Has HarmonioUS and/or Enchantment Grown on You?

Moka

Moka

Well-Known Member
Saw Enchantment last night for the first time in person. It's bad that in the middle of the show I began to think "man... I really wish I was watching Happily Ever After right now."

I don't feel anything in that show. Half of the projections still feel like they don't fit correctly or align. I hope HEA returns after the 50th with upgrades.

Enchantment I feel like can go in an after hours event. It's not god awful to where it should never ever be shown. But it just isn't a worthy successor to HEA IMO. You can't go from HEA --> Enchantment. It should have been the other way around. HEA feels more like a 50th show than Enchantment ever will. How do you use 90% modern IPs in this show for 50 years and stick with the same 3 movies? At least HEA had the variety of both old and new - whether you agree with IP use or not is another story.

Will be seeing Harmonious in December.
 
gerarar

gerarar

Premium Member
Enchantment has grown to the point where I sing and hum to the lyrics (mainly the intro and finale), because “You Are The Magic” is catchy.

But still can’t overlook all its many faults; misuse of projections, sfx quality, iffy commentary, castle/FL pyro downgrades, no real build up to Tink (huge breaker for me), etc.
 
collapsed_lung

collapsed_lung

New Member
Vinnie Mac said:
Have either of the new shows grown on you yet or are they still "meh" in your opinion?

Grown on me? Well i don't know about enchantment. it was great. But i fell in love with harmonious the first time I saw it. The light show, the soundtrack, all of it. I saw it on a Monday and was staying for a week so i had 6 more days, 5 of those for parks. I loved it so So much so that i used my park hopper to end each of those days by watching Harmonious at Epcot. On Monday it just impressed me. By Wednesday i appreciated it way more. On Friday, my last day before i was leaving the next day, it brought me to tears. One of those last lines was "wherever you go, bring a song with you" or something like that. I didn't have much of a choice. I've been humming and singing the soundtrack ever since i left weeks ago. A lot of the people saying they don't like are saying it because it has "no story" or "no depth." If you need to be told a story for your eyes to understand what's going on, it's not that the show isn't enjoyable. You won't allow yourself to enjoy it. I went in open minded not knowing what to expect. If you go in close minded expecting it to be some sort of Steven King level story than of course you'll hate the show. I enjoyed it because I didnt have any prior knowledge of what these could be like. This was my second time at Disney ever. My first was October 2020 during the pandemic. So i had never seen a fireworks show at Disney before this. After watching many different people film illuminations on YouTube it left me wondering, what story are they talking about? i watched some fire works which were alright. And a globe rotate with a 240p video on it for half of the show. Almost sounded like Orchestral ensemble. People say it tells a story but it doesn't. At least nothing I haven't already seen somewhere else. People say it no longer had anything to do withe the world showcase. Every song was sang in the language in the country which that movie takes place. I heard more foreign languages in the show than you hear traveling around all of Epcot itself. The people who prefer illuminations over harmonious do seem to have one thing in common though. Age. And if not their actual age, their mental age. I don't get the same nostalgic feeling they get from illuminations. Quite frankly i felt nothing watching it the several videos i did see. What part of that 12 frames per second video exactly brought you guys to tears? The orchestra piece was alright. But as someone who actually sang choir for 10 years (I'm 19) It was average. The arrangement of someday at the end of harmonious is some of the best and most emotional vocalization of any song ever. That combined with the lights and fireworks were spectacular.

I have a feeling a few people didn't like Harmonious just because they couldn't understand the language. which would be dumb, you're in the world showcase, you gonna see AND hear the world.

If your reason for not liking harmonious has anything to do with the soundtrack using Disney music, are you confused? You're not just in Epcot, you're in DISNEY world. That's like me going to Lil Nas X concert and getting mad when he doesn't play Unholy Confessions by A7X but instead plays Industry Baby. Times are changing and Disney is changing. I never said i liked it. I hate what Disney did to the sequels of star wars. i understand. But this is what Disney HAS to do to adapt with a changing audience. The people who were 15 when illuminations first came out are now in their upper 30s-late 40s. You are not Disney's target audience. Face up to that. You were before. But now your kids are. Does your kid sit in front of a globe and spin it for hours? Didn't think so. Once i get that age maybe I'll complain too. For now, while I'm still within the same generation as Disney's target audience, I'm gonna allow myself to be amazed.
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JS514

JS514

Well-Known Member
Enchantment.....no. I really have tried. I really have.

Harmonious.....yes. Low key have fallen in love with the show.
 
bubbles1812

bubbles1812

Well-Known Member
Enchantment was better on second viewing than the first but I liked HEA better. Much stronger ending. I think that is part of Enchantment’s problem. I hope HEA comes back but only time and park surveys will tell… I’m not optimistic.

