If E.P.C.O.T. was REALLY created...

[lildivaaa]

Question:

After watching some of the original Walt Disney broadcasts from 1966 describing the "Florida Project" and EPCOT, I have something to ask everyone.

If Walt's original plans for E.P.C.O.T. (Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow) were really and truely created, as Walt envisioned...do you think it would have been completed by now?

Looking over EVERYTHING he wanted EPCOT to be, and even though it's 2002, it seems a little hard to believe that the entire project would be done by now. It was just TOO massive and undertaking (although it was one of the most wonderful ideas Walt ever had).

What do you think?

Craig - Atlanta, Ga.

 

[jmarc63]

Originally posted by lildivaaa
Question:

After watching some of the original Walt Disney broadcasts from 1966 describing the "Florida Project" and EPCOT, I have something to ask everyone.

If Walt's original plans for E.P.C.O.T. (Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow) were really and truely created, as Walt envisioned...do you think it would have been completed by now?

Looking over EVERYTHING he wanted EPCOT to be, and even though it's 2002, it seems a little hard to believe that the entire project would be done by now. It was just TOO massive and undertaking (although it was one of the most wonderful ideas Walt ever had).

What do you think?

Craig - Atlanta, Ga.

If I remember corectly The original time frame they projected was going to be 25 to 30 years to compleat, so I would have to say yes to your question

 

[bman152]

Walt said that epcot would "never be finished" and it would always be added onto

 

[lildivaaa]

Originally posted by bman152
Walt said that epcot would "never be finished" and it would always be added onto

Yes, that is true....and I believe that idea is a wonderful one. I guess my question is more directed at the building of the "basis" of the entire EPCOT community, the overall structures, land, development, etc.

Craig - Atlanta, Ga.

 

[Andy]

Most of Epcot would be done by now, ie the transport system the hub, the hotel etc and most of the living zones. Its just the periferal things that would be being tweeked, as someone said, it was never meant to be finished, and who knows what it would have looked like after Walt passed if it has been started.

 

[MrPromey]

Originally posted by lildivaaa
Question:

After watching some of the original Walt Disney broadcasts from 1966 describing the "Florida Project" and EPCOT, I have something to ask everyone.

If Walt's original plans for E.P.C.O.T. (Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow) were really and truely created, as Walt envisioned...do you think it would have been completed by now?

Looking over EVERYTHING he wanted EPCOT to be, and even though it's 2002, it seems a little hard to believe that the entire project would be done by now. It was just TOO massive and undertaking (although it was one of the most wonderful ideas Walt ever had).

What do you think?

Craig - Atlanta, Ga.

I think it, along with the rest of the Disney Co. would be completely and totally done by now. The way things were going in the 60’s, people were all expecting this bright Jetsons-like future that today, we know will never happen. Walt’s vision would have relied heavily on sponsorship income that would have dried up long before now like maybe around the S&L scandals of the early 80’s and he was gung-hoe about it in the same bet-the-company manner that he had been about so many other things. The truth is that Walt had his own ideas about social engineering but was by no means an expert. Jumping into things the way he wanted to would be like a kid interested in trains running out and buying the Trans Atlantic Railroad. If he had done it, he might have been able to keep it going through the 70’s but I think there would have either been a major collapse or a major change (reducing it to little more than your average development neighborhood in terms of value with some tacky retro-future features that would leave it looking outdated like tomorrowland before it was redone) before the 90’s. I mean, the guy was obsessed with control. Understanding his life gives a clear and reasonable explanation as to why but we aren’t talking about Disneyland. We are talking about a real community with real people. Heck, some residents in Celebration now have a problem with ordinances that restrict the use of lawn decorations like gnomes and plastic flamingos and things like the color or curtains that face the street. How well do you think these people would do in the bubble that Walt built after a few years of living a sterile happy life? Ever see the movie Pleasantville?

