News EPCOT's Harmonious to be replaced with new nighttime spectacular Luminous

[JohnD]

Another summer with Epcot Forever? lol…

I dunno. We’ll have to see.

 

[James Alucobond]

It’s just never going to win over the no IP crowd at Epcot and the hideous daytime views.

Indeed. The show doesn't really bother me. The views do, and no show can overcome that. However, I do wish they'd committed to songs being sung fully in their native languages; I'm not going to miss out on the fact that they're singing Reflection just because it's in Chinese.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Epcot Forever is extremely underwhelming IMO.

Separately, I've always felt it was a mistake to not run multiple shows in these nighttime spectaculars. Run Illuminations: We Are One on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Run Illuminations: Community of Tomorrow on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Use the same hardware, just switch out the shells and the soundtrack. Make people spend two nights in each park if they want to see them all.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

They killed the Kraken?!?

Now that’s good news…so positive.

That thing is terrible

The actual show was… fine. The giant monstrosity destroying all of the sightlines of the Epcot World Showcase was not. Who the hell looked at the sketches for that and thought it was a good idea?

 

[James Alucobond]

The actual show was… fine. The giant monstrosity destroying all of the sightlines of the Epcot World Showcase was not. Who the hell looked at the sketches for that and thought it was a good idea?

Those weren't the original sketches, and for some reason, they convinced themselves that they could indefinitely cycle opaque water to cloak them.

 

[Epcot82Guy]

If only there was somewhere that could have inspired them to research more and cooperate to achieve their creative best. Like a theme park that inspired people to learn, imagine and create as humans do in our real world...

 

[montyz81]

The last version of Illuminations was coming up on 20 years of service before it was replaced. Wishes was what, 13 years? If Disney is pulling a show in <2 years, assume something is afoot.

Interesting. That makes two shows in the last 7 years that required significant expense to install only to have them shut down in the same amount of time that they took to install. Maybe they should take inspiration from the shows that worked. They should also stop trying to make all nighttime shows look like nighttime shows from California Adventure. WDW guest expect true stories and immersion. Not adverts for movies with fireworks.

 

[doctornick]

Thank god this got the green-light! Don’t budget cut this!!!

Heard anything about what the new show might involve?

 

[DisneyfanMA]

Does this mean those hideous barges will go? WHO thought that was a good idea?

 

[GimpYancIent]

Does this mean those hideous barges will go? WHO thought that was a good idea?

Those people should be fired! No?

 

[EeyoreFan#24]

My problem with Harmonious is not so much the content, but the way it absolutely destroyed the WS lagoon. My fear is even though they will dedicate resources to a new show, the barges and tech will have to remain to still justify the asset costs. They will extend the life or justify a small L on show production costs, but the sightline problem will not be solved.

 

[DisneyfanMA]

My problem with Harmonious is not so much the content, but the way it absolutely destroyed the WS lagoon. My fear is even though they will dedicate resources to a new show, the barges and tech will have to remain to still justify the asset costs. They will extend the life or justify a small L on show production costs, but the sightline problem will not be solved.

They may well realize how much of an eyesore the barges are and this is a way to be rid of them.

 

[World_Showcase_Lover007]

If you’re still at the park at 9pm for the night time show, that means you didn’t go hardcore enough in Epcot during the day.

 

[SorcererDonald16]

I stopped by to find out what the announcements were today and thought I was imagining things when I saw this thread. There have been multiple last straws for me with the parks in the last few years that collectively added up to me deciding no more, but this specific show was the very final straw that broke the camel’s back. Ding dong the dumpster fire’s actually going to be gone!

I hope someone in charge will capture the spirit and original purpose of Epcot with the replacement show, but I will try not to get my hopes up and just wait and see. I don’t trust them anymore to not crank out another soulless, hollow ad for their movies and soundtrack albums in the completely wrong park. Then there’s the major issue of how extremely ugly and distracting the structures are.

I wonder if anyone got/gets fired over Harmonious’ failure? I remember reading Chapek meddled, and I assume some other muckety mucks up near the top genuinely thought it was the way to go, but I also know full well none of them will be held accountable. It would be a ‘pass the buck and can some lower level scapegoat’ situation instead.

 

[Squishy]

Unless they figure out a way to move those barges, people will talk negatively about the show no matter what. Those oil mining rigs severely impact the feel of world showcase during the day.

 

[brb1006]

I just hope they don't plan on keeping those ugly taco barges for the new show!

 

[Figments Friend]

This is probably the best news I have heard in some time.
This is major.....

I am a happy dragon tonight, seeing this officially announced.
Says a lot, and says with a resounding confirmation that Guests and fans are not satisfied with the hot mess that is HARMonious.

And now.....remove those eyesores and let's push things forward.
Now is the time.

-

 

[qwerty2k]

Is this a permanent replacement or just for the 40th / 100 years of Disney and then back to harmonious (or maybe that depends on how the new show does)?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

This new show debuting in 2023 gives me hope that it'll just be Illuminations with these new barges, unless they have been working on a replacement show since before Harmonious even premiered just in case people hated it.

It might Seem you can “repurpose” that monster sitting there…but I bet it’s not possible to do a similar show at all

I don’t know. It’s not just the choice of show songs. It’s also the gesticulating arms and the Stargate that can only be seen straight on. I hope they get rid of all it. Otherwise it’s Harmonious with new songs. Yippe.

Yep

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

This is probably the best news I have heard in some time.
This is major.....

I am a happy dragon tonight, seeing this officially announced.
Says a lot, and says with a resounding confirmation that Guests and fans are not satisfied with the hot mess that is HARMonious.

And now.....remove those eyesores and let's push things forward.
Now is the time.

-

What they announced is almost embarrassingly, cynically…”minor”

The little things are fine…but they have a bigtime capacity problem in the US parks and they just made their intentions to sit on it for more years known. And they’ll blame us.

Stockholm syndrome.