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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2019 13:59:08 GMT -5
www.slashfilm.com/epcot-d23/In: - a large pavilion towards the entrance of World Showcase, which will be a home to the festivals and other events the park's been hosting for some years now; looks like a way to lessen the focus those events have on the overall park - Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewindwill, replacing (Ellen's) Universe of Energy pavilion - Journey of Water, which is basically a new area inspired by Moana - a Mary Poppins attraction in the UK World Showcase pavilion - The PLAY pavilion, which will take the place of the long abandoned (though apparently used of late sometimes for special events) Wonders of Life pavilion - Space 220, a new restaurant attached to Mission:Space (so that when it's time to vomit after that ride, UGH, you can cleanse your palate with sci fi food or something  ) - a big (seated) statue of Walt behind Spaceship Earth - and a LOT more trees, including at the entrance where they're also adding a big fountain and have already removed the Leave a Legacy monoliths  Out: - Spaceship Earth's original tech vibe, as the beautiful giant orb is being completely refurbished with a new ride, new narration, new music and a focus more on storytelling and the human experience rather than the technology/communication/innovation theme of Future World - and Future World, the 37 year old name of the front half of the park - that area will now being split up into 3 "neighborhoods" - World Celebration, World Nature & World Discovery. World Showcase obviously remains. The head of Disney Parks said at D23 Expo this weekend that this is the biggest transformation of a Disney park ever. Good or bad, it's certainly transformative.
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salz4life
Grimlock
Prichard is a guy who gets that his job is to service his boss.
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Post by salz4life on Aug 26, 2019 14:33:49 GMT -5
Probably a good think about Spaceship Earth.... just visited in June and the ride basically seemed the same as when I first went on it back in '88 or '89.
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Post by YAKMAN is ICHIBAN on Aug 26, 2019 14:44:56 GMT -5
The optimistic futurism that Epcot originally brought has been dead for a long time, so these mostly seem like great ideas for a refresh.
As long as they don't kill Figment, I'm good.
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Post by HMARK Center on Aug 26, 2019 15:16:37 GMT -5
Probably a good think about Spaceship Earth.... just visited in June and the ride basically seemed the same as when I first went on it back in '88 or '89. There's definitely been some changes (check out of the videos at MartinsVids.net of the different eras), from the narration to the music and even some of the set scenes, but yeah, this is going to likely be a much larger change, given it'll be down for over a year. I'm pretty scared of these changes, to be honest; EPCOT's needed love for a long time, but I flat-out don't trust this management group at Disney. I appreciate the ambition involved here on the aesthetics, but I can't help but fear them shoehorning movie characters into more places they don't belong in a park designed to avoid just that. But then, that's been the Disney Parks modus operandi under the two Bobs (Iger and Chapek): "if it's not a pre-existing property that we own, we're not interested". The biggest gut punch is that we're losing IllumiNations, the nighttime fireworks show and for my money the best out there, and while it'll be replaced with a temporary tribute to EPCOT Center called EPCOT Forever, it'll eventually be replaced by "HarmoniUS", a nighttime fireworks show set to...songs from Disney films. Just like every other park. Great. On the bright side, some of the older stuff may get updated without character overlays, so that's good; they're keeping the films in the China, Canada, and France pavilions without doing that, so I approve on that front, but just once I'd love to hear them announce a full-fledged new attraction with no attachment to any Disney film or TV property. You realize the last ride in Disney World like that was friggin' Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom? That was well over a decade ago! Ugh, I'd say this is just me being an old man, but even as a little kid going to Disney World, so much of what I loved about EPCOT Center was that it didn't go for the whole "Magic! Wishes! Dreams!" taglines, yet it was still quintessentially Disney in every way...Walt, after all, loved doing things like nature documentaries, overviews of new technologies, talking about the future of urbanism, etc., but it'd be done with the Disney style, not just with Disney characters. I really miss that. |
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Burst
El Dandy
*inarticulate squawking*
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Post by Burst on Aug 26, 2019 15:22:57 GMT -5
I find it curious that through everything they've announced there has been a rather conspicuous lack of attention given to the Imagination Pavilion. For everything else that's changing they can't possibly be planning on leaving Journey and Imageworks exactly the same.
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Post by Cyno on Aug 26, 2019 15:28:46 GMT -5
I think a lot of the charm about EPCOT in its original incarnation is that it was a tribute to the dream of Walt Disney's utopian EPCOT idea. The Future World renovation seems like it's getting away from the whole "Tomorrow" part the T in the acronym is supposed to represent.
Losing IllumiNations also really sucks. That was always a highlight to me whenever I visited WDW.
