-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Journey of Water featuring Moana coming to Epcot
- Thread starter Rteetz
- Start date
flynnibus
Premium Member
do zoomers even know what this means anymore?
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
Doesn't fit there, either.
I haven't seen this claim that you're making very often here on these threads.
Makes just as much since as......
^^^^This.
It is for EPCOT. It was nice to have something that was stand-alone different.
Same for former MGM Studios... Both parks had phenomenal concepts that were awesome but Disney was just too penny-pinching/lazy to keep the parks updated or consistently themed.... I expect Animal Kingdom to go the same route. AK is the only extended park of the 3 that has any dignity left at the moment.
It's not just edutainment. They were world-class attractions... Spaceship Earth-sized monstrosities that were also high-capacity and never required long wait times of fastpasses.
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
@SilentWindODoom refer to new thread/poll https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/was-gotg-placed-in-the-right-park.980682/ for continued discussion.
BubbaisSleep
Well-Known Member
Since everything is supposed to be interactive & within arms reach I’ll be sure to bring a bucket to collect all that change. Hello Coinstar!
Scott the Lawyer
Member
So… what’s the over/under on this opening earlier than Fall ‘23? If the plumbing is on and they’ve installed signage, seems like there’s not much left to open it.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
EPCOT was broken. EPCOT is still broken.
That being said, this appears like a nice addition to the park that probably could have also been a part of DAK.
SilentWindODoom
Well-Known Member
I was quoting the sentiment and reacting with frustration at it. Not agreeing with it.
It was in reference specifically to a string of posts on page 229 making me think about the overall reaction I've heard over these years on each individual part. How many of them have been hits and how many have been misses in the overall scheme. And one user did specifically fail a math check, but nevertheless, I've specifically been hanging in this and the Tron thread for *checks watch* forever trying to stave off hyperbole and doomerism. Before today I'd never actually stopped to itemize the list of things that changed over the whole project and it's a rosier picture than I'd imagined.
I fully agree with you.
What matters more to you? Is it the atmosphere of EPCOT, or the meaning of EPCOT? Your beloved park taught us all to imagine, to think, to learn. Does it matter who teaches the lesson? In the end, the difference between Moana teaching about the water cycle and a sentient water molecule named Wally is minimal and the former is what it takes to get the project greenlit, then I'd rather have something than an empty warehouse building.
You want them to build that in the footprint of this project?
No need. I want my dinosaurs back. No further discussion needed there, unless you're suggesting any conversation about the overall overhaul need take place in the thread of another specific portion of it.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
A park full of amazing, highly themed attractions can still be a lousy theme park. What makes a great theme park is how its parts are composed together.
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
Yes. lol... EPCOT as a whole matters most to me. I'm not going to dissect it into parts, as you and corporate have done. Should have just kept with the original purpose of the theme park to begin with.
(And before you bring up Walt and his vision... I said the OG theme park. Not the city. Go ahead and scratch that witty comeback from your brain if that was about to happen..)
I wanted them to focus on things that mattered more than the Moana water playground area...... Imagination... Spaceship Earth... A better replacement than a space coaster in a box... Something better fit for Wonders of Life... Moana shouldn't have even been considered. Like. Literally AT ALL. It should not have ever made it into the heads of the company to begin with for this park.
Maybe Adventureland... But not here. And she doesn't need to go to AK, either. If they had put as much focus on these fountains as they would have the Imagination Institute, we'd have an even better topsy-turvy water playground over there with a new 4D film and a ride. But nope. We got this plopped down in a spot that didn't need to be focused on in the first place.
KeithVH
Well-Known Member
Emphasis there. Pretty succinct to me. Too many losing sight of that.
So. If we go down this road (and we are being dragged kicking and screaming that way), it's time to change. As the man would say "...you know what I'm craving? A little perspective. That's it. I'd like some fresh, clear, well seasoned perspective. "
Could it be as simple as throwing away the name and replacing it with something else? As has been pointed out, the park's purpose is gone. Was there ever a real corporate mission statement? Maybe create a new one to suit a new name representative of . . . what? Multi-national Entertainment Conglomerate Intellectual Property Showcase? MECIPS???
