Weird thought today...what if Horizons and SSE were swapped?

[ChrisFL]

Just thinking of what would have been different if the buildings were swapped, but the content was relatively the same (let's just pretend it all physically fits)

Horizons was often known as the pavilion that tied all of the other themes of EPCOT Center together.

Other than the sponsorship issue, I wonder if Horizons in SSE would have stayed and been updated since it was the icon and difficult to re-do.

Both attractions have similarities in their middle section with a grand reveal before leading to the finale as well.

Anyway, nothing more than that, just wonder if anyone else ever thought of this.

 

[CoasterSnoop]

I don't think I ever had this exact thought, but I always wondered why, in the context of original Epcot, SSE was in the center of the park when Horizons was supposed to pull everything together thematically. From a layout standpoint, I think it would've made more sense had Horizons been in that spot instead. Maybe SSE is front and center because it was designed as a starting point? For a first time visitor, riding Horizons first might've been seen as watching the series finale of a TV show first, then going back and watching everything else, and therefore creating a less satisfactory experience? I'm just throwing conceptual ideas around. I think for the repeat visitor this would ultimately make more sense and the location of the ride would've served a great purpose, but the first-time guest usually gets greater consideration in terms of park design (this is WDW, after all).

But talking Horizons in the SSE building present-day, I imagine it would still be there since, as you say, it's a difficult redo job, but by now in typical Epcot fashion it would probably be updated to a degree rendering it unrecognizable. By now, it'd likely be a mishmash of different versions with different ideas that muddle each other. And everybody on this forum would be screaming at Disney for ruining Horizons, probably.

But what about SSE in the Horizons building? Yeah, it's definitely a goner imo. Like you say, the two have similarities, but the biggest one is that they're slow dark-rides sitting on land that needs to be populated by Eisner's sparkling, new, fast, exciting space-sickness simulator. Sponsored by Hewlett-Packard, for some reason. That thing got bulldozed years ago by now, and they probably bulldozed the sinkhole, too, just for safe measure.

It's an interesting hypothetical to think about, especially from a conceptual standpoint, but I just don't see it diverging too much from what we know in our timeline.