How I'd Fix Future World

An anonymous commenter on this site's Tumblr asked, "How would you fix Epcot's future world? Curious. I like your brainstorming."

For the most part, the PI Tumblr is a sort of research blog, full of scraps that might maybe someday be developed enough to merit posting here, but I guess I've thought so much about this prompt that it hit the ground running.

Also, I haven't posted any Imagineering Fanfic on here in a while, and I always feel they age really well and never regret having posted them

Anyway. My six-point plan to fix EPCOT's Future World:

A Cannon, a Castillo, and a Cave

Here's a Forensic Story from the queue of Florida's Pirates of the Caribbean.

Actually, better make that "Forensic Stories," plural. Each layer of this sightline has one to offer.

Treasure Enough for All

In 2006, Disney inserted Jack Sparrow and a few other characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean films into the rides that they were adapted from. This overlay proved controversial.

Even the professionals who are responsible for the films found it unsatisfying. Here's a quote from screenwriter Terry Rossio's account of riding it for the first time.

"We...enter Adventureland. I can't wait to go onto the newly refurbished Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Back in the Bahamas, Johnny [Depp] had called us into his trailer to discuss the proposed changes he'd been sent. We agreed that the Jack Sparrow vignettes felt uninspired, and made suggestions on how they could be improved. The original Marc Davis sketches were all about the suspended moment, a particular situation that indicated a larger story (think of the dog with the keys). So we were really curious to go on the ride and check out the results.

"So we hop onto our boat, and some of it is impressive... But the vignette poses were still bland; to end the whole affair with Jack Sparrow sitting on a bunch of treasure, that's about as straightforward as you can get ([my writing partner, Ted Elliott] and I call it 'first draft theater.') It's not that captured moment style that Marc Davis did so well. Later we heard that the imagineers wanted to do something more creative, but ran into budget restrictions."

Remember, this man voluntarily put his name on a film franchise full of scenes like this one. Ouch.

It's telling that none of the critical theory written about the ride after 2006 even acknowledges the overlay. For example, Foxx's Fire in the Night, which is one of theme park academia's most celebrated essays, was written five years after the fact, but you wouldn't know by reading it.

Fortunately, it almost doesn't matter how many characters get slathered over the scenes. The overlay misunderstands the original ride, the film franchise, and theme park narratology so deeply that the brilliance of what used to be in its place tends to shine through.

Where it doesn't, the overlay feels more like graffiti than a bastardization. Skeptics are left feeling that, "One day someone will have the decency to fix this."

♪♫ One of these things is not like the others
One of these things doesn't belong
Can you tell which thing is not like the other
by the time I finish this song? ♪♫
Photo Credit

Personally, it took eight years of riding and four months of working at the attraction to understand the overlay's story, but I think I did it.

Keep Away

Here's one of my favorite Forensic Stories. It can be found as we exit the Jungle Cruise.

The joke is obvious: a dangerous animal, who’s strong enough to pry open the bars of its cage, is running loose. To me, what makes this story so special is the rope between the bars. Why is it there?

Here are some clues I’ve noticed. The rope fits the bent bars, which implies it was tied on after the escape.

The rope is also…well…rope, which is even more pliable than the bars that the orangutan was strong enough to bend. If the skippers intend to keep using this as an orangutan cage, then rope isn't the best solution.

Perhaps they can’t afford a new cage, so they figured, hey, this is better than nothing. That said, there’s an explanation I like even better: the skippers tied it on out of spite.

After all, the Jungle Cruise—and Adventureland, in general—explores the absurdity of humankind’s attempts to dominate nature. So imagine the skippers being so hurt that a wild orangutan didn’t wanna suffer the oppressions of domestication that, after it escapes, they rope up its cage.

"Fine! Leave! I just hope you enjoy your natural habitat, because you’re not welcome in our small cage any more! Boy, did you blow it, mister!"

Any volunteers?

The Haunted Mansion: an attraction so evocative that guests have been deducing its fictional history since it opened in 1969.