And I still can't believe they still haven't added a new nation's pavilion to the World Showcase in ages. We're long overdue for a new addition, especially from a South American or Sub-Saharan African nation. Or India.
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TWERKIN' MAGGLE
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Post by TWERKIN' MAGGLE on Aug 26, 2019 15:33:55 GMT -5
I was at EPCOT in May. It was pretty empty and everything felt super outdated besides Frozen, ride-wise anyway.
Food was damn good though, I ate so much that day.
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Post by zrowsdower on Aug 26, 2019 17:20:05 GMT -5
Why does Disney leave their old rides/places lying around? I saw a video of an animatronic(?) I don't remember its name but it was left around with a spotlight on it until someone eventually stole it. Seems kind of irresponsible on their part.
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TWERKIN' MAGGLE
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Post by TWERKIN' MAGGLE on Aug 26, 2019 17:25:40 GMT -5
Why does Disney leave their old rides/places lying around? I saw a video of an animatronic(?) I don't remember its name but it was left around with a spotlight on it until someone eventually stole it. Seems kind of irresponsible on their part. Buzzy, it was an inside job! Max Goof is responsible! Bring our boy home Maxy! |
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Post by HMARK Center on Aug 26, 2019 20:54:37 GMT -5
I find it curious that through everything they've announced there has been a rather conspicuous lack of attention given to the Imagination Pavilion. For everything else that's changing they can't possibly be planning on leaving Journey and Imageworks exactly the same. Latest rumors from insiders is that there's probably been at least half a dozen proposals for a revamped Imagination pavilion over the past decade, but management kept wanting to avoid the cost. Now that they're committed to overhauling the front half of the park, though, suddenly that buzz has picked back up; however, due to it being the park's main icon, a refurbishment of Spaceship Earth jumped ahead in line of Imagination. While things are always fluid and constantly changing at Imagineering, and thus forces us to adopt the ol' "may or may not" Rajah.com tactic, current guesstimates say that Imagination will stay as is as long as Spaceship Earth is down for refurb, but once it reopens then the possibility of a revamp for Figment (and hopefully Dreamfinder!) will very much be on the table. As for World Showcase, there IS indeed a new country on the way, by most accounts, but they held back on announcing it at D23. The country is being sponsored by private companies, not its government, but all the same, I think you might be able to guess why announcing Brazil at the current moment might have been considered a bit touchy. But yeah, keep an ear open for news about a Brazil pavilion; sadly, early accounts are saying it won't open with much in the way of attractions, but given that there haven't been any new countries added since Morocco and Norway back in the 80s, I'll kind of take what I can get. By the by, I wish like hell they'd open a pavilion for a central African nation or India, but with Animal Kingdom having sections dedicated to central Africa and the subcontinent, the chances are less likely, though I'd just argue to make the EPCOT pavilions based more on the people and cultures of those countries while AK can focus on the fauna and flora. That said, anybody ever read about the proposed countries back in the 80s that were very much in line to be built, but for various reasons never happened?  The Equatorial Africa pavilion was even featured on a TV special; it would've had a show written and produced by Alex Haley, the author of Roots, and if you find a description online the pavilion concept sounds absolutely beautiful, it's a shame it never happened. Russia was also once heavily considered for a spot, and the Norway pavilion was originally supposed to be built for all of Scandanavia, before Norwegian sponsors really took charge on it and wanted it to just be theirs'. |
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Paul
Vegeta
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Post by Paul on Aug 26, 2019 22:16:51 GMT -5
I find it curious that through everything they've announced there has been a rather conspicuous lack of attention given to the Imagination Pavilion. For everything else that's changing they can't possibly be planning on leaving Journey and Imageworks exactly the same. Latest rumors from insiders is that there's probably been at least half a dozen proposals for a revamped Imagination pavilion over the past decade, but management kept wanting to avoid the cost. Now that they're committed to overhauling the front half of the park, though, suddenly that buzz has picked back up; however, due to it being the park's main icon, a refurbishment of Spaceship Earth jumped ahead in line of Imagination. While things are always fluid and constantly changing at Imagineering, and thus forces us to adopt the ol' "may or may not" Rajah.com tactic, current guesstimates say that Imagination will stay as is as long as Spaceship Earth is down for refurb, but once it reopens then the possibility of a revamp for Figment (and hopefully Dreamfinder!) will very much be on the table. As for World Showcase, there IS indeed a new country on the way, by most accounts, but they held back on announcing it at D23. The country is being sponsored by private companies, not its government, but all the same, I think you might be able to guess why announcing Brazil at the current moment might have been considered a bit touchy. But yeah, keep an ear open for news about a Brazil pavilion; sadly, early accounts are saying it won't open with much in the way of attractions, but given that there haven't been any new countries added since Morocco and Norway