Omen

Image: Disney

Fast-forward to 2016 and across the country to Disney California Adventure – the beleagured younger sister of Disneyland (and the subject of its own Disaster File: Disney's California Adventure feature). Fresh off of a 5-year, $1.2 billion redesign effort that had “turned back the clock” on the park’s once-modern-themed lands, California Adventure had "re-opened" in 2012, reborn as a true compliment to Disneyland with storied, reverent, historic, and distinctly-Californian settings and stories!

But a very unusual rumor began to circulate among Disney Parks fans… Far-fetched as it may have sounded, insiders were adamant that a big change was coming to the newly redesigned California Adventure.

Image: Disney 

According to rumor, the park’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – a still-new E-Ticket thrill ride seemingly perfect for the reborn park’s Hollywood Land – would close. As if that weren’t nonsensical enough, these insiders suggested that the 1920s art deco Hollywood Tower Hotel would be transformed into a sci-fi superhero ride based on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.

So impossible did this rumor sound that many fans suggested it was a prank, invented just to see how far such a ridiculous and impossible rumor would travel among gullible message boards…

Image: Disney

Then, it happened. In one of our favorite features ever, we chronicled the unbelievable story of how Disney designed, dropped-in, then destroyed California Adventure’s Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The 200-foot pueblo deco hotel lording over California Adventure was transformed into a sci-fi “warehouse prison power plant” based on “the beauty of an oil rig,” and Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! opened in 2017. Seemingly playing against the billion dollars Disney just spent getting rid of modern music, irreverence, and inconsistency, the well-received ride nonetheless repositions the park’s future path.

And apparently, the much more revered original Tower of Terror in Florida was due for the same change… Until rumors shifted to another park entirely…

Guardians of the Universe

Image: Disney / Marvel

On July 15, 2017 at the semi-annual D23 conference, it became official: Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy would move into the former Universe of Energy pavilion at Epcot. Little detail was provided, and fans still aren’t even sure what kind of ride this will be. Though a roller coaster was long rumored, the brief concept art and few words said about the attraction make a roller coaster seem a little unlikely… but a redressing of the 45-minute dark ride seems even more unlikely.

Disney did mention that (in-universe) Peter Quill – the fictional hero Star Lord, portrayed in the films by Parks & Rec’s Chris Pratt – has a history with the park, having visited in the 1980s. (Which aligns with his childhood, given that he was abducted by the alien Ravagers in 1988 to kick off the first movie.)

Image: Disney / Marvel

While the brief aside was actually derided by followers as a piece of unnecessary fan service meant to soften the unsoftenable blow of yet another classic dark ride being replaced with a trendy property, we suspect it may actually have a purpose for being; that Imagineers do intend for this ride to be more than a sci-fi superhero action ride, and may actually try to tie it into the park’s Future World.

After all, the Guardians characters are infamously self-aware and self-depricating (On California Adventure's retrofitted Tower ride, the elevator doors open to views across the resort and Rocket yells "Is that Disneyland?! But that's thematically inconsistant!" Ha. Ha.) so it wouldn't be out of this world to imagine the characters outright acknowledging that they've set up camp in an Epcot pavilion.

Whether such an "educational" component will exist at all or not is still unknown, much less if the takeaway message could be related to energy. 

Image: Disney / Marvel

At the end of the day, we just hope Epcot's Guardians ride is formatted into a way that even kind of fits into Future World – a step above the treatment in California right out the gate.

That said, the movie’s writer and director – James Gunn – has said on his Twitter (in response to fan backlash) that the ride he’s working on will stay true to “Walt’s vision.”

I know what's in store and I think it's absolutely in line with Walt's vision & couldn't be more so.

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) July 16, 2017

We suspect he means EPCOT Center’s vision, unless he intends to turn the Energy pavilion into contemporary housing units connected via high-efficiency public transportation. In any case, that signifies that he is at least aware of the thin ice he treads in making his sci-fi heroes fit into Epcot’s unique environment… A balancing act Imagineers clearly fumbled on with California Adventure’s ride.

Click and expand for larger. Image: Disney

The new Guardians of the Galaxy attraction, by the way, will be just one piece of a multi-phase plan to reinvent Epcot entirely. While E-Tickets will be on the way to both Future World and World Showcase, it’s the former that’ll also get the stylistic upgrade (which is still undecided – the artwork above is just a placeholder). An evolution of a long-delayed plan to redesign Future World entirely (as chronicled in its own entry, Possibilityland: Project – GEMINI), the hope is that a redesigned Future World will minimize the cold, sterile, open, concrete ‘80s future in favor of greenery, organic pathways, water, and a more naturalistic and adaptable view of tomorrow.

Last straw

The Universe of Energy pavilion and Ellen's Energy Adventure closed forever on August 13, 2017 – the same day as another Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride. 

It’s not just that Epcot is losing yet another “classic” dark ride, or that Universe of Energy contains the last, fading remnants of the park’s original DNA. It’s certainly not that Universe of Energy (or Ellen’s Energy Adventure) was sacrosanct – too revered and essential to change. Quite the opposite, any hope for Universe of Energy practically required a rewrite and a reinvention.

What is the issue is that, at least to Disney Parks historians and fans of EPCOT Center, the loss of Universe of Energy signals the pulling of the plug; the final pillar of EPCOT Center’s brave, industrious, new way of looking at themed entertainment.

Maybe you could argue that EPCOT Center failed long ago, and that the closure of Universe of Energy is overdue. But to our way of thinking, the problems EPCOT Center faced in transitioning to the 21st century were Disney’s own doing. Each pavilion in turn faced one of two fundamental issues:

1. The pavilion didn’t change until it was too late. Some attractions fell into such conceptual disrepair after so many years without the incremental upgrades necessary, any reasonable path forward required a complete rewrite. Some attractions were simply too outdated for a “quick fix.”
2. The pavilion did change, but diverged away from the rest. Some (like Horizons and World of Motion) sacrificed their “brains” for “brawn,” becoming 21st century thrill rides that lost their wide scope. (Who, after all, would say that TEST TRACK is a better look into the concept of “transportation” than World of Motion?) Others (Journey into Imagination and The Living Seas) simply got character infusions to cover their dated styles. Others (Innoventions and Wonders of Life) were literally just abandoned. This painful diversion not only cheapened each pavilion’s integrity, but defeated the whole point… the interconnectedness; the unity even in difference. Horizons and The Land were connected; Journey into Imagination and World of Motion were teaching the same thing; Universe of Energy and The Land were sisters. Now, the pavilions are scattered… and maybe that’s why the park is.

Image: Disney

At least from here, it seems that the change to Universe of Energy exemplifies both. That’s why – come what may when Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy join Disney World’s attraction lineup – EPCOT Center is dead. And sure, it’s been dying for a while. But that interconnectedness; the World’s Fair concept; the brains and bravery behind a new way of making Disney Parks… they’re a thing of yesterday. Perhaps the great, big, beautiful tomorrow Imagineers are developing for Future World will reunite the pavilions once again… but this time around, expect the common thread to be Disney, Marvel, and Pixar intellectual properties…

The complete stories of closed classics don't end here. Make the jump to our In-Depth Collections Library to set course for your next Lost Legend.

Now we want to hear from you… was this inevitable when it came to Universe of Energy – the most epic of EPCOT Center’s epic dark rides? Could a 45-minute “educational” (and admittedly outdated) dark ride truly continue much farther into the future for the sake of nostalgia? Could it have been updated? Or is the connection between dinosaurs and energy simply too tangential and one-sided to represent the much larger concept of “Energy” anyway? Are you excited for Epcot’s new path with Marvel at the helm?