Yes, in 1983, I was ten. It blew my little mind. I loved it. It was and remained my favorite park for its first decade. I would love to expound on its merits which are legion.
But... now I'm older and having absorbed so much of the negativity and skewed thinking exhibited on this board by the modern Disney fan, I am able to look back with the same critical eye. Epcot Center had many faults. None for me, but even at the time, I was the one dragging the rest of my five person family through there repeatedly. It killed me that we didn't go in '82 as my grandparents and several neighbors had. I still remember being a bit dismayed as none of them really raved about it. Everyone seemed impressed, but all preferred the Magic Kingdom (expect my grandfather who thought "The Land pavilion" was a full day park.) I had a copy of the preview book years before the park was opened and whenever I was in a store I would thumb through various magazines in hopes of finding any article about the new park (no internet.) I was glued to the tv opening day and watched the morning broadcasts and the evening special and flipped channels all day inbetween hoping for another news segment.
You don't have to believe me, but please do. Epcot Center was an obsession for me on par with Star Wars. When bored in school I would draw the map from memory and compare it to my many saved guidebooks once I got back home. I had every path memorized and could even do pavilion layouts (back when the maps included those.) It actually pains me to be so critical, but the original park has its admirers and champions and I suffer from a need to be contrarian, or at least a bit more objective.
I don't want to derail this thread which isn't even about Epcot. My response was to a blanket argument to a current lack of creativity, and I was offering up a counter point. One I still think is valid. At its core (and yes, reducing it down to the simplest argument as I said was being done in my original post) there was a certain sameness to the method in which each ride was presented. Was there variety, artistry, engineering feats, and high capacity- absolutely. Some semblance of thrill would have been a big help to round things out. "World of Motion" could have offered up more than slow motion (and yes, there were the multiple super-speed tunnels, but they were more an odd transition device.) Energy was inspiring, but as lethargic as a Brontosaurus (now Apatosaurus) stuck in the mire. Watch the end of Martin's latest (and wonderful and much appreciated) video. When the lights come up at the end, what do you see? I would have leaped out and gotten right back on or gone and checked out every exhibit in the Energy Exchange yet again. The rest of my party are the ones you see (1:01:23) stretching as if freed from a long lecture.
