jt04
Well-Known Member
The only things I feel sentimental about from FW are SSE, The Land lobby and the original campus setting and landscaping. They could replace anything else IMO.
Putting CoP in the spine would be awesome.
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What do you think of the EPCOT Central Spine redesign?
- Thread starter EpcotMark
- Start date
The only things I feel sentimental about from FW are SSE, The Land lobby and the original campus setting and landscaping. They could replace anything else IMO.
Putting CoP in the spine would be awesome.
Jbres_
Member
(I posted this on another thread but thought this would work in here as well)
I think that something to take away from this Epcot refurbishment is as follows: The name stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. To me, this means that currently, the park is in shambles of what Imagineers thought a futuristic community would look like in the 80's. However, time has finally caught up with Epcot, making things like traveling; whether by spacecraft, by car, or by parasail, a thing of the past. Yes these rides are all thrilling, however they lack that vision of futurism and possibility the park was intended to have. At one point the park did have that spark to it, but it's become outdated; much like our TL in MK.
I think that, given Disney does this right, Epcot will have the same theme as it was originally intended to, an Experimental Prototype Community of what Disney hopes our future could possibly be from a 21st century standpoint, not a 20th century one.
From the Blue Sky artwork I can tell that while some of our favorites will be getting changes, they intend on emphasizing the idea of the future. Isn't that key to have a Future World?
With this new Future World in mine, GotG fits perfectly in my opinion because they showcase a ton of alien races, all living together in one way or another; that's a thing of the future. I think that in this new Epcot, Disney is going to try to showcase all the different possibilities of our future rather than a single generalized view distributed throughout the park. Now, what they plan on doing to the rest of the rides in Future World is unclear to me. But I think we need to trust Disney in their decision making process.
Besides, they've been building theme parks since the 1950's; in that time, so many attractions that were once beloved by so many have been re-themed and replaced by the attractions that we all know and love today. I think that they know what they're doing by now; if they didn't then why would all of us have such fond memories of going to the parks?
I think that something to take away from this Epcot refurbishment is as follows: The name stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. To me, this means that currently, the park is in shambles of what Imagineers thought a futuristic community would look like in the 80's. However, time has finally caught up with Epcot, making things like traveling; whether by spacecraft, by car, or by parasail, a thing of the past. Yes these rides are all thrilling, however they lack that vision of futurism and possibility the park was intended to have. At one point the park did have that spark to it, but it's become outdated; much like our TL in MK.
I think that, given Disney does this right, Epcot will have the same theme as it was originally intended to, an Experimental Prototype Community of what Disney hopes our future could possibly be from a 21st century standpoint, not a 20th century one.
From the Blue Sky artwork I can tell that while some of our favorites will be getting changes, they intend on emphasizing the idea of the future. Isn't that key to have a Future World?
With this new Future World in mine, GotG fits perfectly in my opinion because they showcase a ton of alien races, all living together in one way or another; that's a thing of the future. I think that in this new Epcot, Disney is going to try to showcase all the different possibilities of our future rather than a single generalized view distributed throughout the park. Now, what they plan on doing to the rest of the rides in Future World is unclear to me. But I think we need to trust Disney in their decision making process.
Besides, they've been building theme parks since the 1950's; in that time, so many attractions that were once beloved by so many have been re-themed and replaced by the attractions that we all know and love today. I think that they know what they're doing by now; if they didn't then why would all of us have such fond memories of going to the parks?
BlindChow
Well-Known Member
They're going to make Spaceship Earth a giant cube.
MaximumEd
Well-Known Member
Or a giant fidget spinner.
HMF
Well-Known Member
What you are describing is the premise of Tomorrowland not Future World. Epcot was designed as a showcase for the future not a literal depiction of it.
becca_
Well-Known Member
rocketraccoon
Well-Known Member
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
You aren't kidding! They didn't even get a spinner with the LEDs built into it. Now I see why those sponsorships were so important.
Man, Disney really changed the ride after Siemens ended their sponsorship.
matt9112
Well-Known Member
Sadly I never got to see epcot during the glory days my first visit was in mid 90s. And furthermore can't remember any of it. But when I look back at videos and stuff epcot used to be legitimately ahead of the curve. There were things and technology's that guests legitimately likely never saw outside of epcot. (The video reservation chat screen comes to mind) think about how long it took for video chats to become common place. The rides themselves showcased things you simply couldn't see anywhere else in earth and that's not really the case per say anymore. World class leading theme park to wine bar only took a few decades.
Brad Bishop
Well-Known Member
With regards to the first point, I think the larger problem would be the diversity of merchandise. WDW used to have a pretty broad and diverse merchandising system. You'd go to the Poly to find Polynesian items. You'd have a Magic Shop or some other unique shop. Even the Disney Stores, originally, had some pretty unique and interesting higher-end items in them.
Now, it's all about plushes, T-Shirts, hats, and pins. Yeah, there's some other stuff in there like mugs and magnets but the diversity of the merchandise was gutted and no longer did you get unique items in unique places. Everything's basically a plush shop now.