 

[jmarc63]

Originally posted by bman152
Walt said that epcot would "never be finished" and it would always be added onto

True .. But from the plans drawn up in 1966 thoes ideas were to take 25 to 30 years to compleat. not including "New ideas" added later to the original plan. And from the concept plans I have seen over the years for Parks and attractions there are always changes that evolve to them. Like EPCOT that was built as a park there were at least 9 or 10 diffrent plans that evolved into the EPCOT that we saw on opening day in 1981. for instance the original worls Showcase was to be a seperate attraction and be built next to TTC where the parking lot is .

 

[Hyperion93]

I'd love to live in EPCOT. Personally, I think Disney should really look into making a TRUE EPCOT, for living purposes.

 

[jmarc63]

Originally posted by Hyperion93
I'd love to live in EPCOT. Personally, I think Disney should really look into making a TRUE EPCOT, for living purposes.

They did with what they did with celebration. But as we all know the "corporat Mentality" is creaping in and is trying to destroy what was originally built with the expansion plans they have for the area.

 

[Herbie53]

I hate to be one to bring in skepticism, but I think there were too many logistical brick walls to ever see a completed EPCOT. Even if they had started it, I think it probably would have been abandoned along the way. The Disney Company got itself into big trouble during the 80s trying to follow Walt's dreams without his guidance. EPCOT was never really about making money, so it probably wouldn't have survived the corporate shake up that Disney suffered. It was Walt's biggest dream, but I think in his abscence it probably would have been the company's biggest failure.

 

[Hyperion93]

Precisely. If walt was still around, I'm sure EPCOT would nearly be in completion.

 

[JLW11Hi]

Re: Re: If E.P.C.O.T. was REALLY created...

Originally posted by MrPromey


I think it, along with the rest of the Disney Co. would be completely and totally done by now. The way things were going in the 60’s, people were all expecting this bright Jetsons-like future that today, we know will never happen. Walt’s vision would have relied heavily on sponsorship income that would have dried up long before now like maybe around the S&L scandals of the early 80’s and he was gung-hoe about it in the same bet-the-company manner that he had been about so many other things. The truth is that Walt had his own ideas about social engineering but was by no means an expert. Jumping into things the way he wanted to would be like a kid interested in trains running out and buying the Trans Atlantic Railroad. If he had done it, he might have been able to keep it going through the 70’s but I think there would have either been a major collapse or a major change (reducing it to little more than your average development neighborhood in terms of value with some tacky retro-future features that would leave it looking outdated like tomorrowland before it was redone) before the 90’s. I mean, the guy was obsessed with control. Understanding his life gives a clear and reasonable explanation as to why but we aren’t talking about Disneyland. We are talking about a real community with real people. Heck, some residents in Celebration now have a problem with ordinances that restrict the use of lawn decorations like gnomes and plastic flamingos and things like the color or curtains that face the street. How well do you think these people would do in the bubble that Walt built after a few years of living a sterile happy life? Ever see the movie Pleasantville?

That all may have happened, but who the hell can say? No one can, and no one could. That was the whole damn reason they came up with the idea of Epcot. Walt wasn't relying on just his company alone to get the ideas of the city, he was getting help from all kinds of experts. They had also planned that the people living there would all work at Disney. The problem that came of Epcot was not from Walt and his men, but from the people they knew would be living there. I, for one, would have been willing as hell to live there, to try the place out, especially if I would be working there in the first place. If you ask me, the reason something like this will never happen is because people are too sceptical and stubborn to try it. Note, I said TRY it, because thats all they wanted to do. It was an EXPERIMENTAL prototype community of tomorrow. They probably had been planning "back up" plans to everything going on there. The one thing that I notice most is the idea of the citizens to rely mainly on PeopleMovers and the Monorail, which I doubt would have fully worked. It woudl have taken them too long to get to work, and they would probably have been very crowded. But, there's always roads. If it didnt work, they could just let people drive to work instead. they could still use the people movers if they wanted to go to the main center to shop or something. And the roads were designed perfectly. Just drive straight, and you get to the central area. There would be no way anyone could ever get lost. The fact is, no one can say what would have happened. But it would have been nice to see something happen. Now they have Celebration, and Epcot, which in my mind dont live up to the standards of what Epcot was originally supposed to be. It was supposed to showcase future ideas, and how people would live with them. But that's just it, now they are split into 2 seperate things. The people live in Celebration, but all the new technologies are over in Epcot. For the "experiment" to work, they have to bring these 2 together, which, I admit, would have been a hard thing to do. I admit I am not an expert on the subject, but I do know that we will never know what it would have been like. I guess it is a good thing that they didnt try it if they wern't confident that it would work out in the end, but who knows? There will always be a future, and always new things to showcase to the world. mabey in a couple decades, Celebration will turn out to be the Epcot we never saw.

