This video idea was suggested by DiCaprio Delorean, Whiskey Fett, Drummer Master,
Sean Nasuti, Deviluke laLa and Admiral Preparedness who I think actually might've
been a little bit too excited for this video. Regardless, if you have any
suggestions for future videos, please feel free to leave them in the comment section.
The Wonders of Life pavilion was the last one to open in Epcot Center's Future World.
Its health and fitness theme was one of the leading factors and making
Epcot known as an educational theme park. While the concept may not have been
as interesting as other in-park options, Wonders of Life made up for that was unique
atmosphere and subject matter. It also helped that the pavilion housed one of Epcot's first
thrill attractions. Since we're covering the entire pavilion I'll get around to
talking about that attraction and it's fate in a minute but for now, let's talk about the pavilion itself's history.
The concept of a health, life & fitness themed pavilion at Epcot had been around since the mid seventies when Epcot as a
theme park was still being conceptualized. By 1978 the concept was
finished. Originally, the building was designed to be circular and have other
sections branching off from the main hub, those sections would house its rides and
attractions. Here a few of the attractions planned for the pavilion:
A dark ride showing guest inner workings of the human body, A rotating show called
"Good Health Habits" in a Carousel of Progress-esque theater, An animatronic show
with characters representing emotion, intellect, and the nervous system. Another
show called "Tooth Follies" taking visitors into the human mouth, and lastly an
educational movie called "The Joy of Life" but without any money to devote to the
project and with no companies wanting to sponsor it, the concept sat for at least
five years until the mid-80's when MetLife finally agreed to sponsor it. The
company then put a hundred thousand dollars towards construction of pavilion and
its attractions. With a new budget to adhere to the first set of the changes came to the
original concepts. Some attractions were scrapped altogether, like the rotating
show for example, as it would have just taken up too much space. Along with that,
"Tooth Follies" was canned also since there was already another show planned for the
pavilion. That show being "Head Trip" it was around this time that Head Trip
cut back to having just one animatronic character instead of the
original three. The story was then reworked and the new show is renamed to
"Cranium Command". The movie, "The Joy of Life" was also replaced by a different
short film called "The Making of me" which was about 15 minutes long and like the film
before it focused on conception and birth, tying into the pavilions overall theme of
life and the human body. Eventually after some tweaking all these ideas were
agreed upon and finished. Construction began on the pavilion in January of 1988
and finished one year later.
When the Wonders of Life pavilion opened in 1989 it was a pretty big deal
plenty of visitors as well as Disney higher-ups including Michael Eisner the
then-CEO were all there for its grand opening. When the pavilion was completed
there were some things that changed from it's original concept as well as some things
that stayed the same. The building itself now wasn't just
circular but instead spherical. In the final version it was a six story tall
golden dome. Along with that, there was now at seventy six foot tall statue of a
double helix at the entrance. Originally the sign was a huge archway that went
over the footpath leading up to the building, eventually that was removed and
replaced by a different sign off to the side of that same walkway. Interesting to
note, the original archway sign has been moved to the Magic Kingdom it is now used
as the entrance sign for their parking Plaza. As for the pavilion itself, it's inside
hub area now resembled more of a circus rather than a carnival and was renamed from
the original: "Midway of Life" to the new "Fitness Fairgrounds". Besides the main
attractions that still branched off from the main hub there were now a bunch of new
things to do in that area there was a shop called "well and good" that sold
athletic gear, across from that was a restaurant called "pure and simple" which
sold healthy foods like veggie pizza as well as soups and salads. There were also
the Wonder Cycles which were stationary workout bicycles that would play footage
as you pedal. Another thing was the "Sensory Playhouse" and "Audio Antics" which
both tested guest's senses with audio and visual illusions. Towards the center of
the building, there were three theaters. The first one had a multimedia show
called "Goofy About Health" this wasn't as extensive as the other shows that played in the
surrounding theaters as it only showed short clips of Goofy either exercising or
eating healthy. Next to that, was the Anatomical Theater where actors and
actresses would put on short skits about exercise and nutrition. Behind those two
was the birth theater which played the "Making of Me" movie every 15 minutes. But despite
all these other things to do around the pavilion guests would more often than not find
themselves talking about its headline attraction: Body Wars.
A ride taking guests through the human body had been something that Imaginers
wanted to do since the pavilion was in its earliest planning stages. In that
time it was a little more than an idea accompanied by some basic concepts art.
