rdeacon wrote:Imagination - thinking imagination is timeless.. but it does stretch it a bit.
I think it made the case that all technological and cultural advances spring from human imagination. Everything else in the park came from figments. I suppose it could be a bit of stretch, but I thought it humanized things discussed in all the other attractions, some of which were a bit cold.
All the original pavilions with the exception of Imagination are characterless...
It's not characters per se that were absent from Epcot, but existing characters. This was to drive home the point that this was a completely new experience.
Funny I really like The Seas with Nemo and friends...
The dark ride seems pretty cool for Fantasyland. And I suppose I wouldn't be terribly upset with Nemo hosting a Seas attraction in the Animal Kingdom, although I still think it would be better without the movie tie-in.
Is Disney allowed to alter a park in a new direction, a new theme?
I don't know about being "allowed", but everyone will probably have different opinions, based on what they liked about a particular park.
Outside of Future World, I would say they've already significantly modified the Studios' theme. The Tower is basically an admission that the original theme for the park was lame.
Finding out how movies are made is pretty boring. Special effects aren't interesting outside the frame. They're designed to look good in only a limited way. That's why most of the stuff in a Planet Hollywood looks stupid (eg, Imperial Stormtroopers blasters are just painted hunks of wood that look terrible up close). Watching someone add computer effects is even more boring.
The sad thing is that Universal had already figured this out at the time Disney decided to copy them. A studio setting is only interesting if they're creating something you care about, and that wasn't going to happen in Orlando (although they did make a valiant attempt).
Theme park attractions are artificial creations attempting to create an alternate reality for the guests. If you dissect an attraction while you're in the middle of it and point out how this or that effect is done, not only is the "magic" gone, but so is most of the fun. Disney eventually realized this, and abandoned the "meta" nature of the attractions and went back to what they are known for -- creating immersive attractions that aren't self-aware and don't "break character".
As for the "futureness" of other attractions, the point was to show what could (and hopefully would) be done in the
near future.
If the energy pavilion focussed on solar and wind, you could complain that those things exist now, but they aren't used at the levels they should be and
that would be the point. (There's where having an oil company sponsor your energy show doesn't quite work out.)
In 1982, much of the stuff on display was bleeding edge. World of Motion discussed hybrid and zero emission vehicles long before anyone could buy a Prius (although the sponsorship issue reared its ugly head again...hybrid cars were portrayed as a pipe dream).
In general, agriculture is still behind even Living with the Land's current tech. We still waste petroleum on fertilizer and pour toxins into the land.
Future World was supposed to be a showcase of the possible. It would show off the best that American ingenuity had to offer and at the same time help bring these things into fruition. When car companies were dragging their feet and complaining that they couldn't possibly create an affordable car that got decent mileage, they could show off real world examples that destroyed this myth. They could show people how much better the world could be and how we could achieve these goals, with concrete examples. It would help to put these ideas in the public consciousness, so they didn't seem outlandish and impossible.
That was the plan, anyway. Didn't completely work back then, but there were some pretty cool successes. Those interactive kiosks stationed around the parks were showing off the usefulness of a graphical OS long before people saw Macintoshes or Windows machines or knew what a mouse was. That tech was coming down the line in a few years, but many people saw it first at Epcot. Where's that kind of innovation now?
Innoventions largely shows you stuff that's not only currently available for purchase, but already a generation behind what's currently popular.
I'm hoping they'll do something special with Spaceship Earth, along the lines of the original exit area. Originally, there was a large bank of video phones which you'd use to make restaurant reservations and such. It was a cool display of technology, but also served a purpose by giving guests a useful real world demonstration of the technology. It's a lot harder to believe something's impossible once you've actually done it.
I think Disney should take some inspiration from the movie if they redesign Tomorrowland. I loved the design of the buildings and the overall feel of optimism in that future. It reminded me of the original WDW Tomorrowland design. It's becoming clear to me that our percieved vision of the future isn't shiny and mettalic anymore, but rather soft and pastel-like such as MTR.
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