Spaceship Earth not finished?

WesternRiverExplorer

WesternRiverExplorer

Member
It seems to me that the video in the descent is really doing a disservice to Siemens. Those ideas it presents may seem crazy and sci-fi, but I've seen a number of inventors say that they are inspired by sci-fi, and most world changing inventions were considered crazy at one point. The problem is the presentation. Made up like a Jetson-y cartoon with picture cut outs tacked on, everyone just sees it as comedy, nothing more. Look at the reactions it gets here in this thread. It seems unthinkable to most that any of those ideas, or even parts of the ideas, could be taken seriously. How does that reflect on a company that seems to be trying to market themselves as "builders of the future"? It seems very un-EPCOT-like to me to present something as too silly to ever be taken seriously. What happened to inspiration? What happened to "If we can dream it, we can do it."?
 
DisneyMusician2

DisneyMusician2

Well-Known Member
EPCOT Explorer said:
I've never really gotten the "Fragmented" argument for this script. In fact...It flows MUCH better than any of the past ones, seeing that it continuously mentions how each scene relates to the future. The old scripts just gave a description to each scene. Dumbed down? Only two lines, for me (ABC & Taxes) and the intonation and inflection is off. The rest of it is fine, and just as good as Irons, IMHO.


And granted, the story of "Creating the Future One Step At Time" IS heavily slanted on Communication, but it HAS changed from it. It's evident in the presentation of the old scenes, the new ones, and the narration. Just listen to the opening.

SSE isn't as bad as it originally once was. They tweaked the hell out of that thing, and if the damn descent had something besides some cheesy screens, I really would have no problems. It's a EPCOT Center attraction in Epcot'09 and with a Epcot'09 feel to it. And a Epcot ending, if that makes any sense. The soul of this attraction is still VERY alive and well....It's just "unfinished."

And again...It could have been MUCH, much worse.
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I've been saying this to people for awhile. The ride has been improved in MANY ways. The dissatisfaction with the descent has really blinded many to many improvements made on the way up.

Now the descent is horribly disappointing, but hopefully when Siemens stops losing money hand over fist, they might come up with the capital to complete the project.
 
EPCOT Explorer

EPCOT Explorer

New Member
TheBeatles said:
So, is management or WDI to point fingers at?

The two arguments I see are:

1. Management cut the budget and this is the reason SEE came out bad.

2. WDI did a sub par job with the script and design and this is the reason it came out bad.

Are one of these arguments more valid than the other or are both the reason?
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Both. WDI did a "meh" job on the script and the finale, but did fantastic on the sets.


TDO cut money, and Seimens did too, seeing the finale is not done.

Figment632 said:
This whole situation is a joke!!!! This version of SSE is the weakest in its existance.
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This might be heresy....but the Vic Perrin/Dobkins script, while written well, was VERY dry, and the ride had no music. And the finale was SILENT screens. :shrug: I find that to be pretty weak, even though it's the original. They did too, apparently, they changed it to Tomorrow's Child and Cronkite VERY quickly.

DisneyMusician2 said:
I've been saying this to people for awhile. The ride has been improved in MANY ways. The dissatisfaction with the descent has really blinded many to many improvements made on the way up.

Now the descent is horribly disappointing, but hopefully when Siemens stops losing money hand over fist, they might come up with the capital to complete the project.
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Exactly. :) I do too.
 
Figment632

Figment632

New Member
EPCOT Explorer said:
Both. WDI did a "meh" job on the script and the finale, but did fantastic on the sets.


TDO cut money, and Seimens did too, seeing the finale is not done.

This might be heresy....but the Vic Perrin/Dobkins script, while written well, was VERY dry, and the ride had no music. And the finale was SILENT screens. :shrug: I find that to be pretty weak, even though it's the original. They did too, apparently, they changed it to Tomorrow's Child and Cronkite VERY quickly.


Exactly. :) I do too.
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I disagree I think the Perrin script is much better than the current one. Also the ending is the way it is know because of cheapness. This is not the case with the original ending, so I still think that is better than what we have know.

My problems with the script isn't Dench like a lot of people but the poor quality of it. Dench is find and she is not even my least favorite narrarator, that would be Cronkite.
 
kcnole

kcnole

Well-Known Member
1. Management cut the budget and this is the reason SEE came out bad.
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I put it partially on that, and also partially on Siemens. They were really pushing for those video screens, so those things were going to be there no matter what.

^I vote #2. The whole job reeks of suck. If it were great up until the end, I'd blame a cutback, but no.
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Eh, I don't agree with that. If you kept the old ending and just plussed it a little bit and made all the other changes made to the ride it would have been fantastic. Certainly the script and narration isn't my favorite, but its just a mild distraction. The rest of the changes would have been enough to truly make the ride top notch again.

I really think that our complete dissatisfaction with the descent is really blinding everyone to all the good things that went into the ride. The ascent is really, really good aside from one or two lines of the script. Sure, I'd have preferred Patrick Stewart and a slightly more serious script, but I can live with Judi Dench's.
 
EPCOT Explorer

EPCOT Explorer

New Member
Figment632 said:
I disagree I think the Perrin script is much better than the current one. Also the ending is the way it is know because of cheapness. This is not the case with the original ending, so I still think that is better than what we have know.

My problems with the script isn't Dench like a lot of people but the poor quality of it. Dench is find and she is not even my least favorite narrarator, that would be Cronkite.
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I do too, but I'm just saying that the current one, while not as eloquent, it does flow better.

I find today's descent to be the same as that one. Both are sub par to 1994's.:wave:
 
Figment632

Figment632

New Member
EPCOT Explorer said:
I do too, but I'm just saying that the current one, while not as eloquent, it does flow better.

I find today's descent to be the same as that one. Both are sub par to 1994's.:wave:
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Agreed and I don't think they could ever top the Jermy Irons script and narraration anyway :shrug:
 
DisneyMusician2

DisneyMusician2

Well-Known Member
Innoventions said:
Yup both the voice of Jeremy Irons, actual diolouge, and the score made it the best "dark ride" ever on a disney property (i know people will disagree)
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I don't know if they can....the Jeremy Irons version was simply incredible. I'll miss it.

I'm taking some friends who have never been down to the World next year, and I'm interested to see how the SSE experience is for them, being as they have no frame of reference.
 
Innoventions

Innoventions

Member
That will be interesting. Beacuse they have no frame of reference they might think its ok. The AAs and the showmanship, on the way up is pretty specatacular, but I cant remember the music or the narration to save my life:ROFLOL:. Thats what the Jeremy Irons one did for me and thats how I knew it was such a good ride, it had that memory factor.
 
Figment632

Figment632

New Member
Innoventions said:
That will be interesting. Beacuse they have no frame of reference they might think its ok. The AAs and the showmanship, on the way up is pretty specatacular, but I cant remember the music or the narration to save my life:ROFLOL:. Thats what the Jeremy Irons one did for me and thats how I knew it was such a good ride, it had that memory factor.
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That is the main problem with the new script there is nothing memorable.
 
Innoventions

Innoventions

Member
DisneyMusician2 said:
Actually, the most memoryable line for me from the Iron script was "All Road Lead To Rome".

I know, I don't know why that line. But I have it just burnt into my head.
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The one i quoted for my senior quote was

"Like a grand and miraculous spaceship our planet has sailed through the universe of time, and for a brief moment we have been among its many passangers"
 
B

BigThunderMatt

Well-Known Member
While Walter Cronkite's voice is iconic, I have to say Jeremy Irons' narration, and the music of that iteration of Spaceship Earth is by far the best. I don't know what they were thinking redoing the script. Why mess with perfection?
 

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