would an ip free Epcot survive in this day and age ? I look at my own kids as an example, and I genuinely think they would be board out of their minds with the majority of the rides Epcot had to offer back then outside of journey into your imagination.
The real answer is no, but I know that’s hard pill to swallow. I’m a major EPCOT fan, wish more than anything that I got to experience most of the original stuff, but the truth is that we don’t get any element of the park’s core ideas and themes, even fleeting ones, without the inclusion of IP.
That’s not even necessarily all Disney’s choice. The guests actively want that. The percentage of people hungry for OLDCOT style attractions with no IP and such is far dwarfed by the percentage of people who aren’t.
But beyond that, time just caught up to EPCOT in the same way it did Tomorrowland. The future gets here eventually and it just isn’t workable to come in and redo attractions every 10 or 15 years when the world catches up to their views of tomorrow. All of the muses of tomorrow of those classic EPCOT rides have been passed.
The original ones that remain either rooted themselves mostly in the past (SSE, though it does touch on tomorrow, it is mainly a look back) or deal with ideas relevant to today (LWtL).
That combined with the demands of I’d say a solid 95-97% of the guests visiting these parks is what has changed EPCOT.
The original EPCOT was wonderful. Iconic. But no, it would not survive in 2024. In some other timeline maybe but the world we live in showed that the future EPCOT looked to just was never going to come to fruition and it would make those attractions seem very out of place these days.
It’s hard to remember now but there was a time when EPCOT was viewed as a dying place and that was right when they began this almost 25 year cycle now of tinkering with it. Had they just let it sit any longer I honestly think EPCOT would look even
less like it’s original self today.
What the audiences want changed. We cannot sit here and say “it worked then” and still blindly believe it would now. It wouldn’t. The audience of 1981 and the audience of 2024 are not the same. Time changes all cultures. What the people who participate in that culture, especially pop culture, want changes.
Disney fans, and EPCOT fans in general; just have to remember that they are but a small drop of water in a large sea. Disney cannot, and should not, cater just to us. If they did, these parks would one day cease to exist because what we want is not always (in fact rarely) is not going to align with what the majority wants.
Disney parks are parks for the majority. They always have been, that was Walt’s whole point. He didn’t anticipate the parks picking up a dedicated fandom, and you know I doubt he’d be playing right to them even he became aware of one had he lived to see it.
I understand Disney Adults are attached to these places and their memories of them. That’s what makes us Disney Adults.
But we cannot be selfish, and demanding they stay as whatever they were when we were kids getting to experience them is the most selfish thing we as fans can do. We have to accept the change because, well, these parks are for other people to come in and make their own memories now. We can either choose to come along for that, or be the curmudgeons sitting around with a frown saying “well back in my day.”
I would much rather be the former than the latter.
