Well seeing as this all is a bit much for some folks on this forum.
I’m just gonna try and summarize what *I* believe the *real* plot of these attractions are. This isn’t fact, this is simply my analysis. Take it as you will.
I believe Tiki Room Under New Management is basically “a group of imagineer’s” way of poking fun at current management. With Iago parodying Eisner, Zazu parodying Tony Baxter, and the Tiki Birds and the Tiki Gods acting as the rest of the Imagineers and fans that went and “caused a storm” to convince “Iago” that their way of doing things was better.
Your Imagination not only insults guests’ intelligence at the beginning by telling them they have no imagination (the very opposite of what Dreamfinder’s message was in the original, that imagination belonged to all of us). But I also believe the line, “Well as you can see there’s not much going on upstairs imagination wise. That’s just perfect for our experiments”. Is poking fun at the fact they closed the popular upstairs ImageWorks area.
The With Figment version however seems *very clear* to be mocking Tony Baxter and the Friends of Figment in my mind. The reason I say this is they clearly portray Figment as a constant, upstaging “interference” that “bombards our senses” that’s constantly proving Channing’s way of thinking wrong. Figment’s way of thinking is the non-constrained, “outside the box”, Free thinking way, while Channing’s clearly characterized as the constrained, thinking within the limitations inside the box, corporate way of thinking (also characterized as being through straight up perception (how your mind processes info) rather than creativity (collecting and storing ideas to recombine them in new ways to create something new). The opposite of what Imagination truly is. Google the definitions of both imagination & perception and you’ll see exactly what I mean)
It’s a constant argument between the two. And I can’t help but feel like each lab is mocking some sort of aspect of how Tony and the Friends of Figment complained or “interfered” with “Channing’s” plans. The sound lab seems to be poking fun at the phone calls and feedback they got from the fans. The sight lab seems to be mocking the “Focus Group” tests they had to do, which ultimately made “Your Imagination” disappear. (Hence the butterfly from that version disappearing right after the eye diagram on the right titled “Focus Groups”. With the intials (KM) (try and figure out who’s initials those are). (i’ll give you a hint, it’s in the Orlando sentinel article I linked) And it’s a chart showing how an eye, viewing visual stimuli is supposed to have “captured imagination”, inside the box. In another direction on the chart. It’s labeled “To Small Figment Brain” with no connecting line. (Insulting much?):
Then after that, we go through the smell lab. Channing explains how “research shows smells trigger the imagination, especially when pleasant familiar smells come into play”. (Notice the rose fragrance tank on the side and the white rose that shows up on the screen. That’s a reference to the rose scent that used to be in the old Dreamport and Art scenes) Figment “comes into play”. Tells Channing it’s always a good time to use your imagination, “so let the good times roll”. Which is when we get sprayed with skunk, with Figment responding “the nose knows” and “that’s how you tell a skunk is not a rose”. Yeah.. no kidding! So I think it’s mocking the fact the “Friends of Figment” made a “big stink” about the redo cause of how much the 1st redo “stunk”.
Then, literally right after, you pass by two lab doors. Laugh lab and dream lab. In the laugh lab, you hear laughter coming from inside. In the Dream Lab you can hear snoring. (According to Offhand Disney, they had actually recorded Chuck McCann (the Original voice of Dreamfinder) snoring inside). Which makes me wonder... why would they place that right after that “big stink”?? Oh! Because they were “laughing because they put Dreamfinder to sleep ‘behind closed doors’?” Oh, haha! How funny, right?
So after “that big stink stops Dr. Channing’s tour”.
Figment gets the grand idea to go to “his” open house instead and that it’ll be a lot more fun. Channing tells Figment he’s “turning the entire open house upside down”.
Then Figment responds “That’s the best idea you’ve had all day”. (Then you hear the familiar set of musical notes like when Dreamfinder introduced himself. You remember.. “What delightful melodies those will make!”)
He sings a verse about how “a spark of inspiration made his house an innovation”. “Imagination really clowns around..... ‘What’s downside up is ‘upside down’’.
Then we go through “Figment’s Open House”. With the sign “Welcome Friends of Figment”. Notice now it’s a whole group of Figments doing everything upside down.
Then the whole conversation between Figment & Channing goes along the lines, “So what do you think.. is it me?” “More than you can imagine” “But doc, that’s exactly what I imagined. ‘Imagination is the brain of this open house’”
OHHH Of Course! “Imagination is just “turning your thinking upside down”. (Yeeeeah. See where I’m getting at here. It’s basically saying Tony & the Friends of Figment’s way of thinking is upside down. That there were way more folks like Tony who loved Figment than they could ever imagine).
Then it ends with “Well... if you can’t beat him, join him!”. They sing the song together. And then Figment responds “You see Doc, I knew you’d get it! Cause you’ve got a wonderful imagination!”
Channing then says “Oh, I do?! Why thank you Figment”. “So as you can plainly see ‘Imagination works best when it’s set free’”
And Figment ends that with “You said it Doc.. “Imagination is a blast!”. We get blasted with a gust of air
And what’s that?? “The Friends of Figment” are all singing “One Little Spark” “on full blast”. This “one room” is the only scene that resembles the original ride. Almost as if it’s mocking the fact that the imagineers behind this project knew exactly what they meant and that they knew the fans would blindly congratulate them for “Bringing Figment Back”, right? Putting all of us on blast. But it gets even worse
Literally right after we see astronaut Figment gesturing towards.... oh yeah, Dr. Channing as... The Moon From Horizons!! Wow! No kidding, right?? The very thing that seemed to have had a domino effect on this entire situation:
Then once you put everything together that I’ve found and all the other scenes of the ride. Seems to *all* make sense, doesn’t it?? Same goes for the reason why WDI seems to constantly be targeting the Figment character for removal and keep that ride in the terrible state it’s in, when ultimately, he’s still very popular and sells plenty of merch.
Again... take this all for what you will. I just find this to be all WAY too coincidental and strange *not* to believe what’s going on is Infact intentional and an eerie repeating of history atm.
I believe it’s without a doubt the inner politics along with the risk-averse CEOs causing this issue.
Call me crazy, call me over-analytical. But I believe there’s something a lot more sinister about everything that’s going on at WDI with Epcot (and specifically Figment) at the moment and it’s not pretty.
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