What would the world have been like if Walt had lived longer?

Now there's an interesting question, don't you think? 

Perhaps your first inclination is to say that it would be pretty much what it is today, except with a better Walt Disney World in Florida.  And that might be the exact right answer. 

But we all know that Walt wasn't one to rest on his laurels.  He was always moving forward.  Any reason to think that wouldn't have continued?  His passion at the time of his death was his reimagined city concept which may or may not have been a success. 

I know I've written in this blog that what we got may in fact be preferable to what Walt wanted.  But I wrote that as a Disney fan.  I would never try to argue that what we got was "progress" in any sort of really important way.  Whether his ideas proved to be workable or to be a complete failure, the world would have gained something - knowledge about what might or might not work. 

Would having that knowledge have improved the world?  Well, it certainly would not have hurt the world.  Think of the mess our cities are today.  Not technologically, but socially.  I live near Chicago where we can't seem to stop the kids in gangs from killing each other and often (far, far too often) catching innocent bystanders in the crossfire. 

I'm not sure that Walt's social experiment with urban planning would have helped these people.  But who knows?

But more to the point, Walt was, in my opinion, his generation's Steve Jobs.  Yes, he focused on entertainment most of the time, but in a way, so did Steve Jobs and Apple.   What has Apple really changed?  They've changed the way we consume our entertainment, with our tablets and our iPods and iTouches and our smartphones.  Cool toys, all of them.  I'm pretty sure they all have applications beyond entertainment.  (For example, you can download my DOING DISNEY ebook and read it on the Kindle app on an iPad...shameless self-promotion...and not really to the point since reading is entertainment.)

What if Walt had taken the next step in his audio-animatronics and created actual AI robotics?  What shape might such things have taken?  What if Walt had put his mind to space?  His contributions to our space program were mostly PR-related, but would it not have been cool if he would have had any sort of input, through the megaphone of the Disney media giant, into the direction our space explorations might have taken?  Can you imagine Walt's excitement if he had actually lived to see Neil Armstrong step onto the moon?  Disney might have more than a few satellites in orbit (I'm assuming that, as a media company, they have at least a couple of those things flying above our heads)...they might have actually had a presence in space, if Walt could have envisioned it - and I'm pretty sure that if anyone could have, Walt could have.

I'd love to assume I have someone reading this, and if that is the case, I'd then love to hear what changes, if any, Walt might have involved himself in beyond the urban planning exercise he was devoted to in Florida.  The comments are available if you have anything to add to what is, to me, a fascinating thought experiment.

(As an aside, read   HABST AND THE DISNEY SABOTEURS if you want to take a look at Leonard Kinsey's thought about what might have been if Walt's mind had been allowed to continue working on problems in the world...)

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If you want to read a book about one family's strategies when vacationing for a week at Disney World, feel free to check out my title , Doing Disney: How To Spend A Week At Disney's Florida Resort   It's available on Amazon for $2.99.  I tried to write it for families who get to spend a week in the World every year or two and want to maximize their time in the parks and in the area.  It doesn't try to be comprehensive, but I think you might find a few helpful tidbits within its electronic pages...

Thanks!

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Frontiers...

It seems when one reads the various blogs about Disney, there is a lot of commentary on two places: EPCOT and Tomorrowland in the Magic Kingdom or Disneyland. I would say this is probably because these are the areas that inspire - they are perhaps the best examples of the high-level imagineering that goes on when developing a theme park. When you talk to a Disney fan, it seems that often they came by their passion by visiting EPCOT as a child or a teen. Before that, it was probably one of the Tomorrowlands that inspired fans.

I've read a lot of "armchair imagineering" that reimagines the futuristic elements of Disney's park offerings, and it seems a common complaint is that they've become somewhat stale in their treatment of the futuristic themes. Or watered down, often, with attractions that are more for thrills or for character tie-ins than for any link to the future. I've done a bit of armchair imagineering myself back when I started this blog.

Anyway, it got me thinking. The future is about exploring new frontiers. Whether we humans are actually getting anywhere is debatable, but we certainly spend enough imagination thinking about the future. So what are those frontiers now?

Space, of course, remains a major frontier, one we've just barely touched on exploring. EPCOT touches on this frontier with the MISSION: SPACE attraction, and Tomorrowland is supposed to be all about a future where space travel is commonplace. It's a theme that is rich with possibilities. Science fiction writers still use human expansion into space as a major theme for their works.

