After riding 3/4 of SSE, only to get evacuated by the time I reached the planeterium, here are my thoughts and opinions:
First off, I think SSE looks great with the wand and stars gone, but with no new or interesting landscaping at the park entrance side, SSE looks very sterile. As I walk toward it, I see the crisp and sleek mirror column, but it has the scars where the old SSE logos used to be on it. Why can't new logos be put on it? There are streaks and handprints on the mirror column. There is no flowers or plants around it.
Walking underneath SSE I notice the fresh and sleek new paint, signs, plants, and palm trees. It looks great! The music is soft, upbeat, cheerful and enticing.
Walking past the giant mural , I hear one man do the safety spiel for load, board, and ride. This same one man does the safety spiel for if the ride stops or in my case, breaks down. I'm glad they hired a new voice, and kept it to just one person.
I don't care for the obtrusive female spanish voice in the load area, but that's a whole 'nother story.
The CM's uniforms are nice and new, and yet somehow so-so. The lightfixtures on the wall don't work, or are not on. It makes the place look darker IMO.
The vehicles are nice and refurbished and as we see them come into view its nice to see the screens on with the grid of blue dots.
Heading up into the ascent tunnel I love how they kept the star ceiling overhead. Two brand new flat sceens and speakers are paired with each of the two star ceilings. They have new graphics and even closed captioning. I just find the nightvision monitor out of place. It really doesn't need to be there, especially when they don't have the text beneath it saying you may be kicked out of the park for misbehaving. (Living with the Land has a nightvision monitor, with text explaining this).
While the take your picture thing is neat and cool and how it comes with the ending later in the ride...I think this should be right in the very beginning past the safety speil screens. This is due to having it seem randomly placed up there, let alone you can see all the mechanics and behind the scenes stuff around it.
Anyhow the new starfield curtains are excellent, and it gets even better as we head past the take your picture part as the stars gradually fade away to complete darkness. We encounter the lightning bolts and purple clouds, and then the new nomadic man scene. I love it. The graphics are nice and new. The lack of lighting is dark and mysterious.
I like all the new scenes and everything for the most part. I can't really complain. Even the music remains nice, cheerful, upbeat and positive.
Dame Judi is like our mother, grandmother, or teacher. It is as though she speaks directly us. She offers us interesting straight and forward facts. My only problem is that the speakers play this way too loud!
When we reach the Matrix tunnel, the ride begins to fall apart for me. The tunnel is so wide and big now, its very obtrusive. The graphics don't even reach all the screens let alone you can see the mechanics and light needed for it. I think it would have been cheaper and easier to have left the network tunnel.
Because the matrix tunnel extends further out into the planeterium, we immediately rotate backwards and can't really enjoy seeing earth and the stars. The tunnel also lets light out into the planeterium and it is pretty easy to see the behind the scenes are and moonrock cut outs in the backdrop: an area that never became an elaborate moon colony. The old star projections, the earth projection from 1994, and the plain unused and unfinished space makes the planterium fall short of what it could be.
We enter the space station scene...now a fixture of random blue dots floating in space. We can't really enjoy it because our screens turn on for us to take our survey.
On our right are random flashes of lightning and blue gas clouds left over from 1994. Above us is nothing but black...and to our left is nothing but a black wall.
I find it redundant that we need to have a recap of the ride while our video loads....a little too childish. Our screens should turn off and then come back on when our video is ready.
While the video is interesting....the head crops tend to not be good. You can hear people talking loudly, laughing, giggling, screaming about what they are seeing. There is a ton of constant babble from the surrounding vehicles since almost everyone has a different future. The area around us is nothing but random star fields here and there, and the light coming from the vehicles doesn't help all that much.
And even when our video is done, the blue grid comes right back on. It should remain off so we can enjoy what little starfield we have to see.
The create your future should really be an exhibit in project tomorrow.
Spaceship Earth version 4 is like the rest of Epcot in 2007...."we can entertain and inform you, but why bother inspire you at the only permanent-esque world's fair ever and owned by one of the most imaginative, engaging, and creative companies on the planet?"
"Nahhh, we don't want to do that. We want to educate you with a thorough Animatronic story and then completely change it to a videoscreen presentation on the way down. We really want to keep you from falling asleep or getting bored because we know what short attention spans and lack of wanting to learn you have. We all hope spaceship earth appeals to our new target audience: 7-16 year olds...the later which will probably flip off the camera, and make faces and noise throughout the ride, let alone take over 10 flash photos of themselves as they don't care to enjoy the first half of the ride."
Oh but yes, I do like project tomorrow though! :lol:
So yeah, Spaceship Earth, the symbol of Epcot, the legacy of EPCOT Center, and while it this whole videoscreen thing could have been an exhibit, the only ride left that dared to entertain, inform, and inspire in future world joins the rest of future world with a clown fish, an energy show from 1996, a test car of today, and pumba, and dr. nigel in a theme park that entertains, and informs, but just wants to hold your attention and appear hip and cool for the 10-15 minutes they have with you.
So here's to the next 30,000 years of Epcot. See you in the future! :hurl: