Report from Orlando: The Lost City of Epcot 195
"There are two futures, the future of desire and the future of fate, and man's reason has never learned to separate them." ----J.D. Bernal, "The World, the Flesh and the Devil."
Others might have their own, perfectly good nominations, but my candidate for the saddest site in contemporary technology would be a wood-and- papier mache model that sits in a darkened a tunnel in a distant corner of Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World.
If the tragic view of technology has a locus, this could be it.
To see this forgotten vision of the "Model City of Tomorrow," you have to go to the Magic Kingdom, to the Tomorrowland Transit Authority.
There is, of course, no Tomorrow in Tomorrowland, and there hasn't been any for years. Disney and his fabled Imagineers hitched this particular wagon to the Space Age, which died unaccountably some years after Disney himself in 1964.
Brilliant as he was, Disney never foresaw or imagined the Net, the Web or the Digital Age. The farthest he got in imagining networked computing were voice-activated stoves and other household appliances in his beloved "Carousel of Progress, " an attraction-in-the-round that was his personal passion, and which made its debut at the l964 New York World's Fair. It resides today, uncomfortably, in the farthest corner of Tomorrowland.
In California and in Florida, Disney's Tomorrowlands were always the most barren and joyless sections in his theme parks. Disney, in fact, personified the notion of nostalgia for the future. He was a genius at using technology to invoke the past, but like so many technologists before him, never quite accepted that the future was inherently unpredictable, beyond even his imaginative reach. He was so successful at rendering the imagined worlds of yesterday, it didn't occur to him how steadfastly technology refuses to do what it's supposed to.
As a consequence, Tomorrowland always lacked the imagination of Fantasyland, the corn-fed patriotism of Frontierland or the shameless corporate puffery of Epcot (Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow), in which the future and its technologies are leased and monopolized by giant companies.
It's impossible to know exactly what Disney would have made of Epcot as it took shape after his death, but the model in the tunnel gives us some clues, and the people who have studied his life bet he would have gotten some dynamite and taken Epcot down, one corporate showcase after another.
Tomorrowland is centered around 1950's ideas of space travel and their accompanying intergalactic blabber: Astro-Orbiters, ("paging Mr. Morrow. Mr. Tom Morrow. Your party from Mars is waiting"), the Carousel (more about that later) and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority .
The people running Walt Disney World seemed to have grasped the hollowness of this corner of Disney World, and are spending tens of millions of dollars to re-vamp it. They still don't see the Net as fun to ride, or even to invoke. It is conspicuously missing from the re-engineering of the future.
Maybe Disney's successors learned from his mistake, and decided to play it safe. The vision of the future taking shape in Tomorrowland is based not on the future, but on the past - a Jules Verne décor with a hodge-podge of unfocused rides, exhibits and hi-tech talking robots.
For now, at least, you can ride a couple of minutes on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority train, as it curls around and over Cosmic Ray's Café and past Disney's model community of the future.
But you better go soon: some Slashdot friends and e-mailers who work for Disney say the old model is going to be removed as the renovation advances.
And maybe it should be. It doesn't really belong there.
The Tomorrowland train is not actually a train, but another of Disney's fabled "wonders" - an electric, silent, environmentally clean "People Mover." Disney hoped the idea would spread, like his Monorail, and would end up ferrying people around crowded urban cores. But just like his Monorail, it never got out of Tomorrowland.
After a few twists and turns, the people mover rushes into a tunnel, then turns abruptly, and this startling model of a city suddenly pops into view on the side of the car, depending on where you're sitting.
If you're not looking for it, or facing the direction, or sitting on the right side, you can miss it completely, mistaking it for another one of the aging, cheesy inter-galactic displays (the woman of the future sitting in a hi-tech hair curler) that the train glides past.
On almost every level - visually and conceptually -- the model comes as a shock, popping up out of nowhere, whizzing by, completely out of character and context. It's behind a glass partition and it's huge - about 15 feet deep and perhaps 20 feet long.
I'd first seen the model a couple of years ago, writing about technology and Orlando for the website Hotwired. While there, I met a group of hackers obsessed with hacking the Magic Kingdom, and who collect and trade Disney techno-lore all year.
They tipped me to this model, whose existence is referred to in a few of the countless Disney biographies, and is known to many geeks and techno-addicts.
The model was evocative from the first, but especially so in the context of the tragic view of technology, a philosophy first advanced by the civil engineer, teacher and writer Samuel Florman, published in the Bicentennial issue of House & Garden in l976 and perhaps more relevant now than ever.
Florman wrote that technology was closely linked to life, and that people of noble character had an essentially tragic view of life. Tragedy, he wrote, is uplifting, depicting as it does heroes wrestling with fate.
The tragic view of technology, according to Florman, is the only one that makes any sense, the one that provides an umbrella philosophy, a helpful way to look at technology, perhaps the single most controversial subject in a muddled and divided world.
Florman didn't mean that technology was tragic in the pessimistic or disapproving sense. But when it comes to technology, the past century has seen plenty of hopes dashed. Technology represents both the human desire to improve the world, and the persistent human tendency to muck it up.
The tragic view of philosophy calls not for gloom, but for maturity, not pessimism but detachment and caution. The fate of most tragic heroes, Florman wrote, is hubris, or "overweening pride." Hubris isn't a weakness, but an essential ingredient of humanity's greatness. It's what inspires people to confront the universe, improve the world.
The tragic view, he wrote, doesn't shrink from paradox; it teaches us to live with ambiguity, technology's partner. Without effort and daring, we are nothing. But even with it, we are as likely to fail. Most of our disappointments with technology come when decent people are trying to act constructively - not the war of good with evil as the war of good with good.
If any public figure of the 20th century embodied this tragic view of technology, it was the compulsive, even fanatic techno-dreamer Walt Disney, whose hubris became an influential global economic, cultural and political force.
At the end of his life, according to biographers Steven Watts and Leonard Mosley, nothing mattered to him but building Epcot - the model city of the future built on the latest technology. To build a city of tomorrow, wrote Mosley in "Disney's World", that would be the last great challenge.
He didn't succeed.
Even if you are looking for the model, the train curves away so quickly you never get more than a glimpse. Even a fast look makes clear the thought and design that went into its construction.
