Epcot and World's Fair '39 (Deep Discussion)

[cloudboy]

Epcot and World's Fair '39 (shallow discussion?)

I have been reading a book about the '39-'40 World's Fair in New York. For those unfamilliar with it, it is the one with the Perisphere and Trylon, where the was all sorts of future prediction stuff going on.

Why has Disney had such a harder time with this concept (or has it?) - is it just society in general not being very optimistic, or just a general disinterest in technology, or how Disney is presenting it? And should it be more like that, or no?

 

[cloudboy]

Well, the deep discussion was not working - any one care for a shallow discussion?

Anyone...anyone....?

 

[CoraJack]

I don't really understand the question. What exactly is Disney having a difficult time with?

Christina

 

[meanmice]

Originally posted by CoraJack
I don't really understand the question. What exactly is Disney having a difficult time with?

Christina

I agree, I'm not sure I know what you are trying to get at

 

[Sherm00]

are you talking about the whole vision of the future as seen from the 1930 worlds fair? IF you are , then origionally walt had this concept down pat with the origional tomorrow land in disneyland in california. if you follow the vision of the future as seen from the 1930's through the mid 1960's it was very positve outlook. contemporary styling in abundance, we would all have robot survents, and flying around in sci fi style cars and takeing summer trips to the moon. in the origional design of tomorrowland walt had the house of tomorrow, which displayed how we would be living in the future, autopia back then was a vision of the future. the carosel of progress was a discriptive ride on how we got there. other included mission to mars, adventures through inner space, and the monorail. the monorail was in the future supposed to replace trains. unfortunitly, when the future became today things did not plan out how the speculated back in 1939. most stuff just became fads, contemporary styling never really grew and wasn't as popular as one would have hoped. the "space age" of thinking turned tailes into the information age. autopia turned into traffic clogged highways. space travel still proving to be very costly. robots turned into cell phones and pc's connecting to the internet. so things that were thought to be intreguinging and cutting edge in 1939 has become fad or a part of our everyday life, so it isn't as fantastic as it was back then. so tomorrow land became yesterday land. now how dose that compare to EPCOT. well EPCOT was a vision of the future from the 1980's. it's 80's style contemporary look at the future was awesome at the time, however, in 1985 no one could even think about the future and how information pc's graphics cell phones and new technologies would go. so EPCOT is essentially NOT the futureistic ideas from 1939 but from futuristic ideas from the 80's. essentially a worlds fair aptnesphere but with a whole new vision of the future. robots were back because pc's and computers were still new. it had diffrent pavilions with vision of how we would live in the future(Horizons), how we would travel in the future (world of moton), Imagination so we would think about new things for the future and conservation (the land, living seas and universe of energy) World showcase to me mens that technology effect everybody and all cultures, so we can't have a future without the people that will be in it. so, switch back over to the present, in just 20' years, technology has progressed so fast that disney is haveing a difficult time keeping up, video games microwaves, airbags, safty, cell phones, computers, computer games, the internet, all took a foot hold.
The WOW factor of the 80's deminished pretty quickly, now future world is now today land, now technology moved so fast it took les time for that to happen then it did for tomorrow land to become outdated. so I think disney has done a good job with keeping up aperances the best they could. and I think changeing epcot a little, though some pavilions will fit (imagination, the land, living seas) some disney thought would not or was severly outdated.(world of motion, horizons,etc). my opinion is a vision of the future has to have a start and an end point. new things come out everyday so it would be very hard and costly to keep up. I think if disney changed future world to discovery land then it would lqast longer, example, discover the land, the seas, your imagination, discover the universe(mission space) discover transportation(test track) etc. disney wouldn't have to worry about things becoming out of date so fast. so in conclusion comparing EPCOT of today top the 1939 worlds fair is useless, since there goal is the same a vision of the future, the thinikng of the times would change the way the future looks. also the future catches up to you today faster then in the past, so whats futuristic today may not be tomorrow.

 

[marni1971]

Paragraphs?? My head hurts trying to read that!

 

[cloudboy]

And capitalization. Helps tell where the sentences begin and end.

As far as what I see as having a problem is that there was at frist a serious dated look at Epcot, and now it seems that some of the pavillions have attendance problems and there is a bit of a lack of a theme at Future World.

Now, addressing tomorrowland, very much so. In fact many of those rides were either from or closely matched to World's Fair rides.