Less popular, perhaps, but still a mystery to much of humanity, the oceans are another frontier. This environment offers challenges almost as harsh as exploration of space offers, and we know little about some parts of the deep oceans, including what sorts of creatures live there. When I think of the oceans, I always think of James Cameron's movie THE ABYSS. Other movies and books have dealt with the oceans as a frontier for our exploration also, but that's the one that jumps out at me.

A third frontier is the area under our feet. JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is of course the book and movie that jumps out at me. The world of caves and subterranean environment is a fascinating milieu, and we humans have often looked downward in our expansion efforts. Subways, basements, defensive installations, cave exploration and catacombs and graves are all ways we expand and utilize the underground frontier.

Does anyone have any other frontiers?

Do any of these frontiers excite you more than another?

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Disney Film: TRON: LEGACY

I took my sons to see the 3D version of Tron: Legacy on Sunday, and had mixed reactions. On the one hand, I loved the "look" of the film. The 3D world was incredibly imagined and rendered, and it was (to me at least) a very original take on something like this. I enjoyed the effects immensely. I also loved my kids' reactions to the film. They were blown away by the action and the appearance of the Tron universe, even though they had a hard time following every nuance of the story, in part because they had never seen the first Tron.

But only in part because of that. Also, in part, because the story itself had a bunch of "what the heck?" moments, where stuff just didn't make that much sense. My younger son was after me to explain why Clu was bad if he was a sort of copy of Kevin Flynn, and why he did the things he did. I couldn't really explain it to him, or to myself. (I think I said that he wanted to eliminate anything imperfect, but just *what* is imperfect differs from individual to individual. That was the best I could do. I guess it was good enough.)

Part of my problem was that I read too many reviews of the movie beforehand. Reviews like the Chicago Tribune article referenced in a post about a week ago, but also ones like this: Feo Amante's Tron Review

Or this: Blue Sky Disney's Tron Review

(WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE...)

These reviews pointed out issues with the script/story before I ever saw the movie, and I couldn't help thinking about the issues they raised as I watched the movie. For example, E.C. McMullen at Feo Amante (a pretty conservative character even though he does love his horror movies) asks why Sam Flynn is so pissed at the company that obviously affords him the wherewithal to simply walk out of jail after his intrusion on the company (where he controls most of the shares) causes a big problem for their latest OS release. After all, his wealth comes from this company. Why does he hate them so? Because they're big? Because they make money? Because they're duping people into buying their products when there is no improvement in said products? Especially since Sam can take control of the company any time he wants to.

The Blue Sky review points out that the CGI "young" Flynn doesn't look like Bridges did when he was younger, and again, I fixated on this. It does and it doesn't, at the same time. I didn't pay too much attention to the "real" young Bridges when he's talking to Sam (as a 12 year old) near the beginning of the film, but when you think about it, why should an artificial construct like Clu look indistinguishable from its creator? The odd thing for me was that Clu sort of looked like a young Sean Penn as much as he did a young Jeff Bridges.

I also didn't quite get the whole "Iso" thing. How do you wipe out a race that sort of spontaneously came into existence in the first place? Wouldn't they just continue to spontaneously generate themselves? Why don't they, if conditions were right? Or have conditions become "wrong" somehow? And when Sam first gets transmitted to the computer world, he comes out of something that to me looked analogous to Flynn's arcade in the real world. Why does he come out of there, but have to travel great distances to get to the portal to reenter our world? Where is that place, and how did Clu's "police" find him so easily and quickly after he gets to that world?

And Flynn's place: Is it a digital construct, or was Flynn able to bring physical objects like books to the realm? And for that matter, are the two Flynns physically there? They aren't digitized versions of themselves? Granted, this question goes back to the original Tron but it still makes me wonder. And it leads me to my last question: How does Quorra exit the digital world, and what exactly IS she in our world? Or is she in our world at all? When Sam was downloading something into his pocket computing device, was that Quorra? What was in the chip hanging from around his neck? Was the final scene actually Quorra or was it something existing in Sam's imagination?

All this said, I did not agree with McMullen about the look of the film. I thought, as I said before, that it was incredible, while McMullen hated it. For me, this was a film that left far too many questions and hanging plot points but was still a stimulating, exciting experience that was worth seeing in the theater, and worth seeing in 3D. A great film? Nah. A good, fun movie that delivered at least on some of its promise? I vote "Yea"! I'll likely buy it on BluRay, and I wouldn't mind going to see it again in the theater. (And I might try to check out Turistas which apparently starred Olivia Wylde...)

