spacemt354
Chili's
How many of you guys have seen the Grand Opening of Walt Disney World special?
I've been enamored with Opening Day WDW from the day I saw the drawn-out maps of the Magic Kingdom from 1971. There's a sense of promise that you feel in that WED Enterprises had a Whole New World to built out the final Walt was alive to Imagineer. WED never truly fulfill Walt's intentions by not constructing EPCOT, but I digress.
What I will elaborate on is how ever since WED established the first phase of development on WDW property, there's been upsets. I hate thinking cynically, but from an analytical stand-point, there seems to many missed opportunities. Ranging from the TTC to how Imagineering handles park maintenance and expansion, I don't think a lot of what the Company has done is not in the way that Walt would have done it. This has its' pros and its' cons, but I'm more interested in the cons... at least this time around.
Thinking I might write a lil' series about things like these. Call it "How Walt Would've Done It" or something like that. Watch the video, if you haven't, and tell me what you think
The only thing I will say that I think Walt would have been impressed by in the early stages of WDW and WED was that they used WDW metaphorically as an experimental prototype community of tomorrow. I believe the first 911 emergency system was developed for WDW, Discovery Island and environmental protection (something way ahead of its time) among other aspects like the monorail used as a transportation system rather than an attraction.
Also the 1973 oil crisis had an impact on WED's ambitions, but you are right I mean just look at the 1966 announcement of E.P.C.O.T -- Walt envisioned the 'world' an entirely different way, but while the results were entirely different I do thing the remaining imagineers tried to do the best they knew how...because Walt was the engine and when you cut the engine out (only 5 years before 1971), it will lead to some of the cons you're thinking of...an interesting project! Would like to hear more!