Where does Tomorrowland go from here?

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Look what they were able to do with the amount of space in Disneyland. Look at how many attractions are crammed into Fantasyland. Those aren't huge spaces. And the content is all great. Magic Kingdom's old FL is pretty big, but there's like nothing in it by comparison. Disneyland has proven that if you place those kinds of restrictions on great artists, you can end up with great results. The old Tomorrowland was like this and nowadays, there are just sad reminders everywhere. The Carousel building, 3D theater, PeopleMover tracks, Rocket Jets and Starcade are all just wasted space in a park that otherwise utilizes space amazingly.

 

[Curious Constance]

Disneyland has capacity issues. Building more rides that are less than 2 minutes in length and have very little capacity aren't going to do anything to fix that. I think people love the Fantasyland rides because they are classics. Me included. But, I think if you built a ride today, on the same scale and length of what's there now, I don't think it would be very well received.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

The attractions that were removed or ruined in Tomorrowland were mostly high capacity high return attractions though. Circlevision, Magic Eye, PeopleMover, Carousel Theater, Mission to Mars, ATIS. All those shows! Maybe a lot of them weren't the best attractions and wouldn't fly today, but that's why you improve on them, bring the land into the 21st century, don't downgrade, remove and leave remains all over the place, and turn huge spaces into glorified gift shops and ads for movies. The place is a wreck.

 

[Curious Constance]

The attractions that were removed or ruined in Tomorrowland were mostly high capacity high return attractions though. Circlevision, Magic Eye, PeopleMover, Carousel Theater, Mission to Mars, ATIS. All those shows! Maybe a lot of them weren't the best attractions and wouldn't fly today, but that's why you improve on them, bring the land into the 21st century, don't downgrade, remove and leave remains all over the place, and turn huge spaces into glorified gift shops and ads for movies. The place is a wreck.

I can agree that Tomorrowland is a shell of what it could be. But it's probably making money and that doesn't give them a lot of incentive to change it in a hurry.

 

[dweezil78]

Look what they were able to do with the amount of space in Disneyland. Look at how many attractions are crammed into Fantasyland. Those aren't huge spaces. And the content is all great. Magic Kingdom's old FL is pretty big, but there's like nothing in it by comparison. Disneyland has proven that if you place those kinds of restrictions on great artists, you can end up with great results. The old Tomorrowland was like this and nowadays, there are just sad reminders everywhere. The Carousel building, 3D theater, PeopleMover tracks, Rocket Jets and Starcade are all just wasted space in a park that otherwise utilizes space amazingly.

For the most part all the bones of everything you named off are in-tact... just either underutilized or repurposed. Underneath it all is still the framework of 67 Tomorrowland. I just wonder if those spaces are big enough to allow for attractions substantial and interesting enough to hold the attention of today's audiences (i.e. not people like you and me who dig old Tomorrowland/EPCOT Center type shows.)

I feel like Disney has been trying trying to retrofit the same Tomorrowland framework for 50 years now and perhaps the best thing to do is just tear a lot of it down (I know, I know, a horrific thought) if we want any chance of something truly new and groundbreaking for that space.

 

[Phroobar]

You're not wrong, I just don't think either really scream 'Tomorrowland' these days. If there were ways to utilize those spaces and themes and make them compelling and futuristic though, I'd be all for it. Obviously would be a bummer to lose one of DL's very few substantial bodies of water (MK has us beat with their waterways big time) so I'd hate to see it go. I'd be totally fine with keeping the water, but ditching the subs as I'm just not sure a slow moving submarine ride really cuts it these days, even with the all the nostalgia baked in.

Disney should build the first underwater aquarium with a real Sea Base Alpha. The subs would be transportation in and out of the underwater show building. The lagoon would be expanded to include all of autopia and the old motor boat area. On top of the under water building would be TDS's Aquatopia trackless boats. The base would include an underwater rollercoaster through clear tubes as you pass real fish.

 

[ForeverAnna]

Sounds awesome.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

With a few exceptions WDI hasn't done "the future" very well. What it does well is the past, the present, and fantasy, so please no more half-baked attempts at "a living blueprint" of the future. With that said, and given that anything they replace the current TL with will surely be IP based, a well conceived and executed TL focused squarely on science fiction/fantasy from Disney would likely be pretty awesome and a guaranteed hit.

 

[dweezil78]

With a few exceptions WDI hasn't done "the future" very well. What it does well is the past, the present, and fantasy, so please no more half-baked attempts at "a living blueprint" of the future. With that said, and given that anything they replace the current TL with will surely be IP based, a well conceived and executed TL focused squarely on science fiction/fantasy from Disney would likely be pretty awesome and a guaranteed hit.

I think they could do a real Tomorrowland if partnered with the right companies/sponsors. The thing is, they'd have to really commit to it and design it in a way where it is somewhat modular and could be updated more easily overtime -- and then they'd have to actually keep at it. (Unlike, you know, Innoventions.) They would also have to lay it out and create long-term agreements in which a lot of this responsibility fell on the shoulders of their sponsors. These tech giants are creating elaborate exhibitions year after year at CES and other trade shows, barely reaching any of their real consumers. If they put those same types of budgets into their Tomorrowland presences annually it would reach a ton of their actual customers AND simultaneously keep Tomorrowland fresh and moving forward.

The biggest problem with past Tomorrowlands is that they more or less paint themselves into a corner and are unable to evolve with the times. They can do it properly, but they just need a smarter approach to it.

