Why was EPCOT better in the 80s?

[Goofyernmost]

I usually don't jump into 7 year old threads, but, I do understand the almost overwhelming sentiment created by nostalgia. Epcot had to change, it couldn't keep up with the speed of advancing technology if it wanted too. It also has had to adapt to changing desires by CURRENT visitors, not locked into the jaw dropping changes that were happening in the 80's. Changes that we make today are looked as a expected. The very reason why you need to buy a new I-Phone every year.

The original mission of EPCOT could not keep up or even identify with the demands of the new generations occupying the park. As much as we, as veterans and part of the generations that were in the beginnings of the electronic age, still feel that it was a great showcase, today's guests would surely think it to be lame. They really didn't have a choice but to change. The problem is that no one can come to an agreement of what it should be. With the changes that have happened recently I think it is pretty obvious that they have decided that it should be a more sophisticated MK. MK is the only huge winner out of four. We, older folks, may not like it, but, in my opinion, the change was needed to survive. As long as they keep some of the original and still call it the same thing it can achieve long term success as something other then a place to "drink around the world" which I find to be a massive slap in the face of our memories of EPCOT, yet it gets very little press.

I'll happily take the changes if it brings Epcot back to being a good place for the family again. It still, to a lesser degree provides "hidden" education and is more entertaining and less need to have alcohol to make it an attractive destination. I would think that we would all support that.

 

[brb1006]

Today's Epcot is a good park. But there are reasons why EPCOT in the 80s was better, more impressive than what it is today, which simply can not be helped. Not all of the reasons why it was better can be attributed to malice, neglect, or cluelessness. Let me name three:


1) Futurism was a social phenomenon.
EPCOT did not come about in a cultural vacuum. Futurism, obsessing about the future, the modernist idea of progress, this is what drove Walt Disney and EPCOT.

But futurism simply does not exist anymore. We live in a post-modern age. We do not look to the future and expect to all be driving flying, nuclear powered vehicles within fifty years anymore. Stuff like that is what dreams were about back then.


2) EPCOT was new.

There is something people born after, say, 1975/1980 must try to understand. One must try to get back in one's mind to the world of 1982, imagine what the world was like back then, what those of us on the wrong side of forty were used to. And then imagine EPCOT suddenly being there.
Let me try to explain by giving some examples:

- EPCOT had the Sperry Computer Review.
This attraction showed the guests...a COMPUTER! Sooo exiting in 1982! A room full of computers! Back then, a huge computer meant a powerful computer. We didn't have computers at home. To see a huge computer was riveting, we were exited when the attraction explained how everything in EPCOT was controlled by it, from the AA's to the lights. To us, this was magic.

- Synthesizers.
Many of the EPCOT songs and the environment music relied heavily on synthesizers. This felt very futuristic. Wow. The EPCOT theme music, the UoE song...wow, just wow. This was music - computerised music, synthesizers! - that was new and futuristic.

- Architecture.
Buildings were square in the early 80s. Postmodern curving lines, computer-aided design were futuristic. Not seen in the world around you. Skyscrapers came in the variants square or square. Not with all those curving lines of today.

Here is what, say, the Universe pavilion looked like to our eyes in 1982:

All the pavilions had these ultra-modern, never-seen-before looks. They were even more exiting to us than the picture above is for todays generation, because we were not used to curving architecture in the first place.

- Lots of little things.
There were no internets. Yet EPCOT had touchscreens! Which were not just a great new technology in their own right, but which to top it off allowed you to make dinner reservations over a computer to a restaurant half a mile away!!
EPCOT was full of wonders like this.


All those aspects were new. Well newish. They existed, but were not taken for granted, we were not accustomed to them.
With this mindset, try to imagine going into Horizons. Oh man. So, so, so beautiful.

I hope none of the above is vague. What I mean is, when we today look at a Beatles concert, it looks lame. At least: tame. But...back in 1965, four men shaking their hips and wearing their hair over their ears was new, provocative, exciting! One can today still admire the Beatles for the inherent quality of their music, but it takes an effort to understand what a Beatles concert must have looked like to an innocent 1965 teenage girl.


3) Thirdly and lastly:
Equally, or perhaps most important was that EPCOT turned all this new stuff into a unified, cohesive whole. All the pavilions related to one another, related to the architecture, to the music, to society at large.
EPCOT had a story, a future, a promise. I would walk in EPCOT and be so full of awe that I wondered whether I was dreaming, whether it was all for real, or just a mirage.

I love the synthesizers used for Magic Journeys. It gave the attraction more of a wow factor.

 

[Fox&Hound]

Why was it better in the 80's? Cause we were better in the 80's....

