Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<So after discussing the ride with an Imagineer friend of mine I was told that the finale is indeed the finished product. Aside from a few lighting effects that were not turned on, that is exactly what they intended.>> I'm starting to hear a lot of this. And, no, that isn't good at all. It seems like every redo at EPCOT is becoming a minusing of what was there before. <<Whoever was in charge of this project should be immediately fired. The ending of this ride is a disgrace.>> Well, ultimately the blame falls at the hands/feet/other body parts of Tom Fitzgerald and Eric Jacobson as they are the lead creative execs for three of WDW's parks ... I believe I heard Sue Bryan (best known for Mission Space) was involved as well, but I'm not 100% sure. Either way, it would be folks that work for Team Fitzgerald. And if he's screwed up another EPCOT classic attraction by dumbing it down greatly, someone should be looking at buying out his contract. The ONLY FW pavilion that has been plussed in dramatic fashion is The Land and that was by simply plopping Soarin down. The Seas redo was very 50-50.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<I don't know what people are expecting here, but it seems odd to fault the descent portion of the ride for attempting to provide some sort of show element when there were no there at all in the previous incarnation.>> There have been show elements in the descent (with the exception of the very final small one, which I don't believe is what folks are complaining about?) ... that small 'tube' originally had brown and green lights then went to fiber optic field from the city model above in the 1990s. But if you mean there have been no show elements from the moment you peak in the dome and start descending, you're mistaken. Heck, the original spaceship is still sitting in there, painted black to blend with the darkness unless they removed it ... there have always been show elements until that last final descent. If I'm understanding that there is nothing from the dome to the unload but screens, then some people really should be losing their jobs. So, guys/gals who have ridden, where exactly does the show stop and the screens and darkness begin?
Originally Posted By Skellington88 spirit this is the same garbage they pulled with the new Submarine Voyage...where there used to be something to look at is now just pitch black nothingness. Its extreme laziness on the part of the Disney company and if they think we as guests are gonna pay $70+ a day for this sh*t they got another thing coming. My money now belongs to Universal and other tourist destinations...at least they TRY to put on a good show for guests.
Originally Posted By HMButler79 Apparantly from what i saw in the video, the show ends the second the vehicles turn around to go backward. Thats SEVEN min of NOTHINGNESS. I dont blame Eric as much as Tom. I met Eric during the HM rehab, he was there w/ Kathy over a few days and he really seemed to be a DISNEY person. Looking at a screen for SEVEN min and having Judi Dench talk to us like kindergarteners "Remember your ABCs"? is sooooooo Tom.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^Seven minutes of screens? Yes, people should lose their jobs. (Now, when is Leemac going to pop in and tell us all how wrong we are and how wonderful WDI did?)
Originally Posted By figment1986 <<If I'm understanding that there is nothing from the dome to the unload but screens, then some people really should be losing their jobs.>> What I saw: touch screen and answer questions... once your done it does some questions and answers till your near the bottom and shows you the video... during that time you have blinking lights... some fiber optics that were actually on, Where the Spaceship earth model was I believe I saw a lightning bolt, but not much at all... except whats left over from everything... and the monitors are bright enough to see a lot of whats left in there, perhaps being tweeked to be used soon.
Originally Posted By plpeters70 "There was never anything to interact with in descent portion of the previous version of SSE -- just cheesy neon tubes squiggled about on the ceiling and walls." I really don't care if there is interaction or not - in fact, I would be just as happy if they would never have added the video screens to begin with. BUT, they are already in place, and there's no way they're going anywhere. So, they might as well use them for something, but they need to make the emphasis OUTSIDE the ride vehicle - not staring at a screen for 7 minutes. "There is very little real estate to deal with in the descent corridor" There's plenty of room there for interesting projections and lighting effects. I'm not asking for huge AA show scenes here, but I'm sure they can come up with a better use of the space than just blackness. Heck, the other ending was better than this, and I thought the Irons effort was pretty half-*ssed to begin with. "...they have taken the effort to spice up the descent portion of the ride, which previously had nothing." I'm sorry, but they've done nothing of the sort. Nothing has been "spiced up" - they just added video to the cars and removed the outside effects. How is this "spiced up"?
Originally Posted By MPierce I've thought long, and hard about this. I've come to the conclusion that WDI or blessed with pure genius here. They eliminate the show lights at the end, thus saving on electricity. They install video screens to ask you questions thus eliminating the need for CM's at the gates taking polls. They get a greater cross section of guest in less time. Now here's the genius part, they pass it off as a theme park ride. As the British say Brillant!
