sshindel's Epcot Manifesto

[sshindel]

Editor's note
The following is a slightly modified version of a thread written in the Premium Members Lounge. I will be modifying it slightly not to change content, but because I don't want to cut and paste side-conversations with people who may or may not want me posting their content. The rest will be fairly straight cut and pasted from stuff I've written already, and hopefully, from there we can get into some really interesting conversations. I wonder how long this thread will live before it's locked away, and I am as well.

Editor's note part deux: This sucker is long. I will likely try and edit and paste a few large posts at a time. It may have fits and starts for a while, as new responsibilities at work are making it harder to post during business hours

Back in March one random night when my wife had book club at our house, which sounds a lot more like wine club to an untrained ear like myself, I started this thing. I've been talking about writing a manifesto about Epcot for years as a joke. A few beers into the night, I popped open a new thread in the PML and just started going. This thread has been an evolving thing. It's started as comments in various threads, which turned into a PM conversation, which turned into a PML thread, which is now turning into another thread. Next stop, lifestyler blog and free Disney swag!!! Well, tonight she's at book club again, somehow at a sushi restaurant. Must be a book based in Japan and the women all want to really get into the mood to talk literature!

Question: Wait, you mean you really are going to write a manifesto? It wasn't a joke?

Well, it started off as a joke. In fact, a few months ago, it still was a joke. An odd confluence of events started this in motion.

First, well, there was Norway. I don't think I have to explain that one (yet). That was a long time ago (in forum years). A group of us WDWMagic-ers actually somehow ended up being at WDW, at Epcot, on the last day of Maelstrom. This was pure happenstance, a trip booked months upon months in advance to run the ToT 10 miler.

Then, a good and honest question in a PM from @flyerjab asked to @George and I started me thinking more about Epcot again. Don't blame him though. I would have made it out of that extremely good conversation alive.

Then there was a random post asking about why all the good theme songs seemed to be gone from Epcot.

Then the rumor about closing Innoventions West. Next thing I know, I'm listening to the Epcot Entrance Area loop from 1982 marking down the timepoints that different pieces of attraction theme music are woven into the loop. A few hours later, I'm posting a massive Imagineering idea in the PML. Then here comes the manifesto train chugging into the station! Choo Choo Choo.
Today, some Epcot conversation in a different thread made me decide I wanted to put this out where people can read it, and then decide for themselves if they ever want to read or trust a comment from me again.

Question: Why are you referring to this as a manifesto?
As you can tell from this here opening post, I like to type a lot. Words upon Words. Less is not more for me.

Also, I couldn't call it anything else really. It isn't really organized. I get side tracked. Hopefully, some honest conversation among friends will happen, and will lead me in different directions. I'm also not a historian. I'm sure @marni1971 would/will be able to come in here and correct somewhere around a million mistakes that I'll make. I may do a little google fu if I really want to back up a point, but a lot of what I'm going to say here is/was off the cuff, based on my experiences, feelings, thoughts, ramblings, etc.

Question: Do I really have to read this? Just go to Disney and shut up.
Point taken. My feelings will not be hurt in the slightest if you ignore this, disagree with this, laugh at me behind my back, to my face, talk about me in PMs or in other threads. A lot of my rambling has been therapeutic in some strange way.

Question: Wont this intro ever end? This is longer than Ellen's Energy Adventure and much more boring.

Ok, without further ado, let the crazy begin!

Editor's note: I'm adding links to a bit of a "table of contents", so when you get overwhelmed by a wall of text, you can easily jump around.

Background
The Mission of Epcot Center
Soarin'
The Living Seas
Universe of Energy
Journey into Imagination
Communicore / Innoventions
Horizons
Mission:Space
The Land / Kitchen Kabaret
Urban Green
Spaceship Earth
Spaceship Earth cont ... The Pale Blue Dot
World of Motion / Test Track
Wonders of Life
Epcot Music
Hatin' on Festivals
Bad The Seas Concept Art Teaser
The start of the Imagineering
Festival Space in World Showcase
Where to put it
Inspirations for the festival space
You want to move WHAT?
Outdoor event space
Historical ties
Rounding out the pavilion
Wrapping up the Festival Space
A note on the above
A quick recap
Quick sidebar on the Mission
Updated Wonders of Life
Innoventions and the Urban Oasis
The Imagination Compromise
The Land
The Seas
Another Recap
Universe of Energy
Some odds and ends
Thoughts on the Sponsor model
Does Epcot have to be for "everybody"?

 

[sshindel]

Where to start? Honestly, this has always been my problem starting this thing. I come up with an idea, I start thinking it through, I go off on a tangent, and then, next thing I know, I'm in a totally different place than I started.

Let me start with a bit of a disclaimer. I know that I cannot fully separate nostalgia from fact. I know that my affection for EPCOT Center draws heavily from it's influence on me growing up. Unlike some on here, I did not live in Florida growing up, but we did travel to WDW pretty much annually. I remember my father getting tickets to the opening year of EPCOT Center in the mail, in a shiny envelope, beautiful tickets. Thankfully, he decided to save them and not use them, so some day these will hang on my wall.

We went almost every year, 1982/83 would have been my first year, meaning I would have been 6 or 7, and I went pretty much from then through to college, so basically I was there through almost all elementary school through high school. Those were some seminal educationally developmental years there, and I guess I was likely always inclined in the science direction anyway (thank you Star Wars).

So all that together adds up to one big nostalgic soup that does influence my thoughts no matter how hard I try and distance myself from them. There are places I'll try my best to be objective. There are places I'll rely strictly on emotion.

 

[sshindel]

Ok, Lets start with the biggie. I've ranted and railed about Epcot of today not holding up to the original mission of EPCOT Center. I've had questions about what I mean about it.

Stating the obvious, the EPCOT Center that opened in '82 is not what Walt had announced back in '67 (I think that was the year). His idea was an actual community, but one where both people and industry lived and worked together. Companies side by side, working on solving the problems of the future. City planning, transportation, medicine, etc. He wanted to build a utopia, something like a community living together on one of those crazy Google campuses out in Silicon Valley, but with more emphasis on urban planning and whatnot.

Here's a good Walt quote that speaks to his vision that I pulled off my book "Walt Disney's EPCOT Center: Creating the New World of Tomorrow"

EPCOT will be an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow that will take it's cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And Epcot will be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise
--Walt Disney​

Now, that was not what the company decided to move forward with in '75 after Walt's death when they decided to revive the plans for EPCOT Center. Gone was the actual community, but they wanted to keep as much of the spirit of industry involved as possible.

I'm no EPCOT historian, really. What I can reference really that speak to what they were trying to achieve I think I can pull from 2 places.

First quote comes from the dedication of EPCOT by E. Card Walker:

To all who come to this Place of Joy, Hope and Friendship
WELCOME

Epcot is inspired by Walt Disney's creative vision. Here, human achievements are celebrated through imagination, wonders of enterprise and concepts of a future that promises new and exciting benefits for all.

May EPCOT Center entertain, inform and inspire and, above all, may it instill a new sense of belief and pride in man's ability to shape a world that offers hope to people everywhere.

