EPCOT Journey of Water featuring Moana coming to Epcot

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
It would seem kinda pointless and lame if guests cannot interact with it. It would basically be just a nice looking water feature with some tress. The interactivity element is the coolest sounding part about it.

Indeed that is true.

But tell me. With all the lakes and fountains that Epcot has (and had), which ones could you get close enough to to stick your hand in?

WDW's history with water features is to reduce them and cordon them off... With the exception of the eye blasters.*


*Water pad fountains that lure a child to look down into the spout and then blasts them in the face.
 
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Horizons1

Well-Known Member
Yep. Soarin’ and Wonders took the other two. The big blue box thing infringed on part of the ultimate build out plan.
Well, I doubt they would have done that build out plan anyway. They have no idea how to improve the footprint that exists now. There’s no way they could expand out that way with any sort of improvement with their current decision making.

Tragic, though. Just imagine an EPCOT Center where the park was expanded out that far with radical new pavilions that challenged our perception of the world with the hope of creating a better tomorrow for all.

...yeah, right.
 

DreamfinderGuy

Well-Known Member
Yep. Soarin’ and Wonders took the other two. The big blue box thing infringed on part of the ultimate build out plan.
Is that even a big enough pad to put anything useful in? Wonders and Soarin' were pretty big plots. There was obviously some room to expand between Space and TT, but that was for a restaurant, not a pavilion.
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Is that even a big enough pad to put anything useful in? Wonders and Soarin' were pretty big plots. There was obviously some room to expand between Space and TT, but that was for a restaurant, not a pavilion.
Funnily, the space between Space and TT wasn’t a designated pad. The three second generation pads would have been like Wonders, with comparatively narrow entrances leading to buildings set back from the others.
 

aladdin2007

Well-Known Member
Yep. Soarin’ and Wonders took the other two. The big blue box thing infringed on part of the ultimate build out plan.

I would like to see that one left (between land and sea) used for an actual attraction or pavilion, like it was intended...but cant help but think they would forfeit it as a new entrance/exit link to a new connected hotel that has been talked about so much over the years.
 

Haymarket2008

Well-Known Member
I’m torn on the Journey of Water. I suppose I need to wait and see A) how it is in person & B) how it fits in thematically with what World Nature will be. If they are going for a more mature yet mystical approach leaning into the sense of discovery as opposed to innovation, then I could see it fitting. It’s still too early to tell. Same with the whole overhaul, I need more substantive details.
 

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
I would like to see that one left (between land and sea) used for an actual attraction or pavilion, like it was intended...but cant help but think they would forfeit it as a new entrance/exit link to a new connected hotel that has been talked about so much over the years.
That plot was actually proposed to be the landing for the link bridge had they built the hotel in the middle of Futureworld.
 

Josh Hendy

Well-Known Member
It did. But since it’s a clone it had to sit back behind the pads berm. No one would want to see a metal box on the promenade.

At least not without taking a few steps back.
Am I correct in re-phrasing your comment thus?

"Because it's a copy-paste of attraction blueprints from a different park, (a) it must be pushed outside the berm, (b) a rather long, awkward approach path is necessary, with (c) substandard sightlines."

I'm going to call this "Tron Syndrome". Although truth be told, in MK Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain and Pirates all suffer from the syndrome somewhat with awkward kluges necessitated by the WDWRR. As does Soarin' at Epcot.
 

yensidtlaw1969

Well-Known Member
I'm fully aware of the opening day ceremony, only because I read about it.

Any guest that didn't read a backstory for that fountain would have no idea by looking at it that it was a "Fountain of Nations."

They could have called it "Fountain of Industry" or "Fountain of Knowledge" and it would be the same: just a fountain.

Did the fountain's shows cycle through the traditional music of the nations of the world with the colored lights showing the colors of the nations?

A one day ceremony doesn't *theme* a thing. The thing has to have the theme incorporated into it.
You could say that about almost anything in Future World - "Theming" wasn't expressed In the traditional way there. You could get that in World Showcase if you wanted. Were the pyramids of the Imagination Pavilion "themed" to Imagination? Yes, but not by the traditional definition. How many guests perceived just from their visage, without instruction, that the pavilion was dedicated to Imagination? And yet the theme was baked into their DNA.

Spaceship Earth looks more like a Golfball than any Spaceship I've ever seen - does that mean the "theming" of the structure is lacking?

If Future World made less sense as a result of guests not knowing that this was a Fountain of Nations then you could call it bad design. But it was designed with its purpose in mind and gave itself over to it, a keystone in the plaza of Future World but not in the theme of it; whether guests "got" it just by looking at it or not didn't detract from its success as a fountain or an element of the plaza. You merely gained more if you knew the truth of it. And its not like its name was actively concealed from guests - people knew it was The Fountain of Nations.

EPCOT Center was innovative in the worlds of design, Theme Park Design not the least of them. The truth of the matter is that the Fountain symbolized the collective of Nations beyond just its name and even beyond it's "theming" or lacktherof. EPCOT Center and its design engaged with reality in a different way than a Magic Kingdom. We know they didn't just build a fountain and decide for fun to call it The Fountain of Nations. Is JFK's Eternal Flame the same as the bonfire I lit in my backyard last week?

The answer is no - the dedication is meaningful, and the performance of that dedication is what initiates it into perpetuity. Had they called the same fountain "The Fountain of Knowledge" and didn't have any dedication of it or for it that spoke to that, then it truly would have been less than the same fountain, because it wouldn't have been christened with intention. One where the waters of the world flowed through it together and symbolically continued to flow.

Until they tore it down.
 
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