Originally Posted By mawnck >>Most of Roy's side of the family didn't hold Walt in the highest esteem. They feel that Roy never got the credit he deserved. Roy P. will happily talk for hours on the subject. And your comment just goes to reinforce that opinion.<< Only at a stretch. I think it's safe to say that Diane Disney Miller would also have been a complete nobody etc. etc. etc. Did the "Walt side" ever just invent a racist Sherman Brothers musical number out of thin air while trying to publicly denigrate Roy?
Originally Posted By oc_dean AH HUH! Academy Award nominations in .... No Emma Thompson... Very little if any nominations for Saving Mr. Banks ... But what does miss Streep have? Yup - A nomination for Best Actress! For the first time .. I hope she doesn't get it! I hope one of the other actresses gets it!
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt But... but Streep praised Thompson's performance in her take down of Walt Disney. Someone please help me understand which side I'm supposed to on before the Oscar telecast. Or does it even matter now since Thompson was snubbed? I'm so confused.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>"Saving Mr. Banks" got shut down hard. For a long time it was considered in the top five nominees, but week after week it began to slip. The story of Walt Disney’s battle to make Mary Poppins simply did not have the endurance it needed. And it was also knee-capped just before voting closed in a rather brutal (and factually challenged) speech by Meryl Streep last week, accusing Disney of being an anti-semite. That could easily have made the difference.<< <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/01/16/oscar-nominees-analysis-2014/2/">http://insidemovies.ew.com/201...-2014/2/</a>
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I've found the whole Streep debate rather amusing. I don't have a strong opinion on her remarks one way or the other. But they do resonate with my belief that Walt Disney has been deified by the American public and especially many on this site WAY beyond what is deserved. He was a consummate American entrepreneur, and ended up with one more success than failure. Good for him. He produced some great films, some so-so films, and some lousy ones. Just like many others. By most accounts he was a fairly poor businessman, and would have likely ended up in bankruptcy if not for the efforts of his brother Roy. In ways his greatest achievement, and what insured his legacy, was the concept behind Disneyland. But even there, the execution was frequently not that great. Sure, part of it was due to a limited budget at the outset. But Disneyland opened with attractions, especially the corporate advertisements in Tomorrowland, that would never be tolerated by the uber-fans of today. It amuses the heck out of me when I hear comments about how Walt would be rolling over in his grave by such and such going on in the parks today. But his original CONCEPT was outstanding, and that is what he deserves credit for. His final and perhaps grandest idea, an Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow, would have been a total and complete failure. Had he lived to see it through, the Disney company and his legacy would have been doomed forever and the company likely bankrupted. Americans just would never live in a controlled environment like that... never have and never will. During the early 80's the Disney Company was not doing well at all. Films produced were not at all well received and the parks were losing attendance. The company was in real danger of being split up into parts and sold. The controversial Eisner was brought in and literally saved the company. To me, he was almost as big a force in cementing the Disney legacy as Walt was. Walt Disney absolutely was a creative genius. But a deity and man without many very human flaws? No way.
Originally Posted By Yookeroo "His final and perhaps grandest idea, an Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow, would have been a total and complete failure." I agree with most of what you wrote, but this is probably a bit too definite. We really can't know this. Not that I wouldn't bet your way on this. I Like the ambition, but I really doubt it would've been a success. Turning EPCOT into Epcot was probably for the best.
Originally Posted By Mr X I think RT's point is sound (though the original EPCOT did sound neat!), can you imagine a cadre of 2nd amendment nuts worming their way in and then insisting on their right to walk around armed? That's just one tiny example of what could go out of control in an environment (Disney Parks Inc...) that relies heavily on total control to work its "magic". Never really thought about it in those terms, but I think RT is spot on.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip People couldn't even handle the control initially present in Celebration...
Originally Posted By mawnck I fully endorse post 146, including the EPCOT part. I just strongly feel that if you're going to discuss Walt Disney's flaws, then they ought to be the real ones.
Originally Posted By Tikiduck It seems to me that Walt was getting in over his head with EPCOT. I think by that time, being surrounded by people who were fearful of disagreeing with him, his ego had made him feel he could, like some kind of benevolent God, solve the world's social problems. It almost certainly would have been a disaster the company never would have recovered from.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan They said that about building amusement parks, too. "It'll ruin you!" I don't know if EPCOT would have ever worked as intended, but look at modern life. Top hi-tech companies have campuses with all the comforts of home and then some. Because these workers put in a crazy amount of hours, much of their life revolves around work. They practically live there, or head off to live in an enclosed, gated community. And the current trend for younger workers is away from suburbia and back to the big city. Younger workers want to live where the action is. Some of that is more or less in line with some of the ideas in EPCOT. And remember it was "experimental" meaning some parts of it would work, others might not. But it wasn't a terrible idea overall.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt For EPCOT to have been successful it would have required strategic partnerships with major corporations, research firms and startups to employ the planned 20,000 residents. Whether Disney would have been able to secure the kinds of corporate relationships or not is questionable, but given his reputation and experience with corporate sponsors at DL and the NY World's Fair it isn't hard to imagine the company successfully landing at least a few major investors to participate. What I wonder though, is would the place truly be sustainable in the long-term, particularly now in the dot com age. Those bold 1960s era modernistic and futuristic urban designs would probably seem very trite today, and with all things considered I can't see renegade 21st century tech companies like Google and Tesla incubating in the kind of controlled environment Walt envisioned for EPCOT.
Originally Posted By Tikiduck High tech company campuses are not public in any way. Knowing Disney, and if he would have had ten more years, he may have pulled something off. But considering his conservative political leanings, who was this community for? Was it the general population, or isolated, protected elites? Because it never would have flown with the general population.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "But considering his conservative political leanings, who was this community for? Was it the general population, or isolated, protected elites?" My guess is the general population, including regular WDW cast members - theme park workers, hotel staff, bus drivers, gardeners, etc. This excerpt from Wikipedia supports this assumption: >>According to the [promotional] film, all adults living in EPCOT would be employed, thereby preventing the formation of slums and ghettos. There would be no retirees—everyone would have been required to have a job. Residents would have been employed at either the Magic Kingdom theme park, the city central core shopping areas, the hotel/convention center, the airport, the Welcome Center, or the industrial park. As the film states, "everyone living in EPCOT will have the responsibility to maintain this living blueprint of the future".<< <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_Prototype_Community_of_Tomorrow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...Tomorrow</a>_(concept)
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Bad link. Use this one. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://tinyurl.com/dm8ksn">http://tinyurl.com/dm8ksn</a>
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Those bold 1960s era modernistic and futuristic urban designs would probably seem very trite today<< Well, that's true. And with crime and economic downturns, an experimental prototypical city could turn all grim dystopian and Bladerunner-y real fast. It's all fun and games until the replicants start fighting back.