Movielover
Well-Known Member
After this attraction opens the site is going to take all the posts from this thread and assemble them into a book. They already have the cover art made that fits the tone of the posts perfectly...
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
I kind of disagree. Yes, the placement is weird because they were trying to fill a gap when the Festival Center was a thing, but beside Space 220, Journey of Water is probably the most traditionally "EPCOT" of all the proposed additions, at least based on what we can see and have been told. A place where people can interact with water, discover how it cycles through different phases, and learn about the importance of conservation is not that different from what we saw in many of the classic pavilions. That Moana is the steward of that learning is ultimately irrelevant. If IP must be integrated, this is the right way to do it for EPCOT, I think—eschew the old original mascot model in favor of existing characters who can naturally speak to a particular theme.
By contrast, Ratatouille and the Poppins attraction simply take place in their host countries and teach us little about them, and Cosmic Rewind just buries us in technobabble and giant space men with the Galaxarium as the only minor trapping of actual learning. Why they didn't just make it an intentional mission to go back in time and observe the big bang is beyond me. It would have made a whole lot more sense and would have likely been far more visually compelling.
I do absolutely agree that Spaceship Earth and Imagination should have been higher on the priority list, though.
SilentWindODoom
Well-Known Member
EPCOT as a city died with Walt. So instead they built a modern and eternal version of the World's Fair he was such a big part of. Pavilions bringing the technology of tomorrow and the cultures of the world to one place where people could enjoy it. The cynic would say this means it's all about brands selling you their products, and perhaps that's most of what the actual World's Fairs dabbled in, but I'd like to think of EPCOT as a more idealized form (even if the behind-the-scenes business of it may say otherwise). It became known as the educational park. Kids were exposed to history, nature, technology, cultures. Their minds were opened.
I loved my dinosaurs, and I loved Mesa Verde, and I loved Hamm & Eggz, and I loved Buzzy. In a dark time, a lot of decisions were made to try to change the image of the park and it sacrificed the soul. But the soul isn't any one of these things. When I said "the atmosphere of EPCOT", I meant having slow-moving dark rides in buildings with carpeted walls, synth or country theme songs, hypercolor, and Michael Jackson. Does that matter as much or more than reaching minds and expanding horizons?
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
I disagree... Even "Awesome Planet" is more thematically correct than Moana.
Classic pavilions were able to tell new original stories with new original characters and new groundbreaking attractions... I wouldn't even call this a pavilion. Focuses should have been elsewhere. This could have been done with Imagination.
I strongly disagree.
I strongly disagree.
Disney should be creative enough to come up with original characters for this park.
Honestly, I don't have too much of an issue with these attractions because they literally take place in their respective countries and they haven't replaced anything. Frozen Ever After, though? That should have been a Magic Kingdom Fantasyland Expansion thing.
Agreed... I'm also not sure they needed to construct a giant unthemed box when literally every other attraction in the original EPCOT center was built in these huge magnificent marvels of buildings like Horizons, Spaceship Earth, and The Living Seas pavilion... If they were going to expand it into a room that size, they could have AT LEAST themed the box.
Good.
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
Correct. The soul was the extraordinary visionaries taken to accomplish what the park's intended message was meant to be...
None of that... Test Track, Mission: Space, Space 220, and Soarin' all scream EPCOT to me as well while still reaching minds and expanding horizons... Even Awesome Planet does that... All while remaining true to EPCOT.
The "atmosphere" of Epcot is not the stuff you mentioned... For me, at least. My "atmosphere" is being taken away to a theme park that is vastly different than the other 3 parks that are vastly overdone literally everywhere else in the world and going to a truly unique experience that cannot be seen anywhere else....... Moana, Frozen, Rat, and Guardians does not do that. They just feel like another Magic Kingdom ride... Another Islands of Adventure attraction... Another cash-grab for popular Disney characters... EPCOT was different. It reached minds and expanded horizons by LITERALLY being the OPPOSITE of what Disney is trying to turn it into.