E. Cardon Walker
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Walt Disney Productions
October 24, 1982​

The other quote I fall back upon is one of my favorites. It's from that Walt Disney's EPCOT book I quoted from Walt earlier. It was put out by Disney at the same time Epcot was opened as a kind of publicity book, and it's filled with construction pictures, concept art, and it was put out before a few of the major pavilions were even completed. Horizons is spoken of in the future tense. There is a whole section devoted to the soon to be built "Africa" pavilion in the World Showcase. Anyway, the quote:

While entertainment will continue to be a highly visible attraction at Epcot Center, it is the underlying educational value of Future World that is it's most important contribution. Exciting, amusing, and fascinating as each pavilion is in itself, it is but an element of a project that may well be viewed as a springboard to our discovery of new worlds​

All lofty speak, I know.

The thing is, I didn't know any of this growing up. Heck, it wasn't until I found these here WDWMagic forums that I really looked into any of the above. But I knew all of these things. Not by ever reading the books or memorizing the quotes, but that is how Epcot felt. It dripped out of every pour of the park. It was apparent from the entrance to the exit. The whole park seemed to work together in concert that screamed that this was no ordinary theme park, it had a purpose. It felt (to me at least) that this was important, and that the future was going to be built by those of us where were visiting. I have no question that Epcot was a major player in my interest in the sciences, and was likely what drove me towards computer science as a major in college.

The topics it covered: The oceans, the earth, energy, transportation, communications, (later) the body. They all seemed like they were the pillars that were important to the future. There were two other pavilions though, and they always felt like they were the most important ones. Horizons, which was the future, and Imagination, which I felt was the linchpin. I know that at one point I went through the scripts of each original pavilion and noted multiple references to "dream" and "future" throughout them all. Both of those pavilions were among the favorite of most Epcot fanbois, and it was because they were truly something special.

Most of the old pavilions fell into a similar format. Through knowledge gained by understanding the history of a technology, and through the dreams we have for the future, we can work together to accomplish anything.

This brings me to something I wrote a while ago that I wanted to add in here and maybe expand upon:

EPCOT Center's Future World was not about "Here's the future, come look at it". Not really. Sure, there were attractions that presented the future (RIP Horizons), but Future World was about inspiring people to help build the future.

Yes, by the mid-90s much of Future World was outdated, and it's hard to remain on the bleeding edge of technology that is moving at such a rapid pace. But that was never the point! Update/remove/replace, it doesn't matter, but what Disney has done is remove what made the original place so special to people, and that is the feeling that we're all in this together, and that it's part of our mission, every one of us, to build the future. It wasn't "Hey, look at what the smart people at <insert corporation> are doing to build the future for you."

"If we can dream it, we can do it."

"Tomorrow's Child -- charting a brand new new way, for the future world is born today."

"For we welcome you now to take the first steps into that future. We welcome you to The Living Seas. We welcome you to Sea Base Alpha."

"We all have sparks, imaginations.
That's how our minds, create creations.
For they can make, our wildest dreams come true.
Those magic sparks, in me and you."

"Ladies and gentlemen, General Motors now invites you to share the challenge of the future. We need you to help us shape tomorrow's mobility."

"Energy, there is no living without you,
we must keep learning about you.
Now is the time to find how to."

"The seasons come, and the seasons go,
nature knows everything it has to know.
The earth and man, can be good friends,
let's listen so our harvest time will never end."

See how everything in there is inclusive? It was what WE could do, together, to make the future better. That is one of the things that I really feel is missing today. None of the pavilions inspire me to do more. None inspire me to look more into the topic being presented. Some really don't try to do anything at all (I'm looking at you Soarin' and Nemo).

 

[sshindel]

I want to get this one out of the way.

I don't like Soarin'. A few people around here know this, some probably know why.

No, it's not because it took the place of Kitchen Kabaret. While I miss that little show, as I understand it, Soarin' really didn't take it's place (more correctly, the place of Food Rocks, an inferior show IMO), the theater still exists behind the walls for the Soarin' queue.

My reason is something more esoteric petty.

I cannot get past the "Over California" piece. And here's the thing. I really enjoyed the ride when I rode it first in DCA. The difference is simply one of theme and intent.

I can't get past the idea that the film is one designed and intended for a park who's point was to display the wonders of California, in California. It's a "Come see the rest of California while you are here!" tourism film. The only thing is, in DCA, it makes thematic sense. That was what all of DCA was intended to be.

In Epcot, specifically in The Land, it makes almost no sense. Sure, by very nature of the attraction, there is "land" featured. Very pretty land. But, The Land was not about promoting tourism. The Land was about living with nature. The importance of agriculture, the importance of living in harmony with the Earth. Listen to the Land, Kitchen Kabaret/Food Rocks, Symbiosis (quick admission, I don't know if I ever watched Symbiosis), the Farmers Market. They all had themes specific to working with the Earth to provide food for our future, harmony with the Earth. Not look at how well we turned this beautiful landscape into a freaking golf course!

Now, would I like it more if it were Soarin' Over The World?

I will give it another try. Again, my issue is a little more than just "California". I don't feel that The Land pavilion was about showing off beautiful landscapes. But the California part will likely bother me less, that is for sure. It will make a little more sense to focus on the Earth as a whole and not just one state in one country.

Hmm... Do I put what I'd really like to happen here, or all together once?

Forget it. I'll put it here too.

I really feel that Soarin' needs to get the rumored completed Over The World film added. I really feel that the film should use the Star Tours technology to display an always changing array of wonders of the world. The world is to large, to beautiful, too unknown to a vast majority of the population (of the US and the world!) to be limited to one 5 minute film.

Also, I don't think it belongs in The Land. I think it belongs in World Showcase. Updated, this is a film about the World, which, I believe, is located in World Showcase at Epcot!

Currently, the queue that they had to build to connect The Land to the Soarin' showbuilding is long. Now that they are doing construction, adding a 3rd theater (more on that later), they should take this opportunity to place it in it's rightful place. If we're going to have to stand in a line a country mile long, let's move it so it's at least theme appropriate.
Here are two potential paths:

Now I know why I bookmarked "Walt Disney World" on Google Maps.

Either of those would be just slightly longer of a queue than current. It could lead out to a spot inside World Showcase. I like the idea of having it at the entrance to WS honestly, as it's about the entire world, but I also wouldn't want to cut out any of Canada's beautiful gardens to get it, so I'd accept it on the other side. There would have to be work in that case though in how to get supply trucks and equipment into Canada, but again, I'm sure this could be done. Go over, go under, it ain't rocket surgery.

Once Soarin' is moved, well, I'll get to that later. There would be a worry on my part that The Land would waste away and die, so we're going to have to do something to keep people coming there.

 

[sshindel]

I often find myself listening to the soundtrack to The Living Seas. I think I know what's next...


...until now scientifically impossible, yet there....
... A world we've only just begun to explore, with tools we've only just begun to imagine...

 

[Nemo14]

Ok, Lets start with the biggie. I've ranted and railed about Epcot of today not holding up to the original mission of EPCOT Center. I've had questions about what I mean about it.

