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EPCOT Big changes coming to EPCOT's Future World?

Br0ckford

Br0ckford

Premium Member
Smoother was some kind of silica that reflects light would look much better in this area. The exposed aggregate is yikes.
Maybe in another area it would look good, but not here in the middle of the park, that's just my opinion.
 
Disstevefan1

Disstevefan1

Well-Known Member
osian said:
This might be a hot take, but I actually like the look of that concrete and its texture. I think it works well with the paving. Unlike the plastic lighting covers.
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Its better than the unfixable, broken lights, screwed down with tapcons, curling up trip hazards that were there.

While nothing is as bad as Rocket Rods, this will go down in EPCOT history as the worst attempted renovation for that park.
 
Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
osian said:
This might be a hot take, but I actually like the look of that concrete and its texture. I think it works well with the paving. Unlike the plastic lighting covers.
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It’s probably fine when not zoomed in and when it’s all done but right now in the middle of the work it’s definitely funny looking lol
 
DreamfinderGuy

DreamfinderGuy

Well-Known Member
Touching on all of the 2019 plaza arguments...nobody will say it didn't need work. The 2014 paint job was horrendous, the millennium tarps were ugly, and the qsr/main gift shop were both stuck in the 90's. That said, saying it was lesser than what we have now is disingenuous at best. The Innoventions buildings were not empty at any point, they had large sections closed off for their final few years specifically *because* they were preparing for a large scale plaza overhaul that was canceled as soon as Chapek became parks chairman. It had to rot while they developed a new plan around a full park overhaul, which ended up being even worse than what they ultimately built somehow. The old plaza had everything the current plaza has except the Moana crap, yet the new plaza is lacking a show fountain and now ground lighting. The CommuniCore buildings had more than enough area to fit all the offerings the current plaza has and then some. We lost designated attraction space for the current incarnation.

People like to call the '94 plaza a "concrete jungle" when the current one has verifiably more concrete. There's no kinetic energy anywhere other than the occasional stage show that ruins the ambiance of everything in a 100ft radius. The rehab of the existing East facility is a little taste of what a good plaza overhaul could have ultimately been. A new coat of paint, opening up the windows, and leaning on brightly lit open spaces has breathed so much new life into it. That's the real 80's design intent that some people on these boards would be complaining about had the work been done 10-20 years ago instead of five years ago. We could have had the same thing with the West building and it would have cost the company less to do it, but people want to make up reasons why that wasn't possible that are verifiably false.
 
HauntedPirate

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
DreamfinderGuy said:
Touching on all of the 2019 plaza arguments...nobody will say it didn't need work. The 2014 paint job was horrendous, the millennium tarps were ugly, and the qsr/main gift shop were both stuck in the 90's. That said, saying it was lesser than what we have now is disingenuous at best. The Innoventions buildings were not empty at any point, they had large sections closed off for their final few years specifically *because* they were preparing for a large scale plaza overhaul that was canceled as soon as Chapek became parks chairman. It had to rot while they developed a new plan around a full park overhaul, which ended up being even worse than what they ultimately built somehow. The old plaza had everything the current plaza has except the Moana crap, yet the new plaza is lacking a show fountain and now ground lighting. The CommuniCore buildings had more than enough area to fit all the offerings the current plaza has and then some. We lost designated attraction space for the current incarnation.

People like to call the '94 plaza a "concrete jungle" when the current one has verifiably more concrete. There's no kinetic energy anywhere other than the occasional stage show that ruins the ambiance of everything in a 100ft radius. The rehab of the existing East facility is a little taste of what a good plaza overhaul could have ultimately been. A new coat of paint, opening up the windows, and leaning on brightly lit open spaces has breathed so much new life into it. That's the real 80's design intent that some people on these boards would be complaining about had the work been done 10-20 years ago instead of five years ago. We could have had the same thing with the West building and it would have cost the company less to do it, but people want to make up reasons why that wasn't possible that are verifiably false.
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And knocking down West completely solved the sewer smell problem, right?

Right???
 
Mr. Sullivan

Mr. Sullivan

Well-Known Member
TrainsOfDisney said:
I could of course reply with gorgeous photos of the fountain and fiber optics, etc.
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They were indeed gorgeous. I don’t think they were gorgeous enough to make up for how bad the rest of it looked.

It’s telling that when people say the spine was destroyed these are among the only things that get brought up rather than talking about the whole area.

The redo is far from perfect but some of you seem to really want to pretend that what it replaced didn’t need replacing which. The stance the replacement wasn’t good is one thing, the stance that what it replaced wasn’t in dire need of help is another (and much less defensible).
 
Casper Gutman

Casper Gutman

Well-Known Member
Mr. Sullivan said:
They were indeed gorgeous. I don’t think they were gorgeous enough to make up for how bad the rest of it looked.

It’s telling that when people say the spine was destroyed these are among the only things that get brought up rather than talking about the whole area.

The redo is far from perfect but some of you seem to really want to pretend that what it replaced didn’t need replacing which. The stance the replacement wasn’t good is one thing, the stance that what it replaced wasn’t in dire need of help is another (and much less defensible).
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I can look around WDW and find two dozen things that needed to be updated much more then EPCOT’s center. Heck, I think four of the Future World pavilions - possibly six - needed an overhaul more then the core did. Electric Umbrella needed an update, the smell in the store needed to be addressed, and the Imagineers needed to come up with something to put in the big empty carpeted areas in Communicore. It’s worth noting the big overhaul totally failed to address that last point.

Given the landscaping mess, the removal of the fountain, the lighting debacle, the DJ blaring Fergilicious, the intensely bland store, Ol’ Poopin’ Walt, and the empty “festival space,” - yeah, what’s there now is considerably worse then what it replaced.
 
Dreamer19

Dreamer19

Well-Known Member
Maybe this is somewhat unrelated, but since we’re talking about Epcot…

I visited a friend at the Wyndham Lake Buena Vista and she has a great view of the Walt Disney World panorama. It looks fantastic and was intended to - all of the distinctive features of the individual parks and resorts are visible above the trees. And thennnnn there’s Epcot.

This is why I don’t have much faith in modern day imagineering. It started with sight lines and it continues with Cars in the frontier.
 

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J

James Alucobond

Well-Known Member
Dreamer19 said:
Maybe this is somewhat unrelated, but since we’re talking about Epcot…

I visited a friend at the Wyndham Lake Buena Vista and she has a great view of the Walt Disney World panorama. It looks fantastic and was intended to - all of the distinctive features of the individual parks and resorts are visible above the trees. And thennnnn there’s Epcot.

This is why I don’t have much faith in modern day imagineering. It started with sight lines and it continues with Cars in the frontier.
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These aren’t really the same thing. Piston Peak will be fully themed in all directions, it’s just that the ride vehicles may be visible in places that some of us do not think they should be visible. Whatever happens will be intentionally onstage even if misguided, whereas with Cosmic Rewind, we’re just supposed to ignore the unignorable.

Probably an unpopular opinion, but if I were in charge, I would spend more than is likely advisable mitigating the exteriors of Cosmic Rewind, TRON, Ratatouille, and Island Tower. They do more to detract from my general experience than any single aging attraction or show.
 
tparris

tparris

Well-Known Member
Do we know why this process is taking so long? It cannot be that complicated to fill these in, unless there’s more to it that we don’t know about?
 

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