You still get some diversity in both food and shopping in World Showcase but that's about where it stops.
Regarding your second point: Yeah. Disney isn't about big ideas any longer. They're about IPs and what they can leverage (T-Shirts and plushes) from them. That's what it is now. Can I put a Frozen ride in so I can sell a Frozen T-Shirt? You can't put a Universe of Energy ride in and sell a Universe of Energy T-Shirt. Frozen's better. GotG is better. More plush. More plastic crap.
With regards to the spine: I think it's a great improvement. More trees means more shading. It'll feel less like a 1980s concrete jungle. I think it's a good move. I think that they could do something with the Communicore/Innoventions area and actually think it'd be great for it to be kind of a "Main Street" of Epcot with shops and dining but it becomes a problem with the first point.
I think that the idea of Communicore/Innoventions is basically dead. It hasn't worked out how they'd hoped and it kind of feels like a jumble of random in there when I've been in the past. Nothing about it really has ever drawn me to it except for the promise of what was inside. Once inside, I was always kind of disappointed with it. Perhaps in it's original incarnation with a Peoplemover whisking you through and some more concrete displays/activities (feeling more like a permanent fixture and less like a convention center setup) and it would have worked.
We're probably within 10 years of Living With the Land feeling like "it just doesn't quite fit..." When everything else has been swapped over to being IP based and LwtL is still sitting there, people are going to scratch their heads.
I should add: The central spine actually makes me want to visit the park. I know some of you probably have a hard time relating to that because you don't see it as an attraction but from the artwork, it looks pretty magnificent and I've always been a fan of Epcot during the F&G months. It's just such a great look.
The concrete jungle began in the mid 90s. Prior to that it was one great futuristic parkscape.
This proposal will end up looking more barren than it is today.
Bocabear
Well-Known Member
That is what I am afraid of... Spaceship Earth and then a whole lot of nothing until you get to the lakeside promenade... Just trees and kiosks. Shade is necessary and nice, but I don't think they need to gut the main design of EPCOT to achieve this... Freshen up and enhance the existing infrastructure... Removing the Fountain Of Nations bottleneck and creating the grander fountainscape in the lagoon will do wonders for opening things up... Repurpose Communicore buildings as a 22nd century cityscape...Main Street of the future with shops restaurants, an expanded Disney museum...they could fill a whole building with that alone if they wanted to...
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
I got a new render of it:
Oh wait, it was reality (hard to see in this pic, but @marni1971 's videos can give you a better view of the green space):
Too much greenery will make it be a forest with buildings awkwardly placed around it...like:
http://www./wp-content/uploads/2015/07/figment-4.jpg
Not trying to be a smart...mouth but the reason Epcot's in this spot is because they turned it into this mess. The original version could've held up if they would've done basic updates. They can add green space back to the park without turning it into a mess of random walkways with a crap ton of trees around them. It'll probably look like AK with some really neat buildings on the outskirts of a rainforest. Paint CC white with some off-white accents, clear out Innoventions and make it feel open and welcoming again, take away some of the extremely wide walkways and add some green where it was before, and snip the netting and bulldoze the pin booth (that can be moved to Mousegear or wherever). Done.
Sorry about the rant but my salt levels are increasing.
EDIT: And Brad, this wasn't an attack on you, sorry if it seemed that way. It was directed at the fact they neglected FW for so long.
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BenJacobs
Well-Known Member
If you look at this picture, what we thought might have been a shop or restaurant or cafe where you can go on the roof bit(with a gradual incline) I think might be a dolphin show(or something similar).
There are dolphins in the Seas pavilion, you don't really see them though, maybe this is a show for them. The stairs into the pool bit caught my interest(someone must go in), and the glass surrounding the upper area(to stop people getting in, if it were just a pond bit, they would have a lower rail, and seats on the upper bit to eat whatever you would have bought in the cafe), it's big enough to do a show(big enough pool, enough viewing area, on two floors).
So there you go.
Brad Bishop
Well-Known Member
I didn't take it that way. I was actually more perplexed by what @marni1971 said with relation to being cleared out in the 1990s and looking even bleaker in the new renderings.
The main difference I remember was the front entrance changing to the graves.
Nothing so grand.
If you look at this picture, what we thought might have been a shop or restaurant or cafe where you can go on the roof bit(with a gradual incline) I think might be a dolphin show(or something similar).
There are dolphins in the Seas pavilion, you don't really see them though, maybe this is a show for them. The stairs into the pool bit caught my interest(someone must go in), and the glass surrounding the upper area(to stop people getting in, if it were just a pond bit, they would have a lower rail, and seats on the upper bit to eat whatever you would have bought in the cafe), it's big enough to do a show(big enough pool, enough viewing area, on two floors).
So there you go.
It's a proposed maze.
And remember this is a blue sky proposal.
I meant the central plaza being paved over and the water and grass becoming concrete.
BenJacobs
Well-Known Member
No, the maze is to the left between the Land and Imagination pavilions. And I know this is just concept art, but it shows that they might be thinking of making one.
Trust me.