Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Today In Tomorrowland...


On this day...

Ten years ago, the "New" Tomorrowland was premiered at Disneyland. A mishmash of some of the "Steampuk" designs on display in Disneyland Paris smacked together with a series of structures and rides that gave a guest a surprisingly mediocre impression of what Imagineers could do.

Michael Eisner and the Suits cut back drastically on what was supposed to go into this land. The original intention of creating the "Tomorrowland 2055" was swept away for something less bold, less imaginative and less entertaining... Of course, it was more affordable.

But did it achieve its goal of bringing in more guest? Or did it just encourage Eisner that McParks were the answer?

The planned renovation of Tomorrowland can hopefully remedy this...

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's the WDW Tomorrowland Logo, not Disneyland's.

Anonymous said...

^ Who cares?...

DL's Tomorrowland sucks.

Honor Hunter said...

"That's the WDW Tomorrowland Logo, not Disneyland's."

Anonymous, you ARE such a geek for saying that!

Hehe...

Anonymous said...

Disney World's Tomorrowland did the renovations right. They kept the WEDWay People Mover (named Tomorrowland Transit Authority), kept the Star Jets on top (renamed Astro Orbitor there also) rather than cramming the entrance with a pseudo futuristic Dumbo and they picked a much better color scheme. I'm looking forward to hearing about the plans for Disneyland's Tomorrowland. May it be a world on the move and focus on edutainment rather than cartoons.

Spokker said...

"Disney World's Tomorrowland did the renovations right."

They did some things right, but the emphasis on characters and aliens and stuff over that whole "optimistic future on the move" theme turned me off.

The glory days of Tomorrowland are over I guess. I guess it's the Nemo and Stitch land now.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know what the original New Tomorrowland was going to be like before they cut out its heart?

Also, I keep hearing tidbits about the original "Rocket Rods" before they made cuts.

I would like to hear more details. In fact, Tony Baxter said this was his biggest disappointment. He goes on to complain how it became just a fast ride. I wonder what they originally had in mind before that too got its budget shaved?

Anonymous said...

"On this day..."

Blah blah blah

You write this site as if you're some sort of prophet for Disney. It's ridiculous.

Can you please stop elevating things of such non-importance to such unnecessary heights?

You could just write, "10 years ago today, Tomorrowland" opened and not sound like some pompous quasi-Disney-religious fanatic.

And it's nice that "on this day" you also decided to turn your blog into a personal therapy session about "buying back your childhood."

Are you watching too much Grey's Anatomy? Are you broken and need to whine about everything and not have a true dialog with your readers.

And flame on all you defenders. "Don't read the blog anymore, blah blah blah." Yes, I can read your minds already...

Unknown said...

Btw, I'm the anonymous above. I've created a Blogger name because I can't stand reading poorly written things.

To use a pop culture reference like Honor would, Star Wars was great source material and the prequels were poorly written.

Honor has great source material -- Disney/entertainment news and makes it grandiose and wooden, just like George Lucas.

Honor Hunter said...

Curruption,

On this day...

You decided to determine what I should write? Hehe... Sorry, but since you don't like that phrase I thought I'd use it on you.

It may be nonimportant to you, but that is you... I'm sure there are many things in your life I'd find trivial that you do not. So I'll keep writing about what I like and you can keep torturing yourself having to read it.

Hehe...

Spokker said...

On this day... Honor Hunter proved he couldn't take criticism.... hehe.

Honor Hunter said...

On this day...

Honor Hunter proved he couldn't take "whining"...

Hehe.

Unknown said...

Could you please define the difference between whine and criticize? I'll make sure to be whinelessly critical in the future.

Sweeping generalizations with nothing to back it up -- typical, Honor -- absolutely typical.

Hal 9000 said...

As an adult who was such an avid WDW fan as a child, the new Tomorrowland really leaves me flat - yet, I understand why they renovated it. There was a 15 year gap between my last trip there as a child (and there were many) and my first trip there as an adult - so going back was really interesting - so much had changed. I LOVED the 70's Tomorrowland with it's water jets, and RCA's Space Mountain with the Home of Future Living. I LOVED If You Had Wings and the "Now Is The Time" version of The Carousel of Progress. This was the period that I was first introduced to WDW and, for me this land was always one of the highlights in the park. This was really the testing ground for Epcot's Futureworld - they were showcasing technologies like the Wedway People Mover and the aforementioned "Home of..." Now there is no mention of the cutting edge technology in the "Tomorrowland Transit Authority", Space Mountain's after show is practically non-existent, and you are surrounded by Buzz and Stitch... there is no showcasing and the Jules Verne-esque design is pretty silly. Now, I know that Epcot really took over the "showcasing" role (even that is changing), but if they were going to re-design Tomorrowland, they should have made it more "Jetson's Camp". That's kind of what it was like back in the day, but they could have explored that aspect of re-design, instead of this "retro-Euro whatever" they ended up with. I'm glad to have experienced it back then...