The Miscellaneous Thought Thread

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Epcot Center from 1989-1994 was the best theme park.
Disneyland is a close second.

That is highly debatable!

 

[Mac Tonight]

That is highly debatable!

but also highly true!

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

I never went to Epcot until the mid 2000s so my nostalgia for it is zero. A lot of the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in the WDW forum over all the changes happening strikes me as kind of hysterical. It was a super outdated and irrelevant park for decades so I think it desperately needed a complete overhaul like it’s getting now, even if it includes some IP.

But I wasn’t around for Epcot’s golden age so what do I know.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Epcot may have been a stronger park than it is today, but it was still fairly boring and filled with enormous open areas of concrete that were brutal in the Floridian climate. Better than Disneyland? No, no, no.

I preferred Universal Studios to Epcot and all the Disneyworld parks even back then. They had King Kong, Jaws, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Alfred Hitchcock, I Love Lucy, Nickelodeon Studios, Hanna Barbera, the Horror Makeup Show and E.T.

 

[Rich T]

I never went to Epcot until the mid 2000s so my nostalgia for it is zero. A lot of the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in the WDW forum over all the changes happening strikes me as kind of hysterical. It was a super outdated and irrelevant park for decades so I think it desperately needed a complete overhaul like it’s getting now, even if it includes some IP.

But I wasn’t around for Epcot’s golden age so what do I know.

All I can tell you is I visited Epcot for my first and only time in 1993, when all the original pavilions were still there and Wonders of Life was the new thing. I’ll never forget it. The technology didn’t quite live up to all the ultra-hype (I had the coffee table book), but while Magic Kingdom was a half-day park for this DL fan and Disney/MGM was meh, I kept returning to Epcot over and over during our week-long stay. It was a huge, beautiful park that assumed people enjoy learning stuff and didn’t shove merch in your face. It was the Star Trek: Next Gen of theme parks. Some of it was Picard and some of it was... Wesley. It didn’t all work, but the overall impact was one of confident optimism and pride re: the human race.

But I was the only one in our group interested in riding the epic-length attractions more than once; for most the rides were fun, one-and-done experiences.

It was the best World’s Fair I ever visited, and I’ll never forget it. And I have no interest at all in the park it’s becoming.

 

[Mac Tonight]

I never went to Epcot until the mid 2000s so my nostalgia for it is zero. A lot of the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in the WDW forum over all the changes happening strikes me as kind of hysterical. It was a super outdated and irrelevant park for decades so I think it desperately needed a complete overhaul like it’s getting now, even if it includes some IP.

But I wasn’t around for Epcot’s golden age so what do I know.

This so-called "complete overhaul" it is getting (and I'll agree, it did need it) is about 20 years too late, a total failure of upholding Epcot Center's legacy, and doesn't even address the attractions, like Imagination, that truly need a re-imaginging in the first place.

But hey, at least the new (old) entrance looks good!

 

[Mac Tonight]

Epcot may have been a stronger park than it is today, but it was still fairly boring and filled with enormous open areas of concrete that were brutal in the Floridian climate. Better than Disneyland? No, no, no.

I preferred Universal Studios to Epcot and all the Disneyworld parks even back then. They had King Kong, Jaws, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Alfred Hitchcock, I Love Lucy, Nickelodeon Studios, Hanna Barbera, the Horror Makeup Show and E.T.

I'll admit, I'm definitely biased towards EC since it's the first Disney park I have memories of going to, and I wouldn't visit Disneyland for the first time until moving to CA in the mid-90's. I also probably spent more time at MGM Studios back in the day than Magic Kingdom and am very nostalgic for that park's early days.

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

This so-called "complete overhaul" it is getting (and I'll agree, it did need it) is about 20 years too late, a total failure of upholding Epcot Center's legacy, and doesn't even address the attractions, like Imagination, that truly need a re-imaginging in the first place.

But hey, at least the new (old) entrance looks good!

I don't necessarily disagree, but at least it's an improvement over what had been there previously for 20 years (an empty husk of a park which felt stuck in the '80s with no relevance or connection to the modern world whatsoever)

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Epcot hasn't felt stuck in the 80s. It's felt stuck in the 2000s. It's all garbage slapped in there in the 2000s or roughly around there.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I don't necessarily disagree, but at least it's an improvement over what had been there previously for 20 years (an empty husk of a park which felt stuck in the '80s with no relevance or connection to the modern world whatsoever)

What are they really improving? The big empty space in the middle will just be open empty space. Most of the rides are staying the same. Is a roller coaster and interactive play really a relevant connection to the world?

 

[BasiltheBatLord]

What are they really improving? The big empty space in the middle will just be open empty space. Most of the rides are staying the same. Is a roller coaster and interactive play really a relevant connection to the world?

This is the last post I'll make on this since this is the Disneyland forum, but just my view on everything:

- I'm not super knowledgeable on everything that's changing in Future World, but I'm glad they're making an attempt to modernize it as it's one of those areas of the park that's felt super old and trapped in the '80s/'90s.
- Refreshed park-wide branding is good and was very much needed.
- Controversial opinion but I think GotG is an improvement over UoE. I've never seen GotG nor do I care about anything Marvel at all but UoE was old, boring and dated (Ellen Degeneres? Seriously?) just something big and new there is an improvement.
- Rat is a net positive addition to the park + actually works thematically in its country unlike Frozen.
- PLAY Pavilion: This seems like mostly a little kids thing, but Wonders of Life had been gutted and left rotting for years with nothing left to offer to the park. This is another case where just something new is an improvement.
- Space 220: Net positive addition, looks interesting enough
- SSE is still a question mark but it obviously needs an overhaul, especially the ending. Will remain to be seen how that turns out.

By all means I would love to see a re-done Epcot which stays true to the original vision of the park and continued that legacy, but those days seem to be gone now. If I actually had some nostalgia for what Epcot used to be instead of having grown up always knowing it as this weird hodgepodge of '80s and '90s leftovers maybe I'd feel differently. But most of the park just desperately needs something new and modern, and even if the specific ways it's being achieved aren't perfect, the fact that Disney is finally investing longterm in Epcot is a positive in my book.

 

[Rich T]

If HGTV had a theme park...

(Still better than Incredicoaster.)

 

[truecoat]

This is the last post I'll make on this since this is the Disneyland forum, but just my view on everything:

- I'm not super knowledgeable on everything that's changing in Future World, but I'm glad they're making an attempt to modernize it as it's one of those areas of the park that's felt super old and trapped in the '80s/'90s.
- Refreshed park-wide branding is good and was very much needed.
- Controversial opinion but I think GotG is an improvement over UoE. I've never seen GotG nor do I care about anything Marvel at all but UoE was old, boring and dated (Ellen Degeneres? Seriously?) just something big and new there is an improvement.
- Rat is a net positive addition to the park + actually works thematically in its country unlike Frozen.
- PLAY Pavilion: This seems like mostly a little kids thing, but Wonders of Life had been gutted and left rotting for years with nothing left to offer to the park. This is another case where just something new is an improvement.
- Space 220: Net positive addition, looks interesting enough
- SSE is still a question mark but it obviously needs an overhaul, especially the ending. Will remain to be seen how that turns out.

By all means I would love to see a re-done Epcot which stays true to the original vision of the park and continued that legacy, but those days seem to be gone now. If I actually had some nostalgia for what Epcot used to be instead of having grown up always knowing it as this weird hodgepodge of '80s and '90s leftovers maybe I'd feel differently. But most of the park just desperately needs something new and modern, and even if the specific ways it's being achieved aren't perfect, the fact that Disney is finally investing longterm in Epcot is a positive in my book.

This is the misc thread, you can talk about WDW all you want and I for one don't mind it.

 

[Sharon&Susan]

Wonder if anyone can answer this:

Will Spider-Man be the first IP that both Disney and Universal have created an attraction of?

I know IoA had a Sinbad stage show at one point, but I’m thinking of attractions.

To continue this, even though it's not an attraction, but wikipedia lists Star Wars and Indiana Jones as characters that used to appear at Universal Japan. There's no source for it and it'd be very weird especially since Disney already had rides for both IPs at TDL and TDS so I'm leaning on it not being true.

 

[Sharon&Susan]

SFGate (remember them from a few weeks ago?) created a clickbait article about the Matterhorn falling apart with all the "inside info" in the article coming from that vlogger who was claiming that the Matterhorn queue construction was some secret plot to reroute the Monorail.

 

[Robbiem]

I don’t think it was impossible but he was also dealing with constraints that demanded compromise. We now appreciate them for their quirks but they weren’t supposed to be there. We also would not try to force such outcomes if we were starting from scratch on something. There are some great movies that didn’t have a finished script or were largely improvised but in general people would say that if you want to make a good movie you want to start with a good script.

Tokyo‘s pirates is a blend of the stateside versions. The entrance is very similar to the original in Disneyland but the exit is WDW with the speedramp.
personally while I think Disneyland has the best ride I think Florida has the better lead up to the ride with the pirate fort, although hands down the best version I’ve been on is Paris (haven’t been to Shanghai so can’t compare)

 

[Rich T]

I watched this video of just-reopened Autopia and... man, this poor ride is looking like garbage on a stick. And I’m an Autopia fan!

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

To think it could have been an Endor ride and GE wouldn't exist.

 

[Homemade Imagineering]

Just saw this on YouTube, and I thought I’d share it here. There are some really neat behind the scenes photos here!

 

[brb1006]

Sad news today

Samuel E. Wright, Voice of Sebastian in 'The Little Mermaid' Passes Away

Samuel E. Wright, best known as the voice of Sebastian in The Little Mermaid franchise, has passed away at age 74. The news was announced via the Town of Montgomery Facebook page which reports news in Montgomery, NY where Wright lived at the time of his death. They had this to say: “Sam and his […]

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