jt04
Well-Known Member
Hopefully it will mean greenlighting more such World Showcase enhancements.
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Disney confirms 'Frozen' makeover coming to Epcot's Norway Pavilion
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Hopefully it will mean greenlighting more such World Showcase enhancements.
BrianV
Well-Known Member
While we can debate whether frozen belongs there, I'd love to see more rides in world showcase. Problem is rides don't make them money. Shops and restaurants do...
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
Can I have a Caribbean pavilion complete with rum bar then please and some chicken and rice and peas.
BrianV
Well-Known Member
Now you're talking!!
AEfx
Well-Known Member
Sorry, but he's absolutely spot on.
I honestly don't think folks know how irrationally their arguments tend to sound regarding what should or should not happen at EPCOT.
twilight mitsuk
Well-Known Member
lets move POTC into that pavilion
ProfSavage
Well-Known Member
Mike S
Well-Known Member
He said that we think Walt Disney should have given up cartoons. That's a flat out lie and over exaggeration of our points to the highest degree.
tirian
Well-Known Member
"Saludos Amigos" and "The Three Caballeros" were WWII propaganda films commissioned to improve US relations with Central and South Americas. Disney produced loads of die-hard conservative, pro-American, right-wing propaganda at the time.
Walt's company encompassed far more than cartoons or feature-length animation. He was foremost an entertainer, but that didn't stop him from planning a city in which a theme park was tucked away into a corner of the overall property. Heck, even his DL of 1964 corraled all the cartoon characters into a single land—Fantasyland.
It was indeed foolish of the WDC of 1982 to open EPCOT Center without characters, an oversight they quickly corrected. The park always had humor (WOM and Kitchen Kabaret) and fantasy (Cranium Command and Imagination 1.0) mixed into its edu-tainment, but was never intended to be Magic Kingdom Part 2.
Fans aren't opposed to adding properly placed IP that enhances Epcot's original mission statement; they're opposed to turning Epcot into another place for cartoon rides that don't fit into the MK. For years, DHS had become a sort of catch-all, and Disney is finally fixing that problem. Joe Rhode was able to protect his beloved DAK.
Incidentally, the intelligentsia of the time admired "Fantasia" for promoting classical music in American pop culture. Leopold Stokowski's involvement helped legitimize the project—so much, in fact, that several of the world's artistic leaders were soon begging to collaborate with Walt Disney, Salvador Dali being the most famous example.
AEfx
Well-Known Member
You are missing his point. The point is, people take the Epcot rhetoric so far that they don't realize they are often actually making points that if you step back and really think about are completely contrary to pretty much every other widely held belief about Disney Park history and Walt Disney's intentions. Yet, somehow, there is this strange EPCOT-logic which applies to any conversation about that park with a certain segment of EPCOT opening day purists.
tirian
Well-Known Member
Yes, there's always a balance needed.
Right now, Epcot needs more EPCOT Center-caliber attractions (with updated tech, of course) and fewer food stands.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
This needs to be stressed more often when comparing EPCOT Center to a Magic Kingdom-type experience.
For 20 years Florida's MK had no rides based on cartoon characters outside of Fantasyland (and the purpose built, "temporary", Birthdayland). The only film based ones at all were the treehouse, canoes and keelboats, none of which were ever sold as major attractions. Like EPCOT's pavilions and their themes, MK's land's were built on experiences that supported the core concept of each area, whether it was the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon, the Island Supply Co. or the Penny Arcade. In that sense, the two parks share more in common than most people realize, despite their superficial differences.
Sticking cartoon characters anywhere in MK in the name of synergy or marketing is no less acceptable than at Epcot. The only reason people don't get as upset is that they've been conditioned since the 90s to think that real "Disney" entertainment comes from the company's movies, and MK is supposed to be "Disney" Land.
Mike S
Well-Known Member
Might as well make that distinction now before someone tries to "prove you wrong" with Country Bear Jamboree or the Tiki Room.
Epcot should move forward in its design and concept, not return to the past. Turning it into Magic Kingdom is not forward progress, its lateral. Yet people such as yourself continue to trot out the same rhetoric that anybody who is against an IP based version of Epcot is nothing more than a "purist" stuck in the past.
Some of us can see beyond the "more rides, right now!!!" type of thinking and understand that its nothing more than the demise of distinction between parks.
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zooey
Well-Known Member
I think a piece that's missing here as well is that all theme parks have moved towards IP based entertainment almost exclusively. Disney may have started that idea but every other park domestic and international has continued it. So customer expectation has really shifted. Look at uni... They build all IP and always will. That cats out of the bag. It's simply more profitable now that everyone is trained to be a rabid consumer of products, especially if they have our favorite character on them.
There are exceptions like Mystic Manor, but for the most part all major expenditures going forward will be IP based because it's simply proven to be the most profitable way of doing things when synergy and franchising is your bread and butter.
There are exceptions like Mystic Manor, but for the most part all major expenditures going forward will be IP based because it's simply proven to be the most profitable way of doing things when synergy and franchising is your bread and butter.
Slight difference between having characters in relative pavilions and turning an entire pavilion into a characer locale....
HauntedMansionFLA
Well-Known Member
Are they still having technical problems with a turn that was reported earlier?
zooey
Well-Known Member
Right. That was in 1982 though. Everything since the mid 90s on in the themed entertainment industry has been IP based. It's an expectation with the general public now. They've been trained to think that way. Someone on Twitter posted a picture of the flower/topiary arrangement outside the France pavilion in Epcot at international gateway and they said that they overheard a group asking amongst themselves if that topiary was for Spider-Man because it vaguely looks like Spider-Man's symbol. That's how confused they are about Disney and what they should expect to see and where they will see it. Shocking to fans like us, but this is likely the norm.
I'm not advocating for this stuff, I'm just calling it how I see it. I want that higher mission statement for Epcot to come back with a vengeance, I want more Mystic Manors and Expedition Everests, but looking at what's happening and where profitability has shifted I don't see it happening on a major scale for a very long time.