Hopefully that was just an Iger principle, and hopefully as his creative ideas depart, the unrelenting idea that "every attraction in these parks are going to be based on a movie or going to be made into a movie" goes with him.
What people don’t tend to remember or realize is that initially when rumors spread of Journey into Imagination closing entirely for a Honey, I Shrunk themed darkride and that Figment & Dreamfinder would be gone entirely. People signed petitions & campaigned to keep the ride long before they changed it. Hence why Figment was shoehorned in at the last second it seems, particularly in the Your Imagination version. Course, once the backlash became a lot worse.. we got the ‘02 version we still have currently
In a sense, that last second addition of Figment almost added insult to injury. The 1999 version of the attraction essentially was the Imagination Institute idea, and only in 2003 did Figment return in any recognizable nature.
I've never seen that art! Was this proposed a continuation of Dreamfinder and Figment, or a replacement like JIYI (but far superior than that)?
Yup... IMO, still looks sterile, cold, overly industrial, and completely misses the point both in a visual & narrative point on what imagination is all about. It’s supposed to be about ideas and how new ideas are basically other ideas combined in unique & different ways to create new things. That’s what creates “new” things. I still can’t see how presenting Imagination through a strictly scientific view is an improvement when the original presented it in a broad, abstract way through most of all creative occupations/mediums.
Basically a higher budget/more high tech version of Journey Into Your Imagination. Which again, wouldn’t have fixed the drastically inferior narrative & overall theme. It just would’ve had possibly higher quality special effects & illusions really.
It couldn't have got much worse than what we got in 1999.
If it doesn't work, I expect EPCOT forever to return temporarily until Davison can figure out how to use the barges for a new ROE.
True! And actually.. Harmonious is seemingly ‘yet another’ example of how budget really doesn’t mean anything when the overall concept, “story” or narrative is a bad fit for the park and not executed properly. And on another note, let’s hope that a JII overhaul wouldn’t be “rushed” per say in terms of quality and execution. Granted, since the original ride is already planned out and basically most of it would just have to be rebuilt.. it’d be a lot easier, quicker, and thus cheaper to build. But it all depends really... we’ll just have to wait & see what happens.
I feel like PLAY! should be almost a modern DisneyQuest, and a proving ground to find what can work at a smaller scale, and what can't.
You make a good point.. but I honestly feel like recent merchandise sales & festival appearances have already well proven that both Figment (and Dreamfinder to a certain extent) are still completely viable characters, along with the Disney Kingdoms comic series which is being rereleased yet again in March. Now granted, I certainly wouldn’t put it out of the realm of possibility for that Figment VR related project to have a place in the Play Pavilion if it indeed continues construction as initially planned. He is an EPCOT character after all.. but at the same time, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a Figment VR thing in the ImageWorks if it were updated? Those are just my thoughts on the matter atleast.
Yes of course, though I’m not sure the blind execs truly understand this enough to move ahead with anything significant. They’re so hellbent on everything being tied to the same few IP properties, mostly consisting of Marvel and Pixar, because they’re too afraid to take the smallest risk, when the solution is right in front of them. Baffling, I know, but it seems that’s the current state of things. If Figment has a more prominent role in Play whenever that opens up, I’ll feel much more confident in something being greenlit, but until then I can’t help but feel pessimistic about the future of Imagination.
Exactly this. No Figment/Dreamfinder, just JIYI with a proper budget and maybe a slightly different setup.
