EPCOT Figment, well, to be replaced by Figment

[Pizza Moon]

Is it just me or does Imagination look like the Louvre?

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

Is it just me or does Imagination look like the Louvre?

one of the core inspirations behind the building’s design actually. Good eye

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

It in fact references the rose smell, but again, it does it in a disrespectful manner. Like “hey, remember when you smelled rose in this ride? Well too bad, you get skunk instead”. You actually see that switch happen in front of you. First you see a rose on the slot machine, then Figment comes in, dresses as a skunk and farts. Even the song lyrics “that’s how you tell a skunk is not a rose” does this. But honestly, slapping Dreamfinder doesn’t fix the core problem. If this video had Dreamfinder, it still wouldn’t make sense in how they get the creative process (the core concept) wrong. The ride & its show scenes still makes no sense anymore in comparison to the original. It’d basically be pulling the same stunt done in ‘02. Keep the lousy, controversial retheme, but slap Figment in, without understanding/blatantly ignoring his purpose and why he was utilized the way he was in the original, all fixed.
They need to just do the right thing, admit they destroyed it by reimagining it & doubling down on the retheme rather than restoring it back fully, and restore the show scenes back to what they were w the kind of tech & spfx enhancements we’d expect . It’s still mostly the same track and show rooms with the track leading through the opening scene & film finale covered up by the retrofitted current queue and downstairs ImageWorks area. It’s still underneath the hollow floor boards (you can even feel & hear it when you stomp on the floor).

To put this another way. Imagine if they’d screwed up the Haunted Mansion by retheming it to a High School Musical attraction calling it >Scary< Haunted Mansion. With little to no ghosts or anything to do with an actual haunted mansion, just silly “spooky” themed pranks between the cast in a bunch of classrooms. (Pumpkin colored silly spray, singing the Monster Mash, Dressing as black cats and meowing, etc. It, understandably, gets panned to smithereens. But a couple years later, to fix it, they retitle it ‘Haunted Mansion With Ghosts”. And just shoehorn the Hitchiking ghosts into it, now mischaracterized as rapping party goers that sing “Grim Grinning Ghosts” in that style, still looking the same overall but in badly rendered CG animation, and make a bunch of crazy stuff happen that make no sense to how they were designed or what the original ride was.

But then the solution, it seems, despite its large fanbase, huge merch sales, and status for being a classic in its original form, for whatever reason, to Disney or someone trying to save a buck at the expense of the whole experience & despite a 20+ year backlog of complaints from fans and it’s creators for doing what they did. Says, “Just slap Hatbox Ghost & Madame Leota in, all fixed” into the same lousy rethemed show scenes, not fixed, not understanding or taking into consideration why they were utilized the way they are or ‘what’ folks were complaining about to begin with. Folks hated the entire unneccesary retheme & changing the core concept of the ride. It’s not just missing characters

That’s Journey Into Imagination’s history so far. I swear.

 

[Pizza Moon]

one of the core inspirations behind the building’s design actually. Good eye

Just thought about it for the first time.

Genuinely EPCOT Center was sort of like Dubai or Singapore where you just have god-tier modern architecture in the 80s.

 

[GenChi]

I think for a largely unannounced 2 minute short it did pretty well! Was #2 for d+ shows even a week after debuting. Only good things can come out of it doing well outside its small parks bubble.

Cute! I wonder if it's a test for a new Figment movie?

Might be for a animated show by them. Last word was the film apparently got shifted to a show. We will see if anything happens (knowing him probably not lol), but I think it is needed if you are ever want to sell him outside the Florida parks.

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

I sincerely hope that future show or whatever project is ‘not’ mixed up like this thing was. Pretending things are what they’re not instead of collecting sparks of inspiration to recombine to create new things. Let alone a Figment of Imagination just being drawn w his elements out of nowhere, rather than thought up and combined organically to create him as it once was.. thinking him up was natural/ a core part of/an example of the creative process intially. And now they say it’s something else (pretending something is what it isn’t (literally, go watch it. My jaw dropped upon witnessing this). What ludicrous mistakes. And while that’s how the very blatantly unpopular Honey I Shrunk themed 02-current version of the ride that makes no sense in comparison, has gone somewhat, That’s not how the ‘popular/beloved’ classic ride nor song originally went. I’m absolutely baffled anyone (especially the ones in charge) is letting them get away with this with a blind eye. More people need to speak up and say that it isn’t correct/needs to be corrected.