Ok, I am done ranting now. Back to reality

 

[Hyperion93]

I think it would have worked alot better than most people thought it would have worked. It may have not been perfect, but I'm sure the entire concept would have worked out perfectly, being that they planned it perfectly.

 

[Herbie53]

Originally posted by Hyperion93
I think it would have worked alot better than most people thought it would have worked. It may have not been perfect, but I'm sure the entire concept would have worked out perfectly, being that they planned it perfectly.

Well there would have been many unforeseen problems. For example, Walt wanted several layers of underground transportation, but they couldn't even build underground tunnels beneath the Magic Kingdom. If Walt had survived to complete the project, it probably wouldn't have ended up looking much like his original concept. He would have had to adapt the plan to deal with reality. That probably would mean giving up on some ideas, but also could lead to new ones. The drawings, the plans, the models, and the layout could all be changed without losing the goal of the EPCOT concept. Without having the visionary at the helm of the project, that freedom to change gets lost. It would be very difficult for anyone else to stay true to Walt's vision without taking the plans he layed out fairly literally. That's the major hurdle the project would have faced after his death.

I think Walt probably had a sporting chance at making EPCOT work because he was an innovator, and because he didn't feel the need to play it safe, but I don't think we would recognize the result. That's why it would never work in his abscence, no one else could have had the visionary liscence to make the necessary changes.

 

[JLW11Hi]

Originally posted by Herbie53


Well there would have been many unforeseen problems. For example, Walt wanted several layers of underground transportation, but they couldn't even build underground tunnels beneath the Magic Kingdom. If Walt had survived to complete the project, it probably wouldn't have ended up looking much like his original concept. He would have had to adapt the plan to deal with reality. That probably would mean giving up on some ideas, but also could lead to new ones. The drawings, the plans, the models, and the layout could all be changed without losing the goal of the EPCOT concept. Without having the visionary at the helm of the project, that freedom to change gets lost. It would be very difficult for anyone else to stay true to Walt's vision without taking the plans he layed out fairly literally. That's the major hurdle the project would have faced after his death.

I think Walt probably had a sporting chance at making EPCOT work because he was an innovator, and because he didn't feel the need to play it safe, but I don't think we would recognize the result. That's why it would never work in his abscence, no one else could have had the visionary liscence to make the necessary changes.

And who knows, he might have ended up making it a theme park, too!

 

[jmarc63]

Reading allthese posts reminded me of something. if you recall a thread from the beginning of july for 190 North. a local program from the ABC station in chicago. they not to long ago went to WDW to do special on the doings there. This was the fourth time they did a special.

Around 1990 they did there first special right after MGM opened in this program they went to epcot and later talked to Richard Nusis (I tried to use his short name and it blanked it out)who was the head of WDW at the time and he was asked about walts EPCOT vision, and Nusis responce was that there is an epcot already there at WDW. He mentions that there is the hotels that Guests stay at every night. there is the MK and epcot and MGM. There is shopping and resturants at the Shoping village as well as the hotels, they have therer own emergency services and utilites and the working studio with MGM. and replies " isn't these the things that would find in a real city".

I felt disapointed with this answer as saying that they had droped the vision that walt had and decided to use what WDW became as what Walt was trying to acheive.

