That’s why third parties were persuaded to pay for it.
When that model broke down so did the premise.
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Rumor Siemens is going to end their sponsorship with the parks - Spaceship Earth and IllumiNations
- Thread starter SpoiledBlueMilk
- Start date
When that model broke down so did the premise.
es135
Well-Known Member
I finally had the time to watch the original! That Cronkite version was quite the showstopper. I can definitely see how the current iteration falls short of the original one. Thanks for sharing the videos and thanks to @marni1971 for preserving these pieces of WDW history!
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
Keep in mind that the entire premise of the ride is that you’re hopping in a futuristic time machine vehicle so that you can travel through history . . . to arrive in the future with perspective on what our mission as a species should be. Though I will give you the point that the current version is lacking an impactful finale, which should be changed. But generally speaking, though most of the Ride takes place *in* the past, it is *about* the future.
Sorry, I don't see it being about the future at all. Progress, as it happened through history, yes. Future? No. The ride punts on the future of communication with vagaries of the Internet with awful graphics. The one part about the future is the part that gets panned by those who love the ride: the descending screens. And even then, the little cartoon about living in the future doesn't connect too much with the topic of the ride: communication.
It's a nice edutainment ride about the history of communication. And that's about it. IMO.
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
The current version all but dropped the communication theme outright. While still a very good ride, you won't find many people who think the current version's changes weren't a downgrade. The general sentiment is that this is a change for the worse.
The best version of the descent was IMO the previous version, which put a large emphasis on fiber optic technology. Still the standard to beat for wired telecoms. And also still far off for some. In 2016, less than 10% of cable and telecoms in the USA were using fiber optic.
EPCOT has always put a major emphasis on celebrating and looking back at our accomplishments (or in some cases such as World of Motion, lightheartedly poking fun at how we sometimes struggled and stumbled to progress). Creating the future requires a solid understanding of past history. There was a lot of futurism in the buildings themselves, even their old 80s designs still look far more post-modern than the alterations made in the 90s onward.
Martin indicated that there exists somewhere in the hierarchy of plans a concept that could gut SSE into a coaster. God forbid that ever happens, but whoever is responsible for the idea should be fired on the spot. They can give it another upgrade like it has had in the past, but gutting, IP or anything else than fundamentally changes it would be absolutely awful. Too many SSE caliber rides have been removed or ruined. It seems clear from the removal of the Great Movie Ride that there's no respect for even headliner attractions like these from the people who matter.
The best version of the descent was IMO the previous version, which put a large emphasis on fiber optic technology. Still the standard to beat for wired telecoms. And also still far off for some. In 2016, less than 10% of cable and telecoms in the USA were using fiber optic.
EPCOT has always put a major emphasis on celebrating and looking back at our accomplishments (or in some cases such as World of Motion, lightheartedly poking fun at how we sometimes struggled and stumbled to progress). Creating the future requires a solid understanding of past history. There was a lot of futurism in the buildings themselves, even their old 80s designs still look far more post-modern than the alterations made in the 90s onward.
Martin indicated that there exists somewhere in the hierarchy of plans a concept that could gut SSE into a coaster. God forbid that ever happens, but whoever is responsible for the idea should be fired on the spot. They can give it another upgrade like it has had in the past, but gutting, IP or anything else than fundamentally changes it would be absolutely awful. Too many SSE caliber rides have been removed or ruined. It seems clear from the removal of the Great Movie Ride that there's no respect for even headliner attractions like these from the people who matter.
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yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
“Like a grand and miraculous spaceship, our planet has sailed through the universe of time; and for a brief moment we have been among it's passengers. But where are we going? And what kind of future will we discover there? Surprisingly, the answers lie in our past. Since the dawn of recorded history, we've been inventing the future one step at a time. So let's travel back in time together. I'll show you how our ancestors created the world we know today, and then it will be your turn to create the world of tomorrow.”
That’s the opening of the current Spaceship Earth script, which pretty clearly states that we’re traveling through the past so we can learn to build a better future. The ride doesn’t maximize it’s time depicting the future (especially not this version), but it isn’t really meant to - it’s the opening act to the whole park, the prologue of your visit to the Future World. Like I said, though much of it doesn’t take place in the future, the whole ride is about the future. Looking back so we can see the way forward. If it punts on demonstrating the future it’s only because it’s about to send you out into it. It’s the welcome committee for the park. “You’ve made it to the future, here’s what you should know before you get started: . . . Now go and explore it yourself”.
Additionally, this latest iteration of the attraction draws its focus away from Communication and learns more towards “creating the future”. Which the lousy cartoon - that even I don’t enjoy - does at least connect to. But in all it’s versions the attraction has always sought to inspire guests to seize on the possibilities of the future, not to leave in awe of the past. Something the earlier versions did better, but the ride has always been about pumping you up for the future.
smile
Well-Known Member
i wish
not sure if you've noticed, but that future world is gone, my friend...
and has largely been for quite some time.
mikejs78
Premium Member
Although I haven't seen it yet, SpectacuLAB sounds like a good template for the future of Innoventions/Comminicore, and possibly Epcot as a whole - discovery, in this case, of Science. Would love to see Innoventions go in that direction.