Trying to summarize, and correct me if I am wrong, you are saying that keeping up with the future is too difficult. And I agree to a point, but I think it would be interesting if they took a different approach than just trying to predict the future in one fell swoop and leaving it, but instead have changing exhibits and rides. I mean scenes - not redoing a whole ride every 5 years. To a point they have done this with Spaceship Earth. More effort on the message of the future is promising than this is what the future will hold.

Or is it more about technology? In many ways I think that people today are not too opimistic about the future and have a definite distast for technology. Maybe Epcot Future World is too technological for people.

 

[Shaman]

Re: Epcot and World's Fair '39 (shallow discussion?)

Originally posted by cloudboy
I have been reading a book about the '39-'40 World's Fair in New York. For those unfamilliar with it, it is the one with the Perisphere and Trylon, where the was all sorts of future prediction stuff going on.

Why has Disney had such a harder time with this concept (or has it?) - is it just society in general not being very optimistic, or just a general disinterest in technology, or how Disney is presenting it? And should it be more like that, or no?

Adding to Sherm00's great post, I would say that people are already accustomed to seeing news things in the form of technology heading their ways. People aren't thinking so much in the future becuase in many ways they are enjoying the fruits of terribly rapid technological advancements. Look how fast the computer has evolved in just twenty years or so....

Some people are starting to fear society's dependence on technology, and movies like The Matrix, show the possible downside to all the technological advancing thats occuring. I think people will be more interested in the future when new technology stops finding their hands as quick.

And with the chaos in the world nowadays, people may fear the future more and more....it is that uncertainty which leads to escapism...

Disney should focus on the hope there is for the future, a hope for a better tommorow. I think Disney should focus, on displaying the good advancements in each industry, that further the hope for the future. I think that is the message of EPCOT, hope for a united peaceful world, reaping the benefits of technology.

I don't know if anything I just said makes sense...:lookaroun

 

[Expo_Seeker40]

Ok lets see if I can get this...

The 1939-1940 New York World's Fair took place in Flushing,NY. The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair took place on the same site, which is called Flushing Meadows Corona Park. It was that fair that Walt Disney had his five famous rides/attractions.

As fair as the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair goes...it was the way in which that era saw the future. I would not want the 1939 fair to be like EPCOT Center. It would be very outdated and "inaccurate" to some or many people. The New York City Pavilion that was used in both the 1939 and 1964 World's Fair is now a museum. It's vision of the future makes it look like a city bank! You know that won't flow at EPCOT Center.

There is I think a version of one of the pavilions from the 1939 New York World's Fair. Communicore/Innoventions does have that Art Deco appeal. Remember, EPCOT Center was not how Walt had visioned the city to be in the late 1960s. It was the early 1980s version of the theme park that took over.

EPCOT Center is very much like a permanent world's fair, and is always neat to visit. It will never have grandure of the 1939 and 1964 new york world's fair. My feeling is this: World Showcase will hardly change, except for some ride upgrades. Future World will. I think we should preserve the original Symbol of EPCOT Center, rename the theme park EPCOT Center, give symbols back to the rides/attractions, and leave the Entrance Area and Spaceship Earth as it looked in 1982, architecually. I don't wan't these rides to be stuck in 1980s time worps.

The rest of the park could have a new color scheme. The earth tones do look more attractive than the fading pink and blue. Look how the World of Motion Pavilion at Test Track turned out. Though I think the pavilion entrance looks cluttered. The pavilion was changed to a more contemporary yellow and black scheme versus the 1980s orange and blue.

I hope you see my points. (Stepping off his soap box.)

 

[Wilt Dasney]

I think today's audience is either too sophisticated or too cynical (take your pick) to swallow the idea of a future where technology solves all our problems. In the first half of the last century, there were so many technological changes in such a short period of time that the idea of a technological utopia seemed not only appealing, but achievable.

From what I've gathered of him, Walt (along with plenty of other folks at the time) possessed an almost childlike optimism in what technology could do, and that happy vision is strongly reflected in what he left behind.

Nowadays, we have technology coming out our ears, and people are just as miserable as ever. I'm not trying to be too negative here, but the idea is that while life may be easier, it's not necessarily more enjoyable today than it ever was. For every problem solved by a technological advance, it seems to add two more headaches to the mix, so the gleam has come off that particular vision of the future, I think. We're not enamored with the idea of a future of flying cars and robot servants and all the rest anymore.

So what do we want from our future now? That's an open question, I suppose.

