Fifth Gate: Disney's Civilizations

[PeterAlt]

An idea for WDW's fifth gate: Disney's Civilizations

This park would allow WDW guests to time travel to the height and glory days of ancient, lost and fabled ancient civilizations and empires that existed and rumored to have existed throughout human history and pre-history. Attractions at this park can be tied to and promoted through the Disney-owned cable-satellite network The History Channel.

It would be divided into "lands" themed after great empires of the past. Rome would be themed on the Roman Empire, complete with a replica of the Roman amplitheater, a gladiator attraction, a Roman aquaduct plume ride, and a "Providence of Judea" subsection with a replica of Israel's second temple. Ancient Egypt would feature replicas of the Great Pyrimids with rich special effects attractions inside the pyrimid structures. All the "seven wonders" of the ancient world can be replicated throughout the park, within lands themed to the ancient empire that created each wonder.

Also featured would be a land based on the fabled legend of the Lost Continent Atlantis. This section is where imagineers can let their collective imaginations run wild as to this lost empire's architecture, technology, etc. A possible attraction could be an E-ticket thrill ride where guests would witness Atlantis' final days - a high speed chase of an attempt to escape the destruction of Earth quakes - buildings collapse around you - blazing fires and explosions, smoke and dust - particles flying over you, barely missing you. And just when you thought you've escaped death, a tsunami is seen in the distance sinking everything in its way. You're about to get drenched!

What do you all think?

 

[Thiger]

Fantastic idea!

I would definitely love to see this park up and running (much more than the current plans for the night kingdom)

 

[SDav10495]

Boy, would I love to see more ideas like this with no obvious movie tie-ins. Sounds cool.

 

[bellasguy87]

That would be incredible, they definitely need to build this park!

 

[maryszhi]

if disney is on tonight, they totally are going to want to have your idea
i think u should be an imaginer

 

[Doombuggy13]

Sign me up too! Awesome Idea all the way around!

 

[tdonald]

That would be INCREDIBLE!

Though I could see funding as a definite problem...

Do you think Oriental Land Company will build it in Florida?

 

[imagineer boy]

This idea has bounced around on the forums for a while now. It could definately work though.

 

[wdwfan100]

I like it. Anything that gives me an excuse to stay at the resort longer I am for.

 

[EPCOT Explorer]

An EPCOT of the past...Interesting.I would visit.

 

[brucie]

I don't like it

 

[DisneyWorldDork]

Wow! That sounds amazing!!! It sounds like you may have based that on the plans they had for Isreal for EPCOT, which sadly was never built. This idea though sounds soo much better. Even if you didnt use that, it would be like how they planed a Movie Pavillion for EPCOT and we ended up with the Studios, which is so much better!

I know that this may not be the best idea but, what if in Atlantis, they put in the planned Litttle Mermaid ride they are putting in at CA? I know that in the movie they are in Atlantica, not Atlantis, but I still think that would be a cool idea. (Sorry, i like to try to fit in Disney Characters).

If they did Greece they would have to do something with Hercules, I mean that would work out greatly. Maybe an e-ticket ride where Meg has been Kidnapped by Hades and you have to ride Pegas and save her.

If there was an area for achient China, obvously something related to Mulan.

Thats all the ideas i have right now for bringing in Disney Characters.

 

[ChrisFL]

n/m

 

[cooleo]

Great Idea!!!! I am all for it; Would Love to see this get built.

 

[Harry456]

This is a great idea!! Being a history-nerd, i would love to see a Disney and The History Channel partnership!

i think it would be easy to think up ideas for rides for this fifth gate!

 

[MAGICFLOP]

Unfortunately, I don't see a fifth gate any time soon. Can the area support that many new jobs?

Would love to see it happen though

 

[xsupaxmanxsfnex]

Sounds like a good creative idea but I think it would be too similar to Epcot's World Showcase. Sounds all cool and familiar because I am taking Western Civilization as my freshman history class. I just think it's too similar and the imagineers could make an incredible new park on totally different ideas.

 

[SWatsi]

Since the World Showcase is based more-so on modern countries, and the modern culture (modern as in the last 100 or whatever years), and is generally 'realistic'. But that doesn't represent everything about these cultures, so there is room to go even further back.

I think with something like this, they would go the fantasy route again, and balance that with the historical theme. Personally, I would go not think of the lands as countries, but rather the ancient empires, so it is the Roman Empire, not Rome or Italy etc.. The Roman Empire extended beyond Rome, so that is something to consider too and others did too.

I like the idea. Don't know if it would eventually work. Personally (admittedly as a non-American) I think it has more going for it than what the Disney's America, that never happened and people still talk about. Workable, but there will be plenty of other ideas that may be before this.

 

[jtwyatt]

Creative Idea...a lot of differnt ways you could go with it..both in the way of History and Fantasy

 

[PeterAlt]

EVERYONE - Thank you for all the good words! The inspiration for this concept is a fact about the ancient world I realized that many people probably have no idea about, and that is that much of these ancient constructions were just huge complete with colorful extremely detailed and polished finishing touches. The ancients put so much details, splendor, and granture into these constructions, pushing the arcitecture engineering beyond the limits. Whats left of these now in ruins is but partial skelitons their former selves, stripped of its "shine". But we could just imagine what these structures really looked like (or go to Disney's Civillizations to travel back in time and see for ourselves).

Of the Seven Wonders of the World, only the pyrimids of Egypt have survived till this day. Disney Imagineers would have a field day doing the research they would have to do to get the details on what the other six wonders could have looked liked in order to reconstruct them. By the way, today even the Egyptian pyrimids have lost their original shine. Over the centuries, an outter layer of hand-smoothed polished limestone that covered the pyrimids top to bottom erroded away. So this park would show how these structures looked back in the day, which would put people in awe even by today's standards (scholars say)!

Incidentally, during a trip I took to Israel, I saw a model of the Second Temple and it just blew me away - the whole design and achitecture and hugeness of it. For example, it had an elevated highway that crossed right into an entrance of the buiding and went over a huge open court yard and did it in such a way that it created an illusion of ground-level!

The Roman Empire section would be absolutely incredible. The Romans constructed lots of amazing things with water (fountains, pools, etc.), so this section would have fountains and pools everywhere. Of course it would be near-impossible for Disney to actually recreate the Collosium (or the Pyrimids, or the Second Temple) to actual-size, so forced-perspective would need to be used to at least give it the illusion of actual size.

One of the ancient wonders, I forgot which one, they had built a statue in the middle of the sea, off the coast that was actually bigger than the Statue of Liberty. So, we need to include this of course.

And the story of Atlantis must be told, even if mainstream scientists cite lack of any evidence of it. Plato described Atlantis as a highly advanced civilization with incredible technology. Plato said that Atlantis was wiped out by a natural disaster (a tsunami?) 13,000 years ago. Coincidentally, there was a mass extinction of large mamals exactly 13,000 years ago. A new theory says that a comet may have hit ice in the Atlantic ocean during that time frame. Indeed this would have caused a tsunami that caused the sinking of Atlantis and the Flood of the Bible. With the sinking of Atlantis, all their knowledge, all their science, all their technology would be lost too and it would take thousands of years to re-invent all that technology.

And one last thing. Another park idea I have is a space science fiction with aliens theme park to get built at Roswell, NM!