No story to go along with it and no real details on the ride were specified since
the pavilion wasn't as big of a priority as other attractions that already
had sponsors lined up. When MetLife did sign on as a sponsor Imagineers picked
up where they left off, still with the idea that this would be a dark ride
showing the inner workings of the human body just on a larger scale. The ride was
now given the new name "The Incredible Journey Within" however they quickly ran
into a problem, the size of something like what was proposed would have easily
been double the size of the pavilion itself on top of that, the dark ride would've
required real sets and props, something that would've been extremely difficult to
do if parts of the body were to move accurately. The president of Disney
Imagineering at the time: Marty Sklar, was later quoted as saying this "we found
that it was nearly impossible to move the huge set pieces, if you can think of a
moving section of a lung, for instance, that was 30 feet high on a continuous
basis people rode through... you can imagine how ponderous and difficult that
turned out to be." And difficult it was, so difficult in fact it when they couldn't
find a workaround the entire ride concept was thrown out. That is until
they found a solution to the issue, and that solution came in the form of new
technology already very popular Disneyland: simulators. And more
specifically, the simulator technology used on "Star Tours" when Star Tours
opened, its use of hydraulic motion-based ride vehicles was something that Disney had
never tried before on an attraction. Despite how new the technology was it
worked wonders taking guests on a journey through Star Wars' fictional
universe. Something that would've been very difficult to do with just props and
sets in a dark ride setting. So now, when Imagineers were faced with the same
issue on "The Incredible Journey Within" it was no question that they would use
the same technology that they had used on Star Tours. Sometime around 1987 the
on-ride movie directed by Leonard Nimoy was created. Imagineers then matched the
on-screen movements with a joystick, those movements were recorded and later
used on the actual ride vehicles. After that, other elements were recorded like
the pre-show and on-ride video that show the Captain. Now all starring popular
actors at the time like Tim Matheson, Elizabeth Shue, and Dakin
Matthews. Once all the pieces were put together the attraction was ready to
open alongside the rest of the pavilion.
bonnie was open on October 19th of 1989 in its first year as the ride was met
with a great response and park visitors with body Wars being the electoral ride
in Epcot at the time and be a model death and retraction of Disney World
guests wouldn't otherwise be able to experience it was very popular it's
actually rumored that net life demanded the dead version of the Star Tours
simulator technology be open before the hollywood serious versions that way more
people be brought to the pavilion to try out the new simulator that's likely the
case in Tollywood Studios as Star Tours didn't open until two months after body
were stood in December a 1989 even though majority of guests like to
ride is suddenly a lot of its fans sick I can late 80s when these similar the
rides are still a new concept at theme parks the idea of having a separate ride
vehicle that was still a guest experience a ride just with all the
effects wasn't really considered now something like this is a must since
we've seen it on rides like missions space with its horns and Green Team
options technically speaking they could have just stopped the ride movement on a
certain one of the pods and just played the movie and sometimes they did, either
for expecting mothers or people with medical conditions but this was still
a rare occurrence, especially in the early days of the ride. Due to its huge
popularity and only having four ride vehicles available at any given time it
would've been impractical to segregate just one pod to accommodate such a small
portion of riders. Despite Disney's unwillingness to really make the
attraction accessible to anybody besides thrill-seekers they did make a change in
its first year of operation to decrease the rides intensity, making it more
enjoyable for majority of park visitors. During the part where your vehicle stuck
in the lungs, you would originally seesaw back and forth for about 30 seconds that
was later edited down to about five seconds. If you pay close attention to
the ride footage you can actually see where they cut and fade the two clips together
Besides that, Body Wars didn't undergo any more major changes throughout its years of
operation. That is until 2001 when the entire wonders of life pavilion was dealt a major blow.
MetLife had continued to sponsor the Wonders of Life pavilion for two years
after their 10-year contract was up but in June of 2001 they suddenly dropped
their sponsorship entirely apparently due to disputes over life insurance
benefits for Disney employees. Shortly after that, signage was removed and changed
to eliminate any mentions of MetLife from the building. Now with no funding to
keep the pavilion up to date it essentially froze in its 2001 state for the next
three years. For most other future world pavilions losing the sponsor wasn't that
big of a deal but, the loss of MetLife really crippled the Wonders of Life
pavilion. There was such an emphasis on showcasing new scientific and medical
breakthroughs that when it no longer did that it became a lot less educational
and relied heavily on its other attractions. Nowhere else was this shown more so than
in the 'Frontiers of Medicine' area. What would once be constantly updating and changing
to show what was happening in the world and medicine now sat untouched and behind a
wall for years. While the pavilion remained open in the years following its
smaller attractions started to slowly close, the anatomical theater closed
followed by coaches corner. After that, well and good alongside pure and simple
shut down too. Even the wonder cycles were disabled and covered up. By 2001
maintenance on the still functioning rides and attraction was virtually
non-existent. Body Wars would constantly break down and guests began to avoid the
pavilion altogether in favor of a newer and more interesting thrill ride that
had recently opened: Test Track. With the new competition that Test Track provided
Body Wars fell out of style since it no longer held a monopoly on thrilling
ride experiences at Epcot. Another huge blow came in 2003 when Mission: SPACE
opened. Another thrill ride situated directly beside The Wonders of Life
pavilion. Now with two brand-new thrill rides in the eastern part of future
world the whole wonders of life pavilion was continually empty even body Wars
which almost always had wait times upwards from 90 minutes just five years
prior was now a walk on. In early January of 2004 the pavilion switched to
seasonal operation and only opened when the park was at capacity.
