Spaceship Earth is re-imagined by one of its original Imagineers

[crazy4wdw]

From Disneyworld.com:

A Time Traveler Comes Full Circle

Spaceship Earth is re-imagined by one of its original Imagineers

Bob Zalk was a wide-eyed, newly hired audio engineer when he took on one of his first projects with Walt Disney Imagineering: working on the mighty Epcot® icon, Spaceship Earth, now presented by Siemens. 25 years later, as Senior Show Producer, he found himself leading the team to take this all-time great attraction, and make it even greater for the 21st century and beyond. And you'll be able to experience the newly enhanced attraction this winter.

Bob and his team enhanced all of the scenes on this time-travel attraction with new lighting effects, costumes and set decoration, but even more than that, they also created an entirely new story "overlay" to blend the classic scenes with new ones and to add a special interactive aspect to its finale.

A new story for the enhancement

"We're telling a different story this time," he explained. "Our new story is essentially about how all the innovations of one generation influence and inspire another. There's definitely a relationship between the caveman in the early scenes, who is writing on walls, to our era in which we write on computers. It's a series of building blocks that add upon each other as we travel up through Spaceship Earth."

Once you reach the top of the 165-foot diameter Spaceship Earth geodesic dome, the new, interactive touch screens on your "time machine" vehicle will invite you to create your own visions of the future and see yourself in that future.

On top of all that, a new narration will be accompanied by an exciting new musical score composed and conducted by nine-time Emmy® Award winner Bruce Broughton, who has created music for many other major Disney attractions and films. "It's a challenge to create music for an attraction like this because you have to know how to blend the music seamlessly from scene to scene," Bob explained. "You want to treat an attraction with the kind of majesty it deserves and Bruce rises to the occasion."

"Project Tomorrow: Inventing the World of Tomorrow"

After you leave your time machine, you can explore a new interactive area with lots of fun and fascinating exhibits. "There's Body Builder, in which you wear 3-D glasses to assemble a digital human body (who talks back to you!), and simulates Siemens' remote surgery technology," Bob explained. "Then we have Super Driver, a driving simulation video game that showcases Siemens' auto accident avoidance systems.

"Innervision shows you the future of medical diagnostics in your home—something like your bathroom mirror giving you diagnostics on your body. And Power City is a game what shows how to manage power in a growing city, from routing power to neighborhoods where it's needed to replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar power."

All time favorites will live on through time

But the essence of Spaceship Earth will remain a constant. "Everything that everyone loved about the attraction—the smell of Rome burning, the monk snoring—will still be there, but it will be a new experience in a good many ways," Bob explained. "I think we're all mindful of the tradition that these kinds of attractions hold. So when we approach it as a team, we do it very carefully. You want to keep the ingredients that made it special."

And it's personally very special to Bob Zalk. "Coming in as a young Imagineer 25 years ago and getting to work on something like Spaceship Earth-I was just in awe, not only of the attraction, but also of the people I was privileged to work with and their years with the company. I learned a lot from them. Now at this point, we have young people on our team and we're now mentoring these Imagineers. I'm getting an interesting flashback feeling. How often do you get a chance to work on something like this two times around?"

 

[mitros]

From Disneyworld.com:

Really looking forward to the new SSE.

 

[Peter Pirate 2]

Me too. I really liked the retooling of HM and now hope the same for Great Movie Ride. It doesn't always have to be new and shiny or a fast adrenilene rusher. Disney hasn't done a lot lately I'm happy with but these are at least on the right track.

 

[pouncingpluto]

I'm really curious to see how this new ending compares to the old Horizons ending. I hope it's really open by late February!

 

[FigNewton]

Now I'm even more depressed that it won't be done when we are there last week in november.....

 

[Diznejen1]

That was really fun to read and learn about!! I hope it's open for my all girls trip.... tentativley planned for mid Feburary!

 

[britterbell]

Me what ever number is next! We went when it was closed and Epcot just wasn't the same! And hey, what's up with getting rid of the 'Epcot' on the ball, I really liked that. I know that's how it was originally but it looks kinda weird without it! Oh well, maybe it was for renovations on Spaship Earth?

 

[Imagination]

When the new version was open during christmas, I was very disappointed in the second half of the ride. The first half is more polished variant of the original, which is fine. The second half instead of being a dreamy descent with "real"(Well animatronic) views of the future of people communicating together(Much of which can be done now..so I know why a lot of this isn't the 'future' anymore)....Well instead of one relaxing and descending through the dreamy starlit sequence....you instead descend through a unlit void (but not truly dark even)...and are required to answer multiple choice questions (As if you were stuck in a IVR[interactive voice response] phone call..you know the ones that say press 1 if you are calling about x, press 2 if you are calling about y...etc..and of course you have to answer multiple questions on the little screen.). Why? so they can splice together(Given your choices) a 2-d simple George Jetson like cartoon to show you on that 10 inch screen.

Hopefully they are changing their "new" ending. I rather dream and imagine..then have to type choices on a ten inch screen to see a short 2-d cartoon

 

[Lord Fantasius]

Went last week before its "official" opening in February...unfortunately, all I have to say is "ouch," if they really think hard plastic headrests are the wave of the future, I'm not really looking forward to how Siemens imagines it. Understandably they re-use the same ride vehicles as before, but somehow the headrests just feel hard and edgy...not a place to lay your head against to enjoy the ride. Couldn't the Imagineer re-imagine softer headrests?

I'm not sure I would call condensing and sterilizing the beginning of the "journey" as "polishing" but the animatronics are better at least, if not a little rushed. Narration is trite, kind-of a dumbed-down history lesson in 3-minutes, though the ride mostly focuses on innovations in communication as the basis for progress (can we say AT&T), but then ends with their 2-dimensional Jetson-version of the future. Kind of a disconnect between what the rider had just experienced and what Siemens projects as "your" future, but it does have a few more options than the old Horizons ride.

In short, it's an uncomfortable ride that hurries past what could be have been some educational experiences so you can spend the last third/half of the ride looking at a small screen in front of you. It really didn't seemed "finished" as of a week ago; especially considering the bruise I had at the back of my head.

Notwithstanding, I do love to hear Dame Judi Dench's voice anytime.

-R

 

[pouncingpluto]

I bet the headrests are the same... they've always been crazy uncomfortable to me. I guess it depends on your height... where on your head the edge hits, if at all.