EPCOT New Park Entrance coming to Epcot

[ImperfectPixie]

You wouldn’t want to go through your home with a microscope. So, while it’s great to see zoomed in details like this, it shouldn’t be used to exemplify the guest experience as is so often the case on these forums.

Oh, I'm aware, lol.

The minute we see Spaceship Earth for the first time on a trip...at night...all lit up and beautiful...the last thing on my mind is how dirty it gets.

 

[Master Yoda]

I'm consistently shocked at how dirty the sphere gets whenever I see close-ups...it never looks that dirty in person.

Distance is your friend when it comes to the appearance of something.

 

[Brer Oswald]

We're also not in the "Year 3000" quite yet. Just you wait...

For the sake of the discussion, I wouldn't exactly consider Change a theme of EPCOT, but more a side effect of the theme. EPCOT's theme word is Discovery. Discovery leads to knowledge-based change. Therefore, I wouldn't exactly count change based on a person's whim as a central part of EPCOT, but change based on knowledge, invention, and innovation are exactly what EPCOT's theme intends to drive guests towards (in its truest, least IP-suffocated form).

The theme is (was?) focused around humanity. How we communicate (Spaceship Earth), what our minds our capable of (Imagination), how we use the planet we were given (the Land and the Seas), how we travel (World of Motion), what we could be (Horizons). Wonders of Life was added, and it was about the human body. You can’t get more literal than that.

The World Showcase was about human culture. So yes there was a sense of discovery in all of these, but it was us discovering more about the wonders of humanity than we even knew.

What is the park supposed to be about after this overhaul? How Disney franchises impact humanity? How does World Showcase connect to miscellaneous franchise land?

 

[UNCgolf]

What is the park supposed to be about after this overhaul? How Disney franchises impact humanity? How does World Showcase connect to miscellaneous franchise land?

About getting as much money out of your pocket as possible. That's the theme for all Disney parks!

 

[Brer Oswald]

About getting as much money out of your pocket as possible. That's the theme for all Disney parks!

Everything is an advertisement for merch! Especially the barges.

 

[Rich Brownn]

I would definitely argue that Epcot was about change, PLUS the other words you used to describe it. Inspiration leads to change.

• "Experimental Prototype Community of TOMORROW"
• "FUTURE World" - The changes and future of technology, living, and earth.
• Spaceship Earth: (After numerous scenes of how communication has changed over the years) "Today our search for understanding is unbounded by space and time. Vast stores of information, knowledge from everywhere, standing ready at our beck and call to reach us in an instant. With our great network, we harness our knowledge, give it shape and form to serve us, to help create and communicate a better awareness of ourselves, and our world." - The changes and future of communication
• Horizons: "And I'll tell you something ... if we can dream it, we really can do it. And that's the most exciting part." - Represented by the words you chose, but it also reflects on the future and changes of tomorrow.
• World of Motion: (After numerous scenes of how transportation has changed over the years) "We have engineered marvels that take us swiftly over land and sea, through the air, and into space itself. And still bolder and better ideas are yet to come."
• Universe of Energy: "In our ever-changing world, the road to tomorrow's energy is indeed long, complex and challenging."
• The Living Seas: Ya got me there, I guess. But today it's definitely themed around conservation and the future of keeping the ocean healthy, listen to Crush.
• Kitchen Kabaret: Encouraging people to change their eating habits and be more healthy in the future.
• Listen to the Land: Educating people on different environments, while also showing people how farming has changed and evolved overtime, up to modern day.
• Symbiosis: Focusing on preservation of the earth: "It is in our power to address these issues... ect." Encouraging people to change the issues and ways we affect the environment.

I'm just saying... Even my 72 year old dad who visited Epcot on opening day just told me yesterday, "Epcot Center was the most amazing thing... My friends and I would go to Magic Kingdom and immediately want to go back over to Epcot Center. And the problem with it is, all of that advancement of technology is here today, and it's just kind of... There. Everything they predicted, happened. What was spectacular back then is just sort of ho-hum today... So I understand why they're putting the movies and stuff there. It doesn't get outdated as quickly, and it's not quite as boring."

The pavillions at EPCOT for the most part were designed to be updated easily if they wanted. Energy, The Land, and WoL either mad film/post-show displays that could be swapped out. Imagination was more or less timeless. The Seas displays could be updated easily. Spaceship Earth's decent has been. That's because most of the rides were set in the past leading up to the future. The only one that could not have been updated easily was Horizons, but the post-IMAX section was always set in the way distant future anyways.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

Distance is your friend when it comes to the appearance of something.

