News Big changes coming to EPCOT's Future World?

[UNCgolf]

Eeeeeeeekkk swwweeeeekkkkk eeeeekkkk shassshhhhhhh

(the sound of dial up before you had to get off the phone line)

I'll never forget the dial up modem connection sound. It's seared into my brain for eternity.

 

[Mac Tonight]

Movies Anywhere. Netflix. Disney+. If the internet killed EPCOT Center then the idea of leaning into movies that are more accessible than ever makes no sense. You can experience your favorite movies anytime you want.

It doesn't make sense...

It makes cents. And dollars. Because that's all the people in charge care about anymore.

 

[Cmdr_Crimson]

After watching the DCA 20th anniversary documentaries recently still makes me wonder how Westcot could have been..

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

I agree wholeheartedly. Too often detail means any sort of prop or ornamentation regardless of its appropriateness to the story being told. We’d probably have people praising the new details on CommuniCore East if it was tarted up with a bunch of foam gingerbread trim.

Truly - so many recent Imagineering projects look as though someone was given carte blanche to raid a prop warehouse. Look back across time at what we'd consider to be the masterpieces of Imagineering and you'd be amazed at how sparse some of them are. Space Mountain is not densely propped, but it is appropriately detailed. And also very well-themed - imagine that.

More "stuff" does not automatically equal immersion. You've got to pick the right stuff, and the right amount of it for the intended guest experience. Restraint can be a virtue.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I agree wholeheartedly. Too often detail means any sort of prop or ornamentation regardless of its appropriateness to the story being told. We’d probably have people praising the new details on CommuniCore East if it was tarted up with a bunch of foam gingerbread trim.

Or covering it up in faux rockwork.

 

[FigmentJedi]

This excerpt of the unused Figment 3 pitch sounds like a better set-up for a Spaceship Earth update then the "Storylight" stuff they announced.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

Or covering it up in (hideously expensive) faux rockwork.

^Fixed that for you

No doubt the rockwork Disney is able to do today is drop-dead STUNNING . . . but the way it eats budgets and doesn't automatically translate to a compelling experience is a dangerous intersection.

Imagine if Mermaid in Fantasyland traded half of the rockwork on its exterior for landscaping that hid a plainer building and freed up that money for the interior attraction . . . I know money doesn't necessarily move around that way in a project, but if someone had made the call to spend less on rockwork and more on the last third of the actual ride I think we'd all have been better off.

 

[Cmdr_Crimson]

Imagine if Mermaid in Fantasyland traded half of the rockwork on its exterior for landscaping that hid a plainer building and freed up that money for the interior attraction . . . I know money doesn't necessarily move around that way in a project, but if someone had made the call to spend less on rockwork and more on the last third of the actual ride I think we'd all have been better off.

That reminds me of how Six Flags was "trying" to build a storyline with Dark Knight Coasters with a minimal theme. Entryway and a horrid plain box to hide the show building..This was just around the tailend time when Red Zone and Mark Shapiro was hoping to make the parks..*ahem* "Family Friendly" with it's really strange ideas..

SFGAm (grey show building on left)

SFGAdv (Show building oddly airbrush painted)

 

[bcoachable]

That reminds me of how Six Flags was "trying" to build a storyline with Dark Knight Coasters with a minimal theme. Entryway and a horrid plain box to hide the show building..This was just around the tailend time when Red Zone and Mark Shapiro was hoping to make the parks..*ahem* "Family Friendly" with it's really strange ideas..

SFGAm (grey show building on left)

SFGAdv (Show building oddly airbrush painted)

A for effort??

 

[montyz81]

As I said, the 1990s Internet was not remotely comparable to today's Internet. You couldn't get a lot of easy information back then the way you can now. Businesses were not reaching average every day people via the Internet until closer to 2005-2010. I've also been using the Internet at home since the mid-90s, but we are outliers; a large percentage of the United States didn't even own a home computer back then.

