Epcot: Where the future meets the past

     In Walt Disney's last few years of life, he was working tirelessly on the ideas for a Florida theme park project, and recorded a video in 1966 detailing an idea which he called the Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow, or EPCOT for short. Though Disney passed away later that year due to lung cancer, he had done a good job of giving the public a little idea of what to expect once the park was completed. The idea that he came forward with was a futuristic community, complete with areas that people would live in, public transportation, and jobs all built in. Epcot wouldn't actually open until 1982, and the vision set forward by Walt wasn't exactly what the company pursued after the founder's passing. 

                               (Credit for picture goes to Disney Parks Blog, taken by Mark Willard)

EPCOT's Beginnings

    EPCOT is an interesting park, and one that was certainly focused on the future, though it wasn't the futuristic society that Walt had pitched. It worked excellently as a sister park for Magic Kingdom which opened in 1971, though the rides in this park were mostly about education in one way or another. Epcot was divided into many different pavilions which spanned different topics ranging from the body, home of Body Wars and other body related attractions, to the imagination, home to Figment, Dreamfinder, and Journey Into Imagination. All of the different pavilions were sponsored by different companies and there were nine different pavilions in all, most of which have closed in the years since the park opened, but we still see some remnants of this structure even today. The main part that is still around from the early days, and is probably the best known part of this park is the World Showcase. There are mini representations of different countries that you can walk around and experience a bit of the culture while you're in each individual place. Some of the attractions and theming has changed since the opening, but the idea is certainly still there. Epcot is a really interesting park, but as always, I try to speak from my own experience on this blog, and since my first trip to the park was probably in 2007 or so, I didn't experience a lot of what early Epcot had to offer.

Speaking from Experience

     Unfortunately, there was a lot of turnaround in Epcot's early life, with a lot of things being closed and replaced with other things for the Y2K celebration, so I never got to experience a lot of the original attractions to the park. I never got to ride Horizons, the original Journey into Imagination, the Body Pavilion was gone, along with most of the areas that I've learned about just from looking into past Disney attractions and parks, but that's okay. What's at Epcot is very impressive and a lot of fun, from testing cars in Test Track to learning about pollution in "The Circle of Life". What's that, I hear you ask? Well, there was a movie which was just removed recently about the dangers of pollution on the environment, all centered around Simba, Timon, and Pumbaa, with Simba showing the dangers of overproduction and overdeveloping the land. It was an interesting attraction to have in the middle of a highly trafficked theme park, but it was very on brand for Epcot. Ellen's Energy Adventure was another example of this info-tainment style of show/ride. Starring Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Jamie Lee Curtis, and the recently deceased Alex Trebek, the ride takes you through Ellen's Jeopardy-themed nightmare when she falls asleep watching Jeopardy. She doesn't know anything about energy, which all of the questions are about, so Bill Nye shows up and takes her back to the time of dinosaurs to see how energy (specifically fuel) came to be, as well as various alternative energy sources. This is a really interesting ride, even by today's standards. It begins as a movie, then all of the rows in the theatre start moving in a little train past a bunch of animatronic dinosaurs trying to eat animatronic Ellen. The ride as a whole is a really unique and funny way to learn about different kinds of energy, and I actually did a whole project back in school discussing all of the different forms, proving that I did definitely learn something. I honestly don't remember exactly what I rode the first time that I went to the park, but I'm pretty sure I was still scared of everything at that point. Fortunately, Epcot has a lot more movies than rollercoasters or anything like that, so it was much more my speed at that time.

Around the world in an afternoon!

    Epcot's World Showcase is home to some really interesting attractions, some more informative than others, and some more entertaining than others. My favorite attraction in this area of the park is "O Canada!" It's a 360-degree movie, meaning that you stand up while watching it so you can turn around and see the incredible sights of what Canada has to offer. This is definitely the funniest attraction in the park, as this short film is hosted by SNL alum Martin Short. Being a resident of Canada himself, he tasks himself with telling the audience about his home in a better way than an invisible narrator could (adieu) and he does a great job of showing off the side of Canada that we don't see as often. As an American, I always think of Canada as a cold place, as the invisible narrator begins the movie with, "Canada... it's cold... really really cold..." before Short busts through the thick snow and begins his own narration, showing Canada year round. While being an entertaining movie, it's also very inspirational as well as educational, which is really what Epcot has going for it as a whole park. There's a lot to see in World Showcase, and I would guess that visitors spend most of their time in this park is in this area, as the food is really authentic to the areas that they're from. My personal favorite is the Fish and Chips from the UK area, but the Quiches you can get in France are amazing. While you're in the France area, you should check out, "Les Impressions de France," a short film that shows some of the sights and culture of France, set to music composed by French composers such as Saint-Saens. It's a really beautiful film, and it's a great way to escape the heat for about 12 minutes or so. Maelstrom was another great attraction, it was a water ride inspired by some of the legends and folklore of Norway. Rock trolls are all around you, patrolling through the waters as you pass by the banks covered with old viking armor, until they decide to toss you down the waterfall back into the real world of Norway. Here the ride ends as you enter a room with a video of people in Norway living life, contrasted with some of the legends of the Norse people, and it works really well. Maelstrom was shut down in 2014 to make room for something else, but I'll talk about that a little later.

Back to the Future World!