Stating the obvious, the EPCOT Center that opened in '82 is not what Walt had announced back in '67 (I think that was the year). His idea was an actual community, but one where both people and industry lived and worked together. Companies side by side, working on solving the problems of the future. City planning, transportation, medicine, etc. He wanted to build a utopia, something like a community living together on one of those crazy Google campuses out in Silicon Valley, but with more emphasis on urban planning and whatnot.

Here's a good Walt quote that speaks to his vision that I pulled off my book "Walt Disney's EPCOT Center: Creating the New World of Tomorrow"

EPCOT will be an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow that will take it's cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed, but will always be introducing and testing and demonstrating new materials and systems. And Epcot will be a showcase to the world for the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise
--Walt Disney​

Now, that was not what the company decided to move forward with in '75 after Walt's death when they decided to revive the plans for EPCOT Center. Gone was the actual community, but they wanted to keep as much of the spirit of industry involved as possible.

I'm no EPCOT historian, really. What I can reference really that speak to what they were trying to achieve I think I can pull from 2 places.

First quote comes from the dedication of EPCOT by E. Card Walker:

To all who come to this Place of Joy, Hope and Friendship
WELCOME

Epcot is inspired by Walt Disney's creative vision. Here, human achievements are celebrated through imagination, wonders of enterprise and concepts of a future that promises new and exciting benefits for all.

May EPCOT Center entertain, inform and inspire and, above all, may it instill a new sense of belief and pride in man's ability to shape a world that offers hope to people everywhere.

E. Cardon Walker
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Walt Disney Productions
October 24, 1982​

The other quote I fall back upon is one of my favorites. It's from that Walt Disney's EPCOT book I quoted from Walt earlier. It was put out by Disney at the same time Epcot was opened as a kind of publicity book, and it's filled with construction pictures, concept art, and it was put out before a few of the major pavilions were even completed. Horizons is spoken of in the future tense. There is a whole section devoted to the soon to be built "Africa" pavilion in the World Showcase. Anyway, the quote:

While entertainment will continue to be a highly visible attraction at Epcot Center, it is the underlying educational value of Future World that is it's most important contribution. Exciting, amusing, and fascinating as each pavilion is in itself, it is but an element of a project that may well be viewed as a springboard to our discovery of new worlds​

All lofty speak, I know.

The thing is, I didn't know any of this growing up. Heck, it wasn't until I found these here WDWMagic forums that I really looked into any of the above. But I knew all of these things. Not by ever reading the books or memorizing the quotes, but that is how Epcot felt. It dripped out of every pour of the park. It was apparent from the entrance to the exit. The whole park seemed to work together in concert that screamed that this was no ordinary theme park, it had a purpose. It felt (to me at least) that this was important, and that the future was going to be built by those of us where were visiting. I have no question that Epcot was a major player in my interest in the sciences, and was likely what drove me towards computer science as a major in college.

The topics it covered: The oceans, the earth, energy, transportation, communications, (later) the body. They all seemed like they were the pillars that were important to the future. There were two other pavilions though, and they always felt like they were the most important ones. Horizons, which was the future, and Imagination, which I felt was the linchpin. I know that at one point I went through the scripts of each original pavilion and noted multiple references to "dream" and "future" throughout them all. Both of those pavilions were among the favorite of most Epcot fanbois, and it was because they were truly something special.

Most of the old pavilions fell into a similar format. Through knowledge gained by understanding the history of a technology, and through the dreams we have for the future, we can work together to accomplish anything.

This brings me to something I wrote a while ago that I wanted to add in here and maybe expand upon:

EPCOT Center's Future World was not about "Here's the future, come look at it". Not really. Sure, there were attractions that presented the future (RIP Horizons), but Future World was about inspiring people to help build the future.

Yes, by the mid-90s much of Future World was outdated, and it's hard to remain on the bleeding edge of technology that is moving at such a rapid pace. But that was never the point! Update/remove/replace, it doesn't matter, but what Disney has done is remove what made the original place so special to people, and that is the feeling that we're all in this together, and that it's part of our mission, every one of us, to build the future. It wasn't "Hey, look at what the smart people at <insert corporation> are doing to build the future for you."

"If we can dream it, we can do it."

"Tomorrow's Child -- charting a brand new new way, for the future world is born today."

"For we welcome you now to take the first steps into that future. We welcome you to The Living Seas. We welcome you to Sea Base Alpha."

"We all have sparks, imaginations.
That's how our minds, create creations.
For they can make, our wildest dreams come true.
Those magic sparks, in me and you."

"Ladies and gentlemen, General Motors now invites you to share the challenge of the future. We need you to help us shape tomorrow's mobility."

"Energy, there is no living without you,
we must keep learning about you.
Now is the time to find how to."

"The seasons come, and the seasons go,
nature knows everything it has to know.
The earth and man, can be good friends,
let's listen so our harvest time will never end."

See how everything in there is inclusive? It was what WE could do, together, to make the future better. That is one of the things that I really feel is missing today. None of the pavilions inspire me to do more. None inspire me to look more into the topic being presented. Some really don't try to do anything at all (I'm looking at you Soarin' and Nemo).

^
THIS!!! 1000 times!!!

 

[sshindel]

The Living Seas. This is a major rallying point of people against the "toonification" of Epcot, and a place where I think I differ from most.
While I hold The Living Seas in the highest regard, I have no real issues with Nemo being incorporated into the pavilion, or even becoming the focus of it. My problem lies with how it was done instead.

For background, The Living Seas as a pavilion when it opened in 1986 consisted of the following:
You would walk in, past the existing rockwork water feature with the crashing waves. No seagulls obviously, just the occasional crashing waves.

The queue wound through the initial portions of the current queue fairly similarly to what exists now, but as you walked, you walked past historical pictures and examples of man's exploration under the water. Graphics showing the design of early snorkles, or diving bells, actual early dive suits (the whole steel diving helmet, etc).

You'd walk to a section that served as a waiting area for a preshow film. Once the previous film moved along, you were put into a small theater to watch a short film, which I'll once again admit a deep and undying love for and bias towards. The film, entitled The Sea, in 8 minutes covered the creation of Earth, the creation of the oceans, the importance of the ocean to life, and the fact that we know next to nothing about them and are still discovering new things.



Pausing for a brief moment,as a child, this is the first time that any of this had ever even come into consideration for me. I had never thought about how the Earth was created. I had never thought about how the oceans came from rain. RAIN! There are so many lines that stuck in my head during this film, but the one that always had it's intended effect on me is "...waiting in a world where we've spent less time than on the surface of the moon." It was meant to convey the idea that there is so much there yet to be discovered, and it worked like gangbusters on me. I have an audio version of this film, and I honestly listen to it in my car when driving, and it still excites me. I just listened to it again, and I still have that feeling.

Once you left the film, with it's fade from a "computer drawn" version of a seabase and the hydrolators that would take you to it into the real video of them, you were ushered into another room to await boarding your hydrolator.

