Spaceship Earth preview poll part 2 - for those who have ridden the previews

How would you rate the new Spaceship Earth?

  • Excellent

    Votes: 46 17.8%
  • Good

    Votes: 99 38.4%
  • Average

    Votes: 63 24.4%
  • Poor

    Votes: 50 19.4%

  • Total voters
    258

Hoop Raeb

Formerly known as...
Oy. I'm so tired of explaining that there is NO "fixing" the track!!! Those bumps you are feeling are a side effect of the anti-rollback things that are a result of the diffrent angles of the ride track. It'll ALWAYS be a bit bumpy.
:hammer:

OK, but it just feels clumsy. And why don't I remember it from before? Ah yes, now I know. Because I had something to look at to occupy my mind. Silly me. :p
 

Bimmy56

Member
beware spoiler


Personally, I thought it was very good. Yes, the yellow tights and go go boots were not really authentic to the date, as someone who lived through that era. Panty hose would have been a better match with the boots, although I never knew anyone who actually wore go go boots in the 60's. I don't really think that the woman in the scene was supposed to be Howard Stern's sidekick - I'm guessing they just wanted to get a black woman represented in the ride. Women are still few and far between in the ride.

Anyway, on the descent I could hear people laughing and shrieking when the screens came on all around me so I would have to rate it a sucess. I thought the special effect was a scream myself.


:ROFLOL:
 

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
I rode on the night of the 16th and gave it a good. I liked it a lot better than when I saw the video, so now I've officially become part of the "don't judge from the video" crowd. We didn't have the heads added to the people yet and I could see how adding the heads could help since the man and woman featured on the video are just waaaay too goofy.
 

nibblesandbits

Well-Known Member
jvrabel said:
The e-surance video during descent did put our heads on the cartoon bodies. An unexpected surprise. I guess the questions (an ultimately a different video) lead to rerideability, so that's a good thing. I just think they've backed themselves into a corner with the touch screens. If you have scenes and screens, you're asking yourself what to look at. I guess you could one or the other but the thing you're missing will be distracting. If they do both, I'll be interested to see how it all meshes.

Here's my question, I guess I have with all of this talk of "reridability". Now, I have not been on SSE since all of the new enhancements have taken place, so I don't know what it looks like now. (And I believe my memories of it are fuzzy at best anyway, but that's all besides the point.) The point I have is the issue of re-ridability and Disney putting in these video screens to help people want to re-ride it. I don't know about you, but I didn't think SSE had a problem getting people to re-ride it before. It was the park's icon and even though it has never been a favorite of mine, I still ride it each and every time I go. But that's just it...I would re-ride this ride, without the use of any gimmicks to get me back.

And for a long time at Disney, they didn't have to use gimmicks like "Ooh...it's different everytime" to get people on rides again. No, they came back to the rides b/c they enjoyed the ride. If it's a good attraction, no gimmicks are needed to get people to come back and I think that's the part that's bothering me most about this whole "video screen" attack that's going on at the moment.

Now, as you all know, I am not one who is against change. I am fine that they changed certain things in the past fiew years. I am fine with Nemo, I am fine with the updates to the HM, I will be fine with a Space Mountain refurb, should it come about. However, these gimmicks bother me greatly...and I believe that's what's bothering a lot of other people. (Especially when the gimmick isn't even that great apparently).

But it isn't just SSE that I think this is a problem for. I think the backlash surrounding MILF is caused by this as well. If it's a good attraction, it shouldn't need a gimmick. Being good should be enough to get people to visit the attraction in the first place and keep them coming back, time and time again.
 

Katya

New Member
I haven't been back to work in a few weeks and I'm excited to hear we're still running. (Seasonal and all does that.) I'd hate to have to go back to just Project Tomorrow. Are they opening for large portions of time or still just sporadic openings?
 

EPCOT.nut

Well-Known Member
I loved SSE the whole way up and through seeing Earth at the top, but didn't like the touch screens.

It didn't ruin the ride for me, though.

I rated it excellent!
 

Expo_Seeker40

Well-Known Member
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:
 

BillyBuff

Active Member
So-So

We went on 1/10/08 and it was just "okay".

I was walking into the park and I saw a line forming for SSE so we raced on over. The line was continuous and smooth. It was my girlfriend's first time at WDW so this is her first experience with SSE.

All she can say to me was that she would do it again but more as a "relaxation" ride to get out of the sun and a place to sit in from the heat.

I liked the more fluid-like AAs but everything was just...."okay"
 

Timmay

Well-Known Member
I finally got to ride it on the 14th of January. It is the best I have seen this attraction is years. The other 12 people on our trip all rated it good to excellent...even my wife, who hated this ride in the past, loved the new ending.
 

catne

New Member
Oy. I'm so tired of explaining that there is NO "fixing" the track!!! Those bumps you are feeling are a side effect of the anti-rollback things that are a result of the diffrent angles of the ride track. It'll ALWAYS be a bit bumpy.
:hammer:

Alrighty, so the track can't be fixed--how about the seats? We rode the old version early last summer and could not believe how jarring it was Up & down. Even a padded headrest like in cars would help.
 

jt04

Well-Known Member
Still as jarring as ever and no padding has been added. All props have been removed from the dome. Music is ordinary and the dialog dummed down. The last time I rode it the monitors were brighter than ever so the chicken wire is even more obvious and the jibjab feature was not working. They have a lot to do during the Feb refurb.
 

boogie chillen

New Member
I think some of you are being way too hard on the ride. I road it last week and thought it was pretty good. I agree about the newspaper boy. He was in the back of the room and facing backwards. That was just weird. I also agree about the noise level of the narration, which is my biggest complaint. I clearly heard every word from the car in front. It was very distracting.

I have one other complaint in that the jibjab segment was a little too Big Brotherish for me. A computer dictating what I wil eat and wear?!?! Sounds kind of scary to me.

Aside from its content, the jibjab effect was a fantastic surprise. I rode with my daughter and our faces were perfectly clear on the screen. I actually laughed out loud when they first came on.

The figures move very fluidly and the ride tells a pretty good story. Overall, I was pretty delighted.
 

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