*****

Disney Parks - EPCOT: Failed Promise or Unique Theme Park?

As you peruse the Disney blogs, one of the topics that elicits the most passion, in both blog entries and in the reply sections to those blogs, is the theme park known as Epcot. Or you can call it EPCOT Center, if you're so inclined.

As we all know, the letters E*P*C*O*T actually stand for something: They are an acronym for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow". And as we Disney fanatics also know, the original intent of the "Florida Project", at least in Walt Disney's mind, was to create the city of tomorrow, where corporations would save the day along with astute city planning and concepts of development. It didn't happen that way, and without Walt, there was probably never a chance of it happening. Walt was the one who could "sell" the various corporations on his ideas. Whether Roy and the others who succeeded Walt ever fully believed in the concept is open for debate, I suppose. I know that Roy paid lip service to the goal of building such a city, but I wonder if, had he lived longer, he would have continued to push for it as a goal.

So EPCOT became a thing of legend, and in its place came EPCOT Center, a park dedicated to ... to what? The front half, Future World, was obviously themed around the near future, while the back half was themed around presentations of different cultures in the World Showcase. I was never there, but I know from my reading that the pavilions that are there today were mostly there back then, with two notable exceptions: the Horizons pavilion and the Wonders of Life pavilion.

Nothing seems to elicit more passion than the Horizons ride-through attractions, heavy on animatronics and futuristic imagery. It was closed eventually, for whatever reason (a sinkhole?), and later, in its place, the Mission: Space pavilion opened. The World of Motion pavilion gave way to Test Track, but at least it is still more or less dedicated to the topic of transportation. Wonders Of Life simply closed and has not reopened.

Let me state right here that the current theme park known as Epcot is my favorite park at the WDW resort. There are some really fun attractions, there are many, many good dining choices, and the architecture is still incredible. And I never had the chance to visit the old EPCOT Center, so I can't really speak to its brilliance or supremacy. I have to take various bloggers' words for it.

Still, I see what they are saying. This park was supposed to be about an optimistic future, but it's just become about the present. And the present is as non-controversially presented as it possibly can be. What is futuristic about it now? Ellen and the Universe of Energy? Fossil fuels? How retro is that? The Seas With Nemo? Cartoon fish swimming in the ocean? Testing autos for GM? Hang gliding over California? And Journey Into Imagination? The one Epcot attraction that almost never has a wait?

At least Mission: Space takes us somewhere that no one has ever gone - except that we're told as we enter that it is a training exercise - presumably for something that hasn't happened yet. And Spaceship Earth's voyage through our (animatronically portrayed) past in order to presumably learn something about our future ends up forward looking and interesting.

So I think it is a park full of failed promise, at least in Future World. I think World Showcase succeeds beautifully at what it presents. But Future World is not about the Future anymore. I am led to believe by everything I've read that the goal of this park was to showcase the cutting edge of technology.

Maybe this is impossible to do in today's world. After all, we aren't amazed anymore by things like videophones or robots. We've been living with them for a really long time. We also aren't all that amazed by the new technology of energy production, at least not wind farms and nuclear power plants. We aren't amazed when NASA sends a rover to Mars or anywhere else to collect data. Advances in technology and science seem to be smaller and less accessible today. And the ones we are aware of seem to be mostly in the entertainment industry - iPads and iPods, Kindle readers and Droid X phones. Not to mention video gaming.

I'm sure there are things out there to amaze us but Epcot doesn't really show us much about it. I am amazed by my mother's cochlear implant. Imagine that a device can take sound, convert it to electrical impulses and transmit it along 22 or so tiny wires to directly stimulate the cochlear nerve, and the brain can make sense out of this and turn it into what we all take for granted: hearing sounds.

Epcot does have a display on cochlear implants, but there's no depth. It's just an advanced hearing aid to most, I think. There are nods to other technologies there, too, but they seem to me to be of the same depth, which is to say, not much. And they don't generate excitement, they are just displays. High school science projects might be more exciting.

Instead of trying to showcase the future and inspire us today, the management has chosen to simply entertain us. And they do an okay job of that with rides like Soarin', Mission: Space, Test Track and even the Living with the Land and The Seas With Nemo rides. They're fun, exciting, and repeatable. They just don't teach or inspire. Edutainment? Not so much.