Absolutely. I've spent much of my life in the sign business...you wouldn't believe what some have looked like after a few years in New England weather even though they look fine from a distance (I once had to repair a wooden sign that was so rotted from the inside-out thanks to construction that allowed water to get inside that I could literally poke my finger through the surface).

 

[WondersOfLife]

The pavillions at EPCOT for the most part were designed to be updated easily if they wanted. Energy, The Land, and WoL either mad film/post-show displays that could be swapped out. Imagination was more or less timeless. The Seas displays could be updated easily. Spaceship Earth's decent has been. That's because most of the rides were set in the past leading up to the future. The only one that could not have been updated easily was Horizons, but the post-IMAX section was always set in the way distant future anyways.

Yep. As I said, they just didn’t want to keep up with it.

 

[sedati]

Yep. As I said, they just didn’t want to keep up with it.

Imagine you had an addition put on your home and it ended up costing far more than planned and ended up being far less than was originally proposed. And if on top of that everything that was meant to last at ten years needed extensive work well before, then you'd be hard-pressed to open your wallet so wide again.

 

[bpiper]

Imagine you had an addition put on your home and it ended up costing far more than planned and ended up being far less than was originally proposed. And if on top of that everything that was meant to last at ten years needed extensive work well before, then you'd be hard-pressed to open your wallet so wide again.

I find it hard to believe that the designers of Epcot didn't know that their attractions would need periodic refreshing. I would be shocked if they didn't even have a chart projecting what the refresh cycle timeline would be and what parts would need to be changed as they aged and what the projected costs would be. I sure would want to know these things before greenlighting them.

The difference is that MGMT at that time understood that its part of the cost of doing business. Just like a local amusement park knows that they need to do a major ride every few years and do small attractions in the off years.
If you stop investing, people stop coming.

The problem became that the new MGMT, (starting with later Eisner and continuing with Bob Igor) didn't want to do the investment because they just wanted to keep using WDW as the Disney ATM machine. If you have to put back a $20 for every $100 you take out, your not maximizing your withdrawals. When the attendance started to dip, they created the festivals to get people to keep coming. Painting over the rotten wood that was growing. It wasn't until the festivals weren't cutting it anymore, did they realize that they need to put back into the ATM some of those twenties.

Compounding the problem is that the type of park that the Imagineers created as Epcot, demanded periodic updating. Magic Kingdom, not so much. Mainly just maintenance and capacity increases.
I would say that the studios is similar to Epcot, while AK is more like MK.

If you look at what they are putting into IPcot, you can see that its attractions with staying power so that they don't have to replace or highly rework them periodically. I would argue that they have done the same thing at the Studios, but still have some more to do.

 

[marni1971]

I find it hard to believe that the designers of Epcot didn't know that their attractions would need periodic refreshing.

They did. Life expectancy was up to ten years.

 

[UNCgolf]

They did. Life expectancy was up to ten years.

I assume a lot of that was for the pavilion overall rather than the rides themselves. I think most of the original rides would work fine today other than maybe needing to change the last scene or two. They certainly wouldn't have needed to change the vast majority of World of Motion (which was a vastly superior ride to either incarnation of Test Track), but the whole post-show would have needed an overhaul.

On the other hand, closing World of Motion did give us a few more years of Horizons!

 

[HauntedPirate]

I assume a lot of that was for the pavilion overall rather than the rides themselves. I think most of the original rides would work fine today other than maybe needing to change the last scene or two. They certainly wouldn't have needed to change the vast majority of World of Motion (which was a vastly superior ride to either incarnation of Test Track), but the whole post-show would have needed an overhaul.

On the other hand, closing World of Motion did give us a few more years of Horizons!

I’d have to think they they planned for the ride systems to be maintained as well. Or at least I hope they did. 40 years for SSE’s Omnimover is at least 10 years too many.

 

[UNCgolf]

I’d have to think they they planned for the ride systems to be maintained as well. Or at least I hope they did. 40 years for SSE’s Omnimover is at least 10 years too many.

Oh sure. I only meant actually replacing the ride or completely overhauling its content.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Oh sure. I only meant actually replacing the ride or completely overhauling its content.

Right, I knew what you were referring to. Martin's videos on the original EPCOT Center rides usually make mention of the ability to replace content, IIRC.

 

[UNCgolf]

Right, I knew what you were referring to. Martin's videos on the original EPCOT Center rides usually make mention of the ability to replace content, IIRC.