By your logic, Disney could plop down almost any attraction from Magic Kingdom and loosely base it off of something 'mildly' educational... Lets just slide Stitch's Great Escape over into EPCOT... We are exploring the capabilities of teleportation travel... Bam. That's EPCOT-y enough for us.
Lord have mercy.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
You say it's about telling new, original stories with new characters, yet Awesome Planet does none of that, nor did many of the original attractions in the park. As long as the characters don't serve to obfuscate any sort of message (all due side-eye to Cosmic Rewind), I see no issue, and in Journey of Water, Moana and her entourage don't even talk. They're literal statues for environmental theming.
How many years ago did Disney break ground on the construction of this thing? It almost feels like Universal is going to build an entire 750 acre, huge theme park during that same time period.
Somebody could say "Yes, but Disney had to deal with a global pandemic and that slowed them down"....yep!...but Universal had that exact same global pandemic to deal with and look at how much construction THEY accomplished in a 5 year period.
What is happening at Disney? It seems like everything they build now takes THREE times longer than it should. How long did Tron take to build?....a clone of a ride they already built before?
Something is seriously broken....
Somebody could say "Yes, but Disney had to deal with a global pandemic and that slowed them down"....yep!...but Universal had that exact same global pandemic to deal with and look at how much construction THEY accomplished in a 5 year period.
What is happening at Disney? It seems like everything they build now takes THREE times longer than it should. How long did Tron take to build?....a clone of a ride they already built before?
Something is seriously broken....
Last edited:
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
When this “makeover” began, what were the primary issues facing EPCOT? In rough order of descending importance, I’d argue they were:
1) Lack of a coherent, guiding vision and theme for the park. This was far and away the most pressing concern.
2) The shameful state of several rides, most notably Imagination but also including Seas and the descent of SE.
3) The lack of desirable headliners and attractive capacity- the biggest rides, Soarin, TT, and especially Space, were notably lackluster.
4) The concrete expanses of the entry plaza and the Communicore area.
What has this “makeover” achieved? It has not only failed to address 1, the core reason for the park’s dysfunction, it has exacerbated the problem with a narratively incoherent GotG and the absurdly misplaced Moana. Point 2 has also been completely ignored. 3 has been somewhat addressed - GotG is a physically exciting ride and an overall positive addition, but it’s also deeply lacking in areas in which Disney rides are supposed to excel: theming, narrative, aesthetics, etc. Despite some improvement, point 3 remains an issue. Point 4 was addressed.
Had you told these boards fifteen years ago that this would be the final extent of the EPCOT makeover, posters would have been dubious or openly derisive. That’s without adding in the information that the process would take nearly a decade and, for much of that time, the full-priced park would be a difficult-to-navigate maze of construction walls. The scale of this “makeover’s” failure is truly impressive.
1) Lack of a coherent, guiding vision and theme for the park. This was far and away the most pressing concern.
2) The shameful state of several rides, most notably Imagination but also including Seas and the descent of SE.
3) The lack of desirable headliners and attractive capacity- the biggest rides, Soarin, TT, and especially Space, were notably lackluster.
4) The concrete expanses of the entry plaza and the Communicore area.
What has this “makeover” achieved? It has not only failed to address 1, the core reason for the park’s dysfunction, it has exacerbated the problem with a narratively incoherent GotG and the absurdly misplaced Moana. Point 2 has also been completely ignored. 3 has been somewhat addressed - GotG is a physically exciting ride and an overall positive addition, but it’s also deeply lacking in areas in which Disney rides are supposed to excel: theming, narrative, aesthetics, etc. Despite some improvement, point 3 remains an issue. Point 4 was addressed.
Had you told these boards fifteen years ago that this would be the final extent of the EPCOT makeover, posters would have been dubious or openly derisive. That’s without adding in the information that the process would take nearly a decade and, for much of that time, the full-priced park would be a difficult-to-navigate maze of construction walls. The scale of this “makeover’s” failure is truly impressive.