If only Tony Baxter was there though....that year!
TONY! WHERE WERE YOU on October 1st, 2007 ??
Heh...Tony Baxter.
I don't think that WDI really cares much about EPCOT Futureworld. Disney Parks love EPCOT World Showcase, because it's a huge profit center (restaurants and booze)...but the idea of having a cohesive park?
They gave up on that a long time ago. Maybe it's because they are not nearly as innovative as they think they are (really, how many times can you say "It's all about the story" and then turn out crap like Test Track or Mission Space before you believe your own poop smells good?)
I'm ranting (obviously), and I'm not sure if it's WDI, or the funding arm of Disney, or Parks Management, or what...but I suspect a political mix of the three.
I don't think anyone at Disney is really committed to Futureworld at EPCOT (and yeah, that's what the EPCOT fans are griping about...World Showcase has, if anything, gotten better!)...They mistook the idea of sposorship to mean "profit margin"...when really, sponsorship is investment.
If you can't make a CBA for a client, no wonder they lose interest.
If the LARGEST SEA WATER AQUARIUM IN THE WORLD before ATL loses a sponser...something is wrong with the model. And it's not EPCOT that is wrong.
To me, it began when they started fiddling with the idea of Futureworld...
They say "it's all about story"...ok, well, HERE is the STORY
You walk in, and ride Spaceship Earth, which tells you where we were as a species, and inspires you as to where we are going. Then, each pavilion breaks down individual aspects of our future that we must tackle, from transportation, to health, to where to live (dead Horizons), how to get energy, food, and ecological awareness...
Ending with a Pavilion that inspires you to think outside the box (Imagination).
In the middle are expos of how where we currently are, on the edge of current tech, while the pavilions inspire.
I dunno, I'm sure I'm making no sense...I'm just VERY upset at what Futureworld has become. And I'm not optimistic about where it's going. Were it not 1/2 of an already operating park, I'm sure someone at Disney would have shut it all down already.