Who owns the house? Is it the Ghost Host, or Master Gracey, or--hey, are they the same person? Does the Bride push us off of the balcony, or is it a coincidence that we enter the graveyard on our backs? Why are the maids and butlers loitering in the Stretching Room when there's a mansion's worth of cobwebs that need dusting?

It’s a ride full of open-ended questions, and its fandom has been trying to answer them for decades. Most of the resultant fanfic is convoluted, much of it is harmless, and some of it has even been canonized.

On the other side of the fence, a poorly phrased quote from Imagineer Marc Davis has incited a backlash. It is now fashionable to claim that the ride doesn’t tell a story, at all.

This belief is nonsense, but it's a dangerous breed of nonsense: the kind that prevents progress. If we hope to see more attractions like the Mansion, it's crucial to understand what its story is, why it’s easy to miss, and why the ride is still fun if we miss it.

Bad Neighbors

Here's a Forensic Story that I absolutely adore.

Go on and...!!

Here's an ineffective GIF Story from the Little Mermaid dark ride.

Ariel wants Eric to kiss her, but he won't do it because...of...reasons.

I mean, c'mon, just look at Eric’s face! You could get thrown out of a brothel with an expression like that! He’s ready to kiss her, and nothing's stopping him, so why won't he do it?

The only explanation I can find is, "Because then the ride would end too soon."

This GIF Story is even less effective in person. Every so often, Eric and Ariel lean forward to kiss, then decide not to, then try it again, and so on.

Maybe Ariel has halitosis, and Eric has short-term amnesia...?

Snark aside, this GIF Story has a lot going for it. Boiling an iconic scene from a movie down to a single, seamless, repeatable action is impressive. Yet without a reason to repeat this action, it simply fails to satisfy.

What's frustrating is that the movie offers a solution which is funny, effective, and would only require adding one animatronic to the scene. Place Scuttle in a tree, "singing" along with the music, like this...

...except here in the ride, he's perched right by Eric's ear. Then, whenever Eric and Ariel lean in to kiss, Scuttle squawks and kills the mood, forcing the lovers to begin the cycle anew.

This is just one of the ways that an understanding of theme park narratology can elevate a well-constructed scene, like the "Kiss the Girl" room, into a satisfying experience.

Time to be turnin' around...if only you could!

Theme parks often tell us two stories at once: an Observable Story (which uses a third-person perspective) and an Experiential Story (which uses a second-person perspective).

Few attractions flaunt this structure as clearly as Splash Mountain does. While its two stories are obvious enough by themselves, the ride connects them in a way that builds an unsettling degree of tension.

To understand how, let's chart out...

Bi-Narrative Structure

Marc Davis was one of the most influential Imagineers of all time. Chances are, if you like Disney’s parks, he had something to do with it.

He’s certainly one of my heroes, and--like any worthwhile hero--when he says something I disagree with, it forces me to evaluate my beliefs.

Well, it took three years of research, but I can now say honestly that, in the following quote, Marc Davis pisses me off.

“[Walt] didn’t like the idea of telling stories in this medium. It’s not a story-telling medium. But it does give you experiences. You experience the idea of pirates. You don’t see a story that starts at the beginning and ends with, ‘By golly, they got the dirty dog.’ It wasn’t that way.”

Apparently this was a jab at former CEO Michael Eisner, who filled the parks with narrative structures that were designed for films, but not parks. In that context, I agree with Davis' gist.

What pisses me off is his phrasing. Eisner may have used the word “story” as a slogan to rationalize some tasteless choices, but he didn’t change its definition.

Theme parks are full of stories! It's part of what makes 'em so special. The difference between an amusement park and a theme park is that a theme park is unified by...well...a theme--which is a narrative concept.

What’s more, there are tons of narrative structures that were designed exclusively for the parks. They don't exist anywhere else. If we wanted to tell a Forensic Story, for example, we couldn't do it in a movie or a novel. It would be too oblique. We'd have to tell it in real life, by committing a crime and then toying with the police.