Now, that is an odd word. Hydrolator. I'm guessing they made it up for Epcot, but I have never researched it. Anyway, you boarded what amounted to a fake elevator. This was going to "take you down to Seabase Alpha". The floor shook, bubbles went up, the side moved like you were going down deep under the sea, and a minute later, the other door opened up and you were under the ocean. The effect was simple, and honestly stolen by Universal in the brand new Gringotts ride. You know what, as a kid, it worked like gangbusters to me. I don't remember how many years I truly believed that those things really did move, even if it was just taking me down a floor. My disbelief was suspended enough to really buy into the fact that we were on a seabase under the ocean, even if I knew it not to be true. You boarded a clam shell vehicle which took you on a quick ride into the Seabase itself, and it was kind of useless as a ride honestly.
Once you arrived in the area that now makes up the post-ride pavilion, it was themed to be an actual seabase.

The huge aquarium was not just an aquarium, but it was part of the show. These were windows out into the ocean. The little side alcoves had different things to see and do. I remember a little cartoon film in one that I used to love, with Atlas explaining plate techtonics. It was the first I leanred of Pangia, the super-continent. A lot is very similar to what exists now. Things to see, learn, do. Touchscreen computers, a section about undersea exploration robots and suits where kids could "get in" a suit and try and manipulate the pincer hands, etc. The main room had the big water tube, and divers would constantly be coming and going from there into the main aquarium space.
All together, it added up to one pavilion, one purpose. You were arriving at a seabase, which was being used to explore the world under the ocean. It taught and entertained.

So, we look at the pavilion as it stands now. We have the Nemo ride itself. The queue IMO is well done and fun. I enjoy the idea of walking down the beach and under the water. For what it is, I'm ok. I obviously prefer the history version, but I accept that the queue is well done for it's designed intent. The ride itself feels like an odd bird. It is telling some weird version of the original story, with Nemo missing again, taking us through a "greatest hits" of characters. The video technology is cool, but the ride just feels poorly made somehow, ending in that Blue World song that they used from the Nemo musical. It's an odd mix between a Fantasyland "book report" dark ride, but a different story, but a story that is a rehash of the film, but not the film... It just looks like they said "Well, what if Nemo got lost again and we asked all his friends to find him, but the little guy is just playing hide and seek so there is no actual drama".

The pavilion itself is ok, standard aquarium fare. I enjoy Turtle Talk with the kids, have no problems there really aside from the fact that it really doesn't tie into the story of the pavilion more than it's related to Nemo. The huge aquarium here though somehow feels like an afterthought to me, not the focus. Here you have a 5.7 million gallon aquarium that does not feel like the star attraction. I'll bet there are plenty of people that don't even walk out to the observation area.

What would I have done here?

I don't know. I can pinpoint what I think that the faults are in the existing attraction. I wish that undersea exploration were still the focus of the pavilion. I wish that it tried to inspire people to want to think about how we explore and use our oceans in the future. I wish that this pavilion is where they had chosen to partner with James Cameron on, as his love for undersea exploration is well known. Cameron could have knocked it out of the park.

Or if they really wanted Nemo, I'd be ok with it honestly. It is a masterful movie, it is beloved by people everywhere, and it has a tie in naturally. But instead of "Where's Nemo?", what if Mr. Ray was our guide taking us to a seabase where we could view his friends? Or Nemo himself? What if they took us through, explaining facts about the coral reef system, or things that scientists are studying in the oceans today. Post ride, we arrive at the seabase, which could be very similar to what we have now. The one change I'd make though is the massive aquarium. It was part of the show previously, and the sparse nature of the aquarium setting was that we were on a sea-floor outside a seabase. It was meant to look like an ocean floor, disappearing off into the distance as we looked out the windows. Now that we are focusing on Nemo, the most impressive part of Nemo was the coral reef area. Build a massive coral reef system in the tank, heck, you could do it only in parts and have some of the large area as "the drop off". But give us something impressive to look at in that 5.7 million gallon tank, and make it the star. Later here, I've got a few ideas that expand upon this.

I don't know. I know some of the faults of the previous pavilion as well. People just wanted to go see the fishes after a while. Most people were not like me, they didn't want to see the film for the 10th time, or ride the fake elevator. They just wanted to go in and look at the fish, which they eventually allowed for (allowing people to bypass both film and hydrolator).

Anyway, as I said, it's a tougher thing to say what should have been done than it is to criticize what actually was done, if that makes any sense. Mainly, I think what is missing is that sense of purpose. The previous version was meant to teach you about the ocean, while making you think "Why don't we know more about something that makes up 70% of our planet?"
The new one feels, to me, more like "come ride our ride and maybe look at some fish".

 

[sshindel]

^
THIS!!! 1000 times!!!

It really comes down to the crux of all my problems with Epcot right now. IMO, it's the one big fault that has caused so many of the missteps.

 

[sshindel]

]Let's see. I've hit Soarin', I've hit The Living Seas. Do I need to go attraction by attraction? Well, if this really is a manifesto, maybe I do. At least for a few more. I don't think I have reams of things to say about Club Cool, or how I preferred the Farmers Market to Sunshine Seasons. Those things are small.

A quick scan back through my PM conversations and posts shows I've not really tackled Universe of Energy / Ellen's Energy Adventure too much. I think I've touched on it occasionally. I honestly haven't really put a lot of thought into it (neither it seems has Disney.... ZING). Let me queue up the soundtrack to the original pavilion and see what will come out if I start typing.

The thing is, I'm conflicted about this pavilion. I think it's a very important pavilion. I think it's a hugely important concept. It may be one of the most important concepts in the next few centuries.

It surely has never felt that way at Epcot IMO. I feel that this pavilion was one of the ones that missed the mark, at least partially, in the original park. I also think that the current version misses the mark in the same way.

Talking about energy in the wrong hands can be a super dry topic. I'm currently listening to the original opening film. If I nod off I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooasdakjdhglkads

wait, what was that? Dang, I got drool on my keyboard

I know it likely isn't true, but I feel like there was a group of people at Disney that said "Hey, I love doing Dinosaur animatronics, can we do that in Epcot somehow?" and they decided on energy after the fact, then couldn't figure out how to make the transition, so they said, "Forget it, lets shoot a documentary and say that oil came from dinosaurs". No one then thought to themselves, wait, we're going to lock people into a 45 minute film with a few minutes of dinosaurs? Let's make the seats uncomfortable while we're at it.

I feel like the updated version with Ellen had it's heart in the right place. I'm all about Bill Nye in nearly any form I can get him. The film is semi-amusing, kinda educational, and bookends the dinosaurs a little better than the original film did. They were stuck with the ride system, stuck with the dinos, and did the best that they could.

It's just that neither version is/was really GOOD. Like, how many people do you know say "I'm going to Epcot, can't wait to ride Energy!"? None. Unless they are saying they are looking forward to sitting down somewhere out of the Florida sun for an extended period of time, and in that case, might as well just rebrand it to the Universe of Air Conditioning and put in all the benches that they've been removing from all over the park.

