why the WDW evolution of entertainment in the queue in the 90s was such a big addition.

go watch the duration of the preshow loops for attractions like the studio tour. Or look at how big the queue space was for like rides like BTTF.

the biggest delta between now and then was the difference between low and busy periods - something disney has very successful eliminated. Second biggest is the percentage of rides with long waits. Many attractions now have significantly longer waits then they used to. But what was a long wait (1-2hrs) was still out there and common for popular attractions.

My point was that hour long waits only happened at headliners -- that's what I meant by few and far between -- and that they didn't generally get much longer than an hour (they also weren't year round, as you mentioned). The longest wait I remember seeing in the early/mid 90s was roughly 90 minutes for Splash Mountain, although I'm sure there were occasionally longer waits on the busiest days.

Now you regularly see 90 minute waits for headliners, and often 120+, and even some smaller attractions push 60 minutes. You wouldn't find many people complaining about a 20-30 minute standby wait now; that's not considered a long line.

The average wait time is much higher now, both for headliner attractions and smaller attractions, which is part of the overall capacity problem.

 

[flynnibus]

Oh I'm very familiar with 50s and 60s ad campaigns -- I think you missed my point. I didn't say there wasn't any advertising.

I'm saying that kind of advertising doesn't bother me because it's background noise, compared to actual product hawking. I also think it was almost completely removed from the actual attractions at EPCOT. The post show pavilions varied in how much they advertised the corporation, but even then, most of them focused on general ideas rather than any specific corporate products (WoM excepted). As for CoP -- you're basically arguing my point for me.

I don't agree - just because they aren't pushing model YZ-2031 does not mean they aren't product marketing when they are pushing the idea you need an dishwasher to an audience who still considering such things a luxury that no one needs to spend on. It's a difference in how you market products of new spaces vs commoditized spaces. It's still product marketing and just as much product hawking.. just about the product space/need rather than trying to push model X. They are pitching the product's value rather than listing models/prices. You can call it more subtle - but it's not as overt as say, product placement.. it's flat out trying to sell the world that these appliances are great and you need these in your life.

Contrast that with the idea of corporate marketing which is about establishing a image, feeling or reputation about your company and or industry. UoE was more of that... just like when you see ad campaigns today about who is pushing for zero emissions or hiring vets in expensive TV slots. That is corporate marketing trying to build a perception/association between ideals or things perceived as good and the company. It's about establishing/building a image you want people to associate with your name. UoE was about shaping public perception of what you do and it's value. Kodak was pushing the idea of essential and premium. WoM push the pitch of leader and innovators. Bell's was pushing the value to society and your life angle.

The companies were being sold on 10yr sponsorship deals... with attractions intended to run as-is during that time. You wouldn't try to do specific model stuff as it would require constant refresh.

You say 'background noise' - but I would say it's bias, positioning, and purpose was all still clear as day. The 'history lessons' being taught were with clear objectives and end-game.. not independent and objective. Sure you can say 'there wasn't product pushing' - but when the whole purpose and story of the thing is to push a corporate outcome... yeah I don't subscribe to it being 'background' or even subtle.

Imagination and The Land were the only ones that really detached the show portion very well from the corporate push. And the The Land more so because they were pushing the science side and food production and less about food processing/consumption. SSE I'd rank third mainly because they stuck so much to the idea of human dev and less about building to a certain outcome.

Regardless, that's all irrelevant to my overall point. Disney has historically built better attractions without IP, regardless of whether they are corporate sponsored or not. As I said, I'd prefer to not have corporate sponsorship, but if that's what it takes to get the kind of great attractions they built at EPCOT, then I'd take it.

I think that is a very difficult statement to get behind. It's very easy to fall into the trap of only looking at the successes that stand out decades later because they are the survivors.. the creme of the crop.

Certainly Disney has a history of creating new original content, even for the theme parks... but survivors like pirates doesn't necessarily mean that's the formula that should be used today as gospel. We see this in other industries as well...

 

[flynnibus]

My point was that hour long waits only happened at headliners -- that's what I meant by few and far between -- and that they didn't generally get much longer than an hour (and they weren't year round, as you mentioned). The longest wait I remember seeing in the 90s was roughly 90 minutes for Splash Mountain, although I'm sure there were occasionally longer waits on the busiest days.

And for the most part - except in extremes... you see that generally is about the same. Waits above an hour are considered a big commitment... then and now. And for major attractions, people readily will commit.

That was common then - and it's common now. One of the biggest takeaways from Disney from that early WDW period is how they made such long waits tolerable compared to what attraction waits had been in the past. The dawn of the themed queue, the covered queue, and the later evolutions of more video, etc in queues were so essential to diffusing the customer grief over waits. It was one of the biggest differentiators for Disney - people would wait 1-2hrs for rides at Disney compared to other places.

Back then people did the time because - well that's what it took. Disney diffused the pain with their ways of keeping you entertained.

Now you regularly see 90 minute waits for headliners, and often 120+, and even some smaller attractions push 60 minutes. You wouldn't find many people complaining about a 20-30 minute standby wait now; that's not considered a long line.

The average wait time is much higher now, both for headliner attractions and smaller attractions, which is part of the overall capacity problem.

When you talk about waits as seen as across the board vs what a typical wait is.. yes... but alot of that has to do with the general rise in attendance, and of course the other capacity points. I don't think it reflects anything on people's perceptions on waits - it's more an outcome of 'what visiting WDW means now' and that Disney pull still is great enough to offset the cons people see about the waits.

Today people do the time because - that's what it takes. We just dedicate a ton of effort to trying to minimize that time because there is more than one avenue to get to an attraction. Having those branching points creates the opportunity for people to spend resources trying to leverage it.

 

[sedati]

Regardless, that's all irrelevant to my overall point. Disney has historically built better attractions without IP, regardless of whether they are corporate sponsored or not. As I said, I'd prefer to not have corporate sponsorship, but if that's what it takes to get the kind of great attractions they built at EPCOT, then I'd take it over the alternative.

Thanks for stating your opinion, but it is one that baffles me. I'd rather have a pre-show where a holographic Rey tells me about the mission than a corporate slide show telling me about United Technologies. I'd rather hear that Lt. Beck is A.O.K than ride up a hydrolator whose narration reminds me again of the wonderful work of United Technologies.

I paid to go to Disney, so I expect to see Disney product. As some one paying thousands on a trip I'm clearly already indoctrinated, so am I really being sold anything?

There's are variations of a rather frightening quote that boils down to "give me the child and I'll deliver you the man." Basically saying that what you teach the child sticks. Selling a specific item pales before selling the brand. The children of EPCOT Center likely grew up thinking much higher of Exxon, Bell/At&T, Kraft, United Technologies, GM, Kodak, Met Life, etc than they would have otherwise and that's a great sale considering they were also the one's paying.