I overall liked Harmonious. The ring is very cool and if it had to be another “clip show,” well they get a B for trying with the languages. Hella better than the interim show at the least.

That being said, Illuminations is my all time favorite show (I went down in Sept 2019 for a quite literal 48 hours just to say goodbye 🥲). So Harmonious was never gonna beat it for me.
 
Giss Neric

Giss Neric

Well-Known Member
Enchantment: You Are The Magic grew on me and is a really good song. I still really really hate the rock version of Into the Unknown and the clashing of the male and female voices doesn't fit. The I am Moana portion was trying so hard to be the Go to Distance of HEA but it failed. The finale was great but the finale fireworks was underwhelming. Needs added pyro.

Harmonious: I'm still not totally on board with the How Far I'll Go/Go To Distance mashup as an opener but the rest of the show until the finale is great and impressive.
 
Nottamus

Nottamus

Well-Known Member
Harmonious is ok. It will never be as cool to me as Illuminations, but technically it’s a great show

where they missed the mark IMO is AFTER the finale, they should break into Tapestry Of Nations song that we all really liked getting stuck in our heads as we walked out of Epcot

That would have gained a few fans possibly. At least better than what’s playing now…..(again, my opinion)
 
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monorail81

monorail81

Well-Known Member
No to Harmonious. It’s very fragmented and lacks fireworks. It loses my interest quite quickly. There’s no flow and not really a beginning or end to tie it together. Plus, the narrator sounds depressed.

Haven’t seen Enchantment yet. the thought of having to cram onto Main Street to get the full effect doesn’t sit well for me. And I thought that pre-COVID when you had to cram on Main Street to see HEA as it was intended. No thanks.
 
jrm477

jrm477

Active Member
My Enchantment experience, in three acts:

1) I watched the YouTube stream on October 1. I HATED it. How could they do this to my boy? Music, fireworks, projections all much less good than HEA

2) I watched it in the beach from Poly. Still hated it. The score was boring to me, and the pyro still seemed lackluster

3) a primo spot in the hub. My opinion changed on a dime. The score makes much more sense when you’re having it blasted into your ears at close distance. I wasn’t bored or detached at all, as compared to my first two viewings. I actually liked the projections, arguably better than HEA. I like that the castle is just a canvas in this show, whereas with HEA it felt like you had to have a great view and stare at it to follow along. The visuals were more subtle, but I actually liked them more.

So, I would say don’t pass judgment until you see it in person in a good spot. Now, you could argue that if you need a primo spot to enjoy it, the show is already a fail…

I’d also say based on the projection package, this thing is only designed to last through the 50th. It’s very dependent on the 50th castle regalia. I suppose they could update the projections.

In short, nowhere near as good as HEA. But, MUCH better in person than my first two viewings, IMO.
 
jrm477

jrm477

Active Member
As for Harmonious, I liked the show better than ROE. The Illuminations score is some of my favorite music ever written, but the show itself left me flat. The globe section was a good idea, but just poorly executed IMO.

I like the Harm show better. BUT, my increased enjoyment of the show was way more than offset by the hardware during the day.

I was looking at pictures and reading posts before my trip thinking “surely it can’t be that bad”. To my eye though, it was worse than what I was expecting. Completely destroys the scale of world showcase.

So, while I actually really enjoyed the show, the daytime harm is such that I’d personally prefer a return to an Illuminations show I really didn’t love every day of the week.
 
mergatroid

mergatroid

Well-Known Member
monorail81 said:
No to Harmonious. It’s very fragmented and lacks fireworks. It loses my interest quite quickly. There’s no flow and not really a beginning or end to tie it together. Plus, the narrator sounds depressed.

Haven’t seen Enchantment yet. the thought of having to cram onto Main Street to get the full effect doesn’t sit well for me. And I thought that pre-COVID when you had to cram on Main Street to see HEA as it was intended. No thanks.
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Somebody on here said that Harmonious has more pyro than Epcot Forever? I've not counted personally, however I don't feel there's less in Harmonious going from my memory?
 
monorail81

monorail81

Well-Known Member
mergatroid said:
Somebody on here said that Harmonious has more pyro than Epcot Forever? I've not counted personally, however I don't feel there's less in Harmonious going from my memory?
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I don’t know. I guess because it’s a longer show and they‘re more spread out, it seems like there are less.
 
JoMarch

JoMarch

Active Member
I think “Harmonious” is better than “Enchantment.”

IMO, “Enchantment” meanders throughout - although I do like the theme song “You Are the Magic.”

“Harmonious” is more exciting and pretty to look at. I love the end sequence using “Someday” from Hunchback. I also love the cannon blasts.
 

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