Guardians of the Galaxy coming to Energy Pavilion at Epcot

Status
Not open for further replies.
AndyMagic

AndyMagic

Well-Known Member
DarthFiscus75 said:
Is there actual confirmed information that GotG is coming to EPCOT ?
Click to expand...

No but then again, nothing is ever REALLY confirmed until a press release is issued. There are trusted sources who say it's on the table along with a variety of other "improvements" coming to Epcot. The good news for Disney is that if/when they do confirm this, the fan response will likely be somewhat positive compared to the level of anger that occurred after the Tower of Terror West announcement.

Disney spent the last 10 years and upwards of a billion dollars transforming California Adventure into a park worth visiting. Guests endured endless construction walls, detours, and ride closures as the company essentially built a new theme park from the bones of the heaping Pressler-era disaster it once was. Disney fans finally embraced the park... attendance was up and things were looking good and then BOOM, they pull this kind of cheap overlay shenanigan on a ride that most people loved. Meanwhile, Epcot is a rotting corpse that can't possibly get 110% more screwed up than it already is with the announcement of a Guardians attraction can it? At this point, what else could they do that would make matters worse? Even Spaceship Earth was turned into a half-polished turd after that failed renovation with the triangles and the infamous empty descent of sadness. I say bring on the mayhem in Epcot. The park that we love has been gone for years so let's see what kind of junk they manage to shoe-horn into it now.
 
Biff215

Biff215

Well-Known Member
AndyMagic said:
Well the takeaway after 136 pages of this is that Disney Parks are essentially a group of rudderless cargo ships lost at sea with a random assortment of intellectual properties scattered aboard that may or may not be made into attractions at some point. Locations are to be chosen through the use of a dart and an outdated Google Street View print-out on the wall of a boardroom somewhere. Trying to apply reason or logic to where something will go or what will be built is, at this point, a fools errand for anyone other than the best insiders around here and even they would probably tell you that current plans on the table are subject to change based on how drunk Iger is when he throws the dart.

As a reminder, an actual human being who designed an upcoming attraction explained the setting of a rehashed Hotel ride building as "a kind of... warehouse... fortress... power plant where a collector keeps objects." At this point, ANYTHING is possible including a 5th gate containing only themed toilets and refillable mug stations.
Click to expand...
And the sad thing is this is how I had viewed Six Flags the past two decades as they just threw superhero coasters anywhere they could regardless of theme. Disney used to be better than that, now I'm not so sure.
 
raymusiccity

raymusiccity

Well-Known Member
UpAllNight said:
Feel like I'm in an endless time loop.

Speculating on much needed Epcot additions, the watering down of Epcots theme, discussions on the marvel contract.

I may have restumbled into 2009.
Click to expand...

image.png
 
RoysCabin

RoysCabin

Well-Known Member
Biff215 said:
And the sad thing is this is how I had viewed Six Flags the past two decades as they just threw superhero coasters anywhere they could regardless of theme. Disney used to be better than that, now I'm not so sure.
Click to expand...

Good point. I might give Disney a touch more credit and say maybe it's more like Busch Garden in Williamsburg, where they try to have themed coasters in appropriately themed areas (e.g. the old Big Bad Wolf coaster used to be in the area themed for a Germanic village), but talk like this hints they're not even doing that anymore.
 
Biff215

Biff215

Well-Known Member
RoysCabin said:
Good point. I might give Disney a touch more credit and say maybe it's more like Busch Garden in Williamsburg, where they try to have themed coasters in appropriately themed areas (e.g. the old Big Bad Wolf coaster used to be in the area themed for a Germanic village), but talk like this hints they're not even doing that anymore.
Click to expand...
Agreed completely. I was implying that Six Flags was similar to the narrative I quoted. Disney has always at least loosely tied things together, even if it required a backstory. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but this one just feels like forcing an IP wherever you can.

Energy would be no great loss to me, but I hope whatever goes there ties in with the rest of FW/Epcot in some way.
 
DisneyGentlemanV2.0

DisneyGentlemanV2.0

Well-Known Member
Biff215 said:
Agreed completely. I was implying that Six Flags was similar to the narrative I quoted. Disney has always at least loosely tied things together, even if it required a backstory. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but this one just feels like forcing an IP wherever you can.

