News Big changes coming to EPCOT's Future World?

[monothingie]

I do have to laugh at this. You're saying women don't appreciate Science, History, and Imagination? Those things should and can be for anyone, or at least most should have the literacy to understand a captivating presentation that really tells a story.

Think of the ambition of SpaceShip Earth. Telling the story of how we communicated from the dawn of civilization. That's powerful stuff and they execute in a fun and exciting way. Compare that to the story Nemo tells...

SpaceShip Earth is more ambitious. They're not even in the same ball park.

I'm not saying it, the crowds (or lack there of) are saying it. I am not going to argue on the merits of it, but historically the whole science/technology/history thing has been traditionally the foray of middle-age/older men.

Of course I'm sure all of this is completely irrelevant to present day guests who are wedged into their accessibility scooters and only want to know where the nearest place burgers are sold.

The whole idea of a world's fair concept of science/technology/history is lost on todays guests. Maybe in 1982 it would have been appropriate. (Even then maybe it was a decade or two too late) However, to push the idea in hopes of cultivating a different group or demographic of visitor is not realistic. Epcot is not a form of higher education. It is a place that should enlighten and expose people of all ages and backgrounds to new things, while at the same time keeping people entertained. Sticking with tired old ideas and mediocre ideas do nothing to solve the problem.

Going back to your comparison with Nemo, the story may be watered down (no pun intended), but it does gather a lot more foot traffic than its previous incarnation and the level of participation in the character overlaid activities beyond the ride is significantly higher. The park needs to adapt to be better. Compared to everything else at WDW and USO, Epcot is going backwards only held up for now by seasonal events. Disney could surely do better.

 

[monothingie]

I seem to recall some presence of characters in Epcot back from its early days?

At least they were mullet-free.

 

[FigmentForver96]

Guidelines shouldn't just change for the sake of changing or worse, because of the whims of those who see no value in themed entertainment beyond advertising.

I have gained the greatest respect for you sir

 

[lazyboy97o]

Two weeks ago the Themed Entertainment Association announced this year's Thea Award recipients. Fifteen projects have been recognized. Of those ten would qualify as some form of educational/edutainment experience and only two would be counted as more typical theme park entertainment.

 

[RSoxNo1]

They arrived circa 1984 IIRC.

I've got photos of characters in November 1984.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I've got photos of characters in November 1984.

The edict that themed entertainment must bow to film ultimately comes from Roy E. Disney and his scapegoating of the EPCOT Center in his coup against Walt Disney Productions.

 

[Miss Heinous]

Every single living thing that existed in the 80s that made this park unique is gone.
Spaceship Earth has been neutered, Universe of Energy altered, Living Seas replaced with Pixar, Horizons replaced with a spinning death trap known as Mission Space, and finally worst of all, Maelstrom..an original attraction replaced with...FROZEN.....The worst of the worst. Now Captain EO is gone soon to be replaced with more Pixar. Epcot is officially..a cartoon park. toontown 2.0

^^^This is all I can see when I read that.

 

[UpAllNight]

Some well implemented updates would go a long way in Future World. There's no need for Pixar everywhere, just some good implementation.

Imagination for an example was so inexplicably poorly done that it was perhaps the least imaginative area and ride we went on not just at Epcot but in Orlando. It was almost embarrassing as if Disney were trying to show their vision of imagination and THAT's the best they could do?

Universe of Energy's message needs bringing into the 21st century and innovations needs some....innovation. I'm sure it's been suggested before but if Disney can't be bothered to keep Innovations fresh they need to lease the space out to companies who will (if they already do, they need to do it better), give the space to companies that wish to showcase their vision for the future.

Space will always be interesting to people, yet Mission Space, a pavilion where it really shouldn't be difficult to showcase a vision of the future....has 90's television screens in the pods, when more and more people are sat at home watching Ultra HD. It's a small point, but it demonstrates imo the neglect of future world. Disney have taken great efforts to make Disney World interactive....yet I'm on a ride dedicated to space desperately pressing buttons that don't do anything.

