Rumor Figment, well, to be replaced by Figment

[marni1971]

Someday I'll learn not to ever click the "show ignored content" button. But today wasn't it.

You didn’t miss much.

 

[gustaftp]

However, the bottom line was that it got old and boring for most guests.

Judging by his post history not just on this but on other threads, I am starting to think Phil is a parody/troll account.

 

[HMFan999]

Judging by his post history not just on this but on other threads, I am starting to think Phil is a parody/troll account.

 

[Homemade Imagineering]

@marni1971 so I hope I’m not bugging you because I know how much people are always asking you questions and I understand if it’s overwhelming, but I just had one more question that comes to mind. Do most of the proposals for imagination include figment, or not?

 

[discott99]

Do any hypothetical plans to refurb Imagination include a return to the original pavilion color scheme and signage? Both were perfect and should definitely be included in the (hopefully) next iteration.

 

[marni1971]

@marni1971 so I hope I’m not bugging you because I know how much people are always asking you questions and I understand if it’s overwhelming, but I just had one more question that comes to mind. Do most of the proposals for imagination include figment, or not?

I believe he is included. In how many or which one, or even if he is chosen I don’t know.

 

[hauntology]

I’ve been dissecting this recently myself, as some of the less conventional bits of the 90’s fashion aesthetic are making their way back into pop culture. We just rewatched Seinfeld (originally aired 1989-1998) start to finish and I enjoyed watching the minute design changes occur over the course of the show. Computer aided graphic design was so new back then, and basic concepts even my children understand in 2019 (leaving appropriate white space, kerning, etc.) were not yet well understood/executed. Even the fonts of the time period (Jokerman!) have this primitive digital design vibe. I’ve seen modern work intentionally using these visual 90’s-vibe cues in a cleaner, more tasteful way while still sparking nostalgia but they went ALL IN on redesigns for Epcot at peak ugly.

Look up the design terms “Global village coffeehouse” and “Factory Pomo,” those combined bring together that weird ugly 90s Disney aesthetic to the forefront.

 

[DCLcruiser]

I believe he is included. In how many or which one, or even if he is chosen I don’t know.

I feel like the continued sale of new Figment merchandise is a positive sign. It's probably the cheapest IP they have. No movie, (ok a recent comic), just an old ride and lots of fans.

 

[ppete1975]

I feel like the continued sale of new Figment merchandise is a positive sign. It's probably the cheapest IP they have. No movie, (ok a recent comic), just an old ride and lots of fans.

and an adorable dragon. With dragons being popular and his design being so darn cute id feel they would try to use him. IF you take a little kid and say you can have one stuffed animal.. figment would have a good chance even if he had no ip.

 

[DCLcruiser]

This was posted by the other site's twitter from today:

 

[ppete1975]

Indeed, there are myriad excuses for why the attraction was closed including insidious plots by Micheal Eisner. However, the bottom line was that it got old and boring for most guests. Also, it didn't help that Dreamfinder gave off a rather creepy vibe as was depicted by Butters in the South Park Imaginationland parody.

I recognize that certain defunct and near-defunct attractions garner very loyal fanatic followers. It's hard for them to accept that some attractions do not age well and they need to be put down. Some people just become so invested in these attractions that they fail to understand that Dreamfinder had a rather undesirable atmosphere about him as opposed to the much more popular Dr. Nigel Channing who has a friendly comedic character.

Also, it doesn't help that several well known and liked actors played the role of Dreamfinder (including a young Joe Rohde) and some loyal fans conflate the character with the actors. The same thing is true about the ride itself in that Tony Baxter is so closely associated with this ride. Some fans think that the change in JII showed scorn and disdain for Mr. Baxter's work.

Suffice it to say that there is a lot of extra baggage that goes along with JII and the loyal fan base wants all their perceived wounds healed and they want their creepy Dreamfinder back along with ImageWorks.

