EPCOT Central: Things We Lost in the Lower-Casing

I like this guy’s articles.  He hits some good points.  Unlike him, I still am a huge fan of WOM, the original JII, and of course Horizons.  But he barely mentions a point that I think needs elaboration:  The pavilions in Future World were intended to be immersive experiences.  That means that you would enter JII and ride the ride, but then, you were invited to go upstairs and play and interact (and dare I say learn) in the WonderWorks area.  You could use your imagination.  And then there was a 3-D movie called Magic Journeys that was probably the most cutting edge use of 3-D to that point.  And the movie was about how important your imagination is by showing you things from a different point of view.  (We’ll conveniently ignore Captain EO.)  Now, the ride has been changed (for what reason, I don’t know), there’s no more WonderWorks, but in its place are kiosks to market Kodak technology and a wonderful gift shop, and the 3-D movie is a tie in to a 19-year old movie that just barely ties back to Imagination.

And then World of Motion was a grand, 15-20 minute ride that told a story and educated you on the history of transportation (with a slant towards the automobile, of course).  And after you exited the ride, there were exhibits to view and interact with to learn more about automobiles (how the internal combustion engine works, what a wind tunnel is and how it helps in desiging cars, what future cars may look like, etc.).  In it’s place is an often-broken down ride that lasts less than 10 minutes with long waits and with less appeal to people who don’t like thrill rides.  And once you exit, instead of learning about cars, you are welcome to buy a photo of your ride, look through a new car showroom, and buy Test Track theme merchandise.

These are just two examples of what we’re now missing in today’s Epcot.  It used to be tough to get through EPCOT in one day, because the pavilions in Future World were designed to take a long time to get through and give you an entire experience.  No longer.  Now it’s about ride capacity and what Disney can sell to you.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so naive to think that Disney shouldn’t try to make money.  I’m the biggest fan of spending money at Disney :-)  And I think the sponsors should be able to market to the guests.  I just think there’s better ways of doing it than what’s currently being done.  I think they had it right the first time.

And you’ll be amazed by this, because I’m saying it, but there is still one pavilion that is still a wonderful throwback to the original EPCOT:  The Land.  You can enter The Land and ride Living with the Land to learn about growing food, you can see a movie about being environmentally conscious, you can eat the food that was grown in the pavilion at either the full-service or quick-service restuarants, you can take a backstage tour of the greenhouses and further your education about growing food and you can ride a hang glider over California (WTF?) ;-)  But, regardless of what I think about Soarin’, it is obviously a major, successful attraction which has brought people back into The Land pabilion.  Hopefully people take advantage of this, and don’t just run in, get a FastPass, leave, come back ride it and leave the pavilion.  Instead, I hope that they take the time to experience and enjoy the pavilion as a whole, as it was originally intended.

Is there a gift shop in The Land?  There sure is:  a small one on the side near the entrance to Soarin’…just where it was before Soarin’ was there.  And Nestle should be given credit for sponsoring the pavilion but not bashing you over the head with their latest marketing program.  There’s no mention of Nestle on Soarin, I think in the welcome and goodbye of the spiel on Living with the Land there may be a mention of Nestle, there’s a little logo on the food trays from the quick-service food location, and on one wall near the escalators, there’s the Nestle logo.  That’s it.

The initial changes that have been made to the post-show of Spaceship Earth have me encouraged that Siemens and the Imagineers are trying to bring Spaceship Earth back to more of an interactive learning experience.  I hope this is a sign of things to come at EPCOT..