    Future World is the section of the park that I feel like people don't know much about. I've definitely talked to people who thought that Epcot was just the world showcase, as that's where all of the marketing is pointed, but Future World is certainly not to be missed. There's really no way that you could miss it, since the main entrance to the park opens into this area. As soon as someone walks into the park, they're put face to face with Spaceship Earth, the "centerpiece" of the park, and a fantastic ride encapsulated inside of a geodesic sphere. Narrated by Dame Judy Dench (for now, as it's getting renovated soon and may already be shut down for that), the ride takes you through the history of communication, starting with the cavemen and their drawings on cave walls, progressing all the way through the invention of the computer. It's a dated ride, which I assume is why the ride ends at that point, but if you're looking for some animatronic goodness, this is the best place in the park this side of the "American Adventure" show at the America Pavilion. I hope that too much won't be changed in the renovations that they're doing, but it sounds like they may be changing a lot. According to what Bob Chapek said last year at D23, the ride seems to be taking more of a focus on how storytelling has evolved overtime, and that it will be told using "story lights" or something like that. I'm not sure how different that would be, because that's essentially what the ride is about already, just talking about printable media, but we'll see how the "story lights" change things. There's a good reason for this ride to be the centerpiece other than it's giant size, however. It fits in perfectly with the themes of the park in terms of info-tainment, as you're learning a lot about different civilizations and historical figures. Leonardo Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Johannes Gutenberg, and many other great inventors are discussed throughout the ride, showing how their inventions and artistic triumphs paved the way for new creative people to make the next amazing idea. In addition to the great ride, Dench's narration has lended itself perfectly, and actually has become something of an inside joke to people who know a lot about Disney World. "Do you know your ABC's? Thank the Phoenicians, they invented them!" Oh, Judy Dench, they sure did.

    I'm sure that if you've heard of Epcot, and even if you haven't, you may have heard of Soarin'. Opened originally in California as part of Disney's California Adventure, the ride was brought to the Land Pavilion at Epcot in 2005, and ever since then, it's been the biggest attraction hands down. Everyone talks about it, and that's because there's really not a whole lot like this ride. Upon entry to the ride, it looks like there are just three benches in a row, you sit on one of them, fasten your seatbelts, Flight Attendant Patrick Warburton says that you're cleared for launch, and whoosh! Your seats are all lifted into the air by crane-type mechanism in front of a giant IMAX screen, really lending itself to the idea of hang gliding, as your feet hang freely over the edge of the seat. It does an incredible job of simulating that you're flying in a hang glider over various different scenes, often including different smells such as when you're flying over an orange grove and you can actually smell oranges. I'm going to be honest, I don't like this ride because of the feet dangling aspect, but I do love the idea of this ride. I just get really nervous on it and end up freaking out instead of enjoying what I've always heard referred to as, "a relaxing and magical time." I don't ride this ride very often for this reason, and instead ride Living With the Land, a boat ride in the Land Pavilion about different farming practices that people do around the world, in addition to giving a mini tour through the gardens at Epcot where they grow a lot of the fruits and vegetables from around the Disney Property. It's a fun time, but certainly doesn't get nearly as much traffic as Soarin'. 

Big changes in Epcot!

   Epcot has a big anniversary coming up, and to prepare, they've been changing and renovating a lot of attractions. In Norway, what used to be Maelstrom has now become Frozen Ever After, a boat ride based on the animated smash hit, Frozen, which was set in Scandinavia. I love this new ride and the amazing animatronics that came with it, but I know people are still upset for the demise of Maelstrom, plus many are still kind of burned out after Frozen Fever (not the animated short) hit so hard after the original movie. Ellen's Energy Adventure has been torn down and it's being replaced with a Guardians of the Galaxy themed rollercoaster, which seems interesting, especially since it's supposed to be talking about Star Lord's childhood when his mom would take him to Epcot. We could potentially see some of these attractions that have gone away over the years in this to lend to a feeling of nostalgia, so that's pretty exciting, although I'm not the biggest fan of roller coasters. In the France pavilion, they're putting in the Ratatouille trackless ride from Disneyland Paris as well as a Beauty and the Beast sing along show that reportedly is based on the new movie with Emma Watson and Dan Stevens, not sure why, but okay. I'm very excited to ride the new ride, as I'm happy to see that Disney seems to really be going all in with the trackless ride trend, but I'm not sure about the Beauty and the Beast attraction. I'm sure it'll be good, but it does make me worry about the lifespan of "Les Impressions de France." There's a Mary Poppins inspired attraction in the works for the United Kingdom Pavilion, but they've said nothing else other than that, and there are rumors that they may quietly cancel that after the financial shortcomings brought about by the pandemic going on throughout this year. I hope not, because I would love to have some representation for Mary Poppins other than the meet and greet spot for her, but we'll have to see what becomes of this idea. Also mentioned was a Moana area that wasn't super explained, though Bob Chapek said that water would be following you somehow. It sounds like they may be implementing the water trampolines around the Imagination Pavilion, which makes me concerned for Figment's well being, but nothing is set in stone about that as far as I'm aware. I'm cautiously optimistic about these new ideas, but only time will tell how they will actually turn out.

    I love Epcot, and I'm always extremely happy to go back there. Even though some people like it the least out of all of the parks, I have to say it's probably in my top two, if for no other reason than the ability to learn somewhat while having fun. Thanks so much for reading this post! I'm slowly getting more used to this and I actually put a picture in this one. I'm nervous about photo content just due to legality, but I think I've figured enough out about creative commons to be okay. Do you have a favorite attraction at Epcot? Let me know down in the comments! Have a great day, everyone, I hope you're doing well, and I'll talk to you again next Friday!