 

[HMF]

I sincerely hope that future show or whatever project is ‘not’ mixed up like this thing was. Pretending things are what they’re not instead of collecting sparks of inspiration to recombine to create new things. Let alone a Figment of Imagination just being drawn w his elements out of nowhere, rather than thought up and combined organically to create him as it once was.. thinking him up was natural/ a core part of/an example of the creative process intially. And now they say it’s something else (pretending something is what it isn’t (literally, go watch it. My jaw dropped upon witnessing this). What ludicrous mistakes. And while that’s how the very blatantly unpopular Honey I Shrunk themed 02-current version of the ride that makes no sense in comparison, has gone somewhat, That’s not how the ‘popular/beloved’ ride nor song originally went. I’m absolutely baffled anyone (especially the ones in charge) is letting them get away with this with a blind eye.

I would need to see statistics to back this up but I have a hunch that more people are watching this short than even remember the Honey I Shrunk series.

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

I would need to see statistics to back this up but I have a hunch that more people are watching this short than even remember the Honey I Shrunk series.

Woah.. What?? How do you suddenly not understand what we’ve been discussing for a good few years now, Figment wasn’t part of any Honey, I Shrunk tv or movie series.
They quite literally, just slapped Figment from the original Journey Into Imagination ride into the reimagined ‘99-01 “Journey Into ^Your^ (added into the name for the redo) Imagination ride” that was Honey I Shrunk themed (that had little to no Figment & no Dreamfinder at all, which had Dr. Channing from Honey I Shrunk the Audience as its host, and didn’t make any sense anymore compared to its original 83-98 incarnation that ‘wasn’t’ Honey I Shrunk themed. (The 99-01 redo didn’t explain the creative process correctly, when the original 83-98 ride did) and was hated for that reason along with the fact all the other elements of the original ride were removed. Then they went and doubled down on the Honey I Shrunk theming in 02 while simply extending Figment’s role in it, in a way that made no sense, calling it “Journey Into Imagination ‘with Figment’, as a “fix”.

It’s the craziest thing in the world, yet the folks behind this new short, literally got the creative process, very clearly explained in the original ride, wrong in the new short, in a very similar manner as the 02-current ride. That’s what’s baffling. It seems they used the mixed-up 02-current ride as the core model to go off, clearly, when it should be the original 83-98 ride (and the new Golden Book they released in 2024, based on said original popular ride).

 

[HMF]

Woah.. What?? No, no.. you don’t understand, Figment wasn’t part of any Honey, I Shrunk series.

I know that which is why I would argue that the third version is likely objectively worse than the second version, Not that the second version was good (especially considering what it had replaced) but at least it was trying to be its own thing whereas the current version is two disparate ideas with two different tones that really have nothing to do with each other being forced together in a half-assed way and it shows. I obviously understand the history there.

Decline of a Dream

The Long, Slow Decline of Walt Disney World's Epcot

vocal.media

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

I know that which is why I would argue that the third version is likely objectively worse than the second version, Not that the second version was good (especially considering what it had replaced) but at least it was trying to be its own thing whereas the current version is two disparate ideas with two different tones that really have nothing to do with each other being forced together in a half-assed way and it shows.

Right, which is why I’m baffled & annoyed they’ve gotten the creative process wrong yet again in this new short (pretending things are what they’re not). And we know that mixed up 02-current ride also features Figment pretending things are what they’re not rather than collecting sparks of inspiration to recombine to create new things alongside the Dreamfinder. Even the new 2024 Golden Book gets the original popular concept perfectly right. Yet this new short didn’t. Its crazy. Why get it wrong when it’s literally right there, in a ‘new’ book. (And again, easily searchable online, and that’s not even getting into internal company archival materials to reference)

 

[HMF]

Right, which is why I’m baffled & annoyed they’ve gotten the creative process wrong yet again in this new short (pretending things are what they’re not). And we know that mixed up 02-current ride also features Figment pretending things are what they’re not rather than collecting sparks of inspiration to recombine to create new things alongside the Dreamfinder. Even the new 2024 Golden Book gets the original popular concept perfectly right. Yet this new short didn’t. Its crazy. Why get it wrong when it’s literally right there, in a ‘new’ book.

Again, unlike most of what has happened and potentially could still happen at EPCOT, I do have a feeling that the Imagination situation might actually be addressed in a positive way in the near future though admittedly I have been cautiously optimistic and subsequently disappointed several times before by now.