Originally Posted By danyoung >Please...Good gravy....[pulling out a flip chart and colorful markers]...< Wow - very snarky attitude there, big Jim. I'm pretty sure I didn't treat you that way. I'm sure we're well into the area of agree to disagree.
Originally Posted By danyoung >When I was at EPCOT last Spring, I was all set to have my EPCOT experience ruined by these intrusions and was pleasantly surprised to find that unless I stood in exactly the weirdest spot along the World Showcase promenade and angled my head in the right way standing on my tip toes I really wouldn't have known these "intrusions" were there.< I completely agree. The jets in the entryway of DL's Tomorrowland are a HORRIBLE intrusion into Main Street. But the hotels of Epcot? I just don't see it.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <Honestly, if you aren't looking for these things, you don't notice them at all.> Maybe you don't. But some obviously do notice them.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <But the hotels of Epcot? I just don't see it.> The Dolphin and Swan hotels have nothing to do with EPCOT. <Wow - very snarky attitude there, big Jim.> Just trying to break it down. It seems that my perspective isn't coming across.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Maybe they could change them to 'World Showcase Hotels' and then pretend that they added the Swan and Dolphin deliberately. Then, one of the Disney Institute writers could come up with a behind-the-scenes tour with this added: 'You see, the Swan and the Dolphin are sacred beasts in the world of Greek Mythology, and we wanted those icons to loom over the horizon of World Showcase to protect the countries of the world.'
Originally Posted By danyoung >The Dolphin and Swan hotels have nothing to do with EPCOT.< Unless I'm mistaken, the Swan and Dolphin have always been considered Epcot area hotels. I did not say they were part of Epcot, but they are in the Epcot hotel area. >It seems that my perspective isn't coming across.< Your perspective is coming across just fine. I simply don't agree with it.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <Your perspective is coming across just fine. I simply don't agree with it.> No kidding...
Originally Posted By RoadTrip WWWD?? (What would Walt do?) <<Walt felt that EPCOT should be grounded in a concern "with the public need." To serve this need EPCOT would be "an experimental city that would incorporate the best ideas of industry, government, and academia worldwide, a city that caters to the people as a service function. It will be a planned, controlled community, a showcase for American industry and research, schools, cultural and educational opportunities. In EPCOT there will be no slum areas because we won't let them develop. There will be no landowners and therefore no voting control. People will rent houses instead of buying them, and at modest rentals. There will be no retirees; everyone must be employed." He concluded that "people still want to live like human beings." The thing that strikes me most about Walt's statements are the incongruities that exist within them. In one breath he talks about serving the public's needs, and creating a place where people can live like human beings. And in the next, he explains that they will be denied the right to vote and to own property, two of unalienable rights of the American Declaration of Independence. Only a certain class of people will be allowed to live in Walt's utopia, excluding the lowest class of slum dwellers and the elderly. Like Celebration, Walt's utopia was envisioned an actual community where he had all the power, not just a park that people visited. The architectural plan in some ways reflects the emptiness and control implicit in this vision. EPCOT's citizens would not be allowed to own property. The whole design centered around a 30 story hotel to be built at the very heart of EPCOT, a structure which essentially represents transience. Would the elderly eventually be forced out? The residents would not even be allowed to experience the weather. This does not sound like an environment in which people can live like human beings. To make type of development a reality, Disney brokered a deal with the Florida Legislature that gave him almost total control over the land he had purchased in Florida. This including the right to make all the zoning regulations that would govern this property. In effect, he had free license over this property.>> Source: <a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA98/hogan/celebration/epcot.htm" target="_blank">http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA 98/hogan/celebration/epcot.htm</a> Walt wanted a 30 story hotel right in the heart of Epcot: <a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA98/hogan/celebration/images/e1.JPG" target="_blank">http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA 98/hogan/celebration/images/e1.JPG</a>
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy >> unless I stood in exactly the weirdest spot along the World Showcase promenade and angled my head in the right way standing on my tip toes I really wouldn't have known these "intrusions" were there. << Trust me folks. I agree with this entirely. The whole reason I took the time and trouble to do those photographs and the writeup was to say that yes, it's there. But it really isn't that big a deal. And that it even has some plusses. ------------------ I'm reminded of the joke where the lady was calling the police about how the people next door were parading around in their homes with no clothes on and you could see everything from her house. When the cop came over he looked and couldn't see anything. She said, "Oh, well, you have to stand on a ladder and look down with binoculars from the upstairs window." ----------------- Honestly, most people won't notice ANY of these horizon things. Just us detail people.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy >> Walt wanted a 30 story hotel right in the heart of Epcot: << Something I've always wondered -- I know Walt also wanted to completely dome the Epcot downtown to keep the Florida weather out. Would his hotel have been in the center of that dome, and sticking up right through it?
