Why Can’t We Let EPCOT Go?
EPCOT Center has been dead for 23 years. Arguably, the original concept started disappearing with the name change, and has been gone 20 years ago, give or take. The current, disjointed incarnation of the park has now existed for longer than EPCOT Center did. Let that sink in for a second.
Despite this, so many Disney fans cannot let EPCOT Center go. I’m among this group, and I still hold a sliver of hope that Epcot will be restored to its former glory. I find it interesting that despite being a less-distant memory, very few fans harbor similar sentiment towards the Disney-MGM Studios. Sure, we might still call it “MGM” but I think most people have accepted–and even embraced–the new direction of that park.
So, what makes Epcot different? Why are we still clutching the past, even as the “new” Epcot is hardly new anymore? There are a few reasons why so many Disney fans cannot let EPCOT Center go. I think the biggest reason is because it’s the only theme park that has ever aspired to be more than a theme park…
“May EPCOT Center entertain, inform and inspire.” That’s the last line of the park’s lofty mission statement, and I think the emphasis should be placed on the inform and inspire portion of that goal. While other theme parks may inform and inspire in their own ways, this is incidental to their core goal of entertaining.
That was not the case with EPCOT Center. It put education (or “edutainment”) and inspiration front and center. What was built was not Walt Disney’s vision of E.P.C.O.T., but it was ambitious in its own right. It was a different breed of theme park, and one that perhaps defies categorization as a theme park.
I often liken Tokyo DisneySea to EPCOT Center, but even that comparison can only go so far. For all of its many, many strengths, Tokyo DisneySea does not purport to be anything more than a theme park built around the concept of “the water planet.” Even though Tokyo DisneySea is Disney’s best park, its purpose is still “only” to entertain. Just like every other theme park ever, EPCOT Center aside.
EPCOT Center’s aspirations were admirable, but I don’t think the park’s mission alone would have created generations of EPCOT Center diehard fans. Rather, it’s the consummation of that mission statement that has made the fans. The actual inspiration, rather than the aspiration, that has left an indelible mark on so many guests and forged a lifelong bond with the park that once was.
As a child, Epcot sparked my imagination. I know that’s incredibly corny and cliche, but it’s also true. Figment and Dreamfinder consciously inspired me, but also subconsciously did so, as I was rapt with my Figment toys, taking them on imaginary adventures.
Other Future World pavilions made an impact, too. I “discovered” manatees thanks to the Living Seas, and an ‘adopted’ manatee was a yearly Christmas gift I received for most of my childhood as a result. Wonders of Life and Kitchen Kabaret piqued my curiosity about health and diet, albeit to a far lesser extent.
I also loved dinosaurs as a kid, but I’m not sure whether that’s attributable to Universe of Energy, or just the unassailable truth that dinosaurs are awesome. Perhaps surprisingly, Horizons, Spaceship Earth, and the entirety of World Showcase had zero impact on me as a kid. I barely recall any of them. I guess that’s part of the beauty of EPCOT Center–different people took different things away from it.
As an adult, it was World Showcase–still mostly intact from the heyday of EPCOT Center–that influenced me. My family traveled a lot when I was young, and I’m incredibly thankful to my parents for taking me camping, exposing me to National Parks, and visiting so many states. That no doubt impacted me, as I enjoy all of those same things today.
With that said, I grew up in a rural town in the Midwest. My worldview, even through college, was embarrassingly Amerocentric. International travel was not something I had done or even figured I’d ever do. (Heck, I didn’t have a passport until 2012!)
It’d be wildly inaccurate to say that Epcot alone is what changed this (in addition to Epcot, I’d also credit our first visit to Disneyland, Before Sunrise, and who knows what else), but it certainly played a huge part.
The Canada pavilion put the Canadian Rockies on my radar as a logical extension of my U.S. National Park trips, Morocco taught me that there’s more to international cuisine than Italian food, and Reflections of China romanticized a place that otherwise had negative stereotypes.
