EPCOT New Play Pavilion to replace Epcot's Wonders of Life

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

By that logic neither did HISTA. If people liked HISTA they could've liked a ride based around it if it didn't suck. Plenty of people miss The Great Movie Ride but you don't hear Imagination or Horizons-level complaints about it because it's replacement wasn't total garbage.

And I believe you’re right in regards to the logic of it not fitting Imagination.. it didn’t.. would’ve fit MGM Studios or possibly Innoventions if anything. But not the Imagination pavilion. Also, HISTA never returned after Captain EO came back.. so I can’t help but feel that, that was more telling than we might think it is. If it was truly that beloved or popular, they would’ve brought it back. It’s just a film after all essentially and they never removed the spfx equipment in the theatre

 

[SplashJacket]

you don't hear Imagination or Horizons-level complaints about it because it's replacement wasn't total garbage.

Personally, I'd give Mission Space the spot for the second-best ride in Epcot, but to each their own.

 

[DreamfinderGuy]

And I believe you’re right in regards to the logic of it not fitting Imagination.. it didn’t.. would’ve fit MGM Studios or possibly Innoventions if anything. But not the Imagination pavilion. Also, HISTA never returned after Captain EO came back.. so I can’t help but feel that, that was more telling than we might think it is. If it was truly that beloved or popular, they would’ve brought it back. It’s just a film after all essentially and they never removed the spfx equipment in the theatre

It fit as it's own wing of the pavilion, and this is coming from someone who doesn't particularly like the show. The Magic Eye Theatre has always been somewhat of a grey area considering just about anything can get a "Made with Imagination!" or "Filmmaking takes Imagination!" label stuck on it. Though sticking Pixar shorts in there kinda constitutes a lack of it.

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

And I believe you’re right in regards to the logic of it not fitting Imagination.. it didn’t.. would’ve fit MGM Studios or possibly Innoventions if anything. But not the Imagination pavilion. Also, HISTA never returned after Captain EO came back.. so I can’t help but feel that, that was more telling than we might think it is. If it was truly that beloved or popular, they would’ve brought it back. It’s just a film after all essentially and they never removed the spfx equipment in the theatre

Speaking of the Magic Eye Theatre in it’s current state. I can’t help but find it bizarre they decided to put in a couple Disney Animation shorts & Pixar shorts as a seemingly permanent replacement

It fit as it's own wing of the pavilion, and this is coming from someone who doesn't particularly like the show. The Magic Eye Theatre has always been somewhat of a grey area considering just about anything can get a "Made with Imagination!" or "Filmmaking takes Imagination!" label stuck on it. Though sticking Pixar shorts in there kinda constitutes a lack of it.

To be fair… if we really take a good look at the Journey Into Imagination ride, aswell as it’s relationship with Kodak. You’ll realize that while the ride is definitley about creativity & the mediums that best utilize it. It ends with Film as the finale (Figment becoming a film star, imagining himself in different roles… a cowboy, a rock climber, a super hero, a scientist, a ship captain, etc.)
When you combine Art, Literature, Performing Arts, and Science & Technology altogether.. it combines to create film… Kodak film (hence Figment’s yellow & red shirt)
Now if we keep that in mind.. it would make sense to have a Magic Eye Theatre there with films that truly inspire your creativity. Magic Journeys was a perfect representation of that.. not just in Kodak film technology.. but in showcasing free spirited creativity brought to life through the eyes of a child. Captain EO, as much as I adore it.. not sure how much that’d qualify as such despite it being a very creative space fantasy… and well, Honey I Shrunk the Audience.. you know how I feel about that.. but I feel like if perhaps they alternated between films at different times (sort of like how the France pavilion does now but with the number of showtimes being equal to eachother), maybe even having a brand new one starring Dreamfinder & Figment and being an expansion of both elements of the ride concept & Magic Journeys combined.. it could be really something.

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

Yet still, even with that in mind.. the ending message of the original ride, before making it’s way to the film finale and after that, inviting us to ImageWorks to let us put our own creative abilities to the test. it’s that imagination itself is the key to unlock the world’s hidden possibilities & wonders that ultimately improves our lives & society as a whole and that we all have that ability to make our dreams come true. Imagination’s what made EPCOT, Disney as a whole, and really everything in the world come about & thrive… Which is what truly made it a perfect EPCOT ride.

 

[Bocabear]

Now if Disney would just make a feature film about Dreamfinder (Starring Chris Pratt), how he discovered Figment and the Dream Port, then maybe we would have a better shot at getting a real complete overhaul to the franchise. The Bobs could be the master villains of the piece trying to drain imagination from the world in favor of corporate greed....
I HATE the idea of imagination being downgraded to the Play! pavilion...
I think the whole idea of the Play! Pavilion is about 12 years too late, and then completely rendered wrong in light of the Pandemic.
Make it a Weather Pavilion, Sky Pavilion, Extension to Mission Space Paviliion as the MarsPort...anything but this ridiculous placeholder of an idea.
They need to put some serious evergy into the Imagination Pavilion... Maybe moving One Man's Dream into the Theater lcocation with an Imagineering tie in...

 

[DreamfinderGuy]

Now if Disney would just make a feature film about Dreamfinder (Starring Chris Pratt), how he discovered Figment and the Dream Port, then maybe we would have a better shot at getting a real complete overhaul to the franchise. The Bobs could be the master villains of the piece trying to drain imagination from the world in favor of corporate greed....
I HATE the idea of imagination being downgraded to the Play! pavilion...
I think the whole idea of the Play! Pavilion is about 12 years too late, and then completely rendered wrong in light of the Pandemic.
Make it a Weather Pavilion, Sky Pavilion, Extension to Mission Space Paviliion as the MarsPort...anything but this ridiculous placeholder of an idea.
They need to put some serious evergy into the Imagination Pavilion... Maybe moving One Man's Dream into the Theater lcocation with an Imagineering tie in...

The entire concept of the Play Pavilion further shows that the new direction for the park is fundamentally flawed. EPCOT (or more particularly Future World) never needed a kids zone because almost everything there was suitable for all ages, save for a few things that might've been considered too boring for some. Wonders of Life used to be the only thing on that side of the park with a thrill ride, and even it was only one section of a much broader pavilion containing plenty of things for all ages. Flash forward to today, and it's the only thing little kids have to do there. Everything else in Future World East is a thrill ride that the little kids can't do. And is Play going to be that all ages experience that side of the park needs? Nope, exclusively catering to the demographic they conveniently excluded from everything else.

 

[ToTBellHop]

Personally, I'd give Mission Space the spot for the second-best ride in Epcot, but to each their own.

I don’t think it gets enough credit either. It is unique, non-IP based, and not geared toward 3-year olds.

 

[trainplane3]

I don’t think it gets enough credit either. It is unique, non-IP based, and not geared toward 3-year olds.

I'm sorry, I had to.

 

[Bocabear]

If they had actually built the complete SPACE pavilion I think it would have been the best attraction in the park, but as it stands, it is diminished by it's lack of a full story... Had you landed on Mars Base and exited into an entire Space Station Pavilion with additional attractions that were not a toddler climbing structure and a video game, it would have been amazing... If you boarded an Omnimover ( like Sea Cabs) that would have taken you through a tunnel and dropped you off inside the Wonders Of Life Dome, re-styled to be the interior of the Mars Station...Where you could board a simulator attraction (Body Wars) to tour the planet's surface, See exhibits about weightlessness in space, etc etc etc... It could have been epic, but instead we have a simulator inside a beautiful shell...and an exit to the gift shop.

 

[Brer Panther]

If Splash 'stole' Imagination's budget, so did a lot of other projects in the past decade.

I think I read on here that the Nemo ride and Frozen Ever After stole budgets for a fourth version of Imagination too.

 

[Haymarket2008]

I think I read on here that the Nemo ride and Frozen Ever After stole budgets for a fourth version of Imagination too.

I believe the main culprit of the Imagination issue was Frozen Ever After.

 

[aladdin2007]

Add to the fact that WDI were still the ones that ultimately came up with the terrible design for Journey Into YOUR Imagination. Disney was pushing Kodak to pay up for having something new for the Millennium Celebration, even though Kodak was doing terribly financially. From what I've heard about that pitch session, there wasn't any models or concept art - they tried to wow them with some lighting and sound effects.

If there had actually been a smart person in that room that day, they would have said that the budget Kodak could offer couldn't build a brand new, impressive attraction, and that the money would have been better spent on refurbishing the original attraction as it was, updating some special effects. Sadly there were imagineers too focused on making a name for themselves as opposed to looking at the bigger picture.


