News Big changes coming to EPCOT's Future World?

[J4546]

I love the way the new Epcot looks and feels, imo its way better than the last iteration.
The new entrance area/fountain/SSE lighting looks great
The new core looks great
GotG is a great ride
Space 220 is awesome
The new Communicore store/food looks good imo, But I dont really care about shops so not a big deal to me regardless
JoW havent seen it yet but I think it looks great but I love walkthroughs
Rat/France pav expansion is great and adds a new ride to a corner that had nothing
and the new communicore plaza/stage looks good as well. Will be a nice outdoor performance space
Even the smaller things like the new Gelataria in the italy pavilion are good additions imo


as far as cancelled stuff goes, i waasnt too excited for the table and prefer the new version.
Mary poppins ride was gonna be teacups....not saying teacups arent fun but a MP should be a carousel at the very least so im happy it was cancelled
Play pavilion still waiting to see whats up with that.

Overall Im very happy for the last couple years of work that Epcot has recieved. It brought me back to the park after 10+ years away.

 

[Ayla]

I love the way the new Epcot looks and feels, imo its way better than the last iteration.
The new entrance area/fountain/SSE lighting looks great
The new core looks great
GotG is a great ride
Space 220 is awesome
The new Communicore store/food looks good imo, But I dont really care about shops so not a big deal to me regardless
JoW havent seen it yet but I think it looks great but I love walkthroughs
Rat/France pav expansion is great and adds a new ride to a corner that had nothing
and the new communicore plaza/stage looks good as well. Will be a nice outdoor performance space
Even the smaller things like the new Gelataria in the italy pavilion are good additions imo


as far as cancelled stuff goes, i waasnt too excited for the table and prefer the new version.
Mary poppins ride was gonna be teacups....not saying teacups arent fun but a MP should be a carousel at the very least so im happy it was cancelled
Play pavilion still waiting to see whats up with that.

Overall Im very happy for the last couple years of work that Epcot has recieved. It brought me back to the park after 10+ years away.

They're going on five years of construction, not 2.

 

[tparris]

Several of the trees in World Celebration are starting to receive Christmas lights, which makes me believe they’re trying to get the walls down (other than at CommuniCore Hall) for possibly the start of Festival of the Holidays? The out of focus photo makes it easier to see the lights.

 

[tparris]

Also, the lighting fixtures in the center around the EPCOT logo planter are fading between different colors this evening.

 

[DreamfinderGuy]

I just remember, however, when concept art was first published for the Epcot changes. The turn in mood on the forums was palpable. This was akin to messing with someone’s religion. I used to look forward to Martin’s posts in the past, his little hints that something was going to be happening - who can ever forget Tick…Tok in the Sorcerer’s Hat thread, or his jaw hitting the floor post about the changes to DHS. Classic. I was afraid that this would stop after Epcot changes were announced. And to me it seemed that they did. I felt that most insider posts sort of ceased when the walls went up at Epcot. The excitement kind of died here.

This is what I always go back to. For most of the diehard EPCOT fans here there was so much anticipation and hope for them to properly fix the park, but then when the announcements started and projects were confirmed that all went away. Everybody was all for EPCOT's renovations until we found out those renovations would strip away a large part of the park's identity. I feel like for people like Martin (not to speak on his behalf, simply by observation) the interest not only went away but even dipped into a noticeable disinterest. When you find out they're not doing anything of interest, naturally you end up caring far less about it.

 

[tparris]

The snack stand in between Imagination and the Land has been removed

 

[tparris]

So uhh, big oops at EPCOT tonight: the normal EPCOT Anthem show started playing on SSE, but the audio playing was from the old 50th beacon of magic show??? After the 50th audio ended, the show continued to play with the normal background loop playing. VERY strange that this happened.

 

[HauntedMansionFLA]

The snack stand in between Imagination and the Land has been removedView attachment 754927

Interesting. That place makes $$$$

 

[James Alucobond]

Interesting. That place makes $$$$

I'm sure it's just getting refreshed like the other kiosks. I think it was the last one left that didn't match the new neighborhood color language. They may have completely removed it in order to replace the pavement beneath it first, or perhaps it's getting fully replaced with one of the more modular box-like stands so that there's representation of that look in all three neighborhoods (at the popcorn kiosk in World Celebration, at the donut box in World Discovery, and now here).