However, it was Impressions de France that made the real impact. This film made me fall in love with Paris before ever visiting, and made me back off my wildly uninformed perspective that no country could match America’s beauty.
This film coupled with a desire to see Disney’s other parks paved the way for our first international trip.
If you’re at all familiar with our adventures since then, I think the rest is history, so to speak. For that, I’ll forever feel indebted to EPCOT Center and its creators, and it will always hold a special place in my heart.
I don’t think my story is unique. When talking to other EPCOT Center fans, similar stories abound about how the park had a profound influence on them.
Epcot’s “special place” is not just in my heart, though. It’s something I’m still reminded of with regularity when visiting Epcot. While the original mission of Epcot and the park’s concept are arguably dead, they’re also arguably alive. There are more than a few aspects of EPCOT Center that remain.
Of course there’s Spaceship Earth, the park’s icon that remains a beacon of inspiration in Future World. It may sound crazy, but simply seeing Spaceship Earth, and all that it represents, puts a smile on my face. (Does that sound crazy?) I love just being around Spaceship Earth.
Elsewhere in Future World, these are mostly just vestiges of EPCOT Center. In the Seas pavilion, the non-Nemo areas still are familiar of what they once were, and the atmosphere is wonderful. I don’t doubt that this pavilion still plants the idea of becoming a marine biologist in the minds of kids who visit.
Living with the Land is an attraction that likewise stirs the mind, and gives rise to a sense of optimism about the future of eco-agriculture. The dinosaurs of Ellen’s Energy Adventure are not necessarily educational, but they are still awesome, and fond reminders of Epcot’s past.
The Imagination pavilion is a bit of a sore spot for me, but I’m glad Figment still has a home in the park even if his attraction provokes mixed emotions. The Fountain of Nations, Innoventions background music, fiber optic pavement, and dancing fountains are other spots that remind me of the past–and that I continue to enjoy.
Other fans will find their own ‘flashes’ of EPCOT Center that rekindle fond memories throughout various corners of Future World.
Moving to World Showcase, virtually everything is still reminiscent of EPCOT Center. You can complain about aspects that have changed for the worse over the years or that it’s a near-perpetual drinking festival, but I think it’s fair to say that the core of World Showcase is what it was in the 1980s.
Even in pavilions like Norway, which now is also home to a fictional kingdom, the vibe is still largely the same when meandering through. In terms of atmospheric strolls and a slice of culture, World Showcase today largely reminds me of what it did back in the day.
This is one of the reasons I heaped praise upon the Epcot International Festival of the Arts. If anything, it enhanced World Showcase more than I’ve ever seen, and sidestepped the complaints that could be levied against the Epcot Food & Wine Festival.
I’ve said it a few times, but it bears repeating: EPCOT Center fans owe it to themselves to schedule a trip around the 2018 Epcot International Festival of the Arts. That’s probably as close as we’ll ever be to getting the “old” EPCOT Center back.
My point with all of this is that, even as it seems Epcot has mostly abandoned its original mission (and recent additions have demonstrated no real mission), there is still plenty of EPCOT Center DNA in the park. In some cases, these are fond reminders of the past. In other cases, it’s actual substance, attractions or pavilions that retain their old quality.
I think this is where Epcot differs from Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Aspects of that park’s past remain, but its original premise of taking guests behind the scenes of working studio and putting them in the midst of the action died sort of all at once–and there was no chance of that ever returning. Most fans realized this.
Even though Disney’s Hollywood Studios was in need of an identity for too long, its loss of identity occurred rather swiftly…like ripping off a band-aid. Now, the park has a new direction, and one that’s exciting for a lot of people. I think these are a couple of points that have enabled fans to move on with regard to DHS.
As long as these aspects of EPCOT Center remain, fans are not going to want to move on. We want to cling to them, point to them, and hope they are indicative of the future. At the very least, we want to savor what aspects of the past remain. I highly doubt EPCOT Center is ever coming back, but no amount of rational counterpoints can sway me away from this sense of optimism.