Energy would be no great loss to me, but I hope whatever goes there ties in with the rest of FW/Epcot in some way.
Click to expand...
Energy the ride is no great loss. But the unique ride system that can be so much more will be gone forever. One of the biggest problems with modern Disney is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's akin to demolishing a theater when the run of a play ends. There are these wonderful blank canvasses out there - all they need are creatives with paintbrushes. Instead we get dynamite and bulldozers, and the end result is worse than before the work began.
 
Biff215

Biff215

Well-Known Member
DisneyGentlemanV2.0 said:
Energy the ride is no great loss. But the unique ride system that can be so much more will be gone forever. One of the biggest problems with modern Disney is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's akin to demolishing a theater when the run of a play ends. There are these wonderful blank canvasses out there - all they need are creatives with paintbrushes. Instead we get dynamite and bulldozers, and the end result is worse than before the work began.
Click to expand...
The flip side though is they could shoehorn a new attraction into an existing ride system that doesn't work well. I think Frozen was well done but most agree a brand new ride would have been preferable. I'm sure Energy could be reused with the right subject matter, I would just fear a cheap overlay (like DCA's ToT).
 
RoysCabin

RoysCabin

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I do wish that when discussions about this spring up elsewhere that less people would think "If some of you had your way, nothing in the parks would EVER change!", because, frankly, I don't think most people are that fond of the Ellen Energy overlay, especially now with how outdated it is...heck, the Ellen version somehow managed to be more pro-fossil fuels than the original show! I have to believe that the vast, vast majority of EPCOT fans would much prefer a new show there, something totally updated.

The snag isn't a fear of change, it's a fear of poorly done change. Said it in another thread, but I love the idea, if the moving theater system in Energy simply isn't tenable anymore, of converting it into an Omnimover, keeping the dinosaurs and adding show scenes demonstrating new technologies and where we find them. An Omnimover would be cost effective, efficient with crowd control, could reduce the show to around 15 minutes, and would allow Disney to announce a new attraction in a part of the park that has a decent overflow of people with Test Track FPs. Right there, there's less muss and fuss, less money spent than on some huge GotG overhaul, and you can more easily update the show if it gets out of date at all.

Point is, I don't think most EPCOT fans have ever been afraid of change to the attractions, it's just that we've been burned over and over and over and over again when Disney does change something there. Many would agree that it'd be nice to have kept Horizons and Imagination in their original forms, just with occasional touch ups, the way Spaceship Earth has gotten them over the years, if things got too outdated, but just about everything else in the park was perfectly good material to update and try interesting new things with; sadly, most of the new ideas dating back to the mid 90s have been pretty bad.
 
Virtual Toad

Virtual Toad

Well-Known Member
UoE is hopelessly out of step with our evolving world. By all means, update the attractions and keep them up-to-date.

But remain true to the theme.

Disney, please, for the love of all that really matters, dispense with the escapist, completely irrelevant, bottom-feeding superhero pablum and take your guests seriously-- like you used to.

There is so much that needs to be said right now about the future. The world needs hope and inspiration-- and EPCOT can provide it. Given the courage of its own convictions, the Walt Disney Company has the means-- and responsibility-- to inspire the next generation of dreamers and doers.
 
DisneyGentlemanV2.0

DisneyGentlemanV2.0

Well-Known Member
Biff215 said:
The flip side though is they could shoehorn a new attraction into an existing ride system that doesn't work well. I think Frozen was well done but most agree a brand new ride would have been preferable. I'm sure Energy could be reused with the right subject matter, I would just fear a cheap overlay (like DCA's ToT).
Click to expand...
I agree. I'm not looking for rethemeing toy GotG - I'm hoping for a legitmate refresh of the ride using the existing ride system.
 
PeterPan1031

PeterPan1031

Member
I don't think it made 100% sense to bring Frozen to EPCOT, however at least this makes (a little) sense with Norway -- Guardians would make zero sense, and I think Guardians as a franchise will be a "flash in the pan". It won't be culturally relevant enough to garner long-term appeal. They really should just stick to character meet and greets with Guardians or temporary attractions. I hope I'm right, but I suspect I'm wrong.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom