I think modern visitors who aren't able to look at it from the perspective of the time in which it was created might find its outlook for the future as naïve and cheesy. I loved Horizons, but I also saw it as a sincere exploration of the possible directions that mankind might go. Unfortunately, we haven't really moved toward any of these possible futures and, rather, have found ourselves more concerned with whether continuing to wreck the planet is okay if it benefits the current population as opposed to pulling back some creature comforts in order to help prevent catastrophe down the road along with a third group who feel it's too late to do anything anyway. We live in a very pessimistic society at the moment and hope for the future is pretty thin. I've read lots of comments and heard people talk about how bored they are by things like the Tiki Birds and the Carousel of Progress. They think they're hokey and worthy of ridicule whereas audiences went nuts for them just a few decades ago. Horizons would just have it worse because it's failed futurism. Again, I'd love to have a time machine and get in a few more rides on Horizons because it was one of my favorite things about EPCOT Center, but I know in my heart that the original could never work today and even a re-imagining that used up-to-date ideas about the future would face the same problems as the original did in a decade when updating it would essentially require a complete overhaul. I miss the original EPCOT and wish that it had been possible to at least keep up the central theme of Future World, but the time when that could have happened is too far gone. Those of us who miss the "good old days" are dismissed when we complain about thrill rides in Epcot and the invasion of IP into the park. Most of the time, I feel like the animatronic Dad in CoP: tolerated, but hopelessly obsolete. (Sorry. It's my birthday and I'm feeling old today.)
