Thursday, October 9, 2014

What to do with "Imagination"

     The Imagination Pavilion at Epcot has gone through a series of different reincarnations. It is widely agreed that the current version of the ride at the pavilion is quite... underdone. The recent change removed the friendly, older, Dreamfinder from the adventure. Many have said that Dreamfinder is what created the perfect balance in characters for the ride to work. Absent Dreamfinder, Figment the little purple dragon is often overbearing and even annoying. With Disney removing Honey I Shrunk the Audience, and the return of Captain EO coming to an end, what should Disney do with this space? The imagination is a central theme to the message of Epcot. Epcot is build around the idea that the world will work together and benefit from innovation and progress. I have a couple of ideas of how Disney might use this space and idea in a modern way. With technology advancing so fast, it might be too much to ask for Disney to always be using this ride as a way to show you what you could "imagine" if you could only try. The optical illusions are still fun, but the idea of imageworks being cutting edge has long gone to the past. Consequently, Disney needs to go a new direction with the idea of the pavilion.
     I would like to present a reincarnation of Disney's "Imagineering Institute". Disney fans are always thirsting for more history of Disney, and more looks behind the scenes at how the magic is made. This pavilion could become a place where children go to be inspired by the imagination of Disney Imagineers, and where adults go to learn about the company, its history, and its possible future. Through the ride that begins your adventure, you could meet Figment and Dreamfinder, as they sing with you about the ways in which Disney Imagineers have used their imaginations to create the parks, movies, and shows of Walt Disney World.
     After the ride, guests could enter into an area that is part "One Man's Dream", showing the power of Walt's Imagination, and an additional interactive area of how Imagineers do their work. It could include looks at future attractions, what goes into making a fireworks show, and areas where guests could create their own fireworks shows, and watch them virtually. There could be an area where guests could create animated characters, and give them traits and see how those traits react to environments of a given story.
     Bottom line, guests are starving to be part of the story-making and imagineering process of Disney, and giving them that opportunity would be hugely popular, and could breathe new life into this pavilion.