(Oh, and just to keep this discussion from becoming too deep: , beer, and giant monkeys! W00t! :lookaroun )

 

[DDPGambit]

Who said Disney is having a hard time with it? I think it's more because the public is not into all this fantastic technology that may be, because in the last 100 years we have had tons upon tons of predictions that have fallen flat and people are just tired of it. Not to say that they don't care about the future, but they don't forsee lots of technological advances beyond upgrades and enhancements of what we have now. Sure we had lots of neat stuff in the 20th century (tv, internet, computers, digital media, the list goes on and on and on), but I think the first part of the 21st century is going to have a harder time introducting new technologies. The focus from the public now is more on safety. (No doubt due to 9-11).
People would rather concentrate money and efforts to protect ourselves, rather than develop new ways to explore outer space or create a super fast computer.

I dunno, I'm starting to ramble, so if you can make heads or tails of what I just said, congrats!

 

[Sherm00]

Originally posted by Wilt Dasney

(Oh, and just to keep this discussion from becoming too deep: , beer, and giant monkeys! W00t! :lookaroun )

I'll agree to that...

I would like this to happen,

Tomorrowland to become a like the storybook version of the future. in other words like sci fi, bring in the journey to the center of the earth ride from tokeyo disney seas to replace autopia, buzz light year stitch, space mountian, keep the people mover, bring in more jules verne type stuff. Move carosel of progress to epcot and make epcot all real science stuff, all the current pavilions will be good, but add fun science stuff also, like mission space, or lots of stuff for kids to do and learn about science and our world.

 

[ClemsonTigger]

Showing my age

I fondly remember the 64 Worlds Fair, and because of that, I have always had a very special place for EPCOT . The difficulty with technology is that it is moving faster now than ever before. If I remember correctly, each Test Track car has more computer systems than the space shuttle. I also remember my LED Texas Instruments calculator that could add, subtract, multiply, divide AND do square roots (for about $100).

Anyway, the EPCOT vision of being a showcase for technology is a difficult pursuit, at least from a mass entertainment perspective, which is why have of communicore is empty. Unfortunately, while I love the nostalgia of science projections from the 60's and 70's as were captured in Horizons (and Sci Fi Drive in) most park goers are too "Bored" with it.

Just look at science "institutes" in many major cities. They attempt this same function, but are always faced with attendance challenges.

 

[MJL]

I for one find "the tommorow that never came" extremely interesting and entertaining. To think of what people saw as the future (robot maids, etc) ala the Jetsons or Jules Verne's visions really is a hoot. I am 34, and visited Epcot for the first time in 1985. WOW - as a kid I can think of nothing that ever inspired me more than to think of all of the possibilities of life in the future.

Are today's kids different, do they not dream of tommorow's ways of living, working, entertaining themselves?

Of course there will be major technological changes this century (unlike what some previous poster have said). I dont see what is so far-fetched about living in space, how we would do it, how we will communicate, and sustain ourselves is any less interesting than it was 20-30 years ago? Is it? Why?

 

[cloudboy]

The '39 worlds fair had an awful lot in common with how Epcot turned out. Their center piece was a sphere which had a ride in it where you looked at a gian model of a city of the future (called Democracity). GM had a pavilion - futurama - which also featured a city of the future (but concentrating on roads), and Ford's pavillion had a built in track which you could actually test drive cars! (can anyone say Test Track?). So anotherwords, a lot of the Epcot pavillions are just like that.

Do you think Epcot should stay focused on the future, focus more on how we used to look at the future (sort of a history of the future - kind of a retro thing) or be more like science museums. Or something different? Wht would be more attractive to guests?

 

[cloudboy]

Here's a totally whacked idea...

Maybe Future World is TOO homogenized and safe. Corporations sponsor some of the rides, but for the most part they are just rides, they aren't showing anything off (exception - World of Motion and Innoventions). Perhaps we need more of that kind of stuff.

A Company or corporation can put up a pavillion or exhibit - some can be small, some can be big. They work with the Disney Imagineers to design it. Here are the ground rules: Now pruduct showcases - the exhibit has to do something, some kind of showing of technology or a story (large pavillions can have a small area like Test Track does). No call to action, no comparrison. There arevarious contracts, but something noticeable must be changed every year.

I know this would take a lot of space, and be quite commercial, BUT...

I think that as a focus on stuff, instead of just rehashing the story you get at your local science musem, might make things different. I think that you might see, if the companies have a little more involvment and benefit, more innovation, as they try to get more audience. I think it might help the stagnation problem at Epcot Future World, but produce something innovative and different.

I think that one problem with the current pavillions is that they are too "museum-like", in the sense that they are stagnant and try to cover too much, too generally. I also wonder if they are a little too passive.