lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
And what critique are you misunderstanding to make that claim?Funny since you and others seem to think opposite when it applies to Toy Story Land, oh but that doesn't fit your agenda, my apologies.
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News Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind attraction confirmed for Epcot
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Is that an "I am holding out hope they pull it off" or is this a lost opportunity...?
flynnibus
Premium Member
Yes it can, which is why any 'future' pavilion has been such a problem for Disney... since their first Tomorrowland. And why Tomorrowland in EVERY park has been so problematic. (which is what I said...). EPCOT was opened at the start of the digital revolution... so the problem was even worse. Technology and understanding advanced so quickly in the 80s that things, ideas, and tastes moved quicker than ever.
Most of TL's reality based attractions would only last about 10 years before needing to be replaced... and that was in the 60s and 70s. The 80s was the digital revolution and personal access to knowledge and technology exploded faster than it ever had prior putting even more pressure on these attractions.
EPCOT was mind blowing in 1982/83... but it's greatness could not stop progress and the speed of information happening all around it. So it dated quicker than things before it because everything in our world was advancing so rapidly.
People quickly forget... the reality of a all glass touchscreen personal device available to every consumer is only ~10 years old now. Imagine an attraction today showing everyone using Motorola MicroTAC phones on VHS quality tube TVs. It would stand out like a sore thumb.
That's what happens when you put a stake in the ground about ideas, time references, and technology. You must keep refreshing quickly - Futureworld suffered because it did not.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
To me (again, just my opinion), Spaceship Earth feels very old-fashioned despite being continually updated. That genre of ride is simply the product of another time, and while certain examples remain popular, others proved unable to maintain people's interest. One instance of the latter category is The Great Movie Ride, which was not futuristic in theme but shared some of the issues of EPCOT's classic dark rides.
flynnibus
Premium Member
And now you are talking about presentation and format. But what you are missing (did you ever even experience these attractions?) is these attractions were not just animatronic shows... but heavy on ideals, messaging, and projecting society's future and vision.
Preachy gets pretty irritating when the message feels out of place and disconnected.
This is why Pirates still works... but Horizons didn't.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
mikejs78
Well-Known Member
Whenever approaching what is a thematic fit for a park, I like to look at the dedication. In EPCOT Center's case:
Epcot of today can be reimagined in a way that still maintains the thematic ideals of the park, but without running into the future-proof problem that does exist. Focusing on human achievement - science, technology, innovation, in an inspiring and entertaining way, is possible without becoming obsolete quickly. Despite the fact that I love the classic EPCOT Center, I do think that a fresh approach needs to be undertaken that's more timeless. Sure, refreshes will need to happen (and still should), but the refreshes should be about getting ahead of obsolescence, not falling behind which is what happened, I think, with the attractions of the 80s. People lost interest before the refreshes. That can't happen, the refreshes need to happen before people lose interest.
That means designing attractions that have a certain timelessness to them. That's why Spaceship Earth has worked for all these years.
Horizons, for as wonderful as an attraction as it was, still gave off the vibe of "what people thought of the future in the early 1980s..." A lot of that had to do with design aesthetic, which should have been easily upgraded, but it wasn't.
I'm fine with a reimagining of Epcot (with or without IPs). What I want to see though, is one that remains true to the vision of celebrating human achievement, both past and future. It doesn't have to be "edu-tainment" per se (much of old Epcot wasn't), but it should be an inspiring celebration of that human achievement presented in a consistently entertaining way.
I find the Disney dark rides some of the best ever created - Spaceship earth does not feel old-fashioned to me at all. And it's still very popular (consistently earns high ratings on surveys). Looking at Touring Plans user surveys, Spaceship Earth consistently gets at least 4 out of 5 stars from readers of almost all age groups (save for preschoolers). And look at PotC and HM in Magic Kingdom - two classic dark rides that are universally loved for their scope. Just because you don't care for the genre, doesn't mean it's "old fashioned".
Bender123
Well-Known Member
I loved GMR...its problem was that the movies it displayed were all very old. I believe Raiders of he Lost Ark was the most recent film in it, followed by Alien and there was never a real push to update it for modern movies. When the park first opened, the movies in the AA scenes were all very hard to find a VHS copy of and, outside a very few, impossible to see without going out of your way to do so.
With streaming video, 100s of channels dedicated to movies, iTunes, etc...any of these movies can be in your hand in less than a minute. In addition, the movies I loved were featured, but I am a film buff. There were only two movies in that ride that premiered in my lifetime and I am almost 40.
That being said, I wish they would have updated some of the ride to show some modern classics...Its a damn shame its gone.
flynnibus
Premium Member
Because the Great Movie Ride celebrated a concept that newer generations have zero interest in or limited appreciation. It celebrated the idea of the great moments and personalities of the golden age of hollywood.. and into the 40s. It anchored itself around huge personalities like John Wayne, Clark Gable, the admiration for that idealized image of the biggest, important films.