 

[dweezil78]

For a completely different type of approach than the one I outlined, what if Tomorrowland became more of a digital/gaming inspired land heavily influenced on the Tron aesthetic (not unlike Shanghai's I suppose)? This idea was inspired by the Autopia thread because I started thinking about how you could turn that into a Wreck It Ralph/Mario Kart inspired racing experience with all kinds of cool power-up effects, crazy looking cars with unique abilities, and a variety of other visual effects.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

I think they could do a real Tomorrowland if partnered with the right companies/sponsors. The thing is, they'd have to really commit to it and design it in a way where it is somewhat modular and could be updated more easily overtime -- and then they'd have to actually keep at it. (Unlike, you know, Innoventions.) They would also have to lay it out and create long-term agreements in which a lot of this responsibility fell on the shoulders of their sponsors. These tech giants are creating elaborate exhibitions year after year at CES and other trade shows, barely reaching any of their real consumers. If they put those same types of budgets into their Tomorrowland presences annually it would reach a ton of their actual customers AND simultaneously keep Tomorrowland fresh and moving forward.

You've just explained why the concept has never worked as Walt intended. To do what you've outlined would require an incredible amount of resources for a subject most people either don't care about or have little desire to experience at a theme park.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

For a completely different type of approach than the one I outlined, what if Tomorrowland became more of a digital/gaming inspired land heavily influenced on the Tron aesthetic (not unlike Shanghai's I suppose)?

I've always thought Eddie Soto's SciFi City concept for Tokyo Disneyland was a good one. Retro comic book style TL that could absorb any type of science fantasy IP they wanted to throw at it.

https://planningforwdw.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/sci-fi-city-in-tokyo-disneyland-2/

 

[dweezil78]

You've just explained why the concept has never worked as Walt intended. To do what you've outlined would require an incredible amount of resources for a subject most people either don't care about or have little desire to experience at a theme park.

I think you're right about it needing an incredible amount of resources -- but, if done right, I think they could find a way to make it appealing to theme park audiences. The problem is, Tomorrowland and Futurism was really Walt's baby and 1) There's probably no one within the company with anything close to that same kind of passion for it today and 2) Even if there was, there's no guarantee they'd be around long enough to keep it all going. Wah wah wah...

 

[atsolomon]

Disney could future-proof Tomorrowland by making it far enough in the future. You could probably put in a people eating D ticket ride based on an omnimover in the building that housed the Carousel of Progress (Horizons: The Next Generation). Maybe something like how Earth's environment was saved, a look back.

Retheme the whole land as a visit to an O'Neil type space colony. Star Tours becomes the Grand Tour of the solar system using actual imagery from NASA coupled w/realistic new stuff (fly through the giant Mariner Valley on Mars as Mars was terraformed).

It's good that Star Wars, essentially a fantasy that happens to have spaceships, got its own land and didn't take over Tomorrowland.

Adam

 

[Deleted member 107043]

he problem is, Tomorrowland and Futurism was really Walt's baby...

It really was and his short attention span meant that the concept really never received the level of attention it deserved until WED produced TL '67. By the time DL was up and running at full steam in the late 50s Walt was off at the NY World's Fair and then got sidetracked with the Florida Project. In retrospect I think the TL concept as Walt envisioned, even if done right, is a bit too ambitious for a 100 acre theme park. Even at EPCOT, where Disney has given adequate space to deep dive into the subject of the future WDI still struggles to keep the topic relative to a modern audience.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Well, Disney's solutions for updating EPCOT have been consistently atrocious and usually involve ruining pavilions and shoehorning cartoons everywhere. Future World these days is like Spaceship Earth and...not much else of relevance or quality!

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Well, Disney's solutions for updating EPCOT have been consistently atrocious and usually involve ruining pavilions and shoehorning cartoons everywhere. Future World these days is like Spaceship Earth and...not much else of relevance or quality!

Which sort of proves my point as well as Dweezil's. Without Walt the WDCo is no longer in the business of predicting the future at its parks. Which for me is fine because they rarely did it very well anyway. Hopefully, maybe after SW Land is done, there'll be some announcement about a fabulous TL redo.

 

[dweezil78]

Well, Disney's solutions for updating EPCOT have been consistently atrocious and usually involve ruining pavilions and shoehorning cartoons everywhere. Future World these days is like Spaceship Earth and...not much else of relevance or quality!

Agreed. I think that's largely in part to the setup of Future World, much like Tomorrowland, being unsustainable. As much as I love the original Future World attractions (probably among my favorite of any Disney park) -- how do you really keep those up-to-date when so much of them were about looking at the past to begin with? Not to say the replacements have been any better -- they are clearly way off course with FW's original focus and the loss of the original, timeless Imagination ride is still one of the biggest missteps they've had in the park.

Communicore/Innoventions really was the one place that they could have kept fresh and ever-changing with relative ease and they even managed to yuck that up. :/

 

[GetAPaperBag]

I think part of the problem with Tomorrowland in both parks is a product of "the future" of today. If you watch Tomorrowland they touch on this issue. The future you used to be viewed as bright and exciting. That's not exactly the case now. People used to dream of space travel and technological advancements. What do people dream of now when they think of the future?

 

[Deleted member 107043]

What do people dream of now when they think of the future?

Exactly. I had sort of hoped that the film Tomorrowland would be successful enough to reignite an interest in futurism and perhaps inspire a new vision for the land at DL and WDW. The failure of that film to take off helps prove that it isn't a topic that has broad appeal today.