It took me a dozen train rides just to pick up the announcer's taped words:
"The retro-metro historical society proudly presents Walt Disney's 20th Century model of the future! He dared to dream the perfect place to live, work and play."
It's a powerful kick just to see it. It has a hallowed, even reverential feel, like some sort of shrine or historic artifact. It was definitely a lost city.
Disney worked on this model for years, declared to friends and reporters that Epcot was the most important project of his life, the most important element in Disney World, the monument he meant to leave behind. He meant for Disney workers to live there, and for a Epcot to be a shrine to his nearly boundless faith in the power of technology to shape a better world.
But his successors had different visions. Disney's death coincided with the rise of corporatism, when idiosyncratic dreams of the future and fantasies about technology didn't sit well with stockholders and Wall Street analysts, and no single individual in any public corporate entity had the power to bull projects through the way Walt Disney did.
The company scrapped his plans and turned Epcot instead into a corporate World's Fair. Companies from Kodak to Exxon and American Express, which sponsors "The American Experience", host pavilions that presume to spell out the future and promote an indescribable global mix of capitalism, technology and a squishy brand of humanism.
The showcase of nations - a collection of distinctly-designed pavilions that sell the food and gew-gaws of various encircle around a man-made lagoon -- suggests a political idea so vague as to be safe and reassuring; If we can buy one other's toys, postcards, falafel and dim sum, we can find peace and celebrate the future hand in hand.
After Disney died - he never saw Disney World - the Epcot model was hidden away in the Tomorrowland tunnel, where it's languished for decades. Its positioning is clearly an afterthought, as if Disney executives didn't dare either to throw it away or display it. It's about as far from Epcot - its logical home - as it could be and still be on Disney World grounds.
But the model bears no resemblance to Epcot in any conceivable way. Disney, mythology has it, anticipated as much.
There are stories and rumors that he was so convinced his successors would mess up Epcot that he planned to use cryogenics to have his body frozen. Then, company myth has it, he would return and wreak havoc on the corporatists drooling over his demise. Disney execs better pray he isn't thawing.
This history makes the model all the more eerie.
Disney's original Epcot is a sprawling, roomy place with a distinct but small urban core.
There are four tall buildings in a small downtown, surrounded by lower structures that might be apartment houses, shops or office complexes.
An amusement park's tiny ferris wheel is visible off to the left, some sort of church-like religious structure in the forefront. In between are rail tracks, parks (Disney had all sorts of plans for submerged rail systems and highways), roads and housing.
One of Disney's many quirks was that even though he wrapped himself in Americanism and the flag, he was dubious about representative democracy and non-conformist individual expression.
His plan was that Epcot would be run by Imagineers and Disney executives, not elected representatives. He probably feared that the all-too-human inhabitants would ruin his technology.
Whatever one thinks about Disney and the things he did, it's hard not to be touched by what he wanted to do.
"For all our apprehensions," wrote Florman about technology in his House & Garden essay "we have no choice but to press ahead. We must do so, first, in the name of compassion. By turning our backs on technological change, we would be expressing our satisfaction with current world levels of hunger, disease and privation. Further, we must press ahead in the name of the human adventure. Without experimentation and change our existence would be a dull business. We simply cannot stop while there are masses to feed and diseases to conquer, seas to explore and heavens to survey."
Inane Asylum (Score:2)
Why not just say it plainly? The man was a fascist.
Nothing good ever came from Disney. Unless you count homogenized musical versions of world
literature and planned communities as good things.
Disneyworld is for people who can't cope with
the real world. It's an inane asylum.
K.
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Re:Inane Asylum (Score:1)
adj. inaner, inanest.
Lacking sense or substance; empty: an inane comment.
HA! - I'm sorry, i do partially agree with the things that you said. However, like spielberg and (send hatemail to: blowme@screwyou.com) george lucas, Disney was ultimately about making entertainment. I don't think he was as utterly communist as your comment would lend us to believe.
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picture (Score:5)
http://www.spacey.net/ts haw/Images/Epcot/OriginalEpcot.gif [spacey.net]
EPCOT. (Score:3)
Frankly, I don't blame the sponsors one bit. It's almost impossible to keep up with technological trends and dream about the future. AT&T pretty much knows where communication technology is going, so they've done a good job keeping Spaceship Earth up to date, but that's about it. GM tore down their "World of Motion" to put in place the "GM Test Track," which has little, if anything, to do with their dreams for automotive technology.
Even worse, United Technologies pulled their sponsorship from the "Living Seas" exhibit, and the whole thing's falling apart because nobody's even paying to maintain it anymore. I guess the whole "Seaquest" sci-fi dream is a thing of the past.
I guess that could be part of the problem. People go to EPCOT for the fantasy of a possible future, and our desires for what that future ought to be change so dramatically over the years. I mean, in the early '90s, it was the dream of a 100% environmentally friendly society. Now it's the dream of what the Net can do next. Nobody knows for sure what it'll be in five years, so why waste money on an attraction in a theme park that nobody will want?
Sighhh....EPCOT's what made me dream of innovation when I was a teeny little geek, and it's so sad to see it both falling apart and succumbing to pure commercialism.
tragic technology vs capitalism (Score:2)
News to me... (Score:1)
It is interesting to point out that the article indicates that commercialism caused Epcot to move away from Disney's original dream for a land of tomorrow. I think in many regards, that is true -- the over commercialism of our society is rather annoying and saddening.
If I ever go visit Epcot again, I'll have to remember to take another look at Tomorrowland and Epcot in general.
How about... (Score:1)
Deja Vu? (Score:2)
or maybe I just need to go to sleep now...
G vs. E (Score:1)
I see. The real tragedy isn't that the NSA is using technology to spy on me, but rather that Katz is so bored he has nothing better to do than visit Disney?
I would think the 100 million+ people killed this century by evil people utilizing technology would be a much bigger tragedy (and even then the tragedy is not the technology but the dark side of human nature).
We live in a world where hundreds of millions of people don't get enough to eat and the thing that keeps Katz awake at night is EPCOT? Give me a break.
Sarcasm #2 (Score:1)
Really. Probably all that earth on his coffin was obscuring the view.
Sarcasm #3 (Score:1)
Oxymoron, or just moron?