 

[HMF]

Epcot is going to feel very different when this is done.

Indeed and not in a good way.

 

[RSoxNo1]

EPCOT, or at least the center spine, will look very different, but I think the problem is the park will largely feel the same after this "transformation," which is to say, dated and directionless.

SSE will still be mechanically obsolete and teetering on inoperability; The Seas continues to fade into irrelevance as Nemo does the same; Imagination remains an embarrassing shell of its 80's glory; WoL is indefinitely walled off and abandoned; and the festival table thing was so poorly conceived that they canceled it and half rebuilt what they had just demolished.

And in World Showcase, Poppins was canceled, the new China film seems all but officially dead, and Harmonious was an embarrassing fiasco that only succeeded as a tax write-off. Looking ahead, multiple pavilions will remain attractionless, the promenade will continue to be a cluttered mess of food shacks, and live entertainment is no where near the level it was a decade or two ago.

New trees, paths, and LED lights are more basic maintenance than anything else, and Guardians and Moana cost too much money and further underscore how management doesn't know what to do with this park.

After so many years of walls it's all so disappointing.

These aesthetic updates are a welcome change. What they don't do is solve the attraction lineup issues that still affect EPCOT. Outside of Cosmic Rewind, it does not have another attraction that the average guest would consider a top 10 attraction in Disney World. There's a lot of mediocrity in the attraction lineup and that needs to be the next step.

I welcome the Test Track update, but that pavilion probably wasn't top 6 in my issues with the current attraction lineup. The same is true of the reversion to Soarin' Over California. Great change, but it doesn't address the greater issues. SSE, Seas and Imagination all need attention, and realistically that should have already begun. In the 2017 EPCOT build outs pre-D23 Expo, there were budgets for all 3 and substantial budgets at that.

 

[HMF]

Watching the Disney+ Behind the attraction episode on EPCOT is absolute torture if you are an EPCOT purist.

 

[Bocabear]

Watching the Disney+ Behind the attraction episode on EPCOT is absolute torture if you are an EPCOT purist.

It really is...lol
Well...5 years of construction and little to show for it except we have gotten used to skipping EPCOT which used to be our favorite park. The parks are not fun to us the past few years...we just don't want to hassle with having to plan every second of our visit...Aside from GOTG, there is nothing new or fresh for us to experience there...just less and less... Fewer attractions, endless construction..it is depressing. I am hoping they turn a corner but it is not looking like that is going to happen.

 

[BagOfGroceries]

Honestly, I need to put in my two cents.
The Defunctland video shows why EPCOT worked back then… and the main reason why it wouldn’t work now. The current generation feels the concept of optimism is socially dead. Look around us. Everywhere on social media and in real life you have teenage and 20-something year old people who are doomers, who don’t see a future for our species, who want the instant gratification of now rather than any sort of planning for the future, because to them, there is no future. The original EPCOT concept appealed to a society and a generation that actually had hope for what the future will bring, and Gen Z and Gen Alpha, at large, does not have that hope. Disney may have abandoned the original concept in the 1990s, but it was truly killed in the 2010s, and for better or for worse, Disney realized that.

 

[_caleb]

I know many of us love Epcot, but I think if some of you are ever going to enjoy the park again you’ll need to take off your nostalgia goggles and see that Epcot was always more than the sum of its parts.

It was groundbreaking in many ways, but a similar aesthetic was incorporated into malls, museums, office parks, college campuses, elementary schools, etc. diminishing some of Epcot’s uniqueness.

Edutainment (my favorite aspect of original Epcot) is all but dead. They snuck a bit into Journey of Water and pretended to with GotG, but guests largely want to stare at their phones all day and don’t want to be bothered with learning, discovery, or thinking.

Epcot was a moment in time, and Disney abandoned it.

 

[DreamfinderGuy]

Honestly, I need to put in my two cents.
The Defunctland video shows why EPCOT worked back then… and the main reason why it wouldn’t work now. The current generation feels the concept of optimism is socially dead. Look around us. Everywhere on social media and in real life you have teenage and 20-something year old people who are doomers, who don’t see a future for our species, who want the instant gratification of now rather than any sort of planning for the future, because to them, there is no future. The original EPCOT concept appealed to a society and a generation that actually had hope for what the future will bring, and Gen Z and Gen Alpha, at large, does not have that hope. Disney may have abandoned the original concept in the 1990s, but it was truly killed in the 2010s, and for better or for worse, Disney realized that.