I think also that this is one of those places where the corporate sponsor model screwed them over. Exxon is going to tell us about Energy? Hmm... Does Philip Morris want to sponsor a reinvented Wonders of Life??? The new version came out in 1996. Wow, is that right? 1996??? There's nothing in the world of energy that really has changed since then, is there?

Ellen in Dream: Whoa! What about global warming?

Bill Nye: It's a hot topic, with lots of questions. And it's one of the big reasons scientists are working on ways to burn fuels, like coal, more efficiently than ever. Ellen, what do you know about gas?

Yup. Spot on.

Let me say that I think that original Epcot would not pussyfoot around this topic. Apologies to deniers, but Climate Change is science. If we're not dealing with the topic, we're perpetuating stupidity. I think that both UoE and The Land should be tackling this head on. No mercy, no apologies, and anything that doesn't is a failure of Epcot.

So, how to fix it? Really, this one I don't know. (note: I'll get to an idea I had on this later)

The pavilion has a fairly large footprint. A footprint that is currently being used by taking a massive series of cars around a corner from one screen to a second screen.

I think it's time to let go of the dinosaurs. Heck, Dinosaur at DAK could use a few more AAs. Just shove em in there.

I still think Bill Nye is the right choice. He is one of the country's premier science educators/communicators. He has the right mix of knowledge, language, and enthusiasm to work. Heck, I think I heard him say he is working on a book on Climate Change, I am willing to bet that he'd be happy to partner once more with Disney to bring this message to the public.

Call me nostalgic, but I think that Disney has also swung too far away from the dark ride edutainment concept that originally made up all of Future World. Ok, maybe having the following lineup could have used a little spicing up:
SSE: Long, dark ride
UoE: VERY long film with a moving chair
WoM: Long, dark ride
Horizons: Long, dark ride
Imagination: Long, dark ride
The Land: Boat ride / Cabaret style AA show with singing food / Educational film
WoL: Badly done Star Tours clone / great films
The Living Seas: Film, fake elevators, useless clamshell ride, and then an aquarium

So, lets find a way to create an entertaining, Bill Nye led exploration on energy and how we are trying to adapt to prevent global disaster. Given enough time, I'll bet I could come up with something, but I think it's time to post and move on.

Oh yeah, @George had said he had an idea for UoE as well, then never has elaborated on it to me, so maybe if he ever gets some time, he'll be willing to guest star in my manifesto.

 

[sshindel]

Hmm, I have one entry I need to skip here because I think I cover it better later, and I'll group it together. Let me see what is next.

 

[sshindel]

At this point, I was asked if I was trying to fit this into a sane budget, or was this all blue sky. Here's my answer:

Blue Sky baby.

I have no idea about budgets, how much any of this would cost.

I have an idea in a little while I'll get to that has an order of operations, so it doesn't all have to be done at once.

I'm not budget conscious in any way, personal or imagineering.

 

[sshindel]

Ok. I think I've got one more cut/paste/modify in me this evening before I fire up Borderlands 2 for a while before bed.

Imagination is such an example of a downgrade, and it's hard to understand what really went wrong, because it's hard to see why they decided on such a drastic change, and how it missed so badly.
Imagination was such a well done pavilion, from start to finish. It was one of the few pavilions that had an exterior architecture that was interesting, a well done outside area that played perfectly off of the pavilion, it had a spectacular dark ride, very recognizable and relatable characters, a Sherman brothers masterpiece of a song, a strong theme, an entire upstairs area that was just as fun as the ride, and then the addition of the theater outside to continue the fun. I mean, who as a kid didn't love watching the water seemingly hop back and forth between fountains, over your head, and looking up to see Dreamfinder and Figment coming

It's hard to find a good ridethrough vid of the original ride, and for some reason, Martin's ultimate tribute video says it's blocked for me (have not tried using Hola to fake like I'm in UK or something). I would link, but none of the videos I found do the ride any sort of justice.
Maybe if I link Martin's vid through here, it'll work?


I mean, the ride had such a great aesthetic, with the Steam-Punk Dreamfinder as your guide

and Figment, who was just ready made to be a beloved character.

The set pieces were really so well done

I've mentioned this before, but I always felt like the Imagination pavilion was the linchpin of all of Future World. With all of Epcot speaking about dreaming and building the future, the imagination really played such a large part in everything they did. Plus, I felt that this pavilion always really had the heart that I always associated with Walt, his spirit dripped out of these pyramids. The ride basically took you through all different things that could, as the song goes, spark the imagination. It made Imagination feel important.

In our discussion, @George said and I agree that I really think that this attraction could have just been upgraded slightly as the years moved along. Improve some technology, refresh a scene or two. As he mentioned too, the "turntable" scene, where your car continued to move along as you watched one scene, with Dreamfinder and Figment on the Dreamcatcher, was such a cool thing. I'm sure it might have been difficult to maintain or something, but I find it impossible to think that they couldn't have continued to update it with new technology to make it easier to maintain. The video clips and cartoon sections could be cleaned and updated. The sets refreshed. I think it would have held up.

I look at something like Peter Pan's Flight, a ride that has sets and technology which are stone-age compared to Imagination, and still commands lines, and I shake my head.

I think that the places that could have used the most updating, and could have continued to keep the pavilion fresh, was the upstairs "Imageworks" section. I spent untold hours in there as a kid, but with it's smaller station based exhibits, they could have just continuously been swapped out, upgraded, modified. If that section would have stayed fresh, it would have helped massively.

Another thing was the film. It transitioned multiple times over the years, but I think it was Magical Journeys, then EO, then Honey I Shrunk the Audience that have lived in there for 33 years. I think that if they would have continued to update and maintain the film in that theater, it would also have kept people coming to that area.

I'll admit that I did not see the 2nd version of the attraction. It was there such a short time and the backlash was so hard, they scrambled and replaced it in 2 years. What they have now is just a mishmosh, something that they could put together quickly after the massive outcry over it's refurb.

Something I've said in other threads is that this ride now basically teaches you the 5 senses. When do we learn that, preschool? 1st grade? How on Earth is that supposed to appeal to a large audience? It's a throwaway ride now. I don't think I've been on it in 4-5 years. I've skipped it on my last 3 trips in a row. Add that together with the completely shuttered upstairs area, the sparse version of "imageworks" that they have now, and the return of Captain EO, which (sorry George) just wasn't a great film to begin with, and also, I don't feel like they maintain the area outside the pavilion at all anymore. The glass pyramid is dirty, the fountains are chipped and I don't think operate. It's just sad what they've done.

While I think that it would actually be an improvement if they brought back the original, that is not what (in my heart of hearts) want them to do.

Disney has, in it's employ, some of the most creative people in the world. Just take Disney animation branches and look at the short films that have been created for both Pixar and Disney Animation films. Look at "Day and Night", "Paperman", "La Luna", for example. Now remember that they have Marvel. They have Lucasfilm. ILM.

I wish that they would create a task force out of some of these people. I've joked that I wish that they'd lock them in a room for a month and only throw in weed, 'shrooms, and pizza. Maybe that isn't the best idea, but I just think that they could create a team of people and tell them to create a modern-day Imagination pavilion. Then I think they should commit to building it to the best of their ability. I think they should revive ImageWorks into a modern tech-lab graphic design/video editing / whatever environment. I think they should get the outside working in tip top shape, and lastly, I think they need a new film to replace EO.