There are statistics that tell us as much -- only 52% of adults used the Internet at all in 2000, and only some of those people actually had it in their homes. That number was significantly higher among young people, but the fact remains that it was a different Internet than today. I think people forget just how much things have changed with regards to the Internet. The Internet of 1999 would be completely unrecognizable to someone in their early 20s.

The Internet as a place for businesses to connect to consumers individually (through ads and otherwise) is really function of broadband access (and modern social media, which also didn't exist back then). The US didn't cross 50% in terms of adults having home broadband access until 2007. The beginning of EPCOT's decline/change precedes the modern Internet by roughly a decade.

The numbers just don't back up the assertion that the Internet was the reason sponsorships stopped -- especially since some companies continued to sponsor well past that time. Beyond that, companies could reach far more people with a TV ad in 1995 than they could at EPCOT. I think the sponsorship model was doomed to fail eventually even if the Internet didn't exist, but as I said above, that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Disney doesn't need corporate sponsorship; they have plenty of money.

I do agree with you. If I can revise my stance, maybe the internet's possibilities influenced companies' plans to the point that they did not want to commit to 10-year sponsorships.

 

[lazyboy97o]

That reminds me of how Six Flags was "trying" to build a storyline with Dark Knight Coasters with a minimal theme. Entryway and a horrid plain box to hide the show building..This was just around the tailend time when Red Zone and Mark Shapiro was hoping to make the parks..*ahem* "Family Friendly" with it's really strange ideas..

SFGAm (grey show building on left)

SFGAdv (Show building oddly airbrush painted)

Is this really any worse than TRON, Guardians of the Galaxy or Ratatouille?

 

[brihow]

Is this really any worse than TRON, Guardians of the Galaxy or Ratatouille?

yes.

 

[_caleb]

Yikes! The Batman show building is bad.

Disney’s are taking the same approach with their newest rides, and are only doing it marginally better. But the net effect is the same (and most people don’t even notice or care).

Sigh.

 

[Cmdr_Crimson]

Is this really any worse than TRON, Guardians of the Galaxy or Ratatouille?

This is Six Flags were talking about....Also, I should point out the Great America Version. What they did is used a perfectly good theater venue, gutted out a seating area, used the first rows for a pre-show area and then moved you to the coaster in a box..

 

[Rich Brownn]

AOL used to send out those access CDs for free to anyone that wanted them. I have been connecting to the internet since about 1995. That's right about when sponsors started to slow down their support for rides in Epcot.

When people say Internet today they mean the World Wide Web (which is just part of the Internet, technically). The WWW came into existance in 1994 - and AOL did not access it at the time. Other than Email they were a "walled garden"

 

[Texas84]

but would it be on Mars???

Boca Chica, Texas. No details yet. Probably a beach resort.

 

[lazyboy97o]

yes.

How?

This is Six Flags were talking about....Also, I should point out the Great America Version. What they did is used a perfectly good theater venue, gutted out a seating area, used the first rows for a pre-show area and then moved you to the coaster in a box..

Yeah it’s Six Flags but they also spent a fraction of what Disney spends. I don’t recall their actual price but I would be surprised if, even after adjusting for inflation, that the Dark Knight Coasters cost more than $30 million. Guardians of the Galaxy is costing over half a billion and Disney gutted a perfectly good show building and still dropped down a huge box.

 

[GimpYancIent]

How?

Yeah it’s Six Flags but they also spent a fraction of what Disney spends. I don’t recall their actual price but I would be surprised if, even after adjusting for inflation, that the Dark Knight Coasters cost more than $30 million. Guardians of the Galaxy is costing over half a billion and Disney gutted a perfectly good show building and still dropped down a huge box.

Movement to operations in all weather venue's?

 

[brb1006]

This excerpt of the unused Figment 3 pitch sounds like a better set-up for a Spaceship Earth update then the "Storylight" stuff they announced.

And Figment 2 was just getting very interesting!

 

[michmousefan]

This is Six Flags were talking about....Also, I should point out the Great America Version. What they did is used a perfectly good theater venue, gutted out a seating area, used the first rows for a pre-show area and then moved you to the coaster in a box..

Not to mention that the "coaster" inside is pretty awful.