The Land balloons

[The Empress Lilly]

Here is another photo of that spectacular model, showing a much better close up of the Hot Air Balloon Ride concept.
It was beautifully executed, and would have likely been a serene and relaxing experience.

That proto-land could've been such a great pavilion! I love what was actually build, but I'm mesmerised by what could've been. I didn't know the balloon ride was this extensive, going through all these show scenes outside the main crystal structure. Like mixing Peter Pan with Horizons. Tantalising...

It reminds me of the model for the ride through The Living Seas, that Poseidon adventure one.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Decline by Degrees in action! The flowers atop the fountain sculpture are absent in the picture of the nineties version I showed a few posts earlier. (Below) As is the mural next to the rotating restaurant.
Ultimately resulting in the current version, where there are no murals whatsoever anymore on the first floor, nor any fountain below.

 

[marni1971]

They could have kept the late 80s plexiglass inserts...

 

[Goofyernmost]

I've never even realised the ugly sculpture is just the support structure of the pretty sculpture.


It's just sheer Rizzo-fication of EPCOT. 'They're tourists, what do they know'. They change the sculpture for its support structure, and then think that their audience can't tell the difference anyway. Can't tell pretty and meaningful from ugly and misplaced.

Even those who do not immediately notice that something is off, will subconsciously see an ugly sculpture. Or will simply not see a pretty sculpture.
I'll bring out my mantra: WDW was build so well, that even at fifty percent it is stil great. Those who don't know better, who only know the current WDW, woud mistake it for a good theme park resort.

And there my friend is the crux of the problem, which as it turns out, is only a problem for us. To be honest, my first visit to EPCOT was in February 1983 and have been most every year since then and, are you ready for this, I never realized that they had changed anything about that fountain until it was brought up here, just a few posts ago. WDW, if nothing else, is a massive assault on the senses. Overload if you will. It was more so back then. If I saw a difference it never consciously registered. So Rizzo was right... what do we, other then a handful of people, know.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

They could have kept the late 80s plexiglass inserts...

View attachment 42023

Eeew! So ugly. The late eighties / early nineties were a great time for WDW, but not for EPCOT.

I do remember the plexiglass being always dirty. In fact, I thought the glass was matte. Is @ABQ right, is that why they removed it?

 

[lazyboy97o]

And there my friend is the crux of the problem, which as it turns out, is only a problem for us. To be honest, my first visit to EPCOT was in February 1983 and have been most every year since then and, are you ready for this, I never realized that they had changed anything about that fountain until it was brought up here, just a few posts ago. WDW, if nothing else, is a massive assault on the senses. Overload if you will. It was more so back then. If I saw a difference it never consciously registered. So Rizzo was right... what do we, other then a handful of people, know.

Doesn't matter if only a few notice. That was what elevated Disney's work to such a level that it's legacy holds together so much of the void left by abandoned artistry.