Recycled hot air (Score:1)
Fascist vs Communist. (Score:1)
I know politics is a difficult concept to grasp for your americans, but fascism and communism, tho both extremes, are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.
So since he called the guy a fascist, he definitally is not making him out to be a total communist. Fascism = evil, Communism = evil fascism = communism, is not valid here.
Disney was a Dreamer (Score:3)
A dreamer is a person who comes up with new ideas. That person would love to see those come true, but ultimately knows that they may not. What Disney created in his EPCOT was a perfect future world. No man can expect such a thing to actually come true.
Take a look at Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry made up a wonderful world where money and power have little or no value. Do we get all misty-eyed when we watch an old episode? I hope not.
Dreams are just that. I applaud Disney and his team of imagineers. But, I do not feel a loss that his EPCOT never became a reality. I instead feel love to see what he came up with and cherish his ideas as one of the greatest men of the twentieth century.
Oh, and one point of clarification. Disney was not alive to see the completion of Walt Disney World, but he was there to oversee the early stages of the project.
Re:Inane Asylum (Score:1)
>adj. inaner, inanest.
>Lacking sense or substance; empty: an inane >comment.
Thank you. I know what I said.
>I don't think he was as utterly communist as your
>comment would lend us to believe.
I think you'll find that I didn't imply he was a
communist at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.
K.
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Sometimes Future is Self-Fulfilling (Score:1)
Actually, sometimes "The Future" is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The architect (I forget his name) who popularized rounded and wedge shapes on buildings with assorted protuberances (I actually first became acquainted with the shapes as the background of The Flash's visits to the future) had a strong influence on today's architects. Materials, functional requirements, and expense affects actual designs but the influence is visible.
Flying cars were popular in the future of the 1950's. The founder of Moller has been striving toward it ever since, and test flight of the four-seater Skycar [moller.com] prototype is scheduled this year.
Transit methods such as the Disney monorail have also been around for a long time. Personal Rapid Transit [washington.edu] devices have assorted designs, of which Taxi2000 [taxi2000.com] is my favorite. 3-4 passenger vehicles which take you from your station directly to your destination station. No schedules, and a tiny overhead track. These PRT technologies have actually greatly gained capabilities with microcomputers, as now automated guidance and control is much simpler and cheaper.
And I recently read of a cellular wrist phone...
Re:Trrying to justify your trip to Orlando? (Score:1)
Re:Inane Asylum (Score:1)
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What EPCOT was really supposed to be. (Score:4)
Reach exceeding grasp (Score:4)
I'm no Disney apologist (the Mouse in its current incarnation is a pseudo-fascist front, I'm convinced), but in Walt's time, his visions (and the visions of others he sprinkled throughout the Disney parks and legend) stirred the imagination of a lot of people.
I used to work in a space museum, and couldn't spend a day without walking past huge enlargements of old 1950s Collier's covers, all garish Technicolor visions of a spacefaring society. Round trip tickets to Mars and weekends in low Earth orbit seemed only a decade away.
This, for all intents and purposes, WAS Tomorrow(tm), according to popular culture. Wearable wireless internet appliances, nifty end-all-be-all PDAs, and a universally wired society are OUR Tomorrow(tm), if anyone reads certain modern garish rags *ahem*.
So Walt didn't see it coming. Good. If he saw that coming, and his corporate crony types had followed up, our computer mice would have big black ears right about now.
EPCOT will never be what Walt Disney intended it to be -- another experiment in Utopia. His successors are trying it out down in Celebration, FL (see also, Stepford). Every generation thinks they'll finally get it right. Every generation fails. That's how it works. So EPCOT would have been run by Imagineers and executives, big deal. You'd choose to live there, just as we choose to live in apartment complexes, condos, and other "planned" communities, or cooperative buildings, or Celebration -- following the myriad rules and regulations. Happens every day.
But EPCOT, in its eventual form, was a showcase for the little geek in me as a kid. So I can't complain too loudly.
Our reach exceeds our grasp. Count on it. Our visions and plans for the future never work out the way we plan them. Is that anyone's fault? Not really. In EPCOT's case, we'll blame the suits. I'm still pissed that we're not living in LEO yet.
We can't blame the suits forever. It's fun for a while, but sooner or later, we've got to do some changing for ourselves.
Almost off-topic, does anyone else remember how Arthur C. Clarke wrote in the 2001 novel about how Dave Bowman's mom lived in a nursing home in EPCOT, Florida?
Re:Disney was a Dreamer (Score:1)
On the subject of SF, I'll have to throw away all my Space:1999 videos soon as they will be past their sell-by date.
Look - It was only a joke. I wouldn't dream of owning Space:1999 videos. The truth is I'm bored.
how to live, the original Disney version (Score:2)
http://www.si.edu/ndm/exhib/disney/start.htm .
One of the most striking differences between Disney's Main Street/Epcot and, say, the model future city of the World's Fair of 1939 was the presence or absence of the automobile. Disney was a radical in the 50s and 60s simply by going against the car-dominated suburban/highway development effort; his cities, like his theme parks, were pedestrian-oriented, with environmentally sensitive methods of transport for longer distances. His work definitely echoed Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian prarie cities in terms of community, self-sufficiency and transportation issues. Well, when they thaw him he's gonna be pissed.
*laughs* (Score:1)
Red hot it's not, but... (Score:1)
Good work. Keep going.
Re:Fascist vs Communist. (Score:1)
If you take any two unrelated issues, you can find people who support all 4 possible options. Who is left & who is right?
Re:Recycled hot air (Score:1)
Re:G vs. E (Score:1)
>>constructively - not the war of good with evil as the war of good with good."
>>I see. The real tragedy isn't that the NSA is using technology to spy on me, but rather that
>>Katz is so bored he has nothing better to do than visit Disney?
Yes: The misuse of technology is sad and deplorable, to be sure. Katz' point is that well-intentioned use of technology always ends on a sad note: that is tragic. That no matter our intentions, technology bites us back, either with bombs (wars &c.) or with dissapointment (we have big ideas that never come out right. sometimes not at all due to any number of forces at work in this world).
now, im still trying to decide if i agree with katz, but that fact that im thinking about it says something: normally i can't stand katz' writing. but consider what he is saying.
"The Gernsback Continuum" (Score:4)
Is anyone else here reminded of "The Gernsback Continuum" by William Gibson (shortstory in Mirrorshades)?
I think Katz' argument is interesting - that there's something noble and tragic in the story of Disney.
However, a very different argument has already been made by Gibson. Katz writes:
Gibson proposes fascism is inherent in that view of technology - in that romance of technology. He wasn't looking at Disney, but at Hugo Gernsback and contemporaries. Gibson wrote, through late 20th century eyes, of what the idealized future of "The Gernsback Continuum" looked like, and it was wholesome, squeeky-clean and fascist to the core.
This story is also an explanation of why Cyberpunk happened to science fiction. (That's why it's in the front of the anthology.) That utopian view of the future was so politically naive and inhumane, that younger writers were loathe to embrace it. Dystopia was an antitode to the sugared poison of a "utopia" of an efficient tyranny.
Katz is advised to take this under consideration.
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Re:Deja Vu? (Score:1)
Re:tragic technology vs capitalism (Score:1)
is that the capitalists, while wanting to make money, also had visions and ideas to improve society and the world. Any philanthropic gestures by corporations today are almost strictly for tax breaks or good P.R.
From what I'm getting from the article, Walt's vision of Epcot would have been similar to Biosphere 2 [bio2.edu] where you have a working, productive model that seeks to serve society, and that picks up a tidy sum in the process.
I think you got this wrong, Jon (Score:2)
No no, Walt was a self professed facist and anti Semite who at his core believed that EPCOT was for the majority of acceptably-raced people who needed to be taken care of while the undesirables toiled in the underground tunnels maintaining the whole thing.
Re:Fascist vs Communist. (Score:1)
>find people who support all 4 possible options.
ALL 4 possible options? I've found that if you ask 100 people who think about issues, you'll get 100 different answers. (Of course, if you ask 100 people who watch Dateline on NBC to learn about issues, you'll get 1 answer. I'm going to ignore section of our society that's driven like a herd of cattle to the slaugtherhouse by the media, though.) Any given issue other than, say, "Should I drink my pop with a straw or a sippy cup?" is too complex to break its answers down into a few options.
As for left and right, those are terms I don't like, because they are arbitrarily made and most people dont make a distinction on anything in politics unless they are told to, anyway (example: no distinction between fascism and stalinist/maoist communism. another example: just about 0 people in the United States realize that their country is, in fact, NOT a democracy. (it's a republic. the difference matters.))
Now for my obligatory 2 cents on the article and feeble attempt at not getting moderated to death for being offtopic: To me the saddest thing about the death of Disney's dream for EPCOT is that it was the consummation of the death of his idealism, in so many ways. Yes, there was no room for pluralism of any kind in his ideas, but he was still searching, and he still envisioned a better life for everyone (who is white). Yes, I am ripping on Disney hardcore - but I'd still like to see his idealism keep on going. It's betteer than the Y2K doomsday krap we get thrown at us nowadays.
Internet the Ride! (Score:4)
Brilliant as he was, Disney never foresaw or imagined the Net, the Web or the Digital Age.
Internet the Ride!
It revolutionized the way we communicate. Now it's the world's ultimate thrill ride!
Marvel as you fly through the T3 pipe at blazing speeds! Feel your stomach churn as you hit the 56KB bottleneck. Sit back and enjoy the show as Microsoft battles all comers in a battle for the very soul of the Internet! Lose yourself in the maze of Usenet and IRC. Wander through the Hall of pr0n (seperate admission, adults only). Experience the thrill of watching as server after server is brought down by the dreaded Slashdot Effect!
Bigger than than Steve Jobs' ego, faster than the Linux development cycle, scarier than debugging Windows 2000, wilder than a steel cage death match between Richard M. Stallman and Eric S. Raymond it's Internet the Ride!
Re:tragic technology vs capitalism (Score:1)
Isn't it obvious? He's been smoking the wacky in the tomorrow tunnel and wants to justify his little trip to mouseworld as a business expense.
It seems that Walt wanted to create some sort of gleaming fascist utopian universe in Disney World, unfortuanetly for him the profiteers took over shortly after his death
What a pity! Now it's only a gleaming profiteering fascist uptopian vision!
Re:G vs. E (Score:1)
I don't think Katz even gets close to understanding the things he purports to write about, which is the real tragedy here.
Re:tragic technology vs capitalism (Score:1)
Disney is a giant vacuous hole that keeps getting bigger and bigger, swallowing up more and more of the media. It's a hydra that keeps on grafting head after head onto its aging body, making sure that its aging bulk will never die.
To sum it up, Disney disgusts me. Behind all the happy elves, fluffy bunnies and prancing faeries lies a murder of cold, callous, unfeeling, unhappy little crows. Constantly pecking at the bleeding sockets of the world, all the while cawing out cheerful little tunes.
Some more info on "The Real EPCOT" (Score:1)
Here are some links to NPR's (Real Audia) essays on the subject:
I think the word you're looking for is "redundant" (Score:1)
A better pun would have probably be: "Redundant or just dumb?"
Thoughts... (Score:2)
Refined Hot Air (Score:1)
I actually liked this article! (Score:1)
Great Idea, a Mickey Mouse! (Score:1)
It's never too late!
Re:Deja Vu? (Score:2)
Katz is just more prescient than his subject, Walt Disney.
He went to Orlando in search of a Tomorrow of the past and by golly if he didn't find it.
Another definition of fascism (Score:1)
A country where corporate interests control the government at the expense of the people...hmmm....sounds like the US.
Skycraft (Score:1)
...and hell.
One of the great geek shopping experiences. Need an LCD? Laser optics? Discarded missile parts? Anonymous chunks of machined aluminum? Oscilloscopes? Wave-solder machines?
It's all there, from time to time...
Re:Sarcasm #3 (Score:1)
Katz found Falafel?!? Authentic Falafel? (Score:1)
My extended family spent a week at DizKnee Whirled last November. I could have killed for a falafel, but I couldn't find any at EPCOT. It is nearly impossible to find a meal at EPCOT for under $10 that does not involve frozen reconstituted chicken nuggets or a hamburger. At least at Frontierland in the Tragic Kingdom you can find a big honkin' smoked turkey leg to gnaw on. But as a 90% vegetarian, I mostly went hungry.
