Can we rebuild Mr. Toad's Wild Ride in England?

I love all of your ideas and think Disney should read your article. It is a lot of money to put up but Epcot thrives during the festival seasons, they must be raking in some dough! You have to spend money to improve to draw attendance. Fantasy Land has been upgraded, Pandora will open in May and Hollywood Studios is getting two new lands, perhaps Epcot is next? We can hope and dream! (and to the top comments on Pinocchio’s Daring Journey – the classic Disneyland dark ride – in Italy. - You did place it in Italy or changed the article before I read it!)

What a good, well thought out article.
I've found it ironic in the past few years that the MagicBand is far more futuristic than Future World. The fact that one bracelet can get me into my hotel, carry my park tickets, capture my ride photos, and the ability to reunite me with my lost children, is amazing. THAT is living in the future.

I really like your ideas of characters implemented throughout the attractions. I personally think two other changes could take place: take out innocent ions and build a pavilion named NEW HORIZONS that would be essentially what horizons was but with updated technology to tie in all aspects of the updated future world side. It could still be two buildings with a skybridge attaching the ride track to the other side allowing for a very detailed indepth attraction. The second change would be a complete revamping of the end of spaceship earth. I am still appalled at the cop out Disney did for this rides once fabulous finale. Instead of the black felt and Christmas lights tunnel, there could be a celebration of mans great achievements that have occurred as the result of mans advances in communication. This should be done without video screens for crying out loud we've looked at those enough!

If the Disney business people can be separated from their obsessive drive to cross-sell every Disney product wherever they can find a place to do that, WDW would be a better place.

The original World's fair idea that learning and entertainment are not exclusive, and certainly not a venue where every Disney character and product are aimed at the most infantile mind, imagine if The Land were a dark ride that compared "the Land" on Earth with "the land" on, say Mars. How did these planets evolve into what they are today, and why is it important to learn about them both?

Imagine that the "Energy" pavilion is also a dark ride, half of it is historic about mankind's search for transmittable and portable energy; the second half about the digital world, robotics, AI, and the need to find environmentally clean energy that can be stored in ways that we don't yet know how to ("batteries")

Imagine the "Mind" pavilion that also runs a dark ride that looks into the risks and opportunities when the human mind and AI finally interface. The ride can explore things such as, What is memory? What is thought? Why does the human mind create the arts, music, the things that make us human, not just STEM stuff.

Disney should speak up, not down, to us and our children. Disney should stop thinking that we are nothing but simpletons who need an adrenalin rush

A common thesis/identity is much needed for EPCOT. I like the idea of an 'authentic' world showcase, and limited characters. Not sure I'm 100% with you on ALL OR NOTHING characters. A limited dose of the characters would be fine. But limited. As a teen in the 80's, I thrived on dark & educational adventures at EPCOT. Show the kids & adults the way, but leave room for their own imaginations by not getting distracted with too much kiddie stuff. And PLEASE, no more flavor-of-the-week celebrites hosting the rides. I like Ellen, but I hated the ride when she took over Energy. Killed it for me. Took away anything I might have gotten out of that ride. Nothing but a distraction.....possibly by design. The ride was becoming very dated.

Being drab and outdated is one thing...but more often than not, people long for rides/attractions that were replaced rather than updated. With the understanding that EPCOT is about "tomorrow" , retro-futurism seems just as important as futurism itself. EPCOT always seemed a more "mature" park...and with maturity comes an appreciation of the beauty and importance of the past as well as the future. A future world, as seen in the mid-60s, sounds absolutely beautiful. No reason you couldn't also have a world's fair type pavilion to showcase futuristic technologies as well.

I like the idea of using characters in Epcot. The rides that you guys propose for the characters they go pretty well; the idea of using Big Hero 6 to represent the Energy maybe this a good way to reinforced the values that those characters already represent. I think one of the movies that had a pretty strong theme is Wall-e and that it could work as part of the characters for Epcot. I just wanted also to congrats you guys in this amazing brainstorm, I found it interesting and enriching under a lot of aspects.

Will not happen any time soon as Disney just spent millions on Magic Kingdom and now are working on upgrades to AK and almost a total reboot of Studios. Little money left for any changes to Epcot any time soon. Plus Epcot still does well with attendance with it special events each year like Food and Wine Festival and the Flower and Garden show, so no need to make these changes now with people showing up anyway.

One of the reasons that Discover land didn't take place and Racers specifically was that, according to a comer on Imagineers, the current ride system for Spaceship Earth was an integral part of the building and couldn't be dismantled without damaging the building. This wasn't discovered until after the plans had leaked.

I love the World Showcase. I agree with one of the comments before that said the whole park should be re-imagined to the World Showcase. You could even include lost civilizations like Ancient Rome, the Ancient Egyptians, the Mayans and Atlantis (was it real? will we ever know?). A Native American civilization would be pretty neat too. Expand the countries a little more. Maybe the countries can offer more than shopping and eating. Maybe more interactive fun - Learn to salsa dance in Mexico would be a great idea! Museums relating to each country's history should be a part of the experience. Bring back "roaming" characters instead of just meet and greets! Loved the days when Peter Pan and Capt Hook roamed around causing mayhem (Capt Hook literally stole my mother's shoe one time!). Maybe incorporate some historical characters as well - like a wandering Leonardo da Vinci or King Richard the Lionhearted! Playgrounds themed in the lands for the kids would be a good break too. Anyway, I agree EPCOT needs an overhaul.

Is it weird that being stuck in 1982, is kind of the appeal of Epcot for me? The day the remove any synthesizer music from Future World ill be a very sad day for me.

I don't understand why they can't get any sponsorship? $200,000 a year is not much to maintain. Especially for huge corporations. What about China? I bet they would love to sponsor a headlining attraction at Epcot $50 million or even $100 million would seem like a reasonable price to pay to bring more tourists to China and portray a new and modern China.

Ellen's Energy Adventure was not the original show, it was an update too. That's why the ride doesn't use all of the seats, that and lack of interest, although I like it.

I personally think adding Frozen Ever After is the worst thing ever. As with all the other "futuristic/innovative" attractions of EPCOT past, the popularity of Frozen will eventually die out (or just get to the point that people are SO DARN SICK OF IT that it won't be a popular idea). What's worse is that Frozen Ever After replaced Maelstrom!!

I really like your ideas. Discoveryland instead of "Future"land. Growth potential. Bring in Disney characters all around. Especially to World Showcase. They added characters to the lands of "It's a Small World" at Disneyland. Go bigger.

I think there are two things that need to remain constant which is spaceship earth and the world showcase. Spaceship earth is an international landmark like the castle in magic kingdom. Spaceship earth can be mentioned or drawn roughly and everyone knows it. It's akin to the Eiffel tower and the pyramids. The world showcase is like nothing else around which makes it really cool and really enjoyable! The world showcase is like getting transported around the world and being able to visit 11 countries from around the world. Where you get to see the architecture, some of their culture, and try of their food.

Two words: Stark Expo

I think they should rebrand all of Epcot as the world showcase dedicate the whole park to countries and civilizations they could redo test track as a simulation down the amazon and change the whole area to Brazil. The living seas could be rebranded as Polynesia journey to imagination can turn into Egypt. Spaceship earth already fits the theme. It wouldn't be the first time a park reinvented themselves

I actually like the concept you guys thought up with the going all out with the characters. My only complaint is you can't put Pinocchio in Germany because he is an Italian literary character and belong in the Italy pavilion! :)