Originally Posted By dresswhites so 2008 will mark kind of a sad milestone. 10 years ago the new tommorowland premiered. yikes, can you believe it has been 10 years! how much of it is alreay gone, cosmic waves, rocket rods, the brown space mountain, most of the original paint job. i think to me tomorrowland 98 was a utter and complete failure on all levels. a bigger failure, than the circus and light magic. the only good thing that came out of the redo, was some of the plants. and that is not saying much. What were your impressions of tommorowland 98? did you find anything you liked about the redo? what was the worst thing about the redo in your opinion.?
Originally Posted By dresswhites i would say innoventions was the biggest disappointment. what a waste of a unique space. why in the world is this failure still with us 10 years later?
Originally Posted By jonvn I actually thought it was ok when it first opened. I thought the paint job was interesting, and Rocket Rods was fun. Now it's all basically been shuttered. HISTA is awful, and Innoventions is empty. Bad bad choices on every level.
Originally Posted By friendofdd I go there only to have the food at R2P2, or go on Space Mountain. Sadly, even the nice plants have mostly been replaced by tables and chairs.
Originally Posted By x Pirate_Princess x I barely remember Tomorrowland 98, since I was living in Northern California. '08 is a weird year for me...10 year HS reunion!! I do miss Rocket Rods, though.
Originally Posted By Moon Waffle I really liked the "theme" and color scheme of TL98. I thought it was a bold change from the past versions of this land. It just seemed very fresh and new and different. I was disappointed with the attractions. Rocket Rods had potential, but we all know the story there. Observatron was just silly. Innoventions? I've still never seen the need to set foot in the building to this day. Very anxious for a new TL (2010???) and hopefully this one will be as radical of a change in both theme and colors as TL98, but with some fresh new attractions to round out the land. And make that all-new; not just an updated peoplemover.
Originally Posted By DlandDug If one has a good recollection of what Tomorrowland was looking like before TL98, it is far from a complete and utter failure. TL was easily the most neglected and underpopulated area of Disneyland. I clearly recall it as a favored hangout of mobs of scary teens. The Caroussel building had been empty for nearly a decade, CircleVision was running films that were several years old, Captain EO was the "newest" offering, and the whole land was simply mired in a sad time warp. The effort was to address two issues: update TL, and give it a look that wouldn't require a complete overhaul every eight to ten years. The choice, a Discoveryland inspired blend of "Science Fact and Science Fiction" wasn't as well executed as the designers would have prefered, but it was a definite improvement over what was there about this time ten years ago. (P.S. Space Mountain was never painted brown. Nothing in TL98 was painted brown.)
Originally Posted By Elderp "(P.S. Space Mountain was never painted brown. Nothing in TL98 was painted brown.)" So your saying it wasn't really painted at all it was just really dirty for 10 years? <a href="http://lostworld.pair.com/disneyland/tomorrowland/tomorrowland_images/sun_brown_space.jpg" target="_blank">http://lostworld.pair.com/disn eyland/tomorrowland/tomorrowland_images/sun_brown_space.jpg</a>
Originally Posted By p-n-p06 Well...getting rid of HISTA would not hurt my feelings one bit. My first visit to DL was in 1997 and I think TL was looking sad back then, too. The redo of Space Mountain is wonderful! The new Pixar rides are creative but not my idea of what TL should be. More science, please.
Originally Posted By cheesybaby <<(P.S. Space Mountain was never painted brown. Nothing in TL98 was painted brown.)>> I think this gets to what really went wrong with the "look" of TL98. It is true that nothing was painted brown. But guess what? It all looked brown, which is all that matters. Like Space Mountain in Paris, Anaheim's Astro Orbitor and the lame Observatron have metallic coverings that reflect light and have a very different "feel" from just paint. These look pretty great IMO. But then they merely painted all the other buildings and they just looked... brown. If the whole land had been textured and reflective like the Astro Orbitor, the land would have actually looked and felt just like the postcards and artwork suggested it would. Instead, you get a painted Space Mountain. You look at it and squint with the sun in your eyes (because the sun is always in the south) and it just looked... painted brown. Nothing like Paris's at all.
Originally Posted By wonderingalice The COP building was my favorite for YEARS - since the original attraction first opened in '67. During the time it was closed, I remember my ex and I riding in the nose of the Monorail and the driver told us that Disney was planning to put "Alien Encounter" in there. We were jazzed... for about 10 minutes - and then that absolutely boring Innoventions appeared instead. Yeah, yeah, I understand that Asimo is very cool to those who've seen him, but the one time Mr. Alice made the attempt -not knowing in advance what times he appeared and thinking it was "regular" like the 3D shows - there was an hour and 10 minute wait. And we ALL know there's nothing inside Innoventions to keep a person busy/interested for that long. We left. I've been inside Innoventions exactly twice in 10 years. It's the most pathetic thing ever installed at Disneyland. As much as I'd like to see them find some way to incorporate the COP building in a truly inventive manner, I'm no longer dreading the likelihood that it will be removed and the location used for something else extra special.