I view it as the past is a bucket of ashes. Let's not put the ashes in an urn and store them on the living room mantel for the rest of our lives or bequeath them to new generations. Let's instead cast the ashes to the wind and let Disney create a new and exciting attraction!

question, did you ever ride the first version of the ride. I did, and dreamfinder walked around with his little puppet figment. I never had a creepy feeling about him.
Now if you base it on youtube, or southpark maybe that's where you are getting your vibe.
Before meet and greets, dreamfinder with figment had as many kids following him as the traditional characters. That whole area was such a playful fun childrens area. ITs one of the areas that they could have just cleaned, updated in small ways and would have been a draw still. It wouldn't have the same issues that the rest of future world has suffered from. And with all of the small projects and games it would still be popular with the kids (updated to current technology of course)

 

[ppete1975]

This was posted by the other site's twitter from today:

View attachment 405303

is that for 2019 f&w? I haven't kept up.

 

[DCLcruiser]

is that for 2019 f&w? I haven't kept up.

Yes, see the Salt and Pepper shaker. Posted today on twitter.

 

[MisterPenguin]

is that for 2019 f&w? I haven't kept up.

 

[tirian]

I’ve been dissecting this recently myself, as some of the less conventional bits of the 90’s fashion aesthetic are making their way back into pop culture. We just rewatched Seinfeld (originally aired 1989-1998) start to finish and I enjoyed watching the minute design changes occur over the course of the show. Computer aided graphic design was so new back then, and basic concepts even my children understand in 2019 (leaving appropriate white space, kerning, etc.) were not yet well understood/executed. Even the fonts of the time period (Jokerman!) have this primitive digital design vibe. I’ve seen modern work intentionally using these visual 90’s-vibe cues in a cleaner, more tasteful way while still sparking nostalgia but they went ALL IN on redesigns for Epcot at peak ugly.

Designers understood those elements; they’d been developed in the late 1800s and arguably reached their peak during mid-century design. But that was all done by hand or with printing presses.

In the ‘90s, computer-aided design styles were just. that. bad. And Epcot wasn’t spared.

 

[hauntology]

Seriously, it's astounding how poorly the aesthetic that was in circa mid-90s/early 00s has aged, not just in Disney but in pop culture in general. Every generation of aesthetics has something about it people aren't exactly eager to bring back (e.g. the strange color palettes of the 70s, some of the 80s more questionable 'neon' choices, etc.), but that particular era had such a busy, crowded look and a vibe of trying to cram far, far too much visual information in one place, whereas right before it and now after it you see more of a preference for sleeker/cleaner designs (I'm thinking DisneyQuest and the original Downtown Disney West Side as examples of that "90s aesthetic" as I write that out). No greater contrast than CommuiCore to Innoventions, or yeah, the complete closing of the open look of the original Imagination pavilion...man, no wonder EPCOT got hit the hardest with that hammer than any of the other parks, and astounding that it's taking this long to finally undo a lot of the worst of it. Doesn't mean what comes next will be perfect, but still.

Great, now I want to read a research paper or book on what social forces informed each generation's overall look, and see if there are reasons that make sense and that I can sympathize with.

So changes in design aesthetics over time are influenced mainly by three factors

1)New materials (mid century uses lots of thin plywood like in Eames chairs, space age is plastic, the eighties is a lot of prints and mimickry of the past, etc)

2) Current events at the time (like I said before mid century is a reaction to the post war home, space age to the space race, 80s neon is the flagship of postmodernism)

3) and this is the most important one for the case of Epcot: new technological advances. EPCOT really was born at exactly the time the world was becoming more conscious of having computers in the home, as well as Internet access. It makes sense that the original scene in Spaceship Earth has the two kids talking across webcams from the US to Japan. This was revolutionary.

The problem is that the future caught up with EPCOT way too quickly than they could have anticipated. Nobody expected everyone to be on the World Wide Web by the end of the nineties if things like ARPANET were still being used in the 80s. This particular kind of communication technology really evolved in a way EPCOT could not keep up with.


Couple that with design decisions influenced by the global connectivity that these advanced communications provided (think
Millenium celebration parade with it’s weird Pan-Global aesthetic that you can’t even think to link to a country but is still exoticism of some sort) and everything begins to look dated mad quickly.
A lot of the tech used to make the What If Lab over ImageWorks Was probably extremely costly for it’s time. Now you can make all that with Raspberry Pi or something.