(Editor's note: Of course, just to prove I'm insane, this ^ is exactly opposite of what I propose to do later in this manifesto.)

In other words, this pavilion needs a major commitment of energy, money, and mostly, imagination.


and see how that last line would look on a blog? Lifestyler in the making!

 

[sshindel]

and with that, I think I'll break for the night.
If anyone actually has read this far,
a) I'm sorry
b) thank you

 

[sshindel]

Crazy Ranter's Note: This post was initially 3 separate posts, put together for ease of reading. This was initially posted right when the rumor came out that Innoventions West was closing

I've been thinking this morning a little about Communicore / Innoventions. The closing down of much of Innoventions is really odd to me. It seems like the place was such an afterthought, Disney management just figured out that they still had an attraction there because they couldn't figure out why their electricity bill was so high. I'm starting to feel like @ford91exploder here with all of these closings without even hinting at something being developed to replace them. It feels like they are just shutting them down to cut operating costs with no plans to open them up in the future.

I think that in part, both Communicore and Innoventions are not what this area needs today. Communicore was more effective, without question. It's open windows and light, it's big open areas with small sections devoted to little displays and topics, often raised or lowered slightly to break up the flat space.

Communicore to me felt like a science museum. The Museum of Science and Industry here in Chicago really is a good example of the kinds of things that Communicore presented. While I loved parts of Comunicore, SMRT-1, the touchscreen computers where you could build your own roller coaster with the help of a beaver who shared the same voice as Winnie the Pooh's Gopher. The bike you rode and tried to light up the lightbulb, the maze that was supposed to be a microchip. These things were fun to a kid. Still, they are all museum style exhibits, and were fairly static.

Innoventions, I don't even know what to say about it because I've spent next to no time at all in it in a decade or more. It was dark. There were Segways at one point. I know people liked Sum of all Thrills, which I didn't even know existed. It just was an afterthought in what is turning out to be an afterthought of a section of a restaurant and entertainment district.
...

Ok, where was I? Oh yeah, those empty buildings in the middle.

I am of the opinion, one that I have shared around recently, that this space should function like an expo. I use E3 as an example, but maybe not exactly like it. I think that the space should be opened back up to light, and bring back the open spaces.

As an aside, I went to this tech expo 8 or 9 years ago out at Navy Pier. I can't remember the name of it. It wasn't a consumer expo, not phones and PDAs and stuff. It was the first place I ever saw the mist projection tech that they use in POTC these days. They had this awesome medical machine that actually would project your veins on your arm in realtime. They had a VR thing that I didn't get a chance to do (line was too long) where you actually walked through a life size Pac Man maze, and the VR made it look like you were Pac.

I can't remember a whole lot of things I've done as vividly as I can this place.

That is the kind of thing I'd like Innoventions to become. It should be agile, changing often. It shouldn't be all consumer products. Show how technology is improving manufacturing. Show how 3D printing is helping the people on the space station actually print new tools that have been designed back on Earth. Show how important battery technology is to finally getting us off of fossil fuels for good. Sure, show some consumer tech as well. Work with large and small companies.

Now, there was that rumor of Big Hero 6 being a part of it. While I'd rather to stay character free, I'll admit that there are two possible ways it could be done well.

I think if it were presented either like the science fair where Hiro demos his nanobots, or the "nerd school" where his older brother and friends invent all their tech, it could be successful. Both could be done well and incorporate the ideas above while allowing the BH6 IP to tell the story.

...

I just want to add that whilst Googling around today, I finally figured out what that tech expo I went to that left a big impression on me was so long ago.

Wired NextFest 2005

Put on by Wired magazine, they did these from 2004 to 2008.

I found flikr groups full of pictures

 

[sshindel]

I think that at some point here I need to hit Mission:Space, and I don't know if I can truly tie Horizons into it.

Can we blame Mission:Space for the loss of Horizons? Is that fair?

Yes and no IMO.

From the beginning of the park, there were plans on teaming with NASA to make an attraction. In my Epcot book, put out in 1982, it talks about the collaboration. This was in the plans for years. I have to think that they had other plans in place for where this pavilion would go, my guess with absolutely no research on the subject, is where Wonders of Life ended up. So is it fair to hold this against Mission:Space? Probably not.

I still do though. What can I say?

Horizons was my favorite attraction in all of Disney. Horizons tops Tiki Room. Horizons (just barely) beats out Journey into Imagination for me. I'd ride it 1000 times over ToT and Everest. It was, without a doubt, the best dark ride ever made. The premise, the format, the execution. Everything was there. The ride vehicles were great, the two-part narration that you come to realize are talking to you about their family as the ride goes along. The theme was ROCK solid, it really couldn't get more on point for Future World than an attraction about the future. The motto was one of those things that sounds so much like a quote from Walt Disney that it gets mis-attributed to him all the time.

"If we can dream it, we can do it"

Starting out by looking at how the past thought of the future was a brilliant step. I mean, there was a Jules Verne AA figure! Robot butlers (though the robot chef was secretly my favorite of the two). The neon and jetpacks of the 50s. Going from that to amazing scenes looking at the future, involving farming the desert, a resort under the ocean (complete with school!), and a space station for more than just a handful of astronauts. Then there are the two massive omnimax theaters in the middle. The fact that there was such a continuity of story that in one scene you'd see someone talking via video-phone to someone, and the next scene you'd see the AA of the person on the other end of the line, with the video-phone now showing the person in the last scene. It was a brilliant visual. The hologram phones. The kids walking on the ceiling of the space station. All of it. And that is not even mentioning the "choose your own adventure" ending with a really effective film that somehow gave a real feeling of motion, without the ride vehicle doing any more than it did the entire rest of the ride. Walking out, past the huge "If we can dream it, we can do it" motto on the wall always inspired me. It was perfection. I mean, look at this stuff!

I mentioned this recently, but I find it interesting that when the attraction debuted in 1983, they were looking back to the 50s, which is at the most is 33 years back. Right now, in 2015, it is 32 years from 1983. If they were to make a new Horizons, old Horizons could be a scene in new Horizons.

So, that right there brings up an understandable weak point. They designed a ride that HAD to be updated. They did it with amazing AA and scene work. It wasn't just an upgrade from one screen technology to another. In order to update the attraction, they had to rebuild the entire series of end scenes. When the original designers built this ride, I know that they just assumed that it was understood that this would need to happen, and that they had no question that it would be done. It was more than assumed that they would be updating the attraction, it was just taken as a given.

So by the mid 90's when the blind optimism of the 80's gave way to the growing cynicism of the 90s, Disney had an attraction on their hands that needed to be basically at least 1/2 redone. I can almost understand their thinking. I mean, I mentioned it earlier. The park was full of long rides. Lots of long dark rides. Most of us Disney aficionados love that kind of stuff. The general public likely was not as into it as we are. So, they have lots of long dark rides and they have an attraction that needs to have major work to update it. I can almost put myself in the headspace it would take to decide to knock down the building and replace it with an "exciting" ride.

