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Injecting a bit of character

Image: Disney 

In 2003, Finding Nemo became the eighth most popular domestic release of all-time and the seventh biggest worldwide, earning $380.8 million in North America and $937 million overall. Relatively unheralded in the months prior to its release, it quickly became the most popular Pixar release ever until that point.

While Disney wouldn’t purchase Pixar until January of 2006, the two organizations already enjoyed a strong working relationship. Disney park planners shrewdly calculated a way to leverage the power of the Finding Nemo license to enhance demand at their flagging pavilion, The Living Seas. Whereas kids showed a stunning lack of enthusiasm for the Seacabs, so much so that Disney closed them permanently in 2001, these same children loved a clownfish named Nemo and an Aussie-accented shark named Bruce.

The choice was clear. Epcot dropped the education-only focus of The Living Seas in favor of a character-oriented one. Their logic was that the strength of Magic Kingdom and Disneyland before it had been strong intellectual properties. Guests loved the characters from the massive Disney catalog. When they visited parks, they desired interactions with their favorites. This constant has driven Disney theme park revenue for more than six decades now. Epcot had not embraced it since the initial plan prioritized education over entertainment. While the designers of The Living Seas maintained it was equal parts fun and informative, kids saw it clearly as too much of the latter. The dismissal of the original plan was long overdue. In order to maximize the popularity of the giant aquarium, Disney needed to slap a popular license on it.

By the end of 2003, Disney had negotiated an agreement to alter the exterior of The Living Seas to exhibit a Finding Nemo theme. Before long, they fully committed to the endeavor, adding interior touches that reflected the Nemo-verse. By the end of 2004, Disney had introduced Turtle Talk with Crush, an understated but revolutionary attraction. As you know, it blends live interactions from human children with commentary from a fictional sea turtle. Kids ate it up, causing Turtle Talk with Crush to perform as a sort of proof-of-concept for a character driven experience at The Living Seas.

Image: Disney

In August of 2005, barely two years after the theatrical release of Finding Nemo, Disney closed The Living Seas for renovations. In reality, it was a conversion to a character experience. The building changed its name to The Seas with Nemo & Friends, thereby identifying to children that if they wanted to hear Seagulls chant, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” over and over again, they’d have to visit.

Disney also repurposed the defunct Seacabs into Clamobiles, altering some of the previous Omnimover space for the Finding Nemo ride.  The importance of this choice cannot be overstated. A pure ride that would fit just as perfectly at Magic Kingdom was now located at what had formerly stood as an educational pavilion. Kids now had two reasons to want to visit. They could hear Big Blue World on repeat during the ride, and then they could talk to Crush during his show.

By the time the new iteration of The Living Seas was ready to debut, Disney had purchased Pixar. That entitled them to 100 percent of the merchandising revenue for all Finding Nemo sales. It was a happy bonus to their elegant solution for reinventing a formerly stale locale. In the decade that followed, The Seas with Nemo & Friends has sustained its popularity in a way that the first version of the pavilion never managed. In addition, Disney has already included new characters from the movie sequel, Finding Dory, into Turtle Talk with Crush. The new story offers them other avenues to renovate the building and its attractions if so inclined.

Epcot has never claimed a lot of attractions. Once the original version of The Living Seas lost its luster, Disney was brilliant to adapt a property they didn’t even own at the time to renew interest. This turning point from educational pavilion to character driven entertainment facility (with some informational data remaining) has proven to be one of the strongest on-the-fly renovations in the history of Epcot. It was a masterstroke at a park that hasn’t had enough of them since its inception.

 
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Comments

I really miss the hydrolators

Not me.
From the beginning, I was astonished how lame that concept was.
The current pavilion is much, much better now.

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