To be fair, there are theme restaurants at EPCOT that feature authentic regional cuisines, but you need to make reservations early in the morning and prepare to shell out Big Bucks.
As to authenticity, "authentic" is the word most likely to be heard coming from the myriad loudspeakers at EPCOT, the word most likely to be read in the brochures. The idea that EPCOT is in any way, shape, or form authentic is laughable at best, and Orwellian at its heart.
Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity
Carousel of Progress - Tomorrowland (Score:1)
The late 60's early 70's Disneyland Tomorrowland filled me with visions of the possible future and spaceflight that I thought would be more routine today.
With Walt gone, and the future less clear with US space program slowed down in the post Apollo time, tomorrowland lost the "tomorrow" and the retro look is refreshing if nothing else. In another 15-20 years they will have to give Tomorrowland another remake and perhaps they'll have some more futuristic ideas then.
Yet more Sarcasm... (Score:1)
Seriously though, I found the article devoid of any content. It is nothing more than a rather poor exercise in pretty prose. My flaming was a direct comment on this!
More Sarcasm
I think it relates to how people perceived the future and, more off topic, a man's dreams and aspirations
Ever considered being a Miss World contestant *rofl*
Go Directory to Writing 101. Do Not Pass Go... (Score:3)
The Tragedy of Technology
by Jon Katz, summerized by Anonymous Kev
There's a cool model, but Walt died and they didn't do it that way.
The End
Is that about it? Come on Jon, I don't totally buy into the opinion that technology's a tragic thing. But surely there's a thousandother valid subjects that would better illustrate your thesis. I'll list a few off the top of my head.
Technology is tragic because:
- It produces data that makes us less intelligent. The flood of information brought by technology has led us to avoid processing it. We scan over something and reach a knee-jerk opinion instead of reading and reasoning carefully.
- It produces new excitements that make us more boring. The new entertainment media have reduced us all to cocooned geeks will little people skills and with little to converse about (except for, "Hey, is the new Quake out yet?"
- It enables us to talk to different cultures, which destroys what's unique about other cultures. As more and more people communicate and learn from each other, the more all cultures become homogenous. Once we're all part of the AfroAngloEuroAsian Culture, life will be fairly boring.
- It provides greater (easier) mobility, allowing us to break family ties and move farther away from our "support groups".
- It provides medicines to extend our lives, so we can live our additional years in lonely isolation (related to the reason above).
Anyway, there's a few off the top of my head. Like I said before, I believe technology is a Good Thing(tm). But, Jon Katz, if you're going to take a view, please take a view. Don't just pander on about Walt's model. Yeah, that's sad. But doesn't make Technology tragic.Oops! Here's my boss... Now there's a tragedy of Technology ... productivity monitors on your computer!
Anonymous Kev
The real Central Florida (Score:1)
Re:Deja Vu? (Score:1)
Jon: I occasionally disagree with you, but I always read and mostly enjoy your stuff. But this is lightweight nonsense that isn't going anywhere. Give it up.
Enjoy your holiday; you've already written more than enough to justify its tax write-off. But for god's sake drop it.
Re:"The Gernsback Continuum" - We Make The Future (Score:1)
I also remember going to EPCOT as a little geek and seeing all the shiny cool rides and toys... sometimes it's nice just to have a place to forget about the world for a while. I fear that modern cynicism is draining the joy out of things - I fear that my own cynicism will drain the joy out of my own life.
One must take solace, and perhaps hope, in the notion that in every way that matters, the future is a thing we make. We are subject to the currents of history but free to steer as we will. We get the future we build, whether we realize it or not, and whether we want to or not.
In the 50's they saw people in the 90's using flying cars, space hotels, and voice-activated toasters. And in the 'real' 90's we got the Internet. That's not a bad thing, but it's the thing we made. The vision of the future is always colored by the present.
My point is this, then: We must not let the cynicism of today darkly color our vision of tomorrow. So many people fought to give us the right to [try to] be everything we want, but these days it seems trendy claim the right to be nothing. This is not the way to build a bright future.
The space hotels and flying cars and warp drive may get here yet. Or maybe the super-PDAs or the bionic implants or even a dark future of famine, plague, and war. Realize that which one we get depends largely on which one we choose to put our efforts into... if we don't put our efforts anywhere, we're not going to get what we want.
What happens to cool tech (Score:1)
Re:No thawing for Disney (Score:2)
More bizarre versions of this urban legend held that, not only was Walt frozen, his body was being kept on ice under the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride at Disneyland. In reality, there is a room under the "Pirates" ride, according to a former coworker of mine who used to work there, but it's just an old storage room.
Eric
--
"Free your code...and the rest will follow."
RE: G vs. E or People Suck (Score:1)
Most characters you meet on the street on no more than walking protein packs that need recycling.
Space Age (Score:1)
The reason why the Space Age, the real one, hasn't happened yet is that human technology hasn't reached the point where this kind of travel is easily within reach. Eventually, we'll get there, and if it is to be sooner rather than later we have to hear less discoraging talk about the Space Age as a "dead vision of the future."
this is so off topic... (Score:2)
Re:Fascist vs Communist. (Score:2)
You can't blame them though, after living in a politically empty one party system for so long (and America has never had more than one political direction, different policies maybe, same politics) it becomes a difficult and abstract concept to grasp.
In many ways, it is no different from the Chinese people I know...
Saying that fascism and communism are on opposite ends of the spectrum is a little misleading though. They were on the opposite sides of extreme radical change vs nationalistic regretion, but none of that holds any longer. Today, they together represent the ever present part of politics that strives to attack and deprive the inidividual, opposite of which you find liberiterians and ultimetly anarchism, which strives to free the individual at any cost to society.
-
We cannot reason ourselves out of our basic irrationality. All we can do is learn the art of being irrational in a reasonable way.
Re:Yet more Sarcasm... (Score:1)
>any content. It is nothing more than a rather
>poor exercise in pretty prose
Among the writing community, this is what is considered the most important priority. Things like good story-telling and informational content take a back seat to prose sent jumping through hoops. The rest of us, drawn to good stories or writing that argues specific points, are obviously never going to be able to connect with the writing of people like Katz. He has been trained to write for other writers that look more for innovative turns of a phrase.
It's sad that slashdot has to be used as Jon Katz's forum through which he seeks merely to impress his writer-colleagues with his linguistic skills.
