Since's I'm a MASSIVE fan of AA attractions, and AA shows specifically, this idea is what I would love. Sometimes I feel I'm one of the few who really love a good AA show though, so I worry that I'd be suggesting adding an attraction that would be sparsely attended.Or like I have said in other forums... Convert the CoL theater into a new AA theater. Considering that it's already completely a theatre and that there's enough space to do this.
I'd truly love it, and maybe it's the right solution. When I get more into the imagineering part of this sucker, you'll see I kind of punt on things here, because the "right" idea hasn't hit me yet.
Sagan's Pale Blue Dot in SSE...That just moved into my top ten list of things I want to see happen in my lifetime. I want that even more than a jet pack.I'll admit. On my way in this morning, I really thought the first thing I was going to talk about is World Of Motion and Test Track. Then, when looking for a podcast to listen to after I finished this week's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, I popped on Star Talk Radio and found myself listening to Neil Degrasse Tyson talking to Elon Musk and I realized I'm not 100% ready to talk about transportation and what should be represented at Epcot.
When I got to work, I opened up D-cot and started listening to the various versions of Spaceship Earth that they have. Am I missing where they have the Judy Dench version on there? I didn't see it. I was hoping to do a decent side-by-side comparison.
Editor's note: @Bob pointed out to me it is on D-cot, marked "Epcot - Future World - Spaceship Earth 2007"
Spaceship Earth is still a great Epcot attraction, even if it's only 60/70% of what it once was. The intent, the skeleton is still there. The idea of looking back at the history of communications is a great one. You can see how far we've come. I've got one suggestion about this that I'd like to try and remember to make in a little while. Note to self. Remember to talk about the thing. Ok. I'll remember.
Most people agree that the Jeremy Irons version was the best version of SSE. I think if I try and remove nostalgia from the equation, I agree. I still associate SSE with Cronkite, and still almost expect his voice to come booming out of the speaker of the omnimover cars as soon as we start ascending. What you had with Cronkite was only America's most trusted communicator. You trusted Cronkite almost implicitly. I think I was too young, or I went too often in the Cronkite years, to remember the Vic Perrin version, so it is really hard to compare that version. It was only around for 4 years before it was replaced by Cronkite.
I do think that the Irons version had a few things going for it. First, it had a score integrated into the narration, and it was a great score. It added to the mood of wonder that the attraction really creates. I think that the script was a little better as well, and the score and script both really built tothe climaxthe scene at the top of the sphere where we are viewing Earth from space. That scene really felt like an amazing scene, pointing out the fact that on Earth, we're all really one "people".
An aside. Listening to some astronauts speak, the one thing almost all of them have in common is that they say when they go out into outer space, it really changes their perspective. The thing they all point to is looking down on the Earth and having that realization that states/countries/nationalities doesn't really matter. We're all one, all together, all living on this pale blue dot together. You know what? This is my manifesto. I can do what I want. I'm putting Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech in here. I'll put it in a quote block so you can minimize it if you want, but it's gorram relevant topic at hand.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
-- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That still gives me chills. It's also to some degrees what that crowning scene in SSE is meant to convey, and IMO, the Irons version did this the best.
I want to get to a whole post later about music, but I also want to note here that Tomorrow's Child, while likely outdated, really added to not just the message of this pavilion, but also set the stage for all of Future World. SSE was the first attraction that most people did when entering the park. Long before FP+, before sprinting to get a FP for Soarin', before people just wanted to get to WS faster to get their drunk on, SSE was stop 1 for most guests. You'd see it's line swell in the morning, and get shorter as the day progressed. With this fact meant that for a large portion of guests, their first impression of the park was built upon a global message, and a song about children building the future. IMO, this was important.
That leads to what everyone knows is the problem today with the attraction. The unfinished descent with the terrible touchscreen technology. Again, my manifesto, my opinion, but nothing lessens the impact of the pavilion more than a cheesy touchscreen video that can be done on a child's tablet these days, telling you about some repetitive and vague future. It sends you on your way with a silly and poorly done message. It destroys so much of what the rest of the attraction builds.
What should be done with SSE? Thankfully, here's one place where I'm likely not going to spend a bunch of Disney's dollars.
The attraction needs a new score, a new script, a new narrator, and a new ending.
I've mentioned this before, but I think that Ann Druyan is the person who should write the script for the next iteration of Spaceship Earth. If NDT is not too busy with his work on the space pavilion, he'd make a fine narrator. There are thankfully other people who could fill this role well if we want NDT to give all his focus to Space. I've thrown out Morgan Freeman before because I think that he's got that "trusted" voice that would work. Sir Patrick Stewart would be another great narrator (plus, a fun little nod-and-wink with the spaceship thing).