How clever! If only Zodiac had used his skills for Imagineering!
(...although, to be fair, he might have. We don't know.)

Theme parks and narratives have been revolutionizing one another for the better part of a century, and the results have been fascinating. Despite that, their relationship is barely being studied.

Davis certainly isn't encouraging anyone to do so with that quote. To me, that's a shame--but maybe I’m being too harsh. After all, the quote gets one thing right. Most attractions don’t have a story.

They have two.

To all who come to his happy place: kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot!

Wanna hear a story from the Happiest Place on Earth?

A man conquers Death, itself, and returns to life! Unfortunately, when he wakes up, he finds himself in a coffin that's been nailed shut. Unless he can muster enough strength to pry off the lid, he’ll be buried alive as quickly as grief will allow.

This sounds gruesome, yet when the Haunted Mansion tells it, it’s not only funny, but it’s also appropriate for all ages. Check it out:

Forensic Stories

Forget Seinfeld--theme parks are unique in telling a type of story where nothing happens.

They feature neither dialogue nor action. There are no visible protagonists, objectives, or antagonists. The events began, escalated, and resolved long before we arrived.

These stories are forensic. They leave archeological clues that imply what happened, which lets us assemble the pieces together into a narrative.

GIF Stories

A GIF is an image that can support animation. Nothing too complicated, mind you, just a few actions. Roughly as much as we’d see, passing by an animatronic in a dark ride.

Here, for example, is a GIF of the clock from it’s a small world.

Just wait 'til the hour strikes.
Any minute, now.
...aaaaaany minute, now.

That’s all that clock does, all day, every day, rain or shine. There are classier ways to argue for theme parks as a valid artistic medium, but goddamn if that 8-bit image doesn’t capture what makes that clock as fun as it is in real life.

Some animatronics take their GIF-like movement a step further--by telling stories. There are fewer of these characters, but they enrich their surroundings immeasurably.

A ride populated with living characters who tell small-but-complete stories feels less like a narrative and more like a world. Everyone’s dealing with their own problems, but they’re all related to problems you’d find in the jungle. Or with ghosts, or pirates, et cetera.

Let's discuss the GIF story and some of the components that help it work.

The Definition of "Story"

Hi, kids! Wanna reduce art to a formula, and generalize the entire history of narrative structure with me? Cool!

I believe that every story is comprised of two sets of elements.

Part of Whose World?

Okay, this is an essay about a film on a blog about theme parks. Cut me some slack.

Like, seventeen of my degrees are in Film, Disney runs theme parks, the Little Mermaid has been adapted into oodles of attractions in Disney's theme parks, I completed an essay about the Little Mermaid today, and I haven't completed an essay about theme parks in ages. Plus, I'm giddy about this insight, and I wanna tell someone other than my family and girlfriend.

Care to hear?

The purpose of art.

We are weird.

You can’t blame us. We grew up in the Universe—a physical place with nearly nothing physical in it, and no physical boundaries to contain what little there is. It’s a sanctuary for life and love, whose doors are also open to death and suffering. It is interwoven with equal amounts of meaning and futility.

In short, the Universe is no place for small children. Unfortunately, it’s our home, and although we’ve tried our best, it was only a matter of time before we started acting out.

In a Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson observes some of the mixed messages we’ve learned from our upbringing.

“We don’t know which arrived first, a world that contained [Sir Isaac Newton’s] Principia or one that had no dodos, but we do know that they happened at more or less the same time. You would be hard pressed, I would submit, to find a better pairing of occurrences to illustrate the divine and felonious nature of the human being—a species of organism that is capable of unpicking the deepest secrets of the heavens while at the same time pounding into extinction, for no purpose at all, a creature that never did any of us any harm and wasn’t even remotely capable of understanding what we were doing to it as we did it.”

Like I said, we’re weird. And we're narcissistic. And that is why we have art.

We rushed into this blog.

Hey, you.

Let's be honest. We enjoy theme parks, and we're fascinated by narratology, and we love one another. That will never change.