-Dean
Disney, Tomorrow: the money problem. (Score:1)
OK, that said: All this tragedy and feeling sorry for ourselves about the lost dreams of old Walt have nothing to do with America's lost dreams. It has everything to do with the bottom line and thus the stock price of NYSE: DIS, and how operating and upgrading theme parks and especially high-overhead Disney theme parks has fallen out of favor lately.
And I would be willing to bet that the reason why technology representation at Disney theme parks has not kept up is, quite simply, it costs money to upgrade them.
No matter how much we cry about it, until we take some dollars out of our pockets and visit these places, and then communicate our wishes for upgrades to management, DIS the 'Biz will have no reason to upgrade their parks to better reflect today's technology.
When was Epcot built? (Score:2)
Second was a month ago. Wow.
I will sound like I'm echoing Katz, here, but I came away thinking "The corporate sponsorship is just nasty." Even the neat stuff was marred by it. People often comment that the magical sounds and voices from nowhere in Disney (I think they have speakers in the trees?) can be neat, like having your own reallife soundtrack. But one night, before the big fireworks show, the magic voice came up and said "Ladies and Gentlemen. Because GE brings good things to life, the fireworks will begin in 5 minutes." ARGH!
Did get to see backstage Disney, though, which I understand is rare. We brokedown in the ride near the Mexican restaurant, and after 15 minutes of listening to a tape loop tell us to come back soon in ancient Mayan or something, they finally led us all out a fire exit, where we found ourselves on a bare street and realized that it was behind the scenes. There was a row of ushers (or whatever they call themselves) lining it to make sure none of us wandered off. :)
Re:G vs. E (Score:1)
>>result of improved sanitation, so where is the
>>chlorine-treated water and sewage systems?
Well, in Katz' defense (or not), remember his audience has to connect with what he's writing about: Disney is a great example of both the tragedy of technology and something people can connect with. Polio, for most of us, is just something we occasionally read about. I'm not saying this is good, this is just a POV readjustment. Also, remember, Orlando was to be a focus of these articles, and Polio isn't really appropos, whilst Disney is very so.
>>I don't think Katz even gets close to understanding the things he purports to write
>>about, which is the real tragedy here.
I'm tempted to agree with you here on this one. This has been my major complaint with him in the past. Even so, the point he is trying to make isn't one I've really thought about before, and it's interesting to me to have it pointed out to me.
Re:Fascist vs Communist. (Score:1)
as for disney, i couldn't agree more. his ideas about utopia only included afluent "white folks", but that was the social climate at the time in the US. things have changed quite a bit since then and who's to say that disney might not have viewed that differently. who knows. but, to an extent, we have succeeded in creating some of these socially engineered societies. in fact, i live about 10 miles from a town that is nothing more than a very large subdivision, complete with over 5000 taupe colored homes with BMW's and Lexus's in the driveways. it's sad really, but this is the kind of thing disney dreamed of... a place where common people were at the mercy of the "dreamers". fascist? probably.
--------------------------------------
the amazing bc
latin/funk flugelhorn & trumpet
webnaut, music junkie, sysadmin from hell
Re:No thawing for Disney (Score:1)
Executive summary: He was cremated and is interred in the Forest Lawn cemetary in Glendale, CA.
The Sarcasm rolls on and on... (Score:1)
Really. How perceptive.
Yeah, amusement parks should be just like reality. (Score:1)
"Ladies and gentlemen, we've removed all the roller coasters from the Disney and Six Flags parks because rides are for people who can't handle reality. Instead, we've replaced them with concrete strips which perfectly simulate walking along an ordinary sidewalk. Visit Cubicle World, where you can spend 8 hours taking tech support calls. Marvel at Lawn Mowing Land, where you can mow a large segment of ordinary lawn. Don't forget to visit Stuck In Traffic, which perfectly simulates sitting in an immobile car on a hot LA freeway for three hours."
DoD and Disney (Score:1)
movies/land/stuff has always given me the creeps.
I have an off topic question. Last month a woman
sitting next to me on an airplane said that the
department of defense had some large underground
installation at ?Dinseyland? I took it as an
indication that she was a kook, but later my
girlfriend said she had heard about it too.
Is there something to this? Is it urban legend?
Or am I just dealing with kooks?
The House of the Future? (Score:2)
My Speculative Fiction prof (if you're well-read in short SF, you might know her by her pseudonym--Sally Caves), told us about an exhibit that she saw at Disneyworld once: the House of the Future, or some such.
Imagine a house where everything's plastic and metal. Smooth curves everywhere, something out of the Jetsons.
Instead of discussing Gibson's "The Gernsback Continuum" that day, we reflected on how technology was supposed to change the world, make it into a utopia.
Have any of you wondered why those futuristic settings rarely have any non-futuristic buildings in them? Disney, as did many thinkers of the time, saw a future filled with impossibilities made substantial by the bountiful god of Technology. Nobody would be left behind. Everyone would get a shiny new building of plastic and steel and light.
Today, I type this in a room with hardwood floors, in a building older than my parents. Outside, I see asphalt, cars, and people braced against the cold. They wear natural-seeming fabrics, not aluminum foil Intel bunny suits.
Maybe we're seeking to recover the natural world we've pushed away from us. Or maybe the dream just left us behind.
Tautology or tosser? (Score:1)
I'm obviously not as clever as I thought *grins*.
Katz is back! (Score:1)
Harsh Sarcasm... (Score:1)
Model City and Dr. Who episode "Paradise Towers" (Score:1)
Reminds me of the Dr. Who episode "Paradise Towers", where a guy known only as "The Great Architect" built these gleaming tall towers in which were apartments, cinemas, shops, and all the conveniences of a big city. Dr. Who visits them, only to find that the towers have been turned into a kind of "Escape from New York" setting: there are gangs of teenagers roving around wreaking havoc, and the few crackpot tenants left alive live a strange, twisted existence. The pool on the roof is inimical to life. Machines eat the residents every so often.
In the end, it turns out that The Great Architect built the towers and then went into hiding after the towers became inhabited in order to wipe the inhabitants out because they were destroying his gleaming clean creation.
