mightynine
Well-Known Member
The greeny.
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Journey of Water featuring Moana coming to Epcot
- Thread starter Rteetz
- Start date
mikejs78
Well-Known Member
This point is a bit disingenuous. The Tree of Life is not "natural" in that sense but it evokes the feeling of natural. Same with pandora. There are a lot of valid criticisms about the new Epcot and Journey of Water in particular - this isn't one of them.
Good imagineering doesn't have to actually be natural to evoke that feeling.
Vinnie Mac
Well-Known Member
I think the problem with Epcot's theme is that it only works if it's actually relevant and it takes a lot to keep it relevant.That's with almost anything. Let something sit and rot long enough, it'll become dated of course. Epcot was popular in the 80s because it opened in the 80s.
But things cannot sit around for 10+ years without efficient updates, refurbs, or replacements. Test Track got a big update and it worked. Energy got a big update, and it worked (30 years ago). Even American Adventure got a major refresh a few years back.
But let stuff sit and rot (Horizons, SSE, ect.) Or create an incredibly stupid replacement (imagination twice), then no. The concept of Epcot doesn't work. Just like any park concept doesn't work.
MGM studios "doesn't work" if you don't update the concept of how movies are made.
Solution for BOTH parks? Shove a bunch of Magic Kingdom crap in them.Easy peasy. Lazy lazy lazy. No creativity anymore.
Lazy lazy lazy. They will need updating at some point, too. Anything built today will no longer have "classic opening day charm". So when something starts to show it's age, it just becomes bad. Little Mermaid, Splash Mountain, and Buzz Light-year are prime examples.
It's possible, but very expensive and takes a lot of effort to do so. Once you update the park once, it only stay relevant for a decade or so and then you need to update it again.
I think Disney is banking on the IP being timeless enough to keep Epcot relevant for awhile which it will. But after 15 years the problems will show more than they're showing now. If y'all think it's bad now....
mikejs78
Well-Known Member
In the alternative plan that you liked - the one that would have kept all of CommuniCore - what would have happened to the courtyard? More of a return to the early aesthetic, or something new? If you're able to say of course.
Vinnie Mac
Well-Known Member
One thing Disney always knocks out the park is artificial environments that are meant to look natural. They are king with this
mightynine
Well-Known Member
Some appropriate music as you browse Te Fiti pics:
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sfmichaelo
New Member
Epcot a big mess full of fluff rides. It needs a big overhaul. They need to stick to science and technology and create rides such as Baymax San Fransokyo Institute of Technology campus building ride, Wreck it Ralph ride or land, Tron Land, Mars and Beyond Rover ride, Wall-e Axiom ride, Planes ride, Inside Out land, Zootopia Land, not Moana doesn't fit and go there.
Marni this would have been such an improvement over the current plan - thanks for sharing.
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
It is interesting to ponder the extent to which the original sponsorship model ended up playing a role in Epcot ending up the way it has. In other parks, you get the impression a sponsorship has long been a good thing to have for an attraction rather than a prerequisite as it was in Epcot until relatively recently. Even in terms of building new World Showcase pavilions they seem to have had an obsession with attracting outside funding that they haven't had when expanding other parks.
Are they cases of attractions at other WDW parks that simply shut or became seasonal once they lost their sponsorships as happened at Epcot?
networkpro
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
It's the same that's happened in the telecommunications industry. In the 90s we had central offices (aka switch sites) that covered multiple floors of large buildings. That same capacity today is replaced by one device the size of an average home refrigerator (one rack). It's not about building massive structures, it's functional utility not building another Albert Speer coliseum.
EPCOTCenterLover
Well-Known Member
I was part of Ma Bell for a long time. You are 100% right- and its all kind of sad.
Casper Gutman
Well-Known Member
IP was never the problem. IP could have been the solution. Mix IP with the edutainment element and you still have EPCOT. Wonders of Life starring Baymax, Living with the Land starring Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa, World of Motion starring Mater and Lightning - that's a solid compromise that could have provided a future direction for EPCOT, differentiated it from the other parks, and avoided obliterating the park's original vision. Heck, even the GotG ride we THOUGHT we were getting, an edutainment attraction about the big bang, would have fit. (The most elegant solution would have been to turn the whole thing into Stark Expo, which was already EPCOT, and link the Marvel IPs to the edutainment element, but we all know why that couldn't happen).
The problem with EPCOT is simple - utter directionlessness.
The problem with EPCOT is simple - utter directionlessness.
mysto
Well-Known Member
Hey I resemble that remark!
retr0gate
Well-Known Member
While I agree with this, isn't that kind of what they are doing? Using Moana to teach the water cycle, Nemo to teach about the ocean, etc. Is that not IP mixed with edutainment? I would say the only real outliers would be Guardians and Frozen. Even so, Guardians has some light edutainment in the queue. Frozen is the only one I really can't defend because at least the other World Showcase attractions are directly related to their respective countries. I think it's less a matter of the IP and more about the execution.
Epcot82Guy
Well-Known Member
I think this hits the issue on the head. The idea you're sharing is spot on. I simply would argue it's not the case - but should be. I would say Nemo is a Nemo attraction which happens to attach to Sea Base. (Speaking of the ride here - the Aquarium itself is more integrated and lines up to what you're saying.) Similarly, Ratatouille is literally a movie ride lifted from Studios Paris. It takes place in Paris but has nothing else to do with France. (So, by the same measure, Peter Pan is an educational ride about London, Tower of Terror is an educational ride about old Hollywood, etc.). Moana is yet to be seen, of course. And, it could certainly go the direction you are saying. A number of us are simply skeptical given that the latest list of major attractions for Epcot - Harmonius, Guardians, Rat, FEA, Nemo and even Gran Fiesta to some extent - have all focuses on the IP. Any information is secondary, at best.
Having said all of that - the part that's frustrating to me is the possibility here. If they actually tried to create the versions you are describing, it would at least honor Epcot and reduce some (not all) of the frustration.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
The actual Nemo attraction doesn't even attempt to be educational, though. It's just attached to the aquarium (and it's terrible, but that's a separate discussion).
It would have been pretty easy to make it educational, too, considering it sits in a tunnel with windows looking into the aquarium with actual sea life. Instead they just covered those windows up.
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Disstevefan1
Well-Known Member
I think the Moana attraction was originally planned to be a non-IP edutainment attraction.
Then they slapped the Moana label on it and called it Moana.
Then they slapped the Moana label on it and called it Moana.
Andrew C
You know what's funny?
water cycle piece still exists, which is nice IMO. We will where it all lands...