back in the 80s, I'll kind of take what I can get. By the by, I wish like hell they'd open a pavilion for a central African nation or India, but with Animal Kingdom having sections dedicated to central Africa and the subcontinent, the chances are less likely, though I'd just argue to make the EPCOT pavilions based more on the people and cultures of those countries while AK can focus on the fauna and flora. That said, anybody ever read about the proposed countries back in the 80s that were very much in line to be built, but for various reasons never happened? The Equatorial Africa pavilion was even featured on a TV special; it would've had a show written and produced by Alex Haley, the author of Roots, and if you find a description online the pavilion concept sounds absolutely beautiful, it's a shame it never happened. Russia was also once heavily considered for a spot, and the Norway pavilion was originally supposed to be built for all of Scandanavia, before Norwegian sponsors really took charge on it and wanted it to just be theirs'. You might enjoy this video about never-built EPCOT attractions.  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2019 8:35:22 GMT -5
As for World Showcase, there IS indeed a new country on the way, by most accounts, but they held back on announcing it at D23. The country is being sponsored by private companies, not its government, but all the same, I think you might be able to guess why announcing Brazil at the current moment might have been considered a bit touchy. But yeah, keep an ear open for news about a Brazil pavilion; sadly, early accounts are saying it won't open with much in the way of attractions, but given that there haven't been any new countries added since Morocco and Norway back in the 80s, I'll kind of take what I can get. Oh BOY I heard about that possible announcement not happening at D23 this weekend and didn't even think about their current situation as being a reason it may've been postponed.  |
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salz4life
Grimlock
Prichard is a guy who gets that his job is to service his boss.
Posts: 14,045
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Post by salz4life on Aug 27, 2019 10:07:27 GMT -5
Probably a good think about Spaceship Earth.... just visited in June and the ride basically seemed the same as when I first went on it back in '88 or '89. There's definitely been some changes (check out of the videos at MartinsVids.net of the different eras), from the narration to the music and even some of the set scenes, but yeah, this is going to likely be a much larger change, given it'll be down for over a year. I'm pretty scared of these changes, to be honest; EPCOT's needed love for a long time, but I flat-out don't trust this management group at Disney. I appreciate the ambition involved here on the aesthetics, but I can't help but fear them shoehorning movie characters into more places they don't belong in a park designed to avoid just that. But then, that's been the Disney Parks modus operandi under the two Bobs (Iger and Chapek): "if it's not a pre-existing property that we own, we're not interested". The biggest gut punch is that we're losing IllumiNations, the nighttime fireworks show and for my money the best out there, and while it'll be replaced with a temporary tribute to EPCOT Center called EPCOT Forever, it'll eventually be replaced by "HarmoniUS", a nighttime fireworks show set to...songs from Disney films. Just like every other park. Great. On the bright side, some of the older stuff may get updated without character overlays, so that's good; they're keeping the films in the China, Canada, and France pavilions without doing that, so I approve on that front, but just once I'd love to hear them announce a full-fledged new attraction with no attachment to any Disney film or TV property. You realize the last ride in Disney World like that was friggin' Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom? That was well over a decade ago! Ugh, I'd say this is just me being an old man, but even as a little kid going to Disney World, so much of what I loved about EPCOT Center was that it didn't go for the whole "Magic! Wishes! Dreams!" taglines, yet it was still quintessentially Disney in every way...Walt, after all, loved doing things like nature documentaries, overviews of new technologies, talking about the future of urbanism, etc., but it'd be done with the Disney style, not just with Disney characters. I really miss that. Yeah, I was underwhelmed by Epcot other than really wanting to go back with just my wife and go from country to country and get hammered. LOL I remember as a kid really being excited for Epcot. Back then, however, it was just Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Disney/MGM (what Hollywood Studios is now) was in the process of being built. As expensive as Disney is.... I really do love the place! |
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Post by HMARK Center on Aug 27, 2019 12:09:53 GMT -5
There's definitely been some changes (check out of the videos at MartinsVids.net of the different eras), from the narration to the music and even some of the set scenes, but yeah, this is going to likely be a much larger change, given it'll be down for over a year. I'm pretty scared of these changes, to be honest; EPCOT's needed love for a long time, but I flat-out don't trust this management group at Disney. I appreciate the ambition involved here on the aesthetics, but I can't help but fear them shoehorning movie characters into more places they don't belong in a park designed to avoid just that. But then, that's been the Disney Parks modus operandi under the two Bobs (Iger and Chapek): "if it's not a pre-existing property that we own, we're not interested". The biggest gut punch is that we're losing IllumiNations, the nighttime fireworks show and for my money the best out there, and while it'll be replaced with a temporary tribute to EPCOT Center