So long as Epcot has no real vision or clear direction, my inclination is towards hope. Hope that its original vision will be the direction the park goes once its “big fix” inevitably occurs. My optimism might be misguided given which direction Epcot is actually likely to go, but I think a little optimism is exactly what Epcot needs. Not among fans, but the park itself. The optimism of the original EPCOT Center is something Americans need now more than ever, and I still firmly believe the lofty goals and aim of EPCOT Center could resonate with guests. It’s just a matter of Disney having the ambition to choose that path, rather than the easy one.
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Your Thoughts
Are you an old school EPCOT Center fan? How did EPCOT Center make an impact on you? Do you actually have hope the park will be ‘restored’ in the future? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment of EPCOT Center fandom and nostalgia? Any other thoughts to add? Hearing your feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts or questions below in the comments!
This is going to sound like ridiculously corny market-speak, but it’s the truth. EPCOT Center had a big role in shaping me into the person I am today. Today I am a Disney fanatic with an interest in emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and quantum computing. I am a super-optimist with regards to how these technologies will improve virtually every area of our lives. These interests and this sense of optimism about the future were largely influenced by my nearly weekly visits to EPCOT Center as a child. It was a place for me to dream about the possibilities for the future in a sleek, engaging, fun, super-cool place. Like you, I took Figment on adventures. I learned that imagination was not just about making up stories. I could imagine new solutions to problems. I could relate what I learned to themes such as space, the sea, the land, transportation, cities of the future, etc. The attractions were not just entertaining. They were catalysts for my dreams (again, I realize how corny that sounds). I savor all of the little fragments of that era every chance I get. My favorite attraction is Spaceship Earth because it serves as a sort of meditation for me about mankind’s history of technology and communication and what the possibilities might look like for the future. Also, it’s fun to scream, “THANK YOU PHOENICIANS” in the part of the ride where they say, “Remember how easy it was to learn your ABCs? Thank the Phoenicians”! Not only do I hold out hope that the former essence of EPCOT Center will be restored, but I also harbor a very guarded glimmer of hope about Walt’s real dream for EPCOT. Obviously, there were too many challenges at the time to make that dream a reality without Walt’s direct guidance. But new technologies could actually make it feasible if passionate visionaries were allowed to imagine and make it happen.
I have realized Epcot is dead for a long time now. I definitely miss the original Epcot like I miss the original magic kingdom but missing it will only make me not enjoy Disney world as it is now. I still love Disney. I still love a lot of the old classics like if you had wings, world of motion, the sky ride, horizons, the penny arcade, communicate, 20000 leagues under the Sea, Maelstrom. Butif I spend too much time in the past I cannot enjoy the now, and my love of Disney is too much not to. Just my feelings on the matter. Thanks for a great article.
Sorry communicate stupid autocorrect
I did a article in missing the sports cartoons at Casey’s corner if anyonewwould you to read it’s under easywdw
Well said. It’s those flashes of classic Epcot center that keeps me going back. It makes it that much more painful and nostalgic every time. How much harder is it to walk past the shell of beloved past attractions? There’s really no reason to go to the Food and Wine festival center except for the opportunity to point at cranium command and say “remember when?”. We’ll wince through journey into imagination because we fondly recall the original, sneaking glimpses at the blocked staircase to the pyramid and old imageworks, reveling in internet rumors that they’re still there, left untouched and abandoned, like Discovery Island, as if one day they’ll wise up and you’ll get to run through the light tunnel one last time. Or maybe avoid that uncomfortable conversation with the kids after 15 minutes with Martin Short. Is it worth it? In the end, if your love of these parks began with that park and that long lostvvision, however imperfect, I’d still rather have the reminders. A photo of a youthful me with Dreamfinder, a YouTube ridethrough of world of motion, or a glimpse at the horizons logo while waiting for mission space all keep the memory alive.
I had never been to ANY Disney park until I was on my honeymoon in 1992. That was my first time to Magic Kingdom and Epcot. My husband and I both loved Epcot the most. We had wanted to go to Italy on our honeymoon, but weren’t able to, so when we got to the world showcase at Epcot, we truly felt like we were transported to each of those countries. Neither of us had ever been out of the United States except to Canada (we only lived an hour away in Washington state). We were both in total amazement.
We also both thoroughly enjoyed future world although I don’t remember most of it too much. I do have a video somewhere. My next trip back to Epcot was in 2003. I was so excited to go and relive my experiences from 11 years before. I was so disappointed. I remember everywhere we went we felt like we had just remembered everything all wrong because most things weren’t the same or were gone completely.
Since my daughter was born in 2007, I have been to WDW every year and have learned to re-appreciate Epcot through her eyes. Epcot is her 2nd favorite park (behind Animal Kingdom–she LOVES animals!). Her favorites at Epcot are the educational experiences–Spaceship Earth, Living with the Land, the world pavilions. She has been disappointed the last couple of trips though because she loved the hands on activities in Innoventions and now they are no longer there. Not all kids just want thrill rides. There are plenty like my daughter that really enjoy edutainment. I really would love Epcot to go back to being more educational. She hates Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy and has ZERO interest in those taking over any aspects of the parks, especially at the expense of some of her favorite attractions.
Out with the old and in with the new I guess. I too long for the days of EPCOT Center, and all it’s Living Seas, Horizons, and Food Rocks glory! However, now all it seems like is long live
IP-COT. For those of us that grew up in the prime of EPCOT Center it’s definitely going to be a long adjustment period…
Wonderful post, Tom! Thanks for expressing it so well.
And thanks to the other thoughtful posters. I can agree more or less with everyone here, but it’s a pleasure reading you all.
Here’s to a both new and timeless EPCOT, from our fingers to TPTB’s minds (and why not, their hearts…)
I constantly lament the loss of the EPCOT that my 6-year old self fell in love with in 1982. Year after year, I loved visiting the park that inspired me to think and dream for myself and for the world. I did love Horizons and Spaceship Earth in addition to al the favorites you mention above. Skype and FaceTime are passé now, but Epcot blew my mind with the World Key system. I LOVED standing with my mom as she made a same day dining reservation via video conferencing. We would spend hours playing in Communicore and Journey Into Imagination. Those technologies are, of course, out of date, but there has to be some kind of equivalent options that would impress us all today. The conversations over how we farm, obtain our energy and care for our health are as important today as ever before. Understanding and connecting with foreign cultures remains an important endeavor as globalization continues to impact humans across the earth. There are so many stories to be told by connecting back to the original EPCOT spirit. I feel beyond disapointed by the rumors of all these IP inserts. I’m sure they’ll be entertaining and well executed, but it’s uninspiring to see all the park’s become more similar to one another. I’ve always felt that underneath he obvious money grab, Disney World stood for inspiration and creativity. There used to be so many fun attractions that you had to go to the parks to interact with. (Not just today’s regurgitated movie characters. Captain Buzzy, Dreamfinder, Bonnie Appetit, the Time Keeper, etc…). I miss that sense of the parks being more special than the movies. I always say that my “happy place” is sitting on the bench opposite the Germany pavilion, watching the sunset and the lights reflecting off Spaceship Earth. I hope they’ll at least leave my view intact!
Thank you. You managed to put what I feel about EPCOT into words. I was lucky enough to take my daughter to WDW twice in the early 90’s. We were blown away by EPCOT, both sides. A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to take her again, along with her husband and my grandson. I highly anticipated going to EPCOT again. Although we thoroughly enjoyed the trip, it just wasn’t the same. I felt like something was missing. And it was kind of sad.
Epcot has been dying a slow death for many years. World of motion, horizons, the change in the spaceship earth ride (for the worse in my opinion), the imagination ride, all reasons why the park has suffered.
Epcot is my favourite park, I love the vibe, the atmosphere, music, the laid back-ness of it, I love the addition of Soarin, Living with the land I always love… I think Disney would do well to expand on their edutainment by somehow incorporating more IP if possible and really make the park a huge draw.
I’ll never let Epcot go – I still love it and always will despite its flaws. A new world showcase pavillion wouldn’t hurt either, and the ratatouille dark ride is a great idea.
After not having been to Epcot for 20 years, I was really excited to introduce my niece and nephew to Journey into Imagination. I couldn’t remember much from the ride, but I knew that what I was seeing wasn’t it.
I do remember as a kid thinking that the Epcot rides were a bit “boring”. Maelstrom had the closest thing to a thrill and even it was fairly tame. But at the same time I loved the place. For that reason I can understand some of the replacements like Soarin’ or Test Track. But I still have no idea what they were thinking with the Imagination pavilion.
The problem with EPCOT is that “tomorrow” is never far away, and trying to keep up with “tomorrow”, for the purpose of education and entertainment, is near impossible. I think EPCOT needs to drop the idea of Future World and instead focus on something else that is timeless, that doesn’t have an expiration date on it. Something that 30 years from now we won’t laugh at because that technology or thinking came and went 10 years prior. Remember the cell phone from 1980??? Laughable now but at the time who didn’t think Robin Leach was “da man”, rolling in his lifestyles of the rich and famous! The Apple IIE? We all have more technology in our cell phones than our desktop computers did back in 1987.
This is why the lands of the Magic Kingdom (with the notable exception of Tomorrowland!) don’t need updating due to “expired” ideology. Frontierland, Adventureland, Mainstreet USA, Fantasyland and Liberty Square are eternal. Sure, you can refurbish and do an overhaul such as what was recently done for Fantasyland, but that wasn’t because it was grossly outdated and tired.
EPCOT’S Future World needs to rebrand as park dedicated to… and this is where I am stuck. What first comes to my mind is a continuation of a current concept; IMAGINATION. Create rides and entertainment that inspire imagination and encourage forward thinking, but don’t get bogged down in the attainable near future. I love the idea of hopping in the backseat of my car, telling Kit my destination and then catching a few zzz’s while my driverless car takes me to Philly. But creating a ride around that concept will seem pretty silly when it becomes a reality a few years later.
Beautiful article.
For my story; I’ve always been a geek and utopian sci-fi had a design language that EPCOT took with both hands and ran with. It embraced technological innovation and gave me a version of that utopian city of tomorrow where I could walk around and touch it. I was in my late teens when I first went and the whole thing was a broad “fan service” to all that I found amazing about this world. The quest for that future, that gleaming city still forms much of my worldview.
I know it’s hard to recreate that because with the internet we already know about technology that will lead us forward…and argue about it constantly. It’s almost impossible to recreate that feeling of seeing The Future as reality for the first time and I’m (mostly) okay that EPCOT needs to do something different.
But like you, I stand next to Spaceship Earth and I’m still in the presence of that future.
I wouldn’t be upset if they added more IP but still managed to include an educational Tie in. Tron and the future of gaming and computers is pretty obvious. Maybe Guardians with music history and theory components geared towards the youthful. That’s me, though.
I wholeheartedly agree with what you’ve said here. My memories of EPCOT as a child were of a place that sparked my imagination in a way that the Magic Kingdom never really did. A couple of years ago, after probably 28 years away, I was very excited to take my then-7 year old daughter but, like the sinful thoroughbred said below, “you just can’t go home again”. We’ve been back four or five times since then and still really enjoy it (especially Living with the Land for some odd reason) but the spark I felt just doesn’t seem to be there.
Now, what will be interesting, is seeing what today’s kids end up thinking about the park in 25 years. I think there are still some (albeit fewer) opportunities for the park to impart a sense of wonder.
“Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists.” – Kevin Kelly
Thank you for sharing this post and cheers to you and all of the optimists that will shape our future 🙂
Universal ruined Epcot. Epcot often featured a robotic world where they are benign and helpful. Then Terminator arrived. So maybe blame James Cameron who is now featured in Animal Kingdom. The irony of the Epcot project is it’s corporate and country sponsorships who are smart to realize its a giveaway to Disney. Seldom do the sponsors actually benefit.
The park’s mission of education is limiting by precisely what you described. How many dinosaurs, gravity, imagination, energy exhibits can you do? They are featured in so many possible ways at the same science and discovery museums around the world at a fraction of the admission fees. They are often sponsored by the same donors including Disney. Disney long ago abandoned the zoo at Animal Kingdom and the studios tour at DHS. Epcot’s fate is already decided when they took out Horizons, World of Motion, and Living Seas. At California Adventure, less factory tours and history lessons.
Epcot need balance. More rides at the country pavilions. More things for kids to enjoy. It needs more traditional theme park elements like a roller coaster, a few flat rides, and some unique themed architecture instead of contemporary office campus look.
I went to EPCOT when it was still the original park. I hated it. The edutainment taught me nothing new, apparently directed at children younger than me… I was in 8th grade. I found the park to be very pretty (repeat that several times), but a HUGE waste of time. The prototype vision for tomorrow was nowhere to be found: no people living, working, commuting by futurist transportation systems, just a bad World’s Fair. (E.P.C.O.T. never happened, only EPCOT was built – – and for me, “It sucked.”) While France and China movies were stunning, the Mexico ride and Spaceship Earth were highly disappointing. Despite my appreciation for both sections conceptually: I’ve never gone back. While I appreciate the Food&Wine and flower festivals, Test Track 2.0 and Mission: Space, it isn’t enough to consider this postmodern pastiche of a park. I do look forward to a reimagineered Epcot to finally get me to return. Until then, I enjoy the pics, hope for changes that outlast a decade before showing horrific age. Here’s to a reborn Epcot!
Fully agreed on all points. EPCOT was the first park I visited at WDW. I was in 7th grade at the time, and it hit me square in the brain like a lightning bolt. It’s fair to say that visit did more to solidify my love of Disney parks than my previous visits to Disneyland, and more than anything else prior to having children of my own to share visits with.
EPCOT also helped me become iinterested in my own Scandinavian heritage, as lame as that seems. And until I was an adult whose work enabled (and has sometimes dictated) international travel, EPCOT gave me the barest taste of that.
I love EPCOT. Like you, I remain optimistic, even though the behavior of many of the Drinkers Around the World on my last visit was highly off-putting and not appropriate for a family-oriented park (or even one where people care about being polite). Ino spite of that, I will always hold out the hope that Disney will remember that it’s possible to both teach and entertain, and that worlds of possibility can be opened in peoples’ minds by doing so, while still being profitable for the company.
Thanks for this post. As you can tell, I’m in violent agreement!
I’m a smidge older than you, didn’t go to WDW until I was in my early teens, and EPCOT was my favorite. My sisters and I played for what seemed like hours in the imagination area (where you jumped on the color and they played sounds). We learned all kinds of things about the body in the Wonders of Life pavilion (I still remember that something alternating between very cold and warm will make your brain think it is hot). We watched the aquarium for hours. We loved the technology and games presented at Communicore/Innoventions. And, unlike you, we loved Horizons. After going several times in my teenage years, I didn’t get back to WDW until my mid-30s. I was so excited to go to EPCOT. Well, I guess you just can’t go home again. Everything that remained seemed so ignored, broken, or dated. The interactive learning that I remember being embedded in Future World was replaced with uni-directional information. It made me sad to remember what once was and sad to think about what could have been. We now have no plans to return to WDW. A return to Disneyland is probable in the next few years, and Tokyo would be a real treat. But EPCOT, which still has such potential, is no longer a priority for me.
A great summation of why EPCOT Center sticks with the ones that saw and experienced it at the beginning.