There seem to be plans to have Figment in some sort of VR experience in the PLAY! Pavilion, but he is the park's mascot, after all. No need to kick him out of his actual home. I would really love to see the concept of imagination with Figment and the Dreamfinder fully embraced in an update, but who knows when that will happen.

and thats a big problem today more than ever, especially at Epcot...thanks to certain individuals they have been allowed to mutilate the park and undo it all with no cohesion and no common sense.

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

Now if Disney would just make a feature film about Dreamfinder (Starring Chris Pratt), how he discovered Figment and the Dream Port, then maybe we would have a better shot at getting a real complete overhaul to the franchise. The Bobs could be the master villains of the piece trying to drain imagination from the world in favor of corporate greed....
I HATE the idea of imagination being downgraded to the Play! pavilion...
I think the whole idea of the Play! Pavilion is about 12 years too late, and then completely rendered wrong in light of the Pandemic.
Make it a Weather Pavilion, Sky Pavilion, Extension to Mission Space Paviliion as the MarsPort...anything but this ridiculous placeholder of an idea.
They need to put some serious evergy into the Imagination Pavilion... Maybe moving One Man's Dream into the Theater lcocation with an Imagineering tie in...

That’s actually the story in the Figment origin story comics. The Chairman and the academy (aswell as chairman illocrant and the singular control bots) represent the current ugly state of the Disney company & Imagineering.

 

[FigmentsBrightIdeas]

I believe the main culprit of the Imagination issue was Frozen Ever After.

Actually, I believe the main culprit of the Imagination issue is the suppression/lack of allowing any free spirited creativity or non-film IP based ideas from WDI to be greenlit for the parks. Couple that with the fact that the execs somehow believe it was already fixed by shoehorning Figment in there, cause that’s what they genuinely believe was the only problem with it when they changed it. Nope, the problem was they made it a Film-IP based experience that has little to do with imagination or Figment whatsoever.. and then shoehorned him as the interference to the film ip ride as the character that supposedly proves his “upside down” way of thinking right in the end by making a big stink about Channing’s completely flawed concept of what imagination is .. it’s wild what happened to that ride. Absolutely nonsensical. And it’s especially insane just how clueless upper management truly is. They really think the only thing that holds any value to the Disney company is their film & television production facilities and that the entire company should be synergized strictly around that.. when it couldn’t be any further from the truth.

 

[Mickeynerd17]

They really think the only thing that holds any value to the Disney company is their film & television production facilities and that the entire company should be synergized strictly around that.. when it couldn’t be any further from the truth.

That's one of the biggest problems. Their core business IS film and tv. The parks were added later and are treated as such.

In regards to figment, the entire pavilion looks like Horizons from 1998. The pyramids are seriously streaking with mold and gunk and the ride system sounds halfway dead with similar clunking to Spaceship Earth. I absolutely love figment and know Disney's done better, they just need to do it again!

 

[HauntedPirate]

That's one of the biggest problems. Their core business IS film and tv. The parks were added later and are treated as such.

In regards to figment, the entire pavilion looks like Horizons from 1998. The pyramids are seriously streaking with mold and gunk and the ride system sounds halfway dead with similar clunking to Spaceship Earth. I absolutely love figment and know Disney's done better, they just need to do it again!

One would think the pyramids could be cleaned during the night, when it wouldn’t affect foot traffic and wouldn’t affect those sitting in the DVC lounge. Such a radical thought.

 

[DoleWhipDrea]

One would think the pyramids could be cleaned during the night, when it wouldn’t affect foot traffic and wouldn’t affect those sitting in the DVC lounge. Such a radical thought.

Every time I see how filthy those beautiful pyramids are, my heart sinks. Basic upkeep and cleanliness is so important...far more important than building a brand new festival center. Disney's priorities are so skewed.

And it's these parks that have been the rest of the company's lifeline when the rest of the company was losing money and incapable of entertaining large audiences in theaters. It would really behoove them to remember.

 

[lazyboy97o]

That's one of the biggest problems. Their core business IS film and tv. The parks were added later and are treated as such.

The people who added the parks to the business did not actually treat them as such. This is a far more recent change.

 

[Mickeynerd17]

The people who added the parks to the business did not actually treat them as such. This is a far more recent change.

Your right. I was just referring to how things are running currently.