They probably do -- haven't watched any of them recently. I think the most recent one I watched was World of Motion but it was several months ago.

 

[sedati]

There's a reason the original proposal for World Showcase (at the TTC) had over thrity countries and EPCOT Center opened with eight. The fundamental financial structure for this massive undertaking had proven deeply flawed before a single shovel hit the dirt. Of those eight, only three had attractions. Of those, only one had a proper ride and that was scaled down and screen dependant. Shops and resturaunts did abound however- Paul Pressler learned his dirty tricks somewhere after all.
But surely once the park was open and everyone saw the great success and value of those investments, others would be eager to join in.

Surely...

The park was a glorious mistake. If you were lucky enough to see it in it's early days, treasure that mistake, but stop expecting it to happen again in a similar manner. Expect greatness- insist on it, but you're not ever getting 1982 back.
IMHO

 

[MisterPenguin]

I find it hard to believe that the designers of Epcot didn't know that their attractions would need periodic refreshing. I would be shocked if they didn't even have a chart projecting what the refresh cycle timeline would be and what parts would need to be changed as they aged and what the projected costs would be. I sure would want to know these things before greenlighting them.

The difference is that MGMT at that time understood that its part of the cost of doing business. Just like a local amusement park knows that they need to do a major ride every few years and do small attractions in the off years.
If you stop investing, people stop coming.

The problem became that the new MGMT, (starting with later Eisner and continuing with Bob Igor) didn't want to do the investment because they just wanted to keep using WDW as the Disney ATM machine. If you have to put back a $20 for every $100 you take out, your not maximizing your withdrawals. When the attendance started to dip, they created the festivals to get people to keep coming. Painting over the rotten wood that was growing. It wasn't until the festivals weren't cutting it anymore, did they realize that they need to put back into the ATM some of those twenties.

Compounding the problem is that the type of park that the Imagineers created as Epcot, demanded periodic updating. Magic Kingdom, not so much. Mainly just maintenance and capacity increases.
I would say that the studios is similar to Epcot, while AK is more like MK.

If you look at what they are putting into IPcot, you can see that its attractions with staying power so that they don't have to replace or highly rework them periodically. I would argue that they have done the same thing at the Studios, but still have some more to do.

OR... they thought the original sponsors would shell out a hundred million dollars or more every 10 years to keep the ride fresh just so they can have their name on the attraction.

Over in World Showcase, sponsorship worked because sponsors were running restaurants and shops and making money. In Future World, sponsorship was very very expensive passive advertising.

 

[lazyboy97o]

There's a reason the original proposal for World Showcase (at the TTC) had over thrity countries and EPCOT Center opened with eight. The fundamental financial structure for this massive undertaking had proven deeply flawed before a single shovel hit the dirt. Of those eight, only three had attractions. Of those, only one had a proper ride and that was scaled down and screen dependant. Shops and resturaunts did abound however- Paul Pressler learned his dirty tricks somewhere after all.
But surely once the park was open and everyone saw the great success and value of those investments, others would be eager to join in.

Surely...

The park was a glorious mistake. If you were lucky enough to see it in it's early days, treasure that mistake, but stop expecting it to happen again in a similar manner. Expect greatness- insist on it, but you're not ever getting 1982 back.
IMHO

Go on continuing to ignore that EPCOT Center was profitable and helped keep the entire company in the black.

 

[Brenthodge]

There's a reason the original proposal for World Showcase (at the TTC) had over thrity countries and EPCOT Center opened with eight. The fundamental financial structure for this massive undertaking had proven deeply flawed before a single shovel hit the dirt. Of those eight, only three had attractions. Of those, only one had a proper ride and that was scaled down and screen dependant. Shops and resturaunts did abound however- Paul Pressler learned his dirty tricks somewhere after all.
But surely once the park was open and everyone saw the great success and value of those investments, others would be eager to join in.

Surely...

The park was a glorious mistake. If you were lucky enough to see it in it's early days, treasure that mistake, but stop expecting it to happen again in a similar manner. Expect greatness- insist on it, but you're not ever getting 1982 back.
IMHO

Well stated. I was lucky enough to have experienced that “mistake”, and loved that “mistake”, but am clear headed enough to realize that yes, it was an experiment, experience, and product, not of even it’s time, but of about a decade before. It was amazing, but our world has changed. I do think there are more elements of its original ideals that could be included in its reimagining, but I totally see the why they are doing what they are doing.