Weekend 414.0 (…that’s how our minds, create creations…)

Quotes from The Thinking Fan’s Guide To Walt Disney World: EPCOT by Aaron Wallace. This is a well-written/researched book from a writer very passionate about EPCOT. It’s also creatively formatted with supplemental content suggestions (Disney and non-Disney) at the end of each chapter. I was simultaneously listening to Epcot Center on Spotify by TXCREW while reading.

“Epcot sometimes struggles to remember its past. But finding Future World is an adventure fans will always be ready for.”

“Like so many modern youth, rather than soak in their surroundings, Spaceship Earth’s guests are asked to play the equivalent of a free gaming app on a glorified iPad…the attraction’s new finale feels small and even selfish…that might be in keeping with the self-important sentiment of the Twitter generation, but Spaceship Earth used to be about challenging us to become more than we are…maybe a screen filled with vapid, diversionary entertainment in an isolating sea of blackness is a symbolic, even purposeful statement about where we’re headed next.”

“A theme park without a theme is just a carnival, and carnivals don’t earn tribute sites, fan forums, guidebooks, tour guides, conventions, memorabilia, or anniversary celebrations. They are fun but also common, and they rarely inspire.”

“Its inaugural class, the entrants of 1982 through 1995, can recall a place that made the future seem so darn epic, and the whole world so vibrant, eclectic, and connected, we just had to be a part of it…there are hundreds of thousands of 30-to-40-year-olds who recall their childhood visits as vividly as a close encounter.”

“Lean into the ’80s. The 1980s are to Epcot what the 1950s are to Disneyland. The decade will always be part of the park. We just happen to live in a time when the world is celebrating that particular era, so seize the moment. Find ways to echo your origins in contemporary aesthetics and new ideas for tomorrow, vowing never to stay inside the box.”

WATCH / READ THIS – Trying to lean into the ’80s? Find a copy of Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything by Steven Levy. It’s like a companion guide to Spaceship Earth. It may not resolve the ‘Battle of the Steves” but Aldus Manutius could appear in Spaceship Earth: Act II.

Where does that “One Little Spark” come from? Walt actually provides some insight in “Where Do the Stories Come From” (1956). It’s included on Your Host Walt Disney: TV Memories (1956-1965) which is part of the Walt Disney Treasures (DVD). I’m a little impartial to model railroading as a source of inspiration, and home movies from; Ward Kimball, Ollie Johnston, and Walt Disney featured on the DVD are absolutely amazing.

The Scan is from Designing Disney’s Theme Parks: The Architecture of Reassurance.

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