If I was Excalibur, I'd deem you worthy.

But we don't know each other. Not really. If we’re gonna advance theme park theory—and there’s no one I’d rather advance theme park theory with—we’ve gotta get on the same page.

So let's bond. I'll start with an essay or two. Nothing complicated, just some trifles you oughta know about me.

You can respond however you like. Then we'll pick up where we left off.

There be squalls ahead, but we'll rough 'em together.

The EPCOT.

EPCOT is an acronym. It stands for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow."

Left alone, the phrase sounds like a Russian maguffin.

“Comrades, proceed to Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow!”
Perhaps this is a quibble, but it's easily fixed, and the solution could affect a lot of positive change.

What is Disneyland's theme?

Islands of Adventure is one of the most popular theme parks in the world. It has lands devoted to Dr. Seuss, high fantasy, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, cartoons produced by Jay Ward, and Marvel Comics. What do these themes have in common?

Um. They all have lands in Islands of Adventure...?

Universal claims that the park’s theme is “places to adventure.” At best, that means, “places to walk around and go on roller coasters." At worst, it means, “whatever Universal can get the rights to.”

Nothing says "extraordinary" like mass-marketed franchises!
Without a theme to unify its lands, Islands of Adventure is not a theme park, but a themes park--or, more pedantically, "an amusement park with themed lands." That’s no great loss, because it’s still a lotta fun, and it doesn’t have much integrity to lose. It’s not like we're talking about Disneyland, here.

Say, while we’re on the subject, what’s Disneyland’s theme?

Uh oh.

Nothing’s coming to mind. Animal Kingdom's theme is “animals,” EPCOT is “a permanent World’s Fair,” Hollywood and Universal Studios are both “movies,” but Disneyland? I dunno.

How dispiriting!

Disneyland is definitive. When you hear the phrase “theme park,” you probably think of the castle. It’s so iconic, they’ve cloned it five times, on three different continents.

A mouse made the company, but he isn't its logo.
Surely the quintessential theme park is, indeed, a theme park, and not “an amusement park with themed lands!” Surely there’s a subject that unifies it!

...right?

Pardon our dust!

I'm applying to PhD programs, and it's gobbling up my time.

Fear not! There's plenty of forthcoming content. To whet your whistle:


There are four ride-throughs in the works.

Two dark rides for Beastly Kingdom: one about a dragon, and one about sirens.

A show for Hollywood Studios about directing.

A re-imagined Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea submarine ride for Tomorrowland.

There are also new ideas, causes, and philosophies gestating.

Figuring out what Disneyland's theme is, exactly.

Developing a new land for Disneyland.

The problem with--and solution for--Tomorrowland.

What to do with toddlers in the parks, and how we can broaden attractions to include them without excluding everyone else.

Why there hasn't been a great Brobdingnagian attraction.

Stay tuned!

Animal Kingdom needs a dark ride.

For years, Animal Kingdom’s advertisements insisted that it was “not a zoo.”

Nahtazu, n., A theme park infested with zoo animals.
The advertisers were so proud of what the park wasn’t, they forgot to tell us what it was. Not that their summary would matter. They were wrong.

It is a zoo. And it’s a magnificent zoo. The animals are glorious, and the theming is some of Disney’s most tasteful work. Animal Kingdom has nothing to be ashamed of.

...except its attractions. If I were advertising a park whose E-tickets are a raft ride about deforestation and a movie where a stinkbug farts on us, I’d insist that it is only a zoo.

We need more attractions.

Expedition Everest was a helpful addition, but it’s a thrill ride. If we meet the height requirement, a yeti tries to eat us. If we don’t meet the height requirement, a yeti tries to orphan us.

"Hi, kids! I'm adopting you! My stool smells like your birth parents!"
We need attractions for all ages. If possible, they should be dark rides, partly because dark rides are a Disney speciality, but mostly because they’re air conditioned.


Let’s work backwards. If we scrutinize Animal Kingdom's lands, maybe we can find a subject they haven't explored yet.