That said, Epcot is still an incredibly unique park, and it is still "working" for millions of visitors. What other theme park tries to do what Epcot does? I can't think of one.

Were I going to spend more than 4 days at Disney World (as I am in November, though two days will be spent at the competition, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure), Epcot would be the park I'd spend more time at than any other. Just walking around there is a worthy experience. The dining choices make it THE place to go for food in WDW, and the attractions are just icing on the cake.

But they could be more. They could BE the cake.

******

Paleofuture blog entry - Art from Horizons

There is a very cool post on the Paleofuture blog with an image of future "city in space". The image is concept art of a circular (toroidal?) world, sort of like the "free worlds" described by Isaac Asimov in his book Extraterrestrial Civilizations, based on the world of physicist Freeman Dyson.

Take a look if you haven't already. I personally think this would be a very cool concept to base a future Tomorrowland redo around.

The Future - Michio Kaku

A while back I wrote a post about a future direction for a Tomorrowland theme, suggesting that perhaps theming could be done around the concept of free worlds, as suggested by Gerard K. O'Neill and described by Isaac Asimov in his book Extraterrestrial Civilizations. At that time I was trying to think of ideas for the future of both Epcot's FutureWorld, and Disneyland/Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowlands.

I'm almost done reading a book called Physics of the Impossible by physicist and explainer Michio Kaku, who also wrote Parallel Worlds and Hyperspace. In this book he takes various science fiction tropes and discusses them relative to the known laws of physics today. Topics include time travel, teleportation, force fields, invisibility, telepathy, robots, starships, faster than light travel, and of course parallel universes. He divides them into Class 1, 2 and 3 impossibilities. The first of these are technologies which are impossible today, but that do not violate the known laws of physics, so that they might be possible in this century. The second category are technologies that sort of "push the borders" of what is known about the physical world today, and if they are possible at all, wouldn't be realized for thousands, and maybe millions, of years in the future. The third are technologies that violate the known laws of physics, and for these to become possible, there would have to be a fundamental shift in physical laws.

Surprisingly, very few things are Class 3 impossibilities. Perpetual motion machines and precognition are the two that he discusses. The rest of those impossibilities are permitted in some form by the laws of physics as we know them today.

There is a certain type of child who is enthralled by this type of material. It's the same kid who loves Star Wars movies, and maybe loves Harry Potter books and movies. These kids are the ones who grow up to be tomorrow's scientists and astronauts, the thinkers of tomorrow. And it's not a rare type of child. So many boys are attracted to science fiction for more than the light saber battles, or the Terminator chase scenes. And girls are attracted to this subject matter, too, though I wonder how much of their interest is stifled as "inappropriate" for a young lady. (I have boys, so I don't really know this.)

I'm thinking about some possibilities for Disney theming around some of these ideas. They're in the far-off future, but within the realm of reality, which makes them targets for either Tomorrowland or Futureworld. We don't have to rely on Jules Verne's visions of the future to theme Tomorrowland; we have plenty of excitement available in newer thinking. You just have to know where to look for it.

Future Disney

The last post didn't seem to have much to do with Disney, and while I reserve the right to depart from Disney topics on occasion, I feel that it is actually the impetus for some thought about the future as it relates to Disney theme parks.

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EPCOT = Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow

Obviously, Walt's grand dream did not become realized in the form he wished it would. Even now, with Disney execs and Imagineers spinning it, saying that the Resort was the community that Walt envisioned, with guests, a transportation system, hotels and parks, and maybe even including the town of Celebration as part of the "vision", you'd have to agree that Disney World is not a magnet for corporate research and development in the way that Walt wanted it to become.

But what we do have is a unique theme park, with its two distinct "worlds", Future World and World Showcase. The latter attempts to present the differing cultures of the countries showcased in it. And the former was supposed to present to park guests, and perhaps even be part of, the cutting edges of research and technological achievement.

We also have a "land" in the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland, called Tomorrowland, which is supposed to give the guests the feeling of entering the world of the future. This is different from the Future World part of Epcot in that it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with reality, instead being more of a cinematic or even literary version of the future. It doesn't need to project future technologies, it needs to give the illusion of being in a far flung future that is at once optimistic and unfamiliar to the guests.

Our true near-future is probably more concerned with our fiscal and social problems. We're all concerned about the realities of our financial system, of our housing market, of our health care, of our involvement in the world. We really don't have time or resources to devote to any sort of optimistic long term outlook for humanity.

