Jose's SSE GEMENI TRIP REPORT

askmike1

Member
Okay, so while I will reserve full judgment until I see it in person, here is what I could gather from the videos.....

Pros
  • The entire first act (scene-wise). The enhancements, upgrades and additions are just fantastic. The AAs look better and more animated than ever before
  • The entire second act (scene-wise) (by second act I am referring to the section between the newspaper boy and the top of the sphere). The changes here are spectacular.
  • The computer room. Like someone said earlier, it looks exactly like one of the Dharma stations (or perhaps from one of the Dharma films). And they even have Gerald and Karen DeGroot there too (bonus points for all Lost fans who know who the DeGroots are). :) The entire scene is so much better than its former self.
  • Love the new/updated living room scene
  • Love that they compressed the Cinema section down
  • Love that the newspaper boy actually sounds like a boy now :)
  • The score at the unload area is very nice.
  • Loved the Meet the Robinsons meets Jetsons animation
  • Loved the matrix affect
  • Loved the entrance
Now as I hoped I wouldn't have to do, not everything was great....

Cons
  • The score in general. Now while I realize I have to see it in person (especially for the score), nothing about the score did anything for me. Without a doubt nowhere near the greatness that was the previous score.
  • Judi Dench/Tone. I'm sorry, but I simply did not like her narration at all. While I appreciate them putting in some of the old lines ("Grand and miraculous spaceship", etc).... the tone of this new narration is just too loose. The Jeremy Irons version was fantastic because it always felt like a timeless script that I could here a million times and still love it. This new version seems like it will irk me after the first ride. Furthermore, Judi doesn't have the soothing voice Jeremy Irons did. Call me a sexist if you wish, but I'd rather a guy doing this. If they couldn't get Irons back, I think Jack Davenport would have made a great narrator.
  • The entire third act (scene-wise... or should I say lack of scene-wise). I'm sorry, but putting a touch screen up does not give you the excuse to cheap out on the details. Going down a pitch black tunnel while taking a health exam just doesn't fit it. And speaking of.... since when did Spaceship Earth turn into Wonders of Life? I mean really. If I wanted to take a health exam I would have gone to a doctor... not Epcot. And if they don't add more "facts" to their recap screen, the rerideability will go way down (like the questions before Sounds Dangerous that haven't been changed since it opened). Call me crazy, but I'd take the Irons finale with all the lights and FANTASTIC score any day over this ending. What do I think they can do to fix it? Add something on the way down. Put some swirling lights up. Create a more thrilling score. The entire third act screams of 80s cheesiness and I'm not a fan.
Now I realize Disney and Siemens were undertaking a big task. It is hard to improve upon the previous version of Spaceship Earth (at least in my eyes). And I think that scene-wise, they did a fantastic job in the first 3/4 of the ride. Really, the only three things I didn't like was the score, the narration and the ending. Luckily, at least two of those three things can be changed fairly easily. I would love if the ride went back down for a (much shorter) refurb in the near future to replace the Judi Dench narration and make the end more timeless. The ending I think they can improve simply by adding lights or perhaps bringing back some of the items from the older versions. The score, unfortunately though, I will have to put up with for at least a good 10-15 years. But until they can come up with a brand new score, I think a semi-quick fix would be to add an updated Tomorrows Child to the decent part.
 

TinkerBell9988

Well-Known Member
I don't like the Judi Drench narration and I hope they replace her soon and add a new script like they did with Vic Perrin! The role reversal of the male and female voice actors just didn't work. A female should be sending us off and welcoming us back while a guy should be our narrator.

Also, COREY BURTON should be the touch screens narrator. I still don't think putting a project tomorrow interactive survey as the grand finale to this ride it smart. It seems cheap and I'd feel ripped off if I came on expecting a ride and got a flash mini-game forced on me for four and a half minutes.

The actual classic stuff looks absolutely amazing! This ride could have been great if they took Mansions example and just added elaborate scenes for the unelaborated ones (Computer room, garage scene) and upgraded everything else. I just can't figure out how they could butcher the ending and think it was a good idea (like taking out the graveyard scene in Mansion and replacing it with a touchscreen whack-a-mole game with ghosts popping up from behind gravestones)!

To bad the ride can't end after the planetarium :(

Skippy

I concur... :lookaroun

Please don't attack me, but all of us have our opinions. I won't go into further detail of my thoughts, but I miss the Spaceship Earth I rode in June with Mr. Irons and his narration. :(

Kudos to WDI and Siemens for all the enhancements on the Audio-Animatronics! They truly look amazing.

P.S. I'm a female, and I still prefer the older narrations for SSE. But I am a Dame Judi Dench fan... just not a fan of her narration.
 

SDav10495

Member
The entire third act screams of 80s cheesiness and I'm not a fan.

I totally share your opinion about the ride and, more specifically, this ending, but let me just comment on what you say about "80s cheesiness". You might have the wrong decade--I don't think there's enough 80s sensibility in this ending. Plenty about the 80s may have been "cheesy", but when it comes to EPCOT Center the 80s were nothing but sincere and optimistic. What we see on these touch screens is the remnants of a real 90s sensibility--light, cutesy, and severely limited in its scope of vision. The 80s gave us a grand, majestic "Future World"; the 90s laughed at that idea.