The score just needs to help present and build the material. It needs to build towards the climax and hit it's high-point when the ride vehicle hits that pale blue dot in the top.
For the descent, that is tricky. I mean, we went from the old lights and silhouettes of children running around to some additional scenes, and now, shoddy Jib Jab work. I am again, not an imagineer, so while I can brainstorm an idea, there are likely 100 that are better.
The one idea that I was reminding myself earlier to talk about was that I think it would be an interesting companion piece to what we saw above by pointing out the timeline covered by the attraction, to demonstrate how fast the changes have sped up in the past century. Show that long build between previous advancements taking centuries/millennia and today things changing on a dime.
Now, the potential issue here is the nature of what I just described. The previous update was done in 2008. Think of where we are just 7 years later. I think that this though means that we do need some sort of screen-based solution, and we need a commitment to update the content on the screens as soon as things change.
I was thinking potentially of a long, continuous screen that went the entire descent, like a long ribbon. This could be used to display a timeline, but a visual one. Show the distance between advancements, with action (cartoon/CGI? photos and video clips when applicable?) showing each advancement. As you reached the end, the sense of speed of advancement should really show (maybe even using the screen to trick the mind to think you are descending faster). Show these things to show how fast our global community is transforming it's methods of communications. This should be done to some new piece of score, or preferably, a new song (or updated version of Tomorrow's Child).
But, as I said, that is just one potential idea. Whatever it is, it needs to be finished, and it needs to not detract from the attraction itself. So, call up Ann and get her writing. Get some musicians on hand to start the scoring of the attraction, and start bidding on the best way to make it look like one long, continuous screen, or something else. This update is likely one of my only cost-conscious updates in my manifesto!
Editor's note: I come up with a better idea for the descent later, and it was right here, staring at me in the face. Ohhh... a teaser!
Funny you mention that. I was just going to get to the part where I cut/paste a little more on that from the thread. Spoiler Alert... It ends up as my idea to fix SSE, and do it without requiring a massive overhaul.
Yup, and I'll blatently steal that idea when I get to re-opening WoL
You are quite correct that SSE does not need a major over haul. 90% of what needs to be done can be done in a audio studio. The last 10% is simply finishing the decent.
Are you the king of the rainbow tunnel? Are you learning to communicate with the rats, leading them in their eventual uprising and overthrow of civilization as we know it?
The Living Seas. This is a major rallying point of people against the "toonification" of Epcot, and a place where I think I differ from most.
While I hold The Living Seas in the highest regard, I have no real issues with Nemo being incorporated into the pavilion, or even becoming the focus of it. My problem lies with how it was done instead.
For background, The Living Seas as a pavilion when it opened in 1986 consisted of the following:
You would walk in, past the existing rockwork water feature with the crashing waves. No seagulls obviously, just the occasional crashing waves.
The queue wound through the initial portions of the current queue fairly similarly to what exists now, but as you walked, you walked past historical pictures and examples of man's exploration under the water. Graphics showing the design of early snorkles, or diving bells, actual early dive suits (the whole steel diving helmet, etc).
You'd walk to a section that served as a waiting area for a preshow film. Once the previous film moved along, you were put into a small theater to watch a short film, which I'll once again admit a deep and undying love for and bias towards. The film, entitled The Sea, in 8 minutes covered the creation of Earth, the creation of the oceans, the importance of the ocean to life, and the fact that we know next to nothing about them and are still discovering new things.
Pausing for a brief moment,as a child, this is the first time that any of this had ever even come into consideration for me. I had never thought about how the Earth was created. I had never thought about how the oceans came from rain. RAIN! There are so many lines that stuck in my head during this film, but the one that always had it's intended effect on me is "...waiting in a world where we've spent less time than on the surface of the moon." It was meant to convey the idea that there is so much there yet to be discovered, and it worked like gangbusters on me. I have an audio version of this film, and I honestly listen to it in my car when driving, and it still excites me. I just listened to it again, and I still have that feeling.
Once you left the film, with it's fade from a "computer drawn" version of a seabase and the hydrolators that would take you to it into the real video of them, you were ushered into another room to await boarding your hydrolator.