Originally Posted By plpeters70 >> Walt wanted a 30 story hotel right in the heart of Epcot: << Wait, how is Walt wanting a hotel towering over EPCOT, the city, in any way relevant to having hotels towering over the World Showcase at Epcot, the theme park?? Now, if you can show me how he wanted to have a hotel towering over the Magic Kingdom, then that would be a different story...
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Wait, how is Walt wanting a hotel towering over EPCOT, the city, in any way relevant to having hotels towering over the World Showcase at Epcot, the theme park??>> I just keep hearing how Walt would want this and Walt would want that. Essentially, the Epcot that was developed bears absolutely no relationship to the Epcot Walt wanted. I think it is rather presumptuous for anyone to say that this or that would not meet Walt's design standards when his vision was so totally different from what was built.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <I just keep hearing how Walt would want this and Walt would want that. Essentially, the Epcot that was developed bears absolutely no relationship to the Epcot Walt wanted.> I don't understand what you're trying to say here, RoadTrip.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 "I think it is rather presumptuous for anyone to say that this or that would not meet Walt's design standards ..." It's not just Walt's design standards we are quoting, but the Imagineers. Anyone who's read any of their publications, or used to watch the Disney Channel during it's early days, learned what they felt was good theme park design. And one of those principles was keeping the outside world out -- that's why they built berms around the parks. So we're not holding Disney to only Walt's standards, but the standards that the Imagineers, and the Disney Company, has been telling us for years. It's only recently, within the past ten years or so, that they've started to throw those design standards out - and some of us have noticed.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip << It's only recently, within the past ten years or so, that they've started to throw those design standards out - and some of us have noticed.>> And is it somehow unethical or immoral for a company to change its standards to match current needs and tastes? I think they have discovered that MOST people today don’t notice the occasional visual intrusion on the skyline. Do they want a smokestack from a factory belching out black smoke directly behind Spaceship Earth? Of course not. But a nicely designed hotel using “entertainment architecture†off in the distance? I think most people today have no problem with that. Perhaps you would also like to return to the design standards automobiles used in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s…
Originally Posted By plpeters70 "Perhaps you would also like to return to the design standards automobiles used in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s…" Let's not be ridiculous - of course I'm not against changes in design. But this isn't a change in design - it's a change in policy. From what I have heard, the Imagineers were adamant that those hotels not be built to intrude on Epcot's skyline, but Eisner overruled them. Now as for the intrustions at DCA, that was clearly a design choice, though I doubt that anyone on here would argue that it was a good choice... And I wouldn't be so sure that no one notices. They may not mention it like we "superfans" do on these boards, but I doubt that no one notices.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA I think people do notice. It's what used to be described as 'The Disney Difference.'
Originally Posted By MPierce >> And I wouldn't be so sure that no one notices. They may not mention it like we "superfans" do on these boards, but I doubt that no one notices. << There's no way I can prove it, but my guess is the average person visiting WDW never notices or really doesn't care. >> Perhaps you would also like to return to the design standards automobiles used in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s… << I would, every car didn't look the same. Some true classics from that era. Now I have to admit the engineering of todays car is far superior in most cases. One other thing I am highly offended that Walt wouldn't let me live in his vision of E.P.C.O.T. ....leaves computer, and goes into bedroom to sulk.