Now, I'm not saying that every attraction needs to have that same presentationalist, didactic, distinctly 80s feel of old EPCOT Center, but in the case of Spaceship Earth--an opening day attraction--that sensibility is designed into its very core. The first AA-laden 10 minutes of the ride are still the quintessential EPCOT Center experience. You can't just switch gears mid-attraction and give us a sweet little animation reeking of 90s "fun"--you have to go with it all the way. Cheesy (and disappointingly static) as the scenes for the 1994 descent were, they maintained the ride's tone through the very end. That continuity of tone is crucial to making the ride a cohesive, memorable experience with any impact. This time around, they dropped the ball. It doesn't matter that the previous versions of the descent were mostly black as well--it matters that now the entire tone changes and we essentially have a whole new "hip" attraction crudely tacked onto a venerable classic.

I understand that they were trying to make it feel fresh again. I'm not saying they need to abandon the screens completely and safely stay with what's worked in the past. But I am saying they need to keep letting the ride be what it is--a product of the 80s, with all the earnest sensibilities that brings with it.

If you want to make Hamlet fresh for a new audience, you keep the story and characters and make creative changes where necessary...you do not perform the play in 16th century tights until Act V and then start rapping the rest.
 

askmike1

Member
I totally share your opinion about the ride and, more specifically, this ending, but let me just comment on what you say about "80s cheesiness". You might have the wrong decade--I don't think there's enough 80s sensibility in this ending. Plenty about the 80s may have been "cheesy", but when it comes to EPCOT Center the 80s were nothing but sincere and optimistic. What we see on these touch screens is the remnants of a real 90s sensibility--light, cutesy, and severely limited in its scope of vision. The 80s gave us a grand, majestic "Future World"; the 90s laughed at that idea.
Sorry, should have been more specific. I didn't mean the often corny yet sincere early 80s that gave us Epcot, I meant the later, much cheesier 80s that gave us Wonders of Life (with such attractions as Making of Me and Cranium Command) and coincidently the rebirth of the Jetsons. And I guess if I had to specify that fake decade (or fakade :) )... I'd say it was from 1987ish-1993ish.
 

scasta86

Member
-There was also a nice new sign out at the beginning of the queue that reads "Welcome Aboard Spaceship Earth Join us on a re-Imagineered journey through time as we add the finishing touches to this EPCOT adventure Please keep in mind that we may need to close at any time... Official Reopening February 2008"
I also noticed that sign on the video released by wdwmagic.com. Hopefully that additional two month delay will help fix the ending, and other quirks that will surely surface from the feedback they Disney is getting.
 

askmike1

Member
I don't get it.

No new track system.

Wasn't this supposed to be priority #1 and why it was going to take a half year to refurb??

This wasn't the Space Mountain refurb. Priority #1 was reimagineering the attraction itself (not its ride/track structure). That included story/scene changes, major upgrades throughout the rest of the attraction, a new score and new narrator. That is why it took 5 months. If they had to change the track/ride system too, I could almost guarantee it would have taken another half a year at least. Just to put it in comparison, Pirates was closed for over 3 months and that just involved general refurb work (painting, etc) and a couple of added AAs. This refurb involved creations (and removals) of entire scenes along with many brand new AAs and general refurb throughout.
 

Spyne

Member
After watching both parts here, it seems very interesting. I'm sure it's a LOT better seeing it in person, but it looked darn good to me from those videos. :)
 

Hakunamatata

Le Meh
Premium Member
First, thanks Jose for the Vids!!!

Overall, the AA upgrades, are awesome. The new scenes awesome. Hopefully they are not done with the last 1/4 of the attraction on the way down. Guess they had to take a more "health" related tone to the decent to tie in with a majority of what Siemens does, but it does not tie in well with the first 3/4 of the attraction which is tied into information and communication and how it has developed into what it is today.

Still cant wait to see it for myself.
 

alphac2005

Well-Known Member
So, what exactly is Siemens known for?

Siemens is a major technology company based in Germany with many facilities in the US. The health tie-in doesn't surprise me at all. If you go for a CT Scan, you'll find that the machine is either a GE or Siemens. Siemens on the consumer side has Sylvania with the light bulbs, etc.
 

SirNim

Well-Known Member
I heard that there is a new effect in SSE called "Pepper's Ghost"

WHat is thsi?
It's not new at all... and it -used- to be in SSE... Not part of the new version, unless of course changes are made...

It refers to an old parlor trick using panes of glass oriented at proper angles and special lighting to produce a ghost effect, just like the Haunted Mansion ballroom, basically.
 

darthjohnny

Active Member
Siemens is a major technology company based in Germany with many facilities in the US. The health tie-in doesn't surprise me at all. If you go for a CT Scan, you'll find that the machine is either a GE or Siemens. Siemens on the consumer side has Sylvania with the light bulbs, etc.

Thanks. :wave: :)
 

hpyhnt 1000

Well-Known Member
Siemens is a major technology company based in Germany with many facilities in the US. The health tie-in doesn't surprise me at all. If you go for a CT Scan, you'll find that the machine is either a GE or Siemens. Siemens on the consumer side has Sylvania with the light bulbs, etc.

Yeah, but they really deal with so much more. They are also involved with alternative energy sources, transportation, automation/control (i.e. robots and such), communications, and lighting systems, at least according to Wikipedia.:shrug:
 

EpcotServo

Well-Known Member
Yeah, but they really deal with so much more. They are also involved with alternative energy sources, transportation, automation/control (i.e. robots and such), communications, and lighting systems, at least according to Wikipedia.:shrug:

Hey...I actully just realized that those are ALL things that might come up depending on what you answered. A few of those subjects came up in both of my videos, and if you listen he TALKS about them serious, but on the screen it's shown in a cartoony-retro-future way.

I think I actully like it a tad more now.
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom