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Project: Gemini never launched, and Epcot has yet to receive a California-Adventure-sized rebuild. Over the years, Disney has bandaged the park with piecemeal additions – some of which were elements of Project: Gemini.

...What happened

The Land

Nestlé renewed its sponsorship of The Land in 2003, agreeing to renovate the pavilion’s interior and exterior as part of Project: Gemini. The interior renovation cleaned up the dated look and the exterior planted the forest in front of the pavilion, but the Canopy Coaster never appeared. The pavilion did get a clone of Disneyland’s Soarin’ Over California, but Epcot’s kept the Californian ride film for more than a decade, and the eventual Soarin' Around the World version that opened June 2016 features more world landmarks than it does natural habitats and ecosystems.

The Seas

The Living Seas did get an injection of character, but it wasn’t from The Little Mermaid. The 2003 Disney-Pixar film Finding Nemo was a box office smash, and its characters fit perfectly in the pavilion. While the inclusion of Nemo and Friends was a smart alternative to The Little Mermaid (which already permeates across the resort to the point of saturation), the tired 80s “sea base” theme and aesthetic mysteriously remained, creating an odd juxtaposition of characters seemingly forced into a dated shell. Here, the creation of Triton’s Kingdom would’ve been a much more appropriate (and expensive) bet.

Mission: Space was already under construction when Project: Gemini became known, and opened to lukewarm reception and some very public medical concerns that leave a portion of the multi-million-dollar ride system practically wasted. (Fans’ perception of the ride is also unfairly tainted by the fact that it replaced the beloved Disney masterpiece Horizons).

...What didn’t

Today, much of the park continues to languish.

Unfortunately, the Energy pavilion continues to show the woefully outdated Ellen’s Energy Adventure.

The gutted Wonders of Life pavilion is a seasonal expo center.

Junior Autopia never came to Test Track.

Imagination is still in deplorable condition with a maligned dark ride and a rotating schedule of tired 3D films.

Innoventions is perhaps the saddest place in Walt Disney World, still open but mostly long hallways of construction walls and fences, like an abandoned mall.

Time Racers never replaced the Spaceship Earth dark ride (which, if you ask us, is a good thing. We – along with many, many Walt Disney World visitors – love Spaceship Earth as is).

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Epcot and its Future World as a whole continues to be the lack of cohesion. The pavilions run the gamut from Disney characters to Ellen Degeneres; thoughtful and groundbreaking dark rides to early-2000s comic relief showcases; elements distinctly remaining from the 1990s exist alongside the very modern and current stylings of Test Track; the dated 1980s sea base of The Seas is populated by the computer animated fish from 2003’s Finding Nemo. Architecture, characters, pop culture, technologies, and attractions from each of the last 30 years mingle with no steady identity for the park or even within individual pavilions. It’s like the mish-mash of Tomorrowland on steroids, with no clear message, no unity between pavilions or within them, no world building…

And in Disney’s attempt to downplay the park’s World’s Fair / educational components, they’ve added thrill rides like Test Track and Mission: Space that appear entirely opposed to the park’s core belief. 

To be clear: Especially in hindsight, we can see that the pieces of Project: Gemini would NOT have solved Epcot’s identity crisis. Perhaps at this point, that’s a job too large for anyone. Elements of the project did come to life, and those elements are undeniably and tremendously successful. But the piecemeal addition has cost the park a few classics and left fans with a bitter taste, as the park seems to drift further and further from its original intentions.

So what was the intention of Project: Gemini, and how successful was it in those regards? There were really three major elements to this proposed and never-completed Epcot renovation:

1) A future-Less Future World

In their time at the creative helm of Disney Parks, Imagineers have stumbled upon a few truths. One of the most prominent is that “tomorrow” always becomes “today.” Dubbed by many as “The Tomorrowland Problem,” the idea is that any attempt to foresee the literal scientific progress of the future will eventually do one of two things: become an outdated view, or – worse – come true.

Disneyland’s original Tomorrowland in 1955 had been exceedingly futuristic, set in the then-distance 1986 and (more or less accurately) predicting the look and feel of the Space Age. Just a decade later, it was tired, necessitating New Tomorrowland in 1967. The streamlined, white, Space Age view of tomorrow might be back in vogue today, but in the 1990s it looked positively primeval, necessitating yet another (and much-maligned) updated in 1998 that fans expect will be similarly scratched soon.

The point is, foreseeing the future is not an easy task, and the notion of keeping nine pavilions filled with cutting-edge technology in rapidly advancing scientific topics was daunting. With sponsors jumping ship, the bill would fall to Disney, and Discoveryland would fix that. Like Magic Kingdom’s science fiction Tomorrowland or Paris’ fantasy version (below), Epcot’s reborn Future World would be future-less – there, too, would go the pressure of keeping emerging and expensive technologies on board.

Discoveryland

This Discoveryland would also disguise the misgivings of 80s architecture and mask the cold, open, concrete expanses of the park that felt so lifeless and sterile. A more timeless Future World would probably be a good thing, as even constant paint switches can’t disguise that the buildings – while beautiful – are so definitively design elements from a bygone era of architecture and thus not futuristic.

2) Characters on parade

Epcot’s original thesis had called for it to be a very different kind of Disney Park, especially when viewed alongside the only other examples of Disney Parks known then (which were all “castle parks”). To leave Disney characters out completely was nothing short of groundbreaking. The strategy had its pros and cons. Today, fans fondly recall the more serious dark rides that the original Epcot played host to, and they adore the original characters Disney created in place of beloved classics.

But as we know, Epcot also earned a particular place in pop culture. The park was often recognized as the Disney Park kids dreaded. Why would a child ever elect to replace a day at the fantastical Magic Kingdom with a day at Epcot, which practically amounted to learning? Disney’s plan with Project: Gemini included the infusion of known Disney characters throughout Epcot with the official plans likely representing only the first phase. And as we know, that’s one element of the plan that did come to fruition to varying degrees. As we’ll discuss on the next page, we’d rather Epcot go all-or-nothing with character infusion than the piecemeal inclusion. For The Seas to involve Finding Nemo and Imagination to not have Inside Out feels very odd. Either go for it, or don’t.

3) Inject some adrenaline

All but announcing the failure of Epcot’s more intellectual origins, the plan to infuse Epcot with thrill rides was perhaps not misguided, but certainly sad. Few would deny that Epcot was a bit slower paced than any of the other Disney Parks (especially as the decades after its creation saw the addition of Tower of Terror, Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye, Star Tours, Expedition Everest, and more at the other parks), but maybe that was alright for many people.

Alongside the beginnings of Project: Gemini, Disney began to market Epcot as a “discovery” park. More than just an advertising-friendly synonym for “educational,” Disney meant to position Epcot as a park worth exploring, with more to see and do than ever. If some learning happened, so be it. But this adventurous discovery park was meant to show the under-18 crowd that thrills were part of Epcot, too.

Project: Gemini would’ve seen more thrills to Epcot than eventually arrived. Sure, Soarin’ and Mission: SPACE came about, but the park never did get its high speed Time Racers roller coaster, Mt. Fuji, the Matterhorn, or the inverted rainforest flying coaster that Gemini envisioned. Again, that might be a tragic loss. Or maybe we dodged a bullet.

Instead…

The rest of the attractions and overlays disappeared into time, and that certainly includes what was perhaps the most important element: the redefining and rebuilding of Future World. Maybe that’s for the best. While fans still beg for a billion-plus dollar California-Adventure-sized renovation to Epcot, Project: Gemini might not have been the right answer… Why not? And what would a good Epcot re-do look like? Check out the next page to see our thoughts and share your own!

 
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Comments

I agree. Pinocchio belongs in Italy. Maybe Snow White's story could go into Germany. I'd like to see more entertainment geared towards boys as well. Too much princess (12-14now?) and how many boy-styled heros?

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