The thing that stops me though is the fact that IT WAS PHENOMENAL. It also was one of the three most important pavilions in all of Epcot (Horizons, Imagination, American Adventure). They took the "Future" pavilion out of Future World! They got rid of "If we can dream it, we can do it!" They took away the pavilion that was supposed to be what we were all striving for. I just can't ever fully understand how that decision made it past enough people to greenlight the wrecking ball.

And what did we get as it's "replacement"? Well, as we mourned the loss, at least we were getting a space pavilion! I mean, who doesn't love space?!? They got rid of the best ride in the history of theme parks, they have to have something amazing in the wings, right???

I'll get to Mission:Space in the next post in my manifesto.

 

[sshindel]

Mission:Space. How to best word this?

It just didn't do it for me. I've only been on it once. My wife gets fairly motion sick, and tried it one time and won't do it again. Now, this does not stop me from asking her to wait for me on some other rides. I'll leave her to go hit Everest if she's not feeling good. I left her behind with the kids to go ride Forbidden Journey. Mission:Space just didn't draw me in enough in the one time I rode it to make me want to go out of my way to ride it again. We didn't even go over there and ride it when we were on the PML trip. Now, it may change whenever my next trip is, because my dad took my oldest kid on it last trip and she loved it, so I may be experiencing it again in a year or two. Maybe.

And I love space.

Maybe it's just that I was dreaming of something totally different when I thought about a space pavilion. Maybe it's because the ride doesn't have a decent post-show. Maybe it's as simple as Mars feels actually attainable, even though I know we're years off from sending manned flight there. I know I've had this discussion with @ScoutN before, and he's much more knowledgeable about the things that the attraction does, and gets right from an interplanetary travel perspective that we've not yet achieved. Knowing little details like that likely does add to one's enjoyment of the attraction, and I'm just not interested in mechanical things really at all, so maybe that reduces the attraction's impact for me too.

I think that the things that interest me about space deal with the infinite reaches of spacetime. Galaxies, nebula, giant gas clouds that are nurseries for stars, the search for exo-planets, dark matter. How some scientists got together in the late 70s and were able to do math, MATH, that allowed them to shoot Voyager, hit the trajectories needed to slingshot around multiple planets (which are orbiting at incredible speeds) to use their gravity to hit the exact route that they wanted. They had to calculate where these planets would be years/decades from the moment they shot it off, and hit the right angle to slingshot instead of crash. That is mind-boggling to me. Those are the kinds of things that really get me excited.

And for some reason, Mars just seems so... anticlimactic somehow. I know the moment we land human beings on Mars, I'll be so exited. The thing is, I just assume that it is going to happen given a few years, so it just doesn't have the grandeur to me to really excite me.

But it's a "thrill ride". It's not a long, dark ride. It gave some variety to the park. I'm just disappointed in it. It's not the space pavilion that I feel Epcot deserves.

Once again, it's hard to say what they should have done, or should do. I just don't see them taking that ride down. It's too new, it give the park variety and has appeal to guests who just want to ride rides and not think too much.

Note: I'm not saying that you have to not want to think to enjoy the attraction, I don't believe that. What I'm trying to say is that for a subsection of guests who don't want to think, they can enjoy the ride that exists there without being asked to engage too much with it.

I'm likely going to elaborate on this a little more later, when I get into a version of a plan that I had, but I'll touch on it here.

@Bob brought him up in the PML, but Neil Degrasse Tyson should be given the keys to a space pavilion and asked to run with it. While we're here, I want to mention this so I don't forget it, but speaking of NDT, I want Ann Druyan to write the new script for Spaceship Earth. She wrote both Cosmos versions, and those shows have been the only thing that has been able to give me the feel that Epcot gave me for years and years.

I'd prefer to just re-do Mission:Space under his guidance, with a focus on the wonders of the universe. If we're going to keep the Mission:Space ride, I want a post-show section devoted to the rest.

It is why one idea that I toy around with is that IF we're not going to get a new, updated Wonders of Life pavilion (which would be my first preference), the showbuilding for M:S is really close to that of WoL.

The shape of WoL also has a very planetarium vibe. So, if WoL is never going to be WoL, let's build a connection between the two pavilions, and let's make WoL a massive space pavilion. Maybe a 2nd attraction, films, perspective on the age of the universe (the Cosmos "cosmic calendar"?), the search for life, all the stuff that an infinite universe deserves. Whatever it is, Neil Degrasse Tyson is the way forward with this.

Again, I'd still rather have WoL, but I feel that this is a good option as well.

 

[sshindel]

A quick one, because I've talked a little about the pavilion already.

I've mentioned about The Land's focus on harmony with nature.

Living with the Land is the attraction that is my current favorite at the park.

Sure I miss the wonderful theme song. I was just jamming it in my car yesterday. I don't feel that it is honestly too outdated all things considered.

I also miss the spontaneous nature of the live narration, but I get why they cut it. Also, live narration depends heavily on how invested the CM is on delivering it. My last few rides on the Great Movie Ride have been terrible due to completely terrible CMs. It was one of the things that actually really impressed me at USF, the guy doing Disaster I expexted to be checked out as well, and he was so into it, it made the attraction fantastic. So I get why the CM narration was cut. It's a minor loss.

I'd like it if the script was changed up a bit. I'd like them to go into WHY some of the interesting techniques in the greenhouse are being used. I shouldn't have had to find out from an episode of Star Talk Radio that in the US 80% of ground water usage is agricultural, and most of that is so inefficient it is wasted, and techniques like drip irrigation drastically improve the efficiency. That should be something I've known since I was a child looking at all the wacky growing techniques in LWTL.

The films need to be updated too.

I get why we no longer get to learn about nutrition from singing food. I'm one of the few people who's favorite thing in the world is musical AA shows. I get it.

Also, dietary fads are too pervasive and volitile these days. Over the years, you'd have people asking to get the bread group removed to focus on a more Atkins style diet, then you'd have people asking to add an Evil Mr. gluten, and then maybe a caveman explaining the wonders of the paleo diet... Ugh.

I know I just have my memories and music to get me through my need for cabaret songs presented by a hot AA host. Bonnie Appetite I love you!!!

I mentioned before, I think that Soarin needs to move its entrance, so if that happens, the former theater space is available. I think this space should be used for something, and I think climate change should be involved. Maybe while UoE focuses on the ways to find more sustainable energy solutions to cut down our impact, The Land could focus on the impact that climate change is having on the Earth.

I have no opinion on Symbiosis or Circle of Life. I don't think I ever saw either film.

I'm just going to leave this right here

 

[sshindel]

You know what is odd. I was just pulling up Google Maps to look at something about Epcot, and I see something that seems at odds with what I thought it was.

Is it just me, or does Future World feel like it's kind of a concrete wasteland with no grass or trees? I swear that is what it feels like to me, but as I look at the overhead view, I do see grassy areas and trees around the park.