Wonders of Life continued to open seasonally for the next three years
until 2007 when it officially closed. The pavilions closing didn't cause as much
of an uproar as much as something like horizons did, for example, not too many people loved the
Wonders of Life or its attractions at that point
since they had become so outdated and dilapidated in the last couple years. Sure there were
some diehard Body Wars fans who were sad to see a classic go but for the most
part people were eager to see what will go into the space and bring it into the 21st
century alongside all the other attractions in future world East which, at
that point, had all either been updated or changed altogether.
The pavilions reopening came sooner than people expected, just nine months after its
closure Wonders of Life reopened, now as the festival center for Epcot's 2007
food & wine festival. While there were still kiosks set up around World Showcase a
new festival center housed a bunch of seminars, lectures and classes.
That festival Center, of course being, The Wonders of Life building. The only issue was
that the pavilion still largely resembled what used to be. None of the attractions
were removed, signage was still up for body Wars and general theming hadn't
even been touched. The space continued to be used in the following years for the
food and wine as well as the flowers in garden festival, serving as the main hub
for both. As the years went on the pavilion began to look less and less
like its previous incarnation as the wonders of life. Let's look at all the
changes made to it from 2007 to today. Once the pavilion closed its most noticeable
changes came. The Wonders of Life entrance sign was removed and replaced by
temporary food and wine festival sign that gets changed up every year. Along
with that, the sign on the building was covered by Food & Wine banners that
would also change yearly. The huge double helix was taken down in August of 2007
alongside the entrance sign. As time progressed more trees were added and
grown out around the entrance of the building to hide its now-defunct golden dome.
Cranium Commands huge marquee was mostly
taken down by the 2007 reopening and what remained of it was used as a small
stage. By 2009, it was removed all together in favor of a bigger stage that
is now used for culinary demos. The birth theater, which previously housed the making of
me film, stayed closed but didn't have any of its signage removed until 2008 when
its exterior was repainted and started showing the new 'seasons of the vine'
movie. Next year it was repainted again in 2013 but, the movie remained the same.
Both the goofy about health and anatomical theaters were ultimately stripped down,
repainted and turned into stages. Most of the interactive elements of the pavilion
like the Wonder Cycles were gone before it's reopening. That is, except for the
Sensory Playhouse which has slowly been stripped down to nothing and is used as
a retail space/shopping area. The Body Wars queue was still intact and its
signage still visible in 2007. One year later, the mural was painted over and two
years after, that Body Wars lettering was removed.
The queue entrance is still used as a standby line for wine seminars but, any
part that extends beyond the dome is now used for storage. The details of what
happened the attraction itself are a bit fuzzy too. Mainly because it wasn't
changing right out in the opened and anybody who found out any information about
it technically wasn't supposed to know. Some urban explorers managed to sneak
back behind curtain and get a few pictures and videos before the ride
vehicles were removed sometime in 2010. It's believed that when 'Star Tours: The
Adventure Continues' was being developed pieces of it were tested on what used to
be Body Wars, since the ride mechanics were near-identical.
Sometime after that, all four cabins were dismantled and removed rumored to be
sent to Hong Kong's Disneyland but, more than likely stripped down for spare parts
to be using on new Star Tours that reopened a Hollywood studios in 2011.
The Wonders of Life suffered one of the worst death set of all the original
Epcot pavilions, it's decline from park must-do to deserted building was
painfully slow and with no replacement, it's the only future world east pavilion to
sit empty year-round. Well, the only pavilion thats meant to be empty
year-round. While it remains dormant today there's no telling what its real
fate could be. Will it stay the convention center for future festivals?
Will an Inside Out themed attraction take it over like many people speculate?
Will the whole dome be demolish in favor of some completely new? Who knows.
What I do know is that the Wonders of Life is an iconic piece of Epcot Center while
the pavilion nowadays is something to be looked over, its ability to combine
fun and education was something that made Epcot a lot different from the
other Disney theme parks. A difference that, unfortunately, we see less and less
of everyday, with the constant character integration into Epcot attractions.
It's always sad to see a piece of the old Epcot go but, hopefully the future of the
Wonders of Life is a good one, no matter what happens to it.