 

[MrPromey]

Originally posted by Herbie53
I hate to be one to bring in skepticism, but I think there were too many logistical brick walls to ever see a completed EPCOT. Even if they had started it, I think it probably would have been abandoned along the way. The Disney Company got itself into big trouble during the 80s trying to follow Walt's dreams without his guidance. EPCOT was never really about making money, so it probably wouldn't have survived the corporate shake up that Disney suffered. It was Walt's biggest dream, but I think in his abscence it probably would have been the company's biggest failure.

And the biggest problems would be with the people. If it were cast members living here what kind would it be? Are we talking about basically minimum wage ticket takers? Managers? Executives? The costs for these futuristic homes and this city with its modern transportation systems would be far higher than the average WDW employee would be able to pay. What companies would be subsidizing this? After all, this would be a real city – not Future world in the park we know today as Epcot. If AT&T were providing all the telecommunications for free, having sings up saying “Brought to you by AT&T would be sort of useless since the people they are advertising to would already be getting the service for free and if this advertising were in use for the outside world that came to see this futuristic city, how long do you think residents would enjoy living under a microscope? It’s easy to say that you would do it but would your wife? How would your kids feel about potentially being watched whenever they were out in public? How would this futuristic city have dealt with things like social and racial class systems and how they have changed over time? Would it have started out as all white people? Would there have been white and black and Spanish neighborhoods? You have to remember that at the time it was built, most white (Anglo-Saxon) people considered people of color in the neighborhood to devalue their own property. These kinds of concerns however wrong still exist in America today. In the sixties, everyone had this mentality that technology would solve all our problems. Technology ended the cold war but how? Not by finding a desirable peaceful solution. The US and Soviet Union got into an arms race and the whole thing ended when the Soviets could no longer keep up and as a result we have abandoned subs leaking radiation into the ocean on one side of the world and on the other we have the only “superpower” left that still carries weapons of mass destruction beyond anyone else in the world. The social ills of the world or even your local town cannot be solved by technology. It can keep your streets cleaner but it can’t stop your children from lying to you. It can’t make neighbors get along… Could it have succeeded to become the modern utopia that Walt had envisioned? Well, I suppose anything is possible but realistically, what are the chances? Walt lived in an era where you could go to the bank and get a loan based on a handshake, where the person across the desk could approve you based on their personal trust in you. How do you think Snow White got made? The money making Epcot of today has trouble keeping sponsors. How would they have held and updated/replaced sponsors for a 30 year period in a non-profit (actually money loosing) EPCOT? And if this were a prototype, that would mean that it would have to be something that could be implemented in other places. Even if they were able to get past the enormous social hurdles that are today dealt with my monetary incomes and sometimes violence, how could this almost totally subsidized society be duplicated? Would we expect every city to one day be paid for mostly by corporate and private donations?.. No? Only the desirable ones?.. The whole concept of what Walt wanted was flawed from day one and NOBODY seemed to notice… You know, Walt was wrong about a lot of things. Most people tend to foget this but even he admitted that he had been lucky that he had succeeded famously enough at what he did right that nobody seemed to notice when when he failed. Towards the end of his life he got put in a very, very dangerous position. His entire life he had to fight to have his visions become reality. He had to convince others to trust him and had people watching over his back to make sure things were OK. At that point in his life, people thought Walt could do no wrong. He was truly left to his own devices almost totally unregulated and that’s a dangerous thing for anyone… A futuristic city would be cool. It would have the gee-whiz factor but that’s it. Cast members in the parks are nice because they are on duty and being paid to be. People that live next to each other tend to behave in slightly different manners… We hear complaints from some of the residents in Celebration but overall, demand for living there is very high. Why? It’s almost the opposite of Walt’s vision. It’s more of a Main Street USA than a Tomorrowland, wouldn’t you say? Why do you think families find that prospect more desirable? What did the past have more of that we have less of? Family values? Time? Social respect? Does Celebration actually give people this? No but living there, being in a place that is modeled after such a thing might incline people to rethink their choices in life a bit… It might do nothing at all but the dream of that peace is I think, what lures people to Celebration. The future can and it wasn’t what we hoped it would be. We aren’t flying around in personal hover crafts. Computers have NOT given us more time. They have taken it away from us. We now live in a society that is storming ahead. Productivity and multitasking are the words we live by. A computer can do in a half hour what it used to take us a day to do by hand so now our employers want us to get that work done in fifteen minutes… Technology is not the answer. It cannot cure the ills of society. It can’t take away crime and hate and sorrow but it is cool, right?