My thesis for grad school is on the Y2K aesthetic (look it up on Facebook or on are.na or Tumblr,) and for how ABUNDANT this look was across pop culture and architecture (Zaha Hadid for example,) I cannot believe Disney never picked it up for EPCOT or for any Tomorrowland refurbs. Unlike the metal heavy Tomorrowland we have now at MK or just how clunky the aesthetics of Innoventions were compared to communicore, a Y2K look would have been perfect. Its seamless blobiness would hide the hands of man, which makes it all the more futuristic.


I’m also kind of running on 3 hours of sleep while writing this but talking about 90s aesthetic designs is my bread and butter.

 

[tirian]

So changes in design aesthetics over time are influenced mainly by three factors

1)New materials (mid century uses lots of thin plywood like in Eames chairs, space age is plastic, the eighties is a lot of prints and mimickry of the past, etc)

2) Current events at the time (like I said before mid century is a reaction to the post war home, space age to the space race, 80s neon is the flagship of postmodernism)

3) and this is the most important one for the case of Epcot: new technological advances. EPCOT really was born at exactly the time the world was becoming more conscious of having computers in the home, as well as Internet access. It makes sense that the original scene in Spaceship Earth has the two kids talking across webcams from the US to Japan. This was revolutionary.

The problem is that the future caught up with EPCOT way too quickly than they could have anticipated. Nobody expected everyone to be on the World Wide Web by the end of the nineties if things like ARPANET were still being used in the 80s. This particular kind of communication technology really evolved in a way EPCOT could not keep up with.


Couple that with design decisions influenced by the global connectivity that these advanced communications provided (think
Millenium celebration parade with it’s weird Pan-Global aesthetic that you can’t even think to link to a country but is still exoticism of some sort) and everything begins to look dated mad quickly.
A lot of the tech used to make the What If Lab over ImageWorks Was probably extremely costly for it’s time. Now you can make all that with Raspberry Pi or something.




My thesis for grad school is on the Y2K aesthetic (look it up on Facebook or on are.na or Tumblr,) and for how ABUNDANT this look was across pop culture and architecture (Zaha Hadid for example,) I cannot believe Disney never picked it up for EPCOT or for any Tomorrowland refurbs. Unlike the metal heavy Tomorrowland we have now at MK or just how clunky the aesthetics of Innoventions were compared to communicore, a Y2K look would have been perfect. Its seamless blobiness would hide the hands of man, which makes it all the more futuristic.


I’m also kind of running on 3 hours of sleep while writing this but talking about 90s aesthetic designs is my bread and butter.

The original scene was even more early ‘80s goodness: a telecom desk with a world map showing communication lit up around the world. The girl-and-boy scene was added for Jeremy Irons/‘94.

 

[hauntology]

The original scene was even more early ‘80s goodness: a telecom desk with a world map showing communication lit up around the world. The girl-and-boy scene was added for Jeremy Irons/‘94.

I feel like either of those are more powerful looking than what they have now with the steve jobs/wozniak in the garage because it's the last animatronic in the ride and yet we've evolved past that

 

[V_L_Raptor]

I feel like either of those are more powerful looking than what they have now with the steve jobs/wozniak in the garage because it's the last animatronic in the ride and yet we've evolved past that

Not so sure that's an animated figure. If it is, it's been broken for quite some time.

 

[tirian]

I feel like either of those are more powerful looking than what they have now with the steve jobs/wozniak in the garage because it's the last animatronic in the ride and yet we've evolved past that

I agree the scene is a bit of a letdown, especially since it’s not even an animatronic; it’s a static mannequin.

But the trip up the sphere was never supposed to be the distant future. In versions 1–3 (Perrin, Cronkite, Irons), the ascent covered the past through the present, with a hint of the future. Version 4 stops with the past.

Versions 1–3 used the descent to make vague promises for a better future without getting too specific. Cronkite had video loops with “Tomorrow’s Child” advising the future starts today. V3 went so far as to begin the descent with video footage of ‘90s-era satellite TV, demonstrating our ability to share experiences in real-time around the world. Then V4 made it a cartoon look at a Jetson’s world.

Spaceship Earth was a pavilion that celebrated communication, not “the future.” That was the purpose of Horizons. In 2007—without the Horizons pavilion to handle the future—WDI attempted to shoehorn “our tech future” into SSE-4 with Dench, but they accidentally destroyed the coherent storyline.