EPCOT Reflections of Earth confirmed to be replaced by Harmonious

[lightningtap347]

Hypothetically... if the designers sat in a room and said "let's make something that's big and dumb with no story because our audience are idiots," would they be wrong?

You're backing up a point that I don't want to be true and I don't like it! lol

 

[dreday3]

I still don't get the story and I don't care to read it. But when I listen to the soundtrack, it can still make me cry.

Which, I think, is the point.

I smile-cry every time I listen to Illuminations, which can be weird because sometimes I listen to it at work or while walking!

But I just said here at home, I like that this show isn't making me cry. I sometimes just enjoy a fun, upbeat show. I got tired walking out of Epcot slightly sad. The older I get, the more I want joy and not heartstring tugs.

 

[James Alucobond]

(quoting myself)

Well I just watched it.
Yes - the music is not what you wanted for Epcot. ROE is my favorite soundtrack and it's gone. Well, I can listen to it everyday if I want, but gone from Epcot.

That said - I thought this show was quite beautiful! I've personally never seen anything like it.
It was sooo colorful, elegant movement, and joyful.
And I looooooved hearing Someday at the end.

And you really couldn't figure out which part was the finale?

I honestly don't understand the criticism of it looking bad, but hey, to each their own!

I think people are disinclined to like it aesthetically because it will always be weighed against the daytime look, as in, “Is it beautiful enough to justify sitting out there as an eyesore all day?” I do think it’s lovely, but the minute they decided to moor them permanently in the lagoon, they automatically had a lot of negative sentiment built up against them.

 

[ULPO46]

Also, they have Aladdin and Jasmine appearances in the Morocco pavilion

TBH Aladdin is a Arab Classic and since Agrabah doesn't exist in the real world any Arab state could in theory be representative of Aladdin. Thus The Kingdom of Morocco is why they both appear. But Hercules is 100% Greek although the Ancient Romans did enjoy Greek stories. But it cracks me up when guest try to figure those things out. Just how I've had people tell me if Spain was in Mexico

 

[mightynine]

The Zach will enlighten us in a thrilling 16-part series.

Welcome to the all-new Harmonious Parti!

 

[ChrisFL]

Hypothetically... if the designers sat in a room and said "let's make something that's big and dumb with no story because our audience are idiots," would they be wrong?

Would it surprise me now? no, but that's not what Walt wanted (if anyone at TWDC cares):

“Adults are interested if you don’t play down to the little 2 or 3 year olds or talk down. I don’t believe in talking down to children. I don’t believe in talking down to any certain segment. I like to kind of just talk in a general way to the audience. Children are always reaching.”-Walt Disney

 

[ToTBellHop]

As far as I'm concerned, "Go the Distance" is a parks song a this point. It's far more resonant in any of the ten nighttime spectaculars it's been in than in Hercules itself.

“Go the Distance” and anything from Hunchback have become WDW songs. They are popular at WDW and irrelevant everywhere else. At least they keep giving us the songs we want??

 

[Lil Copter Cap]

Chapek was actually there?

Yes! We saw Iger and D’Amaro walking World Showcase before showtime. After park close, exiting was a madhouse as they blocked off areas and held crowds in order to escort Chapek and D’Amaro away from cameras.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I think people are disinclined to like it aesthetically because it will always be weighed against the daytime look, as in, “Is it beautiful enough to justify sitting out there as an eyesore all day?” I do think it’s lovely, but the minute they decided to moor them permanently in the lagoon, they automatically had a lot of negative sentiment built up against them.

Refusing to float the barges out nightly was the single greatest misstep of this project.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

I know nobody wants to hear it, but ROE had *very poor* guest feedback scores. People complained that it "wasn't Disney enough." Chapek didn't make that up. WE loved ROE, but the plebes hated it. They thought it was boring.

And yet it ran every night for twenty years? 30+ technically, if you count the original IllumiNations.

Much like your weird assertion that HEA doesn't feature an orchestra or gospel choir, I think you're quite wrong here.

 

[drew81]

What a hot piece of garbage.

Remember when Walt Disney World Entertainment actually was good? The Rich Taylor era and so forth.
Now we have this.

 

[ToTBellHop]

And yet it ran every night for twenty years? Much like your weird assertion that HEA doesn't feature an orchestra or gospel choir, I think you're quite wrong here.

To be fair, it had advanced dementia and didn’t even know it was still running from 2014-on.

And it showed.

Its guest ratings in recent years weren’t spectacular.

 

[fgmnt]

I think the soundtrack was pretty poor and the lack of original song took what could have been an 8/10 show down to a 5/10. It's crazy that you spend all the money on a show like this and forget the cornerstone of it. It feels like a clip show because there is no anchor to hold it together.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

Well, at least the points of light on SSE turned out pretty nice?

 

[CaptainAmerica]

And yet it ran every night for twenty years (30+ technically, if you count the original IllumiNations)?

It didn't have poor guest feedback scores in 2003. It had poor guest feedback scores in 2018.

Do I really need to spell out the business case for a nighttime spectacular at Epcot? If you haven't noticed, there's not a whole lot to do around the World Showcase Lagoon besides eat and shop.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

To be fair, it had advanced dementia and didn’t even know it was still running from 2014-on.

And it showed.

Its guest ratings in recent years weren’t spectacular.

That's fair, but that has a lot less to do with the content of the show and a lot more to do with TDO.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

It didn't have poor guest feedback scores in 2003. It had poor guest feedback scores in 2018.

Do I really need to spell out the business case for a nighttime spectacular at Epcot? If you haven't noticed, there's not a whole lot to do around the World Showcase Lagoon besides eat and shop.

And a 20 minute disjointed clip show with no overarching narrative that doesn't start until the park closes and actively makes World Showcase Lagoon hideous during the day fixes that somehow? I think it's time to put down the pixie dust pipe...

Perhaps they could have just updated RoE and used the ridiculous budget they blew on this show to add more actual things to do in World Showcase?

 

[Brenthodge]

I just don’t understand how a show about unity through song has no unifying theme. It’s a disjointed mess. There is no build. No “the beginning of the song”. They definitely could have fulfilled the mandate of “ Disney songs” and still have told a very compelling story. There may have been budget cuts, but that has litrle bearing on how weak this show is.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I think this is what they were going for in the beginning. The YouTube Mormon couple did it better.

 

[PascagoulaRun]

The first half felt very "made for TikTok" with the short sequences and awkward cuts. The second half, I thought had much better flow. But the big question is, why wait to add narrative until the last segment? I don't think most people will understand what's going on without some kind of overarching dialogue.