Originally Posted By mousermerf Here's what happens.. You go through the garage past a dead animatronic (assuming he'll move later, like the dead paper boy) and into the "Matrix" which is really just a tube of scrim that is being projected on. It's a halfway decent effect, but then it suddenly ends, and you're in darkness with the skeleton of the old neon tunnel around you. You emerge into the 180-top, a bit perplexed by the black hole you were just in, and then see the earth and turn around. A scrim is seen overhead, sort of blocking the stars, and you start going downward. You see a really neat endless blue-dot grid effect for a few seconds - where the Classroom used to be, and the screens on the vehicles come on. Screens.. screens... to the right, you can see some of the rockwork/clouds from the old scenes before the videophones, but the stars are removed. Then, where the phones were, you have black masking fabric with twinkle lights in it on both sides. It's taped to the wall, and looks horrible because your screen is bright enough to illuminate it. You go past where the city was, a wall of black, and turn again, going down into what was the fiber optic tunnel. It's more black fabric and twinkle lights with obvious duct-tape making odd rectangles on either side. The support for the fiber optic is still there, showing in the dim ambient light of your screen, and the larger shell-like bits that flashed have been replaced with patches of black duct tape - which is painfully obvious. None of the lights are on. You watch a crappy cartoon. You reach the part where the mini SSE was, and the main multi-color tail of the tunnel is gone, but the white sparkling bits that were at the very end are still there. No SSE, no color tubes that those led into, just those sparkles sitting there randomly. You continue coasting down with NOTHING to look at but the Spaceship earth presented by Siemens logo. Even the crappy video is over. You turn around, unload, and of course - glare at the Imagineer onstage, leaning on the railing, eating fruit snacks at the unload area.
Originally Posted By SONiCSenshi I got to ride Spaceship Earth yesterday too. I can say is the new version is absolutely lame, it is almost as bad as Stitch's Great Mistake. The new script it cheesy and no longer flows from one scene to the next. It sounds like it is just jumping around. The whole black tunnel with LED lights on way down is so cheap. And the animation of the future "you create" is so lame. It probably has like at most eight or ten variations and I'm sure will get old in a few months. I know kind of wish for the first time that they would remove everything in the sphere and we get Time Racers now. It gets three stars (cosmically average) out five from me. On my list of attractions "it went from must ride every visit" to "only ride if I am dragged onto it".
Originally Posted By jonvn Oh well. Sounds like they can't do anything good anymore. Pretty sad, but then, maybe we're all just ignorant. Yeah, that must be it.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Are the animatronic people like the Romans,Egyptians, et al, still there?
Originally Posted By aracuanbird Spaceship Earth has always had a rotten finale, if you consider the finale to be the descent form the top of the ride structure. After the starfield, the rest of the ride has felt like filler since '82. You can see how someone had the theory that bring the experience into the ride vehicle would somehow create a more personal, intimate moment, which I suppose works. In theory. But from the sound of things, it stinks. If WDI had to mess with this attraction, it is a shame that the descent wasn't the focus and given the royal treatment. This ride has never lived up to its promise.
Originally Posted By Britain The original decent was always too cramped for real show pieces, but perfectly fine for a final musical number. Unfortunately, they just aren't making musical attractions anymore (Sinbad redo notwithstanding). Now everything has to be interactive. Ironically, nothing gets an audience to interact with a show like catchy music. Sigh.
Originally Posted By dshyates "I guess this is just unprecedented." I wish, but there is lots of precedents with crappy re-dos at EPCOT. What would have been unprecenented is if they had hit a home run.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 I'm still trying to find out if what is there is pretty much the final product or not ... right now, I'm getting totally conflicting reports. Some say except for a few effects, it is done. Other say much will be added, and it will close down again for the entire month of January. Sorry, wish I had the answers.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros If it's not finished, I think it's absolutely unacceptable that they are showing it off like this. There is no reason that they need to open it up for the holidays to show people a crappy version of the attraction that is halfway through being worked on. I know they did it for POTC, and it was tacky then too. Either go the entire way or don't, but don't just go through the motions without really doing anything. And if this is in fact the final product...they need a lot of work. There have been attractions entirely leveled that have been treated with more respect than this refurb. While we may not be able to see the original Imagination ride any more, at least there isn't some ghost of it floating around any more (well, I think the new Figment it a lot more annoying, but that's a different debate entirely) to show everybody the potential that's there. With SSE, the first half is still there. Sure, there is a different voice saying things to you, but it's pretty much the same. And then it's followed by this embarrassment of an end to the attraction.