But we don't go to Disney parks to be reminded of our failing health care system, or of our lack of good employment opportunities for both our current workers and our young incoming workers. We go to escape the realities of life, to be entertained, and maybe even be inspired and encouraged about our future.

So maybe Disney could give us some lands that look forward in a positive and optimistic way. I am good with conservation and ecology and recycling and such being a part of of my park experiences, but I don't want to be hammered on the head with them as part of the experience. I want those types of things to be "background radiation", to be sort of taken for granted. Because in "my" future, I don't want those types of things to be issues. I want them to be part of that future, but I don't want to be debating the effectiveness or even validity of these matters. Does that make sense?

Instead, start with this sort of thing. Make "green" the way of these parts of the parks. And focus instead, on what sort of future we could have if we solve our problems. What will our transportation look like? Our homes? Will space be a part of our future, as I hoped it would be when I was a child? Will the oceans become a part of our experience on this planet? Both? (Don't tell me neither...)

Push Tomorrowland's future far enough out that it won't become obsolete in ten years, and then keep it fresh. Push Future World's future out just far enough to give us a taste of real cutting edge possibilities.

I'm planning on writing a few more posts on some future possibilities, and their possible inclusion as part of Disney theme parks.

Off Track?

Has Disney really gone that far off track?

It seems like whenever I read an article on someone's blog criticizing a Disney park there are about two responses: First, some responders who criticize the article itself while saying how good (fill in your park here) is today. And second, a bunch of people who are far more negative than the original criticism.

The first bunch are categorized as "fanboys" or something of that nature by the second group, and the second group are categorized as living in the past.

I'm probably somewhere in between. I enjoy the parks a lot. I think that Kevin Yee over at MiceAge takes a lot of flak for being negative when really he's quite positive much of the time. It's clear that he'd like things to be better: he'd like the parks to be maintained better, he would like to see good areas kept open, he'd like to see less cheap additions like snack carts and such. But he clearly loves the parks - all of them. I agree with Kevin for the most part.

Could they be better? Of course. Tomorrowland seems to be losing its identity little by little. Every time I go there it seems less fresh, and less about "tomorrow". Adventureland just looks in need of some TLC, as does Fantasyland. And Epcot would benefit from not having a pavilion completely closed, and from better designed pavilions that right now really don't have much beyond a queue for the E-ticket attraction housed there and a bit of a post-show for the attraction, a post-show that is too easily ignored and bypassed. Animal Kingdom could use some Imagineering in the Dinoland area, and could benefit from having that area down by the river reopened. I've never seen it open, but it looks nice from the vantage point of the top of the closed walkway down.

Those are just the things I notice. I'm sure there is plenty that I don't notice, that doesn't register. But does it make me not enjoy the parks, or maybe not enjoy them as much? Not that I can tell.

I think there is a problem with our generations today. We live in a far different world than we did when Walt dreamed up Disneyland, and the Magic Kingdom. We live in a different world by far than we did when Epcot was born. We're a lot more immune to the "wow" factor. Think of film. Think of the achievements in cinematography, in movies like Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump. We watched Mary Poppins last night (because we're going to go see the musical in May) and while I love the charm of the scenes combining animation and live action, it looks - well, quaint! And dated. Those scenes in a film today wouldn't wow anyone, though I bet they did when the movie was released.

A friend and I were talking about music. He was lamenting that, in his opinion, no one was doing anything new in music. The songs of today don't take music in a different direction from where it was going all along. There's no new "branch" analogous to jazz, or classical, or rock, or hip-hop. I've tried to look for an example of something that would fit his definition of "new" but haven't been able to.

Maybe it's like this with theme parks too. I mean, the future no longer seems like it's looking outward - and the advances that appear to be coming down the pike, perhaps, do not look like they would make for excitement at Epcot. I read a lot of nostalgia...you know...stuff like "I loved this ride or that ride and why can't they do something like that?" It has to be relevant, it has to be forward looking, and it has to have a "wow" factor.

What would "wow" you, as a theme park goer? I'm open to ideas.

National Geographic Special Edition

National Geographic has come out with a special edition commemorating the 50th anniversary of the space race. It has a foreword by Ray Bradbury, several good articles by other scientists/scientific writers, and tons of beautiful pictures of the Solar System and beyond.

It shows the promise the space program once held for Americans, and for humanity in general. But it's sad, also...to realize that we accomplished so much so quickly, then just took a step backwards.

Science marches forward, but if humanity doesn't go with it, what is it worth?