The 'golden age of hollywood' means nothing but a wikipedia entry to most people under 40.. and barely something to the majority under 50.
The TOPIC GMR focused on has fallen out of favor for newer periods/interests... and it wasn't helped by the abandonment of the idea of 'movie magic' the park was built around.
And I doubt you viewed these attractions as anything but a very small child.
Bender123
Well-Known Member
The advantage SE has (and WoM had as well) over a ride like Horizons is that it is a look back in time...history of communication isn't changing, but the current and future is. The only need for an update is the trip back down. Horizons would have needed to be gutted from the point the OmniMax forward.
Then there is JII, which really only needed to update some screens and had no technology dating/grounding...but we all know where this conversation goes.
The second. Imho.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
You're assuming things. I've said elsewhere in this thread that I love such rides, including Spaceship Earth. That it feels so old-fashioned (to me) is a major part of its charm, and I hope they never update it to the extent that it loses its throwback quality. The same goes for my beloved Country Bears.
The point I was trying to make is that not all rides of this genre have succeeded in remaining popular, and that isn't always (or, in my opinion, even usually) Disney's fault.
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LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Updating the featured movies might have helped to keep interest in the ride alive. Then again, the most impressive scene was from the Wizard of Oz, one of the oldest films represented. Even though I love classic cinema and dark rides, GMR never spoke to me in the way that, say, Spaceship Earth does. I for one am looking forward to its replacement, though I fully understand why many are upset and miss it.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
“Oh no! You’re not going to tell us about the old days when you didn’t even have a car phone.”
And yet Disney keeps chasing the idea that has been less impactful and less popular.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Just because I don't agree with you? You're very presumptuous. I first visited Epcot as a teenager in 1996, in time to catch most of the classics (though after Ellen's Energy Adventure had replaced the original Universe of Energy ride). Your next argument will be that, by then, the rides hadn't been updated and so wouldn't have appealed to me anyway. But as I've already said, I personally liked them. I'm simply offering my opinions on why such rides might have lost more general appeal.
Anyway, I think you and I are unlikely to have a productive discussion, so we'd best leave it here.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
If we're going on numbers alone (and I believe it was earlier in this thread that attendance figures were discussed), Epcot's attendance rose to a new peak in 2017, equalling the earlier 1987 record. Other than with the aficionados here, how is what Disney is now doing less popular?
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
For the price you hinted at it being, it had better be the greatest thing since BTMRR or SM (even RnRC). At least ride time-wise. That'll make the giant box hurt a little less.
No Name
Well-Known Member
If you just pass a record set 20 or 30 years ago while tourism has grown and every other park has long surpassed its peaks, does that indicate that you're doing something right? Maybe it indicates that what you were doing back then worked, but then you screwed up with a bunch of negative changes.
flynnibus
Premium Member
No, you just confirmed I was correct. You didn't experience the attractions in the time and place they were built for.. the mid 80s. We already established the point that by the early nineties the attractions were woefully dated and demand for them had waned. The first round of sponsors had already bailed... several attractions were just on 'drift mode'. By the time you saw them in 1996, they were already many years past their shelf life and the first round of refreshes had already taken place.
SSE and UoE already had their gutting with poor updates
CommuniCore had been replaced with the even worse Innovations
WoM and Seas were just coasting...
Horizons had already lost its sponsor and was on drift...
The Land and SSE were on their second sponsor and only WoM had kept it's original sponsor
Really, only Imagination was still holding strong at that point (shocker.. it wasn't based on current references except the 3D film which was still new at the time). You had already missed when Futureworld was current and healthy.
Your opinion of the rides at the time really doesn't matter. The topic was what the general population was doing and why demand for them had waned. They were already seriously dated and that impacted their draw. Remember they were also some of the highest capacity attractions around.. so even a good amount of people get lost in their cavernous capacity. In 1996,
Instead of just keep retreating to 'well thats my opinion' when shown something counter to it, you might want to try research and study to improve your opinion.
Futureworld.. like every 'future' attraction before it... suffered from advancing technology and education and required massive overhauls to keep current. Unfortunately, the guys driving the ship in the early mid nineties made some of the worst attraction overhauls in the company's history. So instead of Futureworld being refreshed, it was the start down the backside of the hill.
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LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
No-one is denying that Disney made mistakes in the '90s and '00s. But, whether those on this forum like it or not, additions/replacements like Soarin', Mission:Space, and Frozen Ever After are very popular and draw large numbers. This isn't a matter of taste or opinion -- it's just a fact. Surely even the most hardcore EPCOT purist will concede that Guardians of the Galaxy will prove a huge draw.