D23 is right around the corner and with it we may be getting confirmed details about
the upcoming changes to Epcot.
As with any change that means we’ll also be getting some angry Disney fans.
The current rumors are heavily pointing towards Future World getting new rides based on Disney
IPs, and people aren’t happy.
They’ve taken to calling the concept IPCOT.
I’m here to talk about why IPCOT kind of makes sense.
I’m going going to come out swinging here: Epcot is not sacred, nor should it ever be.
Walt Disney had a vision for a functional city of the future called EPCOT that people
would live and work in, enough so that he bought all of the land in Florida for it and
centered Disney World around it.
That city never happened.
What we got instead was a theme park with rides, shopping, and restaurants.
So from day one, Epcot was a massive fundamental compromise on Walt’s dream.
The Disney Company, from the day it started building Epcot up until today, tries to spin
this truth in a way that makes it seem like they’re still making good on Walt’s vision
by using some technology planned for the city and making the rides themed around the future,
but let’s be real here: this is not the Epcot Walt wanted.
Personally, I believe that makes the park as qualified for change as anything else in
Disney World.
“But the theme Rob!
Even as a theme park, Future World is about the future.
What does Guardians of the Galaxy or Tron or Inside Out have to do without our real future?"
Well, nothing.
People who argue that these IP-based rides aren’t inherently related to the theme of
our future as a society are completely right.
But I contest that argument on two points:
For one, why are we as guests able to accept the concept of changing an attraction and
furthermore changing that attraction’s theme as a result, yet we’re not as open to the
idea of changing a land’s theme or even a whole park’s theme?
Why is one OK but not the other?
I suppose that question is a bit unfair because the reality is for many it is OK, as evidenced
by the fact that we’ve seen it happen and are currently seeing it happen with little protest.
Tomorrowland was originally a land built to excite people and highlight the prospects
of the future.
However Disney quickly realized that with technology evolving at an ever increasing rate,
keeping up with the future was difficult and expensive.
So eventually the land was re-themed to represent our vision of what we thought the future was
going to be like in the past.
Hollywood Studios is in the process of dropping the filmmaking theme and becoming more of
a park about popular film franchises.
So that end, why can’t the theme of Future World change?
It’s not only the themes of these areas and parks that are changing, but the core
business model that the parks were founded on are changing as well.
Ride sponsorships were a crucial business model that allowed Disneyland and Disney World
to happen.
Disney would get external companies to invest millions of dollars into the design and upkeep
of rides, and in return they’d have creative input on the ride that fundamentally would
be designed to promote a message that the sponsor wanted to promote.
It was a symbiotic relationship.
For Disney it offered the means to build these rides and keep the parks attractive for guests,
and for the sponsors it was a way to get their name seen by millions of people a year and
promote a message that usually lined up with their business philosophy.
However today that business model is on the decline.
While there are still rides with sponsorships, we’re seeing less and less of it over time,
and really, is that a surprise?
The sponsorship model grew out of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, before the internet.
It was a time where winning the eyes of millions was valuable.
Today with the internet, a company can spend a fraction of the money they’d spend on
a ride sponsorship on an online campaign that would not only be seen by more people, but
can be targeted to be seen specifically by the people they’re hoping to reach.
So with Disney footing the entire bill for new attractions, wouldn’t it make sense
that similar to the way sponsors wanted rides that lined up with their business and message,
Disney would do the same?
This is only one aspect of everything, but I believe it’s the biggest and most important.
The days in which attractions were born to push the business interests of multiple companies
are on their way out.
Disney only has Disney to look out for now, and that means promoting Disney brands.
You still have exceptions to this with projects like Pandora, but I believe that serves as
an exception to the rule.
Another argument I often hear against the idea of introducing Disney IP to the parks
is that Epcot was never intended to have characters.
This is true.
For a time the only character in the park was Figment, and that was intentional.
But I believe the context of that time is important.
Back when EPCOT opened, it was Disney’s first ever second gate.
There was a concern that if EPCOT wasn’t distinct enough from the Magic Kingdom, that
there wouldn’t be a reason to visit both.
As VP of marketing Jack Lindquist put it at the time
It made sense too.
Disney was a smaller company with less IP to go around.
For the most part the characters Disney did had to offer were the kind of characters you’d
expect in Fantasyland.
Over 30 years later and today we know that you can have characters in multiple parks
without ruining the experience or cancelling each other out.
We know, through the attractions themselves, that the parks are unique.
Furthermore Disney owns so many varied and diverse IPs that while it would have been
hard to think of IPs to put in Future World in the 80s, there are plenty to choose from today.
To that point, Epcot has already shown us that even with IPs worked into attractions,
they can still focus on a specific theme that isn’t inherently related to the IP.
What does Guardians of the Galaxy have to do with energy?
Well, nothing.
What does Ellen have to do with energy?
Nothing.
However once you throw her into a situation about energy, you still get a ride about energy.
The same could be said of The Lion King and The Circle of Life in the land.
I could easily see a Guardians of the Galaxy Ride in place of the Energy Pavilion, where
the Guardians are somehow stranded on Earth and need to harness enough energy to get their
ship working again, requiring some crash course in how we collect it as a civilization.
I could even see Rocket making fun of us for still being dependant on fossil fuels.
Will Disney do that?
Who knows.
It’s entirely possible they also just slap a roller coaster there and call it a day.
After all, to be fair, Frozen Ever After doesn’t revolve around Norway.
It just rests on the loose connection between Frozen and the country.
In any case, you obviously don’t have to like any of the changes coming to Epcot, whatever
they may be.
I don’t want to argue that we need to like what Disney does, no matter what.
However I do think that rejecting the very idea of something at a base level such as
introducing IP to a theme park goes against the spirit of these theme parks.
Like Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom these parks need to be able to evolve, on both a
small and large scale, not just to compete with the market of other theme parks out there,
but to keep up with changing tastes from guests and changing technology.
Nothing is sacred.
Let me know in the comments what you think about either the rumors about the Epcot changes,
or the confirmed changes, depending on when you watch this.
Like my Carousel of Progress video, I hope we can start a dialog on not only the pros
but also the cons of such a major shift for a theme park.
Thank you all for watching, and I’ll see you next time.