It's amusing to imagine that under the "Model City of Tommorow" lies Walt Disney -- The Great Architect -- frozen until he can utilize all the wonders of modern technology to subvert the rides, displays, and omnipresent gift shops to start killing people in gruesome, messy, technological ways.
The Teacup Ride will start demonstrating the miracle of centrifugal force, first hand. The cars on the GM Test Track will crash into each other and explode, while the robotic assemblers in the waiting room will start installing car parts into the patrons.
The engines on the spaceship that R2D2 and C3PO are working on in the Star Wars ride will suddenly belch fire. And the big AT&T ball will release itself and go gallavanting through the parking lots.
In the midst of all this havoc, the statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse on Main Street, USA, will suddenly start laughing.
Thought for the day (Score:1)
Oh, and thanks for that link *grins*
Not as innovative as you thought.... (Score:1)
Sound Familiar? Well it's not EPCOT. That is a decription of the 1938 World's Fair.
Re:EPCOT. (Score:1)
IBM's "Future of the Internet": Two buttons, it plays you pre-made video of the "site" you choose - one or the other (gives you two random selections). A chilling thought that that is where IBM wants the Internet to go in that direction. The only "breakthrough" was that the display was a bowl, and you had a piece of glass in front of you that filtered out all of the projected images to show you only your own. After my son and I left it, I asked him what he thought and he said that it ignored what button he pressed. I had the same problem.
Monsanto's "Our Planet?" Something about nature, with many plants, and a tunnel that you crawl through to look at termites, ants, and things with a magnifying glass. Monsanto is, of course, the manufacturer of Bovine Growth Hormone [geocities.com], and seeds that are genetically engineered to not reproduce [slashdot.org].
Sega's Dreamcast area, where you can play on one of the 50 Dreamcasts with flat screen monitors. Lots of fun.
There was more. We left. I and my son were fairly disenchanted by the experience.
Sarcastic bit (Score:1)
Something Not Mentioned Yet - Epcot Center (Score:1)
Not sure when the change occured, but it is now known as "Epcot Center."
You'll notice that it's not capitalized anymore, so as not to imply it's original acryonym and adds the word "Center" to the name.
Neat, eh?
Walt's dream never really died - It got a new name (Score:3)
Epcot never went away, it just got a new name.
The Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow is better known today as the city of Celebration, Florida, located in the southern part of Walt Disney World's property. While it doesn't have the art deco and sterile feel of Walt's original vision, it does attempt to embrace his original concepts of a forward-thinking town with a strong sense of community. The homes are all wired together, and public Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs)can be seen zipping about the town. It might not be the perfect embodiment of Walt's vision for EPCOT, but it's as close as can be expected for now.
When Walt died, his brother Roy wanted to bring the EPCOT vision to pass. However, the technology required to construct such a city simply did not exist, and Roy just wanted to get the Florida property opened with the new Magic Kingdom. Once WDW opened to the public, attention turned to building the EPCOT community, but the technology still was not around, so the Disney Co. settled for the "World's Fair" concept that Epcot is today. Epcot (the theme park) has been moving away from the "prototype community" association for a few years now. A couple years ago Disney made a change so that "EPCOT" is now "Epcot", and has no acronymn associated with it (since the park is not a "community of tomorrow").
No internet attractions at Epcot? Well, perhaps you missed the one that was there. It's not very big, but as you exit Spaceship Earth, AT&T has set up a "Ride the Net" area where you stand in a rocking tube synched to a video in front of you. It's not much, but it is an internet-based attraction. If the Disney Imagineers could actually come up with an exciting attraction about the Internet, then they have my modest appreciation. I just can't see how anyone could make routers, packets, and high-bandwith pipes into a thrill ride.
What about Tomorrowland? When Walt Disney created the original Tomorrowland that was to showcase all that Epcot currently represents. However, the attractions were never updated to reflect changes in thought, and when Epcot opened, it basically took the place of Tomorrowland's original function. When Disney decided to go through a complete rehab and change Tomorrowland into a Jules Verne-esque themed area, I thought it was brilliant. By taking this new approach, Tomorrowland would not have to worry about being outdated. They also eliminated the haphazard grouping of attractions by tying them together to form a "town." Next time you're there, notice how all the buildings are supposed to be structures in an actual city. The only attraction that really seems out of place anymore is Space Mountain. Somehow a future look at high-speed FedEx delivery just doesn't cut it.
So remember, Tomorrowland isn't supposed to showcase the actual future, Epcot is no longer regarded by Disney as the "Community of Tomorrow", and Celebration, FL is the best embodiment of Walt's vision to date. Disney isn't really behind the times, they just haven't put the old city model in the dumpster, yet.
Re:Fascist vs Communist. (Score:1)
Nonetheless, it does not appear that Disney really was a fascist, any more than Lucille Ball is a communist.
Re:Yeah, amusement parks should be just like reali (Score:1)
You're right, I failed to make my point correctly.
Theme parks, in general, are for people who aren't
able to cope with the real world. Instead they
want a carefully-controlled experience similar
to the real world but with all the messy bits
taken out.
You make the mistake of thinking that the real
world is just the drab and dreary urban
existence people seem to get themselves stuck in
nowadays. It's not. From that viewpoint, I'd
imagine that Disneyworld would look like an
excellent holiday destination.
Also, I'm not talking about rollercoaster parks.
Disney rides tend to suck by comparison (at least
any I've been on).
K. (Visit a fscking museum already)
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In defense of restaurants and authenticity... (Score:2)
Restaurants in the World Showcase pavilions are generally branches of high-end restaurants from their "host" countries. The Italian restaurant is Alfredo's (of Fettucine Alfredo). The Mexican restaurant's other location is in Mexico City. The Japanese restaurants and store are run by a company that's been around in Japan since the mid-1600s. And so on. This doesn't mean the restaurants are automatically good, but Disney can't be accused of not making an effort to get the real thing.
Actually, Disney restaurants in general--particularly the ones outside the theme parks in the resorts--are well-respected. They may not make "10 Best in America" lists, but one or usually will make "100 Best in America" lists; the California Grill (in the Contemporary Resort) and Artist Point (in the Wilderness Lodge) are consistently among the top-rated in Florida.