Wouldn't be hard for them to bring it back. Not to the level of grandeur it once was, but the same spirit.
smile
Well-Known Member
creatively, you're 100% correct...
by almost every other metric, not so much.
it should be a very interesting next ten years at epoct... and they truly need to be - one way or another
mikejs78
Premium Member
Even budget wise, they could do a lot with a little. But they won't because the powers that be have no interest in what Epcot has always stood for.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
Sure . . . but that being the design function of SSE hasn’t changed. I wish Future World were still as breathtaking as it once was, but the ride is still trying to gear you up to explore whatever waits in that land.
smile
Well-Known Member
certainly geared to be inspirational - something they all were, we fondly recall...
just pointing out the incongruity of message with present day circumstance, is all.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
Sure, I totally agree that both Future World and Spaceship Earth in their current versions have been mishandled. In ways both respective and irrespective of each other.
Future World needs some vision. Preferably of the unified type. Stat!
Yes, that is indeed the narrative framework. But it doesn't match with the actual experience of the ride. You acknowledge that much of it doesn't take place in the future (in fact, only the descending SCREENZ are the futuristic part, which only in small part extends the lesson of communication through human history).
The name of the land, Future World, and the self-identified introductory narration are at odds with what the thing actually is.
And as far as the conceit that we're traveling through time in a time ship... Nope. There is nothing in the actual ride (except a few scents) that would suggest that that is happening. Compare that do Dinosaur! where your time traveling vehicle is supposedly right there in the past. In SSE, our 'time travel' is exactly the same as passing by present-day dioramas.
It's the same problem with CoP in Tomorrowland or IaSW in Fantasyland. All these rides belong in HumanProgressLand. Which is indeed a bulky word. Let's make up a word, say, "EPCOT", put them all there and drop "Future World"!
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
Part of the issue with discussing Spaceship Earth in this way is that the current version is four layers deep in a game of telephone starting from how the original was designed to how the latest version interprets that info and everything that has come between for its own unique purpose. The current Narrative Framework is overlaid onto a ride that was 85% handed down to the 2008 refurb team, and they did so to varying degrees of success. I would say the current version makes the least compelling argument for how our pastward time travel serves a futuristic purpose, but I’d still say it does so, as does the ride from beginning to end. Every other version made this even more clear, and actually took the step of visiting the future on the ride itself.Yes, that is indeed the narrative framework. But it doesn't match with the actual experience of the ride. You acknowledge that much of it doesn't take place in the future (in fact, only the descending SCREENZ are the futuristic part, which only in small part extends the lesson of communication through human history).
The name of the land, Future World, and the self-identified introductory narration are at odds with what the thing actually is.
And as far as the conceit that we're traveling through time in a time ship... Nope. There is nothing in the actual ride (except a few scents) that would suggest that that is happening. Compare that do Dinosaur! where your time traveling vehicle is supposedly right there in the past. In SSE, our 'time travel' is exactly the same as passing by present-day dioramas.
It's the same problem with CoP in Tomorrowland or IaSW in Fantasyland. All these rides belong in HumanProgressLand. Which is indeed a bulky word. Let's make up a word, say, "EPCOT", put them all there and drop "Future World"!
With regards to the time ship — again,every version of the ride has always acknowledged to some degree that this is what it is. ‘The Platform and your Time Machine Vehicle are moving at the same speed . . .”, “Your time machine vehicle is now rotating backward for your return to Earth . . .”, even the current version says “On the map in front of you, please show us where you’re from while we input your time-travel coordinates”. It’s a time machine vehicle taking you through many periods of time. Just because it’s more dreamlike and covers more ground in differing periods than something like Dinosaur doesn’t make it any less a depiction of Time Travel, and given that the ride is more than 15 years the senior of Dinosaur I don’t think that the fact that they immerse differently should be held against the older Ride. They both have different goals and different methods of achieving them, and different constraints (that they do as much as they do in the irregular Show building of Spaceship Earth is a literal human feat, and regardless of the effect such architectural ambition has not yet been matched in any other project in Walt Disney World).
I still think the whole thing can be summed up by the idea that the ride takes place partly in the past but is wholly ABOUT the future - which even the new script calls toward while we’re in the past with lines like “Rome built the first “world wide web,” and it’s leading us into the future” to keep our perspective future-facing as we move through the past - but if you’re not interested in seeing all of that then I suppose I should be happy to let you keep seeing past the point of the whole ride and its role within the park, which has evolved in its method but never it’s function.
mikejs78
Premium Member
A regular overhaul like just a spruce-up Refurb, or a regular overhaul with new narration and possibly new script?
Regular spruce up.
montyz81
Well-Known Member
What is the current timetable for the Innoventions/Communicore change anyway?
I heard $2billion for a dedicated Epcot budget. Not a lot of construction work going on in a park that is suppose to be completely transformed in 3 years.
$2 Billion will buy a lot of festival kiosks.