This is going to be our first night - watching this from the front of park. So excited to be there in person!
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EPCOT Reflections of Earth confirmed to be replaced by Harmonious
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
This is going to be our first night - watching this from the front of park. So excited to be there in person!
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
You all are just angry that you couldn’t get a Space 220 reservation.
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
I agree the finale worked well, and think that if you watch the Coco segment and the finale together (while ignoring the narration) you get a sense of what this could have been. Those two segments together give nice messages about family connections, thinking of the world as one big family, and then hoping for a better future.
Disneyson
Well-Known Member
I think the show is pretty good, but a few things can quell a lot of the pain points:
1. Add a sense of mystery and magic to the opening number by dimming lights and scaling back on the taco screen. Don’t use the center till we get to the first countries. The lights around the lagoon should slowly dim as the “orchestra tunes up” and the Epcot Voice narrates. Then, pull an RoE and have the drums beat to an explosion that lights the Stargate. Ditch the Moana/Hercules segment. We get that you put these in after removing them from Happily Ever After but the incorporation is shoddy. The new EPCOT “Ooo” anthem is gorgeous and needs to be displayed FRONT AND CENTER at the beginning and the END of the show.
2. Insert the compass graphic, or a globe graphic, before each scene and point it towards the four corners of the world (or zoom in on the region) because the intent of the “world tour” (Asia -> Africa -> Europe -> South America -> North America) seems to be too hard for some of the people here to understand. I can’t imagine any line of narration that wouldn’t be cringe there. Lighting the countries by continent before the featured continent’s “segment” might highlight the lack of diversity in the World Showcase, yes, but it will clarify the themes of the show. (Group Japan and China, UK/Norway/Italy/France/Germany, then do Mexico/Canada/AA to create a semblance of symmetry.)
2.5. They need to transition between pieces. It feels like they were moving the musical segments around until the very last second and I find that frustrating.
3. Those tacos are god-awful. The images on the screens more often than not feel like a bad photoshop job or a mediocre PowerPoint. I understand that they are trying to incorporate art from each country, but it really doesn’t look well-crafted. I would have preferred actual film of a shadow puppet rather than a CGI approximation. I hate the boat that says “dig” in the PatF section the most. The tacos DO NOT justify their existence. They should have turned on some high-pressure water jets at the bottom of the weird arms and projected on them.
4. The arms rarely do anything interesting besides the Magic Lamp spouts and the “Marigold Bridge” moment. The only other segment that justifies them is the part at the end that is clearly trying to evoke the memory of the Millennium Torch raising in RoE. A nice idea, but it looks sloppy the way they wave.
5. They need to cut the English from every song. It really undermines the show.
6. The blackout doesn’t work. It feels like they’re trying to re-create the “points of light” moment in RoE but they can’t get those screens to looks spectral for any moment.
7. The ending just. Needs to steal from RoE. And they need to have the narrator’s finale mention coming together AS the perimeter fireworks shoot off.
1. Add a sense of mystery and magic to the opening number by dimming lights and scaling back on the taco screen. Don’t use the center till we get to the first countries. The lights around the lagoon should slowly dim as the “orchestra tunes up” and the Epcot Voice narrates. Then, pull an RoE and have the drums beat to an explosion that lights the Stargate. Ditch the Moana/Hercules segment. We get that you put these in after removing them from Happily Ever After but the incorporation is shoddy. The new EPCOT “Ooo” anthem is gorgeous and needs to be displayed FRONT AND CENTER at the beginning and the END of the show.
2. Insert the compass graphic, or a globe graphic, before each scene and point it towards the four corners of the world (or zoom in on the region) because the intent of the “world tour” (Asia -> Africa -> Europe -> South America -> North America) seems to be too hard for some of the people here to understand. I can’t imagine any line of narration that wouldn’t be cringe there. Lighting the countries by continent before the featured continent’s “segment” might highlight the lack of diversity in the World Showcase, yes, but it will clarify the themes of the show. (Group Japan and China, UK/Norway/Italy/France/Germany, then do Mexico/Canada/AA to create a semblance of symmetry.)
2.5. They need to transition between pieces. It feels like they were moving the musical segments around until the very last second and I find that frustrating.