As to Epcot's "authenticity" in general, I don't recall that word coming up in the brochures nearly as often as you seem to. The World Showcase pavilions are run as showcases for the tourism offices of their respective countries (Morocco even has a branch of their tourism office there). What do you expect? A "great slums of London" exhibit in the British pavilion? The museum in the China pavilion to be showing an exhibit titled '100 Years of Repressing Human Rights: A Retrospective?"
Re:Disney was a Dreamer (Score:1)
I think that a real dreamer (as Disney may or may not have been, I cannot say) comes up with the idea and has an unshakable belief that they CAN make that idea come true, and deep in thier heart even if things do not turn out right, still believes that the idea is posisble, there was just come detail that was missed.
I agree partially with Jon's view that technology can be tragic, in that it allows one to have and believe in much grander dreams than were possible before. We are free now to dream (and fail) on scales unheard of before our time.
ruining the dreams (Score:1)
His plan was that Epcot would be run by Imagineers and Disney executives, not elected representatives. He probably feared that the all-too-human inhabitants would ruin his technology.
And he would have been right.
(interesting piece Jon)
- geethree
Internet Attraction at Epcot...hmmm (Score:1)
a) Computers were still the size of the WOPR when Walt died. Hmmm. Walt's idea probably did envision a network, but not the kind we have today. Computers inside the building were probably to be networked to these "voice activated appliances" (sounds resemblingly like embedded devices that attach to networks). The idea of a personal computer was so far off back in the early 60s that an Internet simply would have meant being able to start your stove from work.
b) How exciting is the internet? Why have an attraction at Epcot then? Yes, to me and you it's exciting. To most people, the internet is scary and uncontrolled. It's not the end all be all. Recently, there was a news story about a town that finally got wired into the phone system. If a group of people can go 100 years without the phone, then surely you realize that there are millions of people that live a daily life sans internet.
Sorry to say it, but in the end, it's exciting to us cause we do the software and hardware.
Plain and simple.
Re:Fascist vs Communist. (Score:1)
Re:The real Central Florida (Score:1)
biLL
Re:picture (Score:1)
Heh, how quaint, i think i wanna puke. Big Bro. in the middle all high and mighty, making sure all 'their' people do what they think they should like good little drones. The cute little church to spread philosophy and provide an unspoken guilt trip to anyone who even considers thinking about something outside of the corporate doctrine. Just my
Re:Another definition of fascism (Score:1)
There are some exceptions...When our government goes after a corporation on behalf of people, which is how one might interpret the Microsoft case, it is doing exactly what it should be doing. It's unfortunate that this doesn't happen far more often than it does. The norm, instead, is a business climate with record mergers on an almost daily basis. Concentration of wealth and power is just the opposite of democracy. The free market (which is a mythical concept...in the US the free market is for poor people. Corporations deserve favors and kickbacks and greater access to the best politicians money can buy) has shown time and time again that it's incapable of regulating itself. When things get out of hand, it is the job of the government to intervene on behalf of the people.
So anyway, I think it's great to see the description of Epcot given in the original article. Now I feel a bit more informed as to the atmosphere of the place -- basically a gigantic corporate advertisement -- and I no longer have any desire to ever go there.
Cryongenics and conspiracies ... (Score:2)
b) Yeah, I read the Straight Dope piece about that too, but c'mon! If the man was in a freezer somewhere, it'd still be easy enough to come up with some ashes to avoid the "where's he buried?" scrutiny. There are plenty of empty or mislabeled graves on the planet. So C. Adams coming up with a location for some ashes wouldn't put a dent in any *serious* cryogenic theories. Only tearing up the whole park and failing to find the freezer. Even then
timothy
Re:Yeah, amusement parks should be just like reali (Score:1)
Do you play computer games? Do you read science fiction, or any other sort of fiction? Do you go to cinemas? Plenty of controlled sanitised experiences and escapism there.
Or do you spend your days coding and fighting for human rights with only the occasional visit to a library (textbooks and non-fiction only) or museum for inspiration to continue the struggle?
I doubt it.
Lighten up. If you don't like Disney's stuff, like the violence in Tarantino's movies, don't go.
The problem with this article and comments like yours is searching for some deep meaning in a corporate theme park. There isn't any. Live with it.
Epcot, Celebration and The Truman Show (Score:1)
If you haven't been to Celebration and won't have a chance to go in the near future, go see the movie "The Truman Show". While "The Truman Show" was not filmed in Celebration, the feeling is the same. Everything is just a little 'too perfect'... to the point of being downright eerie. It's not a bad place to catch a movie, though.
The cost of a home in Celebration is high, but not astronomical. There are, however, some very restrictive policies you must agree to in order to live there. I don't know if I could deal with having the same yard as all of my neighbors.
Re:When was Epcot built? (Score:2)
Cast members. They're all cast members, from the person playing Mowgli to the one sweeping up the street.
I'm told that no matter what your "normal" job is, your first duty is to see to the park guests. That is, if someone stops to ask a question, you drop what you're doing and help 'em out. Pretty cool, if you ask me, and probably a reason why customer service at Disney is head-and-shoulders above Universal, Sea World, or any of the other Orlando attractions.
Chesterton's _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_ (Score:1)
Judging from the other responses to Katz's musings, the nature of prediction hasn't changed much since Chesterton's day, and the novel's take on the fate of such prophecies is both enlightening and extremely funny.
For the book-lovers out there, here's another recommendation for Napoleon. John Crowley quotes those Introductory Remarks in his World Fantasy Award winner, Little, Big.
If you want a quick skinny on Chesterton, try G. K. Chesterton [dur.ac.uk]
Re:Correction Walt Disney died in 1966 (Score:1)
Re:No thawing for Disney (Score:1)
Info on Celebration, FLA (Score:1)
Re:Internet the Ride! (Score:1)
Cool Link! (Score:2)
Picture old Walt Disney, in failing health, with a clear vision of the future.
He wants a community of people, working together, as an example of what the future will be like, to make the world a better place.
He also knows that the current people will screw up his vision of the future. He thinks that cryogenics might work, but that he'd be revived too late to repair the damage they've done to his vision. (correctly, I might add. No one is reviving frozen old people yet, and his vision has already been messed up)
So he makes videos to be shown after his death... Anyone else think old Walt read Foundation one too many times?
Listen, Katz. *That* would have made a cool story. News for nerds.
---
pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Re:Reach exceeding grasp (Score:2)