While it may be true that the themes at the parks are changing.. do you genuinely feel that’s for the better? Or are you only accepting it because “it is what it is” due to upper management’s lack of care for and/or understanding it?
Aside from voting with our wallets and never going to the parks again, there's really not much we can do about it. It's a pity, I know, but we don't really have much control over it. Are you saying that management should just ignore the needs of shareholders in favor of the wants of fans?
Do you really feel that the original themes, mission statements, and the focus on real world topics & concepts aren’t at all salvageable? You could easily argue that even though Walt’s EPCOT never quite came to fruition the way he originally envisioned it.. They took the idea that all of Walt Disney World parks & it’s resorts would in essence would be ‘EPCOT’ the city, .. while ‘EPCOT ‘Center’ was the place that represented the key concepts, achievements, & values that Walt believed would provide a better future of living.
Working together with American companies & industries to present ‘real world’ subjects that were essential to ‘improving our future’ in a way that inspired & captivated others in a way only Disney could. (Unlike DL & MK’s Tomorrowland which suffered from being focused entirely ‘on’ the future itself.. mainly “the future of space travel/living”.. rather than known currently functioning subjects that helped (and are still in the process of helping) ‘shape’ a better future. So no, it did ‘not’ suffer ‘the Tomorrowland problem’ as many folks say. There’s a key misunderstanding of what the focus of each area was, Tomorrowland & Future World respectfully). That Along with presenting pavilions that showcased real countries & their culture, people, and achievements and how that all too has been an important & relevant part to our world’s survival.
Sadly, only Walt could pull off a City of Tomorrow, but when he passed away and his brother and business partner Roy took the helm, Roy quietly erased EPCOT from all plans for Florida. So really, if anyone is to blame, it's Roy, who is always looking for ways to finance his brother's dreams, which often led to stormy disagreements between the brothers. In this case, Roy insisted that they build the amusement park first, to establish a money flow, while Walt wanted to jump in on the city. And then Roy passed away shortly after the Magic Kingdom's opening in 1971. And it's not fair to just blame current management for all of Disney's problems. In the '70s, Disney management then didn't have a clue how to go about building a City of Tomorrow.
And to your claim about how all of WDW was EPCOT in a way, to quote David Koenig's book on WDW called "Realityland":
[E]xcept for the monorail, all of the experimental elements were behind the scenes, invisible to the public. Consequently, there began to rise a growing suspicion of the Reedy Creek Improvement District. As expansion continued at a frenetic pace across Disney property, critics saw a company-owned government that appeared to be rubber-stamping whatever the company wanted. Disney, of course, would argue that its relationship with Reedy Creek wasn't underhanded, merely more efficient. By eliminating burdensome red tape, everyone could focus on what was truly important - creating safe, sound structures - instead of rote fulfilling of obligations and completing of checklists. Building codes demanding the use of time-honored materials and techniques by definition outlawed innovation.
Later in the same book, there's this blurb:
[Walt] hoped companies would fill his [City of Tomorrow] with factories and research laboratories where visitors could learn about emerging technologies and inventions, and employ them in their own home, business or country.
But big business doesn't work that way. And Disney, of all companies, with its doors always locked and shades always drawn, should have known better. There are few competitive advantages more valuable to a company than proprietary products and systems, and little financial incentive to letting the world in on every stage of development and advertising it not as something to buy, but to borrow and profit from on your own.
Finally, the book concludes this way:
In the end, Disney came to terms with the fact that, at least without Walt, it was an entertainment company - granted, a highly proficient and successful one, but one beholden to millions of shareholders. It could no longer take the risks necessary to change the world by building a futuristic city. Maybe one day another innovator will come along who can pull off a real, live Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Sadly, this world doesn't produce a whole lot of Walt Disneys.
Then comes the notion of, was Disney’s MGM Studios as a concept truly not sustainable or salvageable.. or was it simply upper management’s lack of care & poor management decisions that led to it’s downfall as a real working studio? I feel like it very easily could ‘still’ be a functioning studio complex but updated accordingly. With them filming some of their newest live action shows & features there.. along with ‘updating’ the animation studio to utilize the current tech they’re using now to produce the stuff they are on the streaming service (if upper management saw the value & potential in it) Just something to consider/think about.
Part of it was that Hollywood didn't want to move all the way out to Florida, which was impractical. So no, it seems as though a working studio would never have been truly sustainable in the long run. The Animation thing at the Studios shut down in 2004 after the last (or second-to-last after several years) 2D animated film, "Home On the Range", flopped. Ever since then, with the exception of "The Princess and the Frog", all animated films were CG-rendered. And then there's the rise of DVD bonus features, which also do the job of letting people in on the production of movies, effectively making the Studios' purpose kind of redundant.
As for Universal, while it does use its facilities for production, it's not really for actual movies anymore, mostly things that are of little significance in the grand scheme of things.
