Number_6
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, the pun for the name is not the only lame thing about him. If he were animated, I think I could have dealt better with him since he's the main host for the 30 minutes of the actual video. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Here's my thoughts on it:
As far as an opening, you start out on the monorail with the Prof, hearing about how it rides on a single rail(thank you Captain Obvious). He starts talking to you about Spaceship Earth and you get some trivia facts about it's composition and construction, then you are shown some of the inside. This is where it switches from the Prof, to a separate narrator. You are given what I can only describe as a poor man's version of SSE. "With the invention of heiroglyphics and papyrus, word was able to be spread over greater distances. Then the Greeks came up with theater. The Renaissance brought renewed interest in science, poetry and literature, etc, etc. You are then shown Innoventions. Not much I can say about that just because, again, I think the Prof is just really annoying. Thankfully, after that and a little more lame commentary from the Prof, you are brought to the first three World Showcase countries shown on the DVD, Mexico. The one thing I think they did right here was to have a CM from each country actually tell you about the features of each pavillion. I would have hated to hear the Prof try to say "El Rio Del Tiempo." After Mexico, more lame comments followed by Norway, more lame comments as the Prof rides Maelstrom and then goes to China. When you are given info on the CircleVision show there, you get the narrator from SSE back. Now we go back to Future World and I really am starting to lose track of the exact order things go in, but there were a couple of slightly interesting, if somewhat poorly planned things that I noticed for two of the Future World pavillions information segments. The first was Universe of Energy. Typical lame intro, followed by showing some footage from inside. The footage shown is from the original Universe of Energy. This can be confirmed by the fact that in the scene with the serpentine dino with the large fangs that currently is seen in a fairly well lit area with Ellen trying to fend it off with a branch, on the video it is seen in a very dark area with no sign of the Ellen animatronic. If you're going to give information on an attraction to put on a video all about how things are at the park, you should present it accurately. The other one I had a problem with was for The Land. Lame intro outside the pavillion. Shot of the purple and blue streamers near the ceiling, followed by shot of the balloons(no longer there) and the nice fountain in the food court area(no longer there). If they wanted to make and release this DVD for the 50th celebration, they should have just waited until everything was completed because this will confuse the heck out of people that are visiting for the first time and picking up the DVD as a souvenir of their trip. Wonders of Life never gets a mention, being seasonal as it is. The rest of the World Showcase countries are shown 3 or 4 at a time with The American Adventure being last. Between World Showcase segments, the rest of Future World is gone over in a standard fashion. The last Future World thing talked about is LAL. Then they show some shots of SSE, one of which is a full moon over a pre-wand SSE which looks beautiful. The video closes out with Illuminations : ROE and then a farewell from the idiotic Professor.
Now a note about the bonus material. I have not looked at the majority of it. The reason for this is most of it can only be viewed by watching the main video again and "Press enter on your remote when the SSE symbol appears or this other symbol appears which will then show you historical info and video." There is also a track that has trivia about everything pop up on the screen. I'll get around to these later, but I couldn't deal with the Prof again so soon. Now, the two features I did watch were "Epcot: The Florida Project" and the one on "Audio-Animatronic Figures." Let me say, they could have made these so much better. The AA Figures one was Walt showing off three AA dinos that were made for the World's Fair, followed by talking about how amazing it is that Mickey and Donald were effectively the precursors in animation to the new AA figures, such as the T-Rex they built. It then cuts to a shot of the T-Rex on Universe of Energy and then that's it. Total time for that extra, a little over 2 minutes. The Florida Project one is almost worse in that it starts with Walt talking about Epcot and then saying how "over the next several minutes" that he would explain how it could work. I started thinking "this is cool, this is the stuff from the Tomorrowland DVD set." Then we get the narrator that we had during the regular video pretty much reading the things that Walt said while we see the footage that demonstrated everything that Walt explained. This is followed by Walt talking about where do we go from here? Then it shows a montage of the construction of EPCOT Center, some behind the scenes construction and AA work and even some concept art including a small bit for JII. That montage at the end was the only thing that saved that feature from being a disaster. It's not like using the footage of Walt explaining everything would have cost them more money. As it stands, I'm still willing to get the DVD for anyone that wants it, but I don't see myself popping this in for fun on a regular basis, especially when I live only 45 mintues from Epcot and go there in person to get my Epcot fix. Overall, I just have to say that I was disappointed in this DVD and if I have to rate it based on the main part of the video and what I have watched of the features, then at best I give it a 4 out of 10.
