Right. But if Magic Kingdom was all Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, etc. slow dark style rides, we'd find that boring as well, even if the rides are good. A park should have a variety and be well-rounded, even if it's got edutainment at it's core. Ideally that would mean keeping the rides and adding new ones rather than replacing perfectly enjoyable rides, but that doesn't seem to be the way.
Many saw that as a blessing. And many saw them as sufficiently different (fun fact, each ride system was unique to each pavilion)
At least, World of Motion and Spaceship Earth each had more specific themes, whereas Horizons was just redundant of the theme of the entire land. Plus, World of Motion had quite a bit more humor in its execution.
Well said! Horizons was pretty much a summary of everything Walt Disney envisioned for his Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow and then some!
Agree. I’d love a park with Horizons, World of Motion, Spaceship Earth, the original Journey Into Imagination, Peter Pan’s Flight, The Mummy, E.T. Adventure & The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ... oh yeah, and both Wizarding World lands
Indeed. By design. But not redunt. Horizons was the thesis statement of Future World, the synthesis of all ideas. Motion was history of transportation with a small peek at the future, SSE - history of communications with small peek at the future, Energy - energy, Land - farming and food, etc.
History of the future??? How's that possible?
The others showed the history and Horizon pulled them all together and attempted to predict the future based on land, sea and space. Or in other words... The Land, The Living Seas, UofE, World of Motion, Imagination and even electronic progress. They came the closest to at least touching on what happened in the area of Electrical technology. But, most of it never happened so it really wasn't dated in that sense, but it didn't hold the audience. The problem, in my mind, is that there were a limited number of people that were interested in living underwater, in a big wheel in space with random boots floating around. It was indeed a very entertaining, comically portrayed story of a possible future. But, it was like a joke you heard a hundred times and you already know the punch line. It just didn't have the ability to capture enough of the audience to make it inspiring. For some, yes it was, but for most it was just entertainment and the edu in edutainment was missing. It had to be, because, it was primarily all imaginary thoughts, nothing to be learned just wished for by some.
Sometimes you just wind up the toy and let go, to see where it goes. To me it is surprising the tangents many ofI always love when members pop in with these threads and ask the rest of us to explain/discuss, yet, they don’t explain/discuss themselves...
Meh... Horizons actually got most of the future wrong, at least thus far. We're not even considering colonization of the sea, and we've just now re-started a very small attempt to expand our reach into space. Terreforming is now viewed as causing more harm than good. Personal robots were only a brief and somewhat niche fad in the 80s. Dense urban living is out, telecommuting is in. The biggest advances, by far, in the nearly 40 years since Epcot opened were in communication technology, personal computing, and the biosciences, and if anything, it looks like the next big revolution will be in clean energy.
It would have been perfect as a contribution to the 1981 World's Fair. But as a permanent ride, we're back again to the Tomorrowland problem. The march of progress will inevitably overtake yesterdays speculation. This works fine when the focus is looking backwards with nostalgia, like the Carousel of Progress, but it means without constant and expensive updates, yesterday's tomorrow will always come across as naive at best, misguided and actually harmful at worst (see desert terreforming).
Funny that. I queued through the exterior rope switchbacks In 87 and 90. Both of which just goes to show straw pole attempts at guessing popularity are pointless.
I think Horizons could've survived. I'm just not convinced that it would survive long term alongside all of the other classic Epcot rides. All rides are going to be a reflection of the place and time when they're conceived and built, and there's a certain understanding of that. But a whole park (or park front) full of rides that feel "outdated" doesn't seem like it would be successful. Certainly some rides age better than others. Trying to continually modernize a ride, though, just seems like a futile effort. Technology moves too fast now to keep up with it, unless the actual companies developing the technologies are showcasing it on a temporary basis.