Disney is a big company with a lot of money, money they can easily use to change public perception. This generation does not have an optimistic outlook on the future because they are presented with nothing to make them believe it will be anything but worse than today. Throw enough kids on Horizons 2 and you change that. Will they do that? Absolutely not lol, it's more profitable to put the kids through something that will make them beg their parents for a plushie from the gift shop than have a vague sense of optimism. Not to mention it's also a lot easier, to make something like EPCOT takes way more work than anything they've done in the park in the last 20 years.

It's for the very reason that our young feel essentially hopeless that our world could use EPCOT now more than ever. It would take the force of a juggernaut like Disney to bring about any lasting social change, but they simply have no interest in doing so.

 

[UNCgolf]

I know many of us love Epcot, but I think if some of you are ever going to enjoy the park again you’ll need to take off your nostalgia goggles and see that Epcot was always more than the sum of its parts.

It was groundbreaking in many ways, but a similar aesthetic was incorporated into malls, museums, office parks, college campuses, elementary schools, etc. diminishing some of Epcot’s uniqueness.

Edutainment (my favorite aspect of original Epcot) is all but dead. They snuck a bit into Journey of Water and pretended to with GotG, but guests largely want to stare at their phones all day and don’t want to be bothered with learning, discovery, or thinking.

Epcot was a moment in time, and Disney abandoned it.

It's never going to be the park it once was -- it had both the best attraction lineup and the most interesting set of non-attraction things to do of any Disney park -- but I know that and don't expect it to ever be that again.

The problem is that despite all the construction they've done very little to make the current version of the park worth visiting for me beyond the remnants of what was once there (i.e., the reason I was already visiting pre-construction). I still love EPCOT for things like Living with the Land, Spaceship Earth, the aquarium (in its significantly diminished form), and the World Showcase, but many, if not most, of the other changes they've made in the past 20 years just aren't interesting to me.

I do think the new hub will be a big improvement over what was there before they started this project (other than the loss of the Fountain of Nations), and Journey of Water looks nice enough. Space 220, Cosmic Rewind, and the Ratatouille expansion all feel like varying degrees of missed opportunities to me, though, where they should have built something better/more impressive than they did -- I wasn't expecting anything else from the Ratatouille ride itself since it was a clone and thus we knew what we were getting, but the creperie was a major misfire. Space 220 is fine and I'm glad they added it, but the space window isn't overly impressive and the prix fixe menu is a huge negative. Cosmic Rewind is a fun coaster, but it doesn't really offer anything beyond that and it doesn't even use the Guardians IP well.

They definitely have a chance to make it into a great park again if they spend money on excellent updates to SSE, Imagination, and the Seas, and even moreso if they turn the former Wonders of Life into something worthwhile -- they could also add attractions to more World Showcase pavilions, or add a new pavilion entirely -- but after 5+ years of construction on various things, they haven't made nearly enough impact on the park.

They needed several home runs and instead came away with a few singles and doubles. Even if you consider Cosmic Rewind a masterpiece and give it home run status (I know a lot of people absolutely love it), it's still not enough.

 

[wdwmagic]

New EPCOT directional signage includes CommuniCore Hall and Mickey Mouse meet-and-greet​

New EPCOT directional signage includes CommuniCore Hall and Mickey Mouse meet-and-greet

New EPCOT directional signage includes CommuniCore Hall and Mickey Mouse meet-and-greet

www.wdwmagic.com

 

[aladdin2007]

I know the mickey greet is part of communicore hall, but wondering if this is mainly going to be an open again closed again flex space only for special events, and barely open to the public like world showplace......

 

[Bocabear]

I know the mickey greet is part of communicore hall, but wondering if this is mainly going to be an open again closed again flex space only for special events, and barely open to the public like world showplace......

Like Odyssey, Wonders Of Life, Half of the Imagination Pavilion, Restaurant Marrakesh, Corporate lounges in Spaceship Earth, and Living Seas... I am sure there are more....