called EPCOT Forever, it'll eventually be replaced by "HarmoniUS", a nighttime fireworks show set to...songs from Disney films. Just like every other park. Great. On the bright side, some of the older stuff may get updated without character overlays, so that's good; they're keeping the films in the China, Canada, and France pavilions without doing that, so I approve on that front, but just once I'd love to hear them announce a full-fledged new attraction with no attachment to any Disney film or TV property. You realize the last ride in Disney World like that was friggin' Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom? That was well over a decade ago! Ugh, I'd say this is just me being an old man, but even as a little kid going to Disney World, so much of what I loved about EPCOT Center was that it didn't go for the whole "Magic! Wishes! Dreams!" taglines, yet it was still quintessentially Disney in every way...Walt, after all, loved doing things like nature documentaries, overviews of new technologies, talking about the future of urbanism, etc., but it'd be done with the Disney style, not just with Disney characters. I really miss that. Yeah, I was underwhelmed by Epcot other than really wanting to go back with just my wife and go from country to country and get hammered. LOL I remember as a kid really being excited for Epcot. Back then, however, it was just Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Disney/MGM (what Hollywood Studios is now) was in the process of being built. As expensive as Disney is.... I really do love the place! Honestly, the last couple of times we went my girlfriend and I probably spent most of our time at World Showcase. It really is a beautifully done themed area, and it hasn't been gutted since the 80s like so many other original attractions were. I may disagree with them shoehorning things like a Frozen ride and whatnot into it, but I love just walking around the promenade, grabbing a drink at each country, and checking out things like museum exhibits, street performances, and going into the theaters for the films. I did see some good news about the film Impressions du France; they announced some Beauty and the Beast singalong for the pavilion, and people were terrified it'd mean the end of the movie (it's the very last attraction still open at EPCOT that was there on October 1, 1982), but Disney decided to keep the film and just let it alternate with the singalong at different times. After all, Impressions, it turns out, is in the Guinness book of records for being the longest running daily-shown film, or something like that. Plus, its musical score is transcendent, and now that they've updated to a digital projector it's amazing how well a bunch of footage shot in the early 1980s still holds up today. |
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Post by Cyno on Aug 27, 2019 12:13:02 GMT -5
I find it curious that through everything they've announced there has been a rather conspicuous lack of attention given to the Imagination Pavilion. For everything else that's changing they can't possibly be planning on leaving Journey and Imageworks exactly the same. Latest rumors from insiders is that there's probably been at least half a dozen proposals for a revamped Imagination pavilion over the past decade, but management kept wanting to avoid the cost. Now that they're committed to overhauling the front half of the park, though, suddenly that buzz has picked back up; however, due to it being the park's main icon, a refurbishment of Spaceship Earth jumped ahead in line of Imagination. While things are always fluid and constantly changing at Imagineering, and thus forces us to adopt the ol' "may or may not" Rajah.com tactic, current guesstimates say that Imagination will stay as is as long as Spaceship Earth is down for refurb, but once it reopens then the possibility of a revamp for Figment (and hopefully Dreamfinder!) will very much be on the table. As for World Showcase, there IS indeed a new country on the way, by most accounts, but they held back on announcing it at D23. The country is being sponsored by private companies, not its government, but all the same, I think you might be able to guess why announcing Brazil at the current moment might have been considered a bit touchy. But yeah, keep an ear open for news about a Brazil pavilion; sadly, early accounts are saying it won't open with much in the way of attractions, but given that there haven't been any new countries added since Morocco and Norway back in the 80s, I'll kind of take what I can get. By the by, I wish like hell they'd open a pavilion for a central African nation or India, but with Animal Kingdom having sections dedicated to central Africa and the subcontinent, the chances are less likely, though I'd just argue to make the EPCOT pavilions based more on the people and cultures of those countries while AK can focus on the fauna and flora. That said, anybody ever read about the proposed countries back in the 80s that were very much in line to be built, but for various reasons never happened? The Equatorial Africa pavilion was even featured on a TV special; it would've had a show written and produced by Alex Haley, the author of Roots, and if you find a description online the pavilion concept sounds absolutely beautiful, it's a shame it never happened. Russia was also once heavily considered for a spot, and the Norway pavilion was originally supposed to be built for all of Scandanavia, before Norwegian sponsors really took charge on it and wanted it to just be theirs'. Yeah, I can see why they'd delay announcing Brazil on account of the news about the Amazon Rainforest. Though Peru or Argentina also would've made for a solid choice out of South America.
And really, just new dining options alone makes me anticipate the Brazil pavilion even if it's light on attractions at launch. There's some great food culture out of the country.
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