Something I was just tossing about in my head was that I think that if Future World is reinvented, it really should be overwhelmingly green. And I don't mean that we're all forced to recycle and all that. I mean it should be a plant and tree wonderland. It should serve as an example of trying to integrate nature into cities. Stuff like the guy building a "vertical forest" in Italy:

or the green roof trend

or more forward looking examples:

I know that there has to be open areas to fit large crowds of people, it is a theme park, but I think that Future World should strive to represent the ideas that should be used in future design.

Obviously, I fall into the crowd that cannot wait for the Leave a Legacy to be gone. The entrance is just not grand enough. But think about how great DAK is at being a park full of nature, but still a park. Think of The Oasis and how great that area is. I think that Epcot should feel like an example of a futuristic green urban oasis. Get rid of the stupid canopy in the middle of Innoventions. Make that whole area a lush example of an urban garden, with the Fountain of Nations being a focal point.

I think that this would be a great direction to take Future World in. They already have interesting looking pavilions, but find ways to integrate nature into the entire area. Make Epcot an example of how cities in the future should be built.

 

[WondersOfLife]

I mentioned before, I think that Soarin needs to move its entrance, so if that happens, the former theater space is available.

I have no opinion on Symbiosis or Circle of Life. I don't think I ever saw either film.

Or like I have said in other forums... Convert the CoL theater into a new AA theater. Considering that it's already completely a theatre and that there's enough space to do this.

 

[sshindel]

I'll admit. On my way in this morning, I really thought the first thing I was going to talk about is World Of Motion and Test Track. Then, when looking for a podcast to listen to after I finished this week's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, I popped on Star Talk Radio and found myself listening to Neil Degrasse Tyson talking to Elon Musk and I realized I'm not 100% ready to talk about transportation and what should be represented at Epcot.

When I got to work, I opened up D-cot and started listening to the various versions of Spaceship Earth that they have. Am I missing where they have the Judy Dench version on there? I didn't see it. I was hoping to do a decent side-by-side comparison.
Editor's note: @Bob pointed out to me it is on D-cot, marked "Epcot - Future World - Spaceship Earth 2007"

Spaceship Earth is still a great Epcot attraction, even if it's only 60/70% of what it once was. The intent, the skeleton is still there. The idea of looking back at the history of communications is a great one. You can see how far we've come. I've got one suggestion about this that I'd like to try and remember to make in a little while. Note to self. Remember to talk about the thing. Ok. I'll remember.

Most people agree that the Jeremy Irons version was the best version of SSE. I think if I try and remove nostalgia from the equation, I agree. I still associate SSE with Cronkite, and still almost expect his voice to come booming out of the speaker of the omnimover cars as soon as we start ascending. What you had with Cronkite was only America's most trusted communicator. You trusted Cronkite almost implicitly. I think I was too young, or I went too often in the Cronkite years, to remember the Vic Perrin version, so it is really hard to compare that version. It was only around for 4 years before it was replaced by Cronkite.

I do think that the Irons version had a few things going for it. First, it had a score integrated into the narration, and it was a great score. It added to the mood of wonder that the attraction really creates. I think that the script was a little better as well, and the score and script both really built to the climax the scene at the top of the sphere where we are viewing Earth from space. That scene really felt like an amazing scene, pointing out the fact that on Earth, we're all really one "people".

An aside. Listening to some astronauts speak, the one thing almost all of them have in common is that they say when they go out into outer space, it really changes their perspective. The thing they all point to is looking down on the Earth and having that realization that states/countries/nationalities doesn't really matter. We're all one, all together, all living on this pale blue dot together. You know what? This is my manifesto. I can do what I want. I'm putting Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech in here. I'll put it in a quote block so you can minimize it if you want, but it's gorram relevant topic at hand.

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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

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That still gives me chills. It's also to some degrees what that crowning scene in SSE is meant to convey, and IMO, the Irons version did this the best.

I want to get to a whole post later about music, but I also want to note here that Tomorrow's Child, while likely outdated, really added to not just the message of this pavilion, but also set the stage for all of Future World. SSE was the first attraction that most people did when entering the park. Long before FP+, before sprinting to get a FP for Soarin', before people just wanted to get to WS faster to get their drunk on, SSE was stop 1 for most guests. You'd see it's line swell in the morning, and get shorter as the day progressed. With this fact meant that for a large portion of guests, their first impression of the park was built upon a global message, and a song about children building the future. IMO, this was important.

That leads to what everyone knows is the problem today with the attraction. The unfinished descent with the terrible touchscreen technology. Again, my manifesto, my opinion, but nothing lessens the impact of the pavilion more than a cheesy touchscreen video that can be done on a child's tablet these days, telling you about some repetitive and vague future. It sends you on your way with a silly and poorly done message. It destroys so much of what the rest of the attraction builds.

What should be done with SSE? Thankfully, here's one place where I'm likely not going to spend a bunch of Disney's dollars.

The attraction needs a new score, a new script, a new narrator, and a new ending.
I've mentioned this before, but I think that Ann Druyan is the person who should write the script for the next iteration of Spaceship Earth. If NDT is not too busy with his work on the space pavilion, he'd make a fine narrator. There are thankfully other people who could fill this role well if we want NDT to give all his focus to Space. I've thrown out Morgan Freeman before because I think that he's got that "trusted" voice that would work. Sir Patrick Stewart would be another great narrator (plus, a fun little nod-and-wink with the spaceship thing).
The score just needs to help present and build the material. It needs to build towards the climax and hit it's high-point when the ride vehicle hits that pale blue dot in the top.

For the descent, that is tricky. I mean, we went from the old lights and silhouettes of children running around to some additional scenes, and now, shoddy Jib Jab work. I am again, not an imagineer, so while I can brainstorm an idea, there are likely 100 that are better.

The one idea that I was reminding myself earlier to talk about was that I think it would be an interesting companion piece to what we saw above by pointing out the timeline covered by the attraction, to demonstrate how fast the changes have sped up in the past century. Show that long build between previous advancements taking centuries/millennia and today things changing on a dime.

Now, the potential issue here is the nature of what I just described. The previous update was done in 2008. Think of where we are just 7 years later. I think that this though means that we do need some sort of screen-based solution, and we need a commitment to update the content on the screens as soon as things change.

I was thinking potentially of a long, continuous screen that went the entire descent, like a long ribbon. This could be used to display a timeline, but a visual one. Show the distance between advancements, with action (cartoon/CGI? photos and video clips when applicable?) showing each advancement. As you reached the end, the sense of speed of advancement should really show (maybe even using the screen to trick the mind to think you are descending faster). Show these things to show how fast our global community is transforming it's methods of communications. This should be done to some new piece of score, or preferably, a new song (or updated version of Tomorrow's Child).

But, as I said, that is just one potential idea. Whatever it is, it needs to be finished, and it needs to not detract from the attraction itself. So, call up Ann and get her writing. Get some musicians on hand to start the scoring of the attraction, and start bidding on the best way to make it look like one long, continuous screen, or something else. This update is likely one of my only cost-conscious updates in my manifesto!

Editor's note: I come up with a better idea for the descent later, and it was right here, staring at me in the face. Ohhh... a teaser!