As far as an opening, you start out on the monorail with the Prof, hearing about how it rides on a single rail(thank you Captain Obvious). He starts talking to you about Spaceship Earth and you get some trivia facts about it's composition and construction, then you are shown some of the inside. This is where it switches from the Prof, to a separate narrator. You are given what I can only describe as a poor man's version of SSE. "With the invention of heiroglyphics and papyrus, word was able to be spread over greater distances. Then the Greeks came up with theater. The Renaissance brought renewed interest in science, poetry and literature, etc, etc. You are then shown Innoventions. Not much I can say about that just because, again, I think the Prof is just really annoying. Thankfully, after that and a little more lame commentary from the Prof, you are brought to the first three World Showcase countries shown on the DVD, Mexico. The one thing I think they did right here was to have a CM from each country actually tell you about the features of each pavillion. I would have hated to hear the Prof try to say "El Rio Del Tiempo." After Mexico, more lame comments followed by Norway, more lame comments as the Prof rides Maelstrom and then goes to China. When you are given info on the CircleVision show there, you get the narrator from SSE back. Now we go back to Future World and I really am starting to lose track of the exact order things go in, but there were a couple of slightly interesting, if somewhat poorly planned things that I noticed for two of the Future World pavillions information segments. The first was Universe of Energy. Typical lame intro, followed by showing some footage from inside. The footage shown is from the original Universe of Energy. This can be confirmed by the fact that in the scene with the serpentine dino with the large fangs that currently is seen in a fairly well lit area with Ellen trying to fend it off with a branch, on the video it is seen in a very dark area with no sign of the Ellen animatronic. If you're going to give information on an attraction to put on a video all about how things are at the park, you should present it accurately. The other one I had a problem with was for The Land. Lame intro outside the pavillion. Shot of the purple and blue streamers near the ceiling, followed by shot of the balloons(no longer there) and the nice fountain in the food court area(no longer there). If they wanted to make and release this DVD for the 50th celebration, they should have just waited until everything was completed because this will confuse the heck out of people that are visiting for the first time and picking up the DVD as a souvenir of their trip. Wonders of Life never gets a mention, being seasonal as it is. The rest of the World Showcase countries are shown 3 or 4 at a time with The American Adventure being last. Between World Showcase segments, the rest of Future World is gone over in a standard fashion. The last Future World thing talked about is LAL. Then they show some shots of SSE, one of which is a full moon over a pre-wand SSE which looks beautiful. The video closes out with Illuminations : ROE and then a farewell from the idiotic Professor.
Now a note about the bonus material. I have not looked at the majority of it. The reason for this is most of it can only be viewed by watching the main video again and "Press enter on your remote when the SSE symbol appears or this other symbol appears which will then show you historical info and video." There is also a track that has trivia about everything pop up on the screen. I'll get around to these later, but I couldn't deal with the Prof again so soon. Now, the two features I did watch were "Epcot: The Florida Project" and the one on "Audio-Animatronic Figures." Let me say, they could have made these so much better. The AA Figures one was Walt showing off three AA dinos that were made for the World's Fair, followed by talking about how amazing it is that Mickey and Donald were effectively the precursors in animation to the new AA figures, such as the T-Rex they built. It then cuts to a shot of the T-Rex on Universe of Energy and then that's it. Total time for that extra, a little over 2 minutes. The Florida Project one is almost worse in that it starts with Walt talking about Epcot and then saying how "over the next several minutes" that he would explain how it could work. I started thinking "this is cool, this is the stuff from the Tomorrowland DVD set." Then we get the narrator that we had during the regular video pretty much reading the things that Walt said while we see the footage that demonstrated everything that Walt explained. This is followed by Walt talking about where do we go from here? Then it shows a montage of the construction of EPCOT Center, some behind the scenes construction and AA work and even some concept art including a small bit for JII. That montage at the end was the only thing that saved that feature from being a disaster. It's not like using the footage of Walt explaining everything would have cost them more money. As it stands, I'm still willing to get the DVD for anyone that wants it, but I don't see myself popping this in for fun on a regular basis, especially when I live only 45 mintues from Epcot and go there in person to get my Epcot fix. Overall, I just have to say that I was disappointed in this DVD and if I have to rate it based on the main part of the video and what I have watched of the features, then at best I give it a 4 out of 10.