Now, that is an odd word. Hydrolator. I'm guessing they made it up for Epcot, but I have never researched it. Anyway, you boarded what amounted to a fake elevator. This was going to "take you down to Seabase Alpha". The floor shook, bubbles went up, the side moved like you were going down deep under the sea, and a minute later, the other door opened up and you were under the ocean. The effect was simple, and honestly stolen by Universal in the brand new Gringotts ride. You know what, as a kid, it worked like gangbusters to me. I don't remember how many years I truly believed that those things really did move, even if it was just taking me down a floor. My disbelief was suspended enough to really buy into the fact that we were on a seabase under the ocean, even if I knew it not to be true. You boarded a clam shell vehicle which took you on a quick ride into the Seabase itself, and it was kind of useless as a ride honestly.
Once you arrived in the area that now makes up the post-ride pavilion, it was themed to be an actual seabase.
The huge aquarium was not just an aquarium, but it was part of the show. These were windows out into the ocean. The little side alcoves had different things to see and do. I remember a little cartoon film in one that I used to love, with Atlas explaining plate techtonics. It was the first I leanred of Pangia, the super-continent. A lot is very similar to what exists now. Things to see, learn, do. Touchscreen computers, a section about undersea exploration robots and suits where kids could "get in" a suit and try and manipulate the pincer hands, etc. The main room had the big water tube, and divers would constantly be coming and going from there into the main aquarium space.
All together, it added up to one pavilion, one purpose. You were arriving at a seabase, which was being used to explore the world under the ocean. It taught and entertained.
So, we look at the pavilion as it stands now. We have the Nemo ride itself. The queue IMO is well done and fun. I enjoy the idea of walking down the beach and under the water. For what it is, I'm ok. I obviously prefer the history version, but I accept that the queue is well done for it's designed intent. The ride itself feels like an odd bird. It is telling some weird version of the original story, with Nemo missing again, taking us through a "greatest hits" of characters. The video technology is cool, but the ride just feels poorly made somehow, ending in that Blue World song that they used from the Nemo musical. It's an odd mix between a Fantasyland "book report" dark ride, but a different story, but a story that is a rehash of the film, but not the film... It just looks like they said "Well, what if Nemo got lost again and we asked all his friends to find him, but the little guy is just playing hide and seek so there is no actual drama".
The pavilion itself is ok, standard aquarium fare. I enjoy Turtle Talk with the kids, have no problems there really aside from the fact that it really doesn't tie into the story of the pavilion more than it's related to Nemo. The huge aquarium here though somehow feels like an afterthought to me, not the focus. Here you have a 5.7 million gallon aquarium that does not feel like the star attraction. I'll bet there are plenty of people that don't even walk out to the observation area.
What would I have done here?
I don't know. I can pinpoint what I think that the faults are in the existing attraction. I wish that undersea exploration were still the focus of the pavilion. I wish that it tried to inspire people to want to think about how we explore and use our oceans in the future. I wish that this pavilion is where they had chosen to partner with James Cameron on, as his love for undersea exploration is well known. Cameron could have knocked it out of the park.
Or if they really wanted Nemo, I'd be ok with it honestly. It is a masterful movie, it is beloved by people everywhere, and it has a tie in naturally. But instead of "Where's Nemo?", what if Mr. Ray was our guide taking us to a seabase where we could view his friends? Or Nemo himself? What if they took us through, explaining facts about the coral reef system, or things that scientists are studying in the oceans today. Post ride, we arrive at the seabase, which could be very similar to what we have now. The one change I'd make though is the massive aquarium. It was part of the show previously, and the sparse nature of the aquarium setting was that we were on a sea-floor outside a seabase. It was meant to look like an ocean floor, disappearing off into the distance as we looked out the windows. Now that we are focusing on Nemo, the most impressive part of Nemo was the coral reef area. Build a massive coral reef system in the tank, heck, you could do it only in parts and have some of the large area as "the drop off". But give us something impressive to look at in that 5.7 million gallon tank, and make it the star. Later here, I've got a few ideas that expand upon this.
I don't know. I know some of the faults of the previous pavilion as well. People just wanted to go see the fishes after a while. Most people were not like me, they didn't want to see the film for the 10th time, or ride the fake elevator. They just wanted to go in and look at the fish, which they eventually allowed for (allowing people to bypass both film and hydrolator).
Anyway, as I said, it's a tougher thing to say what should have been done than it is to criticize what actually was done, if that makes any sense. Mainly, I think what is missing is that sense of purpose. The previous version was meant to teach you about the ocean, while making you think "Why don't we know more about something that makes up 70% of our planet?"
The new one feels, to me, more like "come ride our ride and maybe look at some fish".
Breaking form a little, I'll skip ahead to another teaser post. One which I found myself doodling one night during dinner.