Epcot to us was stale, dated and the most disappointing park we visited in Orlando. A far cry from how good we all thought it could be and judging from the legions of hurting Epcot fans, what it once was.

 

[SpaceMountain75]

I seem to recall some presence of characters in Epcot back from its early days?

Liked because I enjoy being reminded that these costumes were actually a thing at one point.

 

[Matt_Black]

Liked because I enjoy being reminded that these costumes were actually a thing at one point.

Yeah, the 80s were a weird time.

 

[Ralphlaw]

The unanimous verdict: Future World needs to be better.

The hard part: How?

Criticism is easy, very easy. The hard part is to put together an attraction within a budget that can do all the following:
1. Get people excited.
2. Put thousands of people through it everyday.
3. Not break down.
4. Hopefully, make people want to ride it more than once.
5. Be cutting edge.
6. Be topical (i.e., something big in the world right now, like green technology)
and, most recently,
7. Be adaptable. Allow for change, such as Star Tours, with different scenarios.

I still think an upgrade to Mission space would be amazing. You won't know until you're inside if you're going to Mars, a moon of Jupiter, an asteroid, or wherever. Even Universe Of Energy could randomly move from Jeopardy to Wheel of Fortune to whatever with just a new film. That's an obvious direction to keep it all fresh, and rumors are flying that Soarin' won't be just over California anymore.

In some ways, the early mission of Epcot, as a place to Edu-tain, is found in the after ride attractions. All the attractions other than Universe of Energy have places to press real buttons and bounce around after the main ride. It's too bad that most of the main rides don't quite accomplish that like they used to, but at least afterward some of that philosophy remains.

As for World Showcase, I'm not a fan of the 3 Cabbellaros, and I doubt Frozen will thrill me. Yet there's no denying that Maelstrom and the prior Mexican Boat ride were getting old and stale. I'm just not sure if screaming birds and big eyed princesses are the cure.

 

[gmajew]

I have said it many times to upgrade Epcot would be a three to five year job but it can be done very simple.

They can not have more then one attraction down at the same time so it is best to work on the worse first. So once Soarin is open they need to take down Energy or Imagination and upgrade those. Energy is a simple fix new movie upgraded story and fix the animatronics. As much as things have changed the overall message in this attraction is still right unfortunately we have not lived up to moving to those energies yet.

Imagination is a complete rip it out and redo it.... Something new and exciting... Sorry those wanting Dreamfinder back out with it all and a new original needs to be added. With current characters whatever it needs to be new and really push our imaginations.

Then you move over to Mission needs to be redone new simulators etc it is a horrible ride in my opinion one I skip every time I am on site.

Then during these you slowly work on innovations and get it back to what it should be. This though is critical but can be fixed very easily and cheap if they do it right.

I would think with the 350M that was suppose to be earmarked to the park with the HS deal they can easily accomplish the first two and should be able to do the third... If not energy redo seas but with 350M those three out of the 4 rides can be fixed....

But nothing is going to be done until Soarin and Frozen open... Not with Soarin closing for 6 months... Just won't happen.

 

[Eastonm7]

Personally I don't see anything wrong with Mission Space. It does exactly what it's supposed to do. Simulate a spaceship launch. Just because a person may get sick on it doesn't mean that every person that does it gets sick? It could use new screens and new paint on the inside. Also I love the idea of having multiple destinations but then that causes for a whole new pre-show. Mission Space should be very low on the priorities of things to change

 

[Incomudro]

Wow. These characters are really... uh... stylish?

Somewhere I have a photo of me and an Astronaut Mickey Mouse taken around 1992.

 

[Horizons '83]

Personally I don't see anything wrong with Mission Space. It does exactly what it's supposed to do. Simulate a spaceship launch. Just because a person may get sick on it doesn't mean that every person that does it gets sick? It could use new screens and new paint on the inside. Also I love the idea of having multiple destinations but then that causes for a whole new pre-show. Mission Space should be very low on the priorities of things to change

Personally, I can't wait for them to put a new attraction in its place. But again, I am biased since I don't like the ride haha

 

[Incomudro]

First off, LLAP!