 

[Dizneydude87]

On the TTA... is that a real model of what E.P.C.O.T was supposed to look like?

And, did Disney really take the one companys idea for Epcot (not E.P.C.O.T but Epcot)? I never caught the ending to that, or heard if they won or lost the sute. I do have heard, however, that Epcot (or I think it was EPCOT Center at that time) was thought of when they pushed Two modles together. One of Future World, the other World Showcase.

 

[JLW11Hi]

I think, in the end, Epcot would have ended up looking like Celebration. Now that I think about it, Epcot was already planned as 2 different areas. The land where people would live (The green belt on the outside), and the town "center". I guess that is pretty much what they are doing today (contrary to what I said before. Yes, I changed my mind ) They have the seperate place for visitors to learn about the new ideas and technologies (Epcot), and the place for people to live (Celebration). Really, looking into the info I have on Epcot, the green belt was going to look pretty much like Celebration, contrary to the "Jetsons" type look that everyone seems to believe. I am sure the original designers were just as concerned about "neighborliness" as the designers of Celebration are today. I am sure they wouldnt have tried to accomplis this with "technology", but by encouraging different programs around the neighborhoods to bring the people together and to keep everyone out of trouble. And the design I am sure would forbid places like "dark alleys" and "Ghettos" to develope, which could have also helped. I was never quite certain how close they were going to allow visitors to get to the towns. I wouldn't have liked to live in a place where everyday tourists drive by my home, riding in the same peoplemovers I do, etc. That would have been going too far. On the other hand, they might have closed off places to the general public, but for the homeowners in the area who would have wanted to leave Epcot often, it might have gotten a bit tedious to have to have identification everywhere you go. Of course, mabey it wouldn't have, if all you needed was, say, a special card to get to the peoplemovers, or a simple sticker for you car when you drive out of town. Still, with all of the things included in the town, they may have rarely ever left (except for vacations and going to work).

I dont know. Mabey its just the original design of Epcot that made my eyelids go up. It is designed so simple, in the "wheel and spkes" type fasion, that in my opinion might work for some cities, making travel easier and such. Walt probably saw it this way, too, but of course, at the time, no one was doing anything like it, and Isuppose he figured if no one else was going to do it, then I will. He had a very big interest in the future of cities, and just like me and the things I like, wouldn't want to see those things go down the drain. Not saying they did, many cities have developed tremendously over the past decades, and because of how they were built, they may never be able to change the design of the cities. This has always been a problem. Roads built centuries ago still exist today, and cause problems such as traffic, hard to follow roads (making it hard to get around, easy to get lost), and such. And because of how long we have done nothing to change the designs of cities, it will now almost be impossible to change anything, because of all the buildings, towns, houses, etc that have been built around them. As implied by Epcot, the solution may be not to try to get around these problems, but to start from scratch, designing towns not just for present day needs, but also for future needs. I guess I am going off the subject here by saying that I hope someone will try to do this.

I am happy with today's Epcot, but I hope the original idea never goes away.

 

[Pioneer Hall]

This is something that has always gone through my mind. If walt had been able to build Epcot what would it have been like, and how would it have affected this world. We will never know what would have happened with the project. The whole idea was very hard to comprehend and truthfully I don't know how many people at the time would have liked his ideas. There is a big difference between a theme park (Disneyland) and a controlled community. People might have started to get very mad with what he was doing, and could have chased him and Disney away. Then how would this have affected all the other things he had done (Cartoons, Movies, and Disneyland).

Even though I believe Walt was a creative Genius I am glad to see that his greatest dream never came to it's true reality. Walt did so much that impacted the world in a good way. Something about the original Epcot doesn't seem right to me.