Originally Posted By Sweeper The one thing positive that has remained from TL98 is the permission WDI has given itself to think beyond white. I loved the colorized version of TL98 because the future is not white or chrome! So even though WDI has slipped back to white at least there is blue too. Color and texture goes a long way to convey futurism. TL98 killed 2001: A Space Odyssey Tomorrowland. That was one good thing. Now for next version would someone please take a wrecking ball to many of the buildings so we can have new ideas instead of shoe-horned attractions?
Originally Posted By StitchDude Unfortunately, Inno is not going anywhere. They are doing extensive remodel inside. I think it will be around for another ten years. A CM told me once that he was showing off the "New Chocolate phone," and a guest pulled out their iPhone. How embarrassing for the Cm and the company. Maybe if they would pony up the dough then Lucas will let them have the new Star Tours video. Bring back a version of people mover, take out HISTA and rebuild with something new, (something like the Stitch ride), update the Autopia with new cars, (Hydrogen maybe), get rid of the StarCade, get rid of Observitron, and freshen up the monorail station and there would be a pretty good Tomorrowland. What do i know, I am just a guest at the park.
Originally Posted By EighthDwarf I think there were a lot of problems with TL 98 (Astro Orbiter moved to entrance, poop colered Space Mountain, etc.). But the future theme is a difficult one because every day is yesterday's future. I think, in order to get it right, you need to find a universally accepted fantastic (as opposed to realistic) future theme and stick with one. Such as Star Wars (yes I know it was supposedly set "a long time ago....") or Jules Verne. You also need to get rid of anything that is not related to this fantastic future, such as Innoventions, Autopia, HISTA, etc. I think there is a lot of potential with the theme but trying to dazzle people with future technology is a recipe for failure - it's a moving target that can never be hit.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>I think there is a lot of potential with the theme but trying to dazzle people with future technology is a recipe for failure - it's a moving target that can never be hit. << I don't fully agree. Afterall ATIS did a pretty good job, as did Mission to Mars (we're not there yet). Horizons at Epcot. There are timeless themes for the future - world peace, environmental improvement, space travel for every day, new trnsportation, time travel, the ability to shrink. Although it is not great, HISTA is probably the one attraction that best embodies Tomorrowland.
Originally Posted By PetesDraggin "Although it is not great, HISTA is probably the one attraction that best embodies Tomorrowland." Other than a useless technology (shrinking people and things) that will probably never happen, HISTA has nothing to do with tomorrow or the future in general. For me, HISTA represents everything that is wrong with Tomorrowland - relying on nostalgia and the past to represent the future. The CoP building should have been torn down several years ago, but it is part of DL's past, so we can't touch it. HISTA is based on a horrible franchise of movies that were popular for a very short amount of time, but are barely remembered by most people. The subs are back almost exactly as they were before, just with a new story line. Tomorrowland is about a hope of what the future may hold, not about the memories of the past. If they do decide to bring back any of the old rides, I hope they make them different and not an homage to what used to be. I would much rather have unique experiences (yes, even Pixar-related ones) than ones that just bring the past to life again.
Originally Posted By jonvn "There are timeless themes for the future - world peace, environmental improvement, space travel for every day, new trnsportation, time travel, the ability to shrink." Yes, the possibilities are limited only by the imagination. There are many areas of futurism that can be explored, but aren't. They'd be great. They don't have to be dull or stodgy but entertaining and tell the story of progress, optimism and a better tomorrow for all of us. Walt Disney was actually very instrumental in getting our space program off the ground by showing the nation through his TV show what travel and life and space could be all about. It fired the imagination and filled us with a sense of good about tomorrow. What do they do in tomorrowland now that does this same thing? Buzz Lightyear? A war in space? It's sad. There are so many topics. Here is a web page that lists what technology will be coming. I've pointed to it before. This is the sort of stuff that Tomorrowland used to be about, and should be about: <a href="http://www.scholiast.org/futurism/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.scholiast.org/futur ism/index.html</a>
Originally Posted By jonvn "Other than a useless technology (shrinking people and things) that will probably never happen, HISTA has nothing to do with tomorrow or the future in general" HISTA is the absolute antithesis of Tomorrowland. It shows technology in a bad light, and shows a scientist being inept and actually, literally calls the smartest person on the stage a "nerd." It is an absolute disgrace.
Originally Posted By ecdc It might have been better than what was there before, but it was obviously disappointing. I think the problem was that, like so many other things Disney's tried to do lately, it tried to be "hip" and "edgy" - and it failed. Compare the new Fantasyland with the new Tommorowland. Today, I think most people don't even know Fantasyland had a major renovation. I know I was shocked - how could it not have always been like this? No one is going to make that mistake about the new TL. It looks like a failed effort to update something that wasn't working before.