Of course you're correct, I've made that same point as well. I don't have a problem with the park progressing, that's the mission of Future World. The problem is that they've totally forgotten that the point is to "edu-tain". The attractions should have evolved from their original designs instead of being diluted to the point of irrelevance.

There is nothing to learn from the Nemo overlay, or the Three Caballeros, or Frozen ruining the Maelstrom. It's just mindless toadying for families with small children, and there's already a park (a few actually) for that. There are so many great possibilities for everything in EPCOT, they just have to stop thinking of it as an extension of MK.

How do we edu-tain a generation raised on the internet who have a cel phone in their hands that is capable of the wildest techno ability we ever imagined back in the 80's?
Future tech is a losing race for a theme park.
In my opinion Future World would be better served by Wall-e, and Baymax beig worked into the old show buildings.

 

[Garfield]

How do we edu-tain a generation raised on the internet who have a cel phone in their hands that is capable of the wildest techno ability we ever imagined back in the 80's?
Future tech is a losing race for a theme park.
In my opinion Future World would be better served by Wall-e, and Baymax beig worked into the old show buildings.

Today when you buy anything electronic it's obsolete once you've paid for it. This is the problem the theming of Future World has had and will have in the future, you would need to keep re-imagining every few years or be so far out on the edge you are depicting life 100 years from now. Another option is to do a "Retro" Future World, focusing more upon the things of future past, what we thought the future was going to be like. Let's face it, a lot of those ideas still have yet to become everyday reality, such as the Jetson's space car, etc.

 

[Incomudro]

Today when you buy anything electronic it's obsolete once you've paid for it. This is the problem the theming of Future World has had and will have in the future, you would need to keep re-imagining every few years or be so far out on the edge you are depicting life 100 years from now. Another option is to do a "Retro" Future World, focusing more upon the things of future past, what we thought the future was going to be like. Let's face it, a lot of those ideas still have yet to become everyday reality, such as the Jetson's space car, etc.

That's why, for me - Test Track, Mission Mars, Soarin' is the way to go.
All (for want of a better word) Disney needs to do is re-do some of the show buildings Disney style.
A Big Hero themed, quasi educational ride in place of Imagination here... A Wall-e enviro - responsibility themed ride there...

 

[Chris82]

Today when you buy anything electronic it's obsolete once you've paid for it. This is the problem the theming of Future World has had and will have in the future, you would need to keep re-imagining every few years or be so far out on the edge you are depicting live 100 years from now. Another option is to do a "Retro" Future World, focusing more upon the things of future past, what we thought the future was going to be like. Let's face it, a lot of those ideas still have yet to become everyday reality, such as the Jetson's space car, etc.

I agree that focusing on the future is problematic for a company not eager to invest continually in upkeep, so if I were Disney I would think about refocusing. Even if the name is "Future World," the focus on tomorrow was never really the core experience for me. So merely adding in sci-fi characters or a "retro" future theme wouldn't fix the real problem - it might decrease the "obsolete" factor somewhat, but at the risk of increasing the "cheese" factor. For me, Epcot was always about the emotions of awe and wonder more than it was specifically about the future - I'd like to think Disney could come up with cool ways to deliver awe and wonder to guests, even if that means violating the "future" theme (which CAN be wonder-inspiring... briefly), and replacing with science, history, nature, or something similar. The "future" is a red herring, I think.

Personally, I don't need to see the "Vacuum Cleaner of Tomorrow" at Epcot. But I would love to feel awestruck and inspired, however that can happen

 

[Eastonm7]

Personally, I can't wait for them to put a new attraction in its place. But again, I am biased since I don't like the ride haha

I mean we're all biased. If we weren't then there would be no arguments on here and what's the fun in that? Like I don't like UOE so I hope something replaces it soon.