3. Those tacos are god-awful. The images on the screens more often than not feel like a bad photoshop job or a mediocre PowerPoint. I understand that they are trying to incorporate art from each country, but it really doesn’t look well-crafted. I would have preferred actual film of a shadow puppet rather than a CGI approximation. I hate the boat that says “dig” in the PatF section the most. The tacos DO NOT justify their existence. They should have turned on some high-pressure water jets at the bottom of the weird arms and projected on them.
4. The arms rarely do anything interesting besides the Magic Lamp spouts and the “Marigold Bridge” moment. The only other segment that justifies them is the part at the end that is clearly trying to evoke the memory of the Millennium Torch raising in RoE. A nice idea, but it looks sloppy the way they wave.
5. They need to cut the English from every song. It really undermines the show.
6. The blackout doesn’t work. It feels like they’re trying to re-create the “points of light” moment in RoE but they can’t get those screens to looks spectral for any moment.
7. The ending just. Needs to steal from RoE. And they need to have the narrator’s finale mention coming together AS the perimeter fireworks shoot off.
I feel like one of the most successful versions of what they wanted to do here is found in the Peace on Earth tag. Sometimes being explicit in your intent isn’t a bad thing, and I am all for another around the world, country by country, called out participation about living in harmony with a bit of narration neatly wrapping up the concept. The narration as it exists at the end just isn’t it. Or there needs to be more of it. And maybe not just at the beginning and end.
Edited to note: if I were looking at Disney IP for a show called harmonious about bringing different cultures together, I’d take a long, hard look at how to include Strangers Like Me.
Edited to note: if I were looking at Disney IP for a show called harmonious about bringing different cultures together, I’d take a long, hard look at how to include Strangers Like Me.
Centauri Space Station
Well-Known Member
The main thing I wish it had is an original song as a theme
Castle Cake Apologist
Well-Known Member
Well, I've seen KiteTails now too. Is the new goal at Entertainment to have a disaster on every lake?
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
Leave Fantasmic! alone! I know I asked for Pocahontas to leave but I take it back!
peter11435
Well-Known Member
Everything announced today was planned to be announced today. Nothing (yet) has been a reaction to poor response for the new shows. But yes, KiteTails is awful and Harmonious needs a lot of work.
Notes from Neverland
Well-Known Member
I would love to hear what @marni1971 has heard about the show's reception from his network of connections. Of course, I also don't want to spoil his trip.
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
I would love to go to Epcot one night waiting for a great night show and hearing the old preshow music to I:RoE
Oh well…let’s hope the new fireworks show tonight at MK doesnt bomb
Oh well…let’s hope the new fireworks show tonight at MK doesnt bomb
Ayla
Well-Known Member
I've seen a bunch of it today from pixie dust huffers and I roll my eyes and move on.
wtyy21
Well-Known Member
Don't expecting high the new MK firework show (Enchantment) from DLR fans who think the 50th anniversary fireworks should be about park/resort, attractions and nostalgia. They will be disappointing that show is much focused of recent Disney films. DLR fans will showing more negative reviews to DE than anyone else because they watching 50th anniversary fireworks in 2005.
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
For me, the music. I totally acknowledge the slow bits bored people but the soundtrack was original and unique.
RoL was the same but that thing was a total slog that played all the tricks in the first 2 minutes. Reveals are important to shows but now we've had two that have shown everything off in the first few minutes. You could leave at the 5 minute mark and not miss a surprise.
Disneyson
Well-Known Member
It told the story of the universe in a succinct, artistic way, and in doing so told the story of EPCOT: After the big bang, the show goes through time and talks about human achievement in much the way that the Future World (RIP) pavilions do. The finale was a celebration of togetherness that pretty explicitly roped the rest of the countries around the lagoon in.
The show slowly incorporated more and more elements that built on themselves: The fire barges, lasers, the globe, then fountains and the countries. Fireworks were one of the last things added but they felt earned rather than obligatory.
The finale lights the torches around the globe and then revealed a "21st" torch in the center of the lagoon to represent the 21st century (the show was part of a larger 2000s celebration that tied into a parade around the lagoon that celebrated wishes for the world in the new century) and fireworks shot from it in a "points of light" finale that I think is still one of the most breathtaking moments of Disney stagecraft to this day.
And the music was iconic.
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