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

I understand the opinion that the EPCOT Center of the 80s would never work for modern guests. But it was better for its time than the lowercase Epcot of today is for the 2000s. The Future World is just embarrassing. There's Spaceship Earth and...not much else of any worth or focused on anything in particular. It's sad to see a formerly intelligent park become so inane. EPCOT Center was like a tribute to the best of humanity. Where we've been, where we're going, who we are. What is Epcot of today about? Cartoons? I'll still take the classic sprawling slow-moving attractions filled with Audio-Animatronics and amazing art direction over Test Track, Mission: SPACE, Finding Nemo and that horrendous Figment ride.

 

[marni1971]

I usually don't jump into 7 year old threads, but, I do understand the almost overwhelming sentiment created by nostalgia. Epcot had to change.

It certainly did. As has been said time and time again. Had the existing attractions not been updated since 1982 I'd be the first one to laugh at them.

But it could have at least changed into something as good as what it changed from.

We still don't live in Brava Centurai. But if we were going to suggest it in the park today it wouldn't be in orange jump suits.

EPCOT Center was greater than the sum of its parts. Epcot is a mishmash of parts.

 

[Goofyernmost]

It certainly did. As has been said time and time again. Had the existing attractions not been updated since 1982 I'd be the first one to laugh at them.

But it could have at least changed into something as good as what it changed from.

We still don't live in Brava Centurai. But if we were going to suggest it in the park today it wouldn't be in orange jump suits.

EPCOT Center was greater than the sum of its parts. Epcot is a mishmash of parts.

I don't deny that for a second Martin, however, it wasn't a sustainable ideal. It was right on in it's time, but, it's time was limited. I know that if it were still in existence today I would go to it, but, I also feel strongly that it would be a pretty lonely visit. What they were offering was no longer in demand. Those of us that experienced it first hand in it's infancy, know just how cutting edge and different that it was. I feel that today's crowd would not find it appealing. Peoples demands change with the times and so must Disney generally and Epcot specifically.

 

[orlando678-]

I don't deny that for a second Martin, however, it wasn't a sustainable ideal. It was right on in it's time, but, it's time was limited. I know that if it were still in existence today I would go to it, but, I also feel strongly that it would be a pretty lonely visit. What they were offering was no longer in demand. Those of us that experienced it first hand in it's infancy, know just how cutting edge and different that it was. I feel that today's crowd would not find it appealing. Peoples demands change with the times and so must Disney generally and Epcot specifically.

True, but I'm not sure whether the approach they are heading now is the right way to both treat the park and its theme and of course the people.

 

[Goofyernmost]

True, but I'm not sure whether the approach they are heading now is the right way to both treat the park and its theme and of course the people.

Time will tell, but, I also believe that we don't have the answer either. All we have is our opinion based on what we, personally, would like to see happen. For some it's go back in time and rebuild EPCOT to it's original glory, other, would be something almost exactly the same with a different twist and mission. Who knows? They make the decisions and they may be right or they may be wrong. Same as our own thoughts about it.

 

[Seabasealpha1]

I didn't attend during the 80's as I was born as they were on the way out...

However, from what I've seen online/in videos/in books... what seemed to make the place "tick" (in my humble opinion) was the unabashed sense of hope and optimism. It was the the the sense of wonder about what the future would hold...and the presentation of information/story made us believe that there was something better that assuredly was going to happen. Life would be wonderful in the future...technology and international culture/brotherhood would help solve our problems...

The outside world disappeared as it does at Magic Kingdom...it was unlike anything anywhere...a gleaming symbol of hope and technology...

But now, things have changed a lot...I think society has changed much...we're not as optimistic. We're not as hopeful...if anything, the way the real world has become has taken a lot of the wind out of our sails as a culture. We've become jaded...So, no, EPCOT Center couldn't keep up...but I don't know that you could call all the B.S. that was done to it a serious attempt at keeping up...I feel like if they had put as much thought into how to keep up as they did building it to begin with, it may have had a little better chance...

However, the hands that have taken over have been more interested in how to squeeze more money out of it than how to keep the story going...

Then, you get to people like me...and we're probably the minority. I go there, looking for little pieces of what used to be. I see hints of stories/attractions that were and in many ways I mourn for them. Not so much because I know they would have had to be changed eventually...but because the old attractions helped shaped the point and direction of the place. The direction/point of Epcot (to me) is what is really being missed.

I feel like now, EPCOT Center...something I didn't know much about from a personal experience standpoint, is something the world needs. We need a reminder that there's still some hope, there's still a bright future that could be had...will it be easy? No. It won't be as easy or as whimsical as the original pavilions would have liked us to believe...but, in looking through the clouds of time, and bad decision making, I still feel like the spirit and original intent of EPCOT Center is still there...it's weak...but it's there...and to me, the real question is: who will keep the fire burning? Or will it just die? Or can it evolve? There's no clear answer...and I dunno that there ever will be...

While AK has lacked elements to make it feel like a "half-day park" and even though they're gutting DHS, I feel like Epcot has honestly been the most neglected and abused. It has been in need of attention for decades now...

I do believe Epcot was better in the 80's. I hope for a return of brilliance to it soon.