Both Martin and (for those who remember him as another reputable source of info) Lee said years back that the turntable would never move again. I don't know if this means that construction crews during the V2 overhaul did something to permanently damage it and prevent it from ever being repaired with any reasonable sum of money (like concreting/welding it in place or some other destructive act), or if it just refers to there being an iron-clad agreement from everyone at Disney to never attempt to fix it. But either way, it doesn't seem like it will ever return. I just assume it would be deemed as either impossible, or too cost prohibitive to get it working again (probably more the latter because most things DO ultimately have a price tag, however difficult).
Repairing and re-extending the original longer track layout seems like it would be more feasible. At least i'd assume so, I don't really know for sure. I think there are still parts of the old track allegedly underneath the flooring of the queue/load areas. Not that I think this would be likely either, but it's probably more reasonable of a hope than the turntable working again.
I actually had pretty much the same basic ideas. Including recreating the Flight into Imagination scene via a standing preshow at the end of the queue right before load/unload. Basically what Dinosaur does with its preshow (or alternately, the double Haunted Mansion stretching rooms at WDW), but as a return of the original physical scene instead of a video.
Basically here's what I sketched up using Park Lore's layouts as a basis (thanks very much to them for providing these nice drawings)-
View attachment 792630
Imageworks moves back upstairs where it belongs. The downstairs lobby is restored as closely as possible to its original bright pastel colored mural-adorned open space cyllindrical glory. A spiraling queue that also uses this freed up open space (going out on a limb here and assume that this ride would probably command much longer waits than what is there right now). At the end, a standing recreation of the Rise into the Clouds and Flight into Imagination scenes. That scene was approximately three and a half minutes, which is very similar to the runtime of other preshows like Dinosaur's. Double alternating theaters so the queue doesn't halt for too long (some lost capacity/efficiency is inevitable without the turntable sadly).
I've moved and consolidated the load and unload areas, freeing up space for other scenes. Load is now the entry into the Dreamport. There was also some extra space to expand the initial Dreamport ride scene, so I went ahead and used it. After that, most of the original ride should now be possible to recreate faithfully until the film reel tunnel and finale. This is why I consolidated and moved the load and unload further up the track, to free up some more space for a new finale based on the original. At unload, I sort of just came up with a purpleish/blue prismatic exit tunnel, not unlike the rainbow one upstairs but with colors that more closely reflect the downstairs lobby and Figment/Dreamfinder. At the end of that, I threw Disney a (undeserved) bone since they love their giftshops. Whatever incentive it takes to get the ride done right and actualy keep it around.
Guess this belongs in the armchair section, but eh.
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