In 2024, the newly created CommuniCore Corridor and Plaza opened.
Quickly afterward, park officers proudly proclaimed that EPCOT had completed its sweeping transformation.
CommuniCore Corridor
Over the previous six weeks, Disney has since declared three totally different modifications coming to the park.
One other biggie occurred in 2025 in addition to the refurbishment of one other.
EPCOT
So, wait, I believed EPCOT was completed? What’s happening right here?
EPCOT Reimagined
Disney’s reinvention of EPCOT didn’t fairly work out as deliberate.
The pandemic in 2020 threw an enormous wrench into every thing and wrecked just a few plans.
Idea artwork for the Play! pavilion
For instance, the PLAY! pavilion challenge died in 2020, whereas a three-floor competition pavilion by no means occurred. In its stead, Disney modified its plans and constructed the CommuniCore Corridor & Plaza as a de facto pavilion area.
For these of you who weren’t round then, right here’s the presentation from D23 2019:
That’s a promise of a complete transformation of EPCOT, with some fascinating new concepts.
EPCOT
I didn’t even like one in all them, as Disney would have modified the story at Spaceship Earth.
That’s my favourite attraction on the earth, and I’d fairly Disney go away it comparatively untouched.
This looks like time to say one of many 5 modifications, which has already occurred.
With the Spaceship Earth reboot canceled, Imagineers just lately refurbished Spaceship Earth.
You may look at the modifications right here, however they’re principally quality-of-life enhancements:
At one level, a storytelling gentle would have tied each scene collectively. We by no means bought that.
Nevertheless, we DID get three new points of interest and several other different modifications.
For instance, Connections Café & Eatery exists because of this transformation.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Remy’s Ratatouille Journey had been created, too.
EPCOT additionally added a extremely uncommon and imaginative expertise, Journey of Water | Impressed by Moana.
Journey of Water
Most significantly, Disney cut up EPCOT from Future World into three distinct themed lands.
Within the technique of carving out World Celebration, World Discovery, and World Nature, Disney redefined the vibe.
Journey of Water – Impressed by Moana
Now, administration has lastly leaned into the fact that followers need EPCOT to be a hangout park.
So, the reimagining of EPCOT is way about populism as it’s the introduction of recent points of interest.
The Adjustments By no means Stopped
Notably, Disney executives explicitly acknowledged that they deemed EPCOT’s transformation full.
This occurred in 2024 and even though a minimum of one main challenge was nonetheless ongoing.
That’s what makes the entire thing so fascinating. Disney mentioned it was over, figuring out it wasn’t.
In July of this yr, Check Monitor reopened as a type of non secular successor to World of Movement.
I usually converse fondly of the opening day EPCOT attraction, which I vividly bear in mind from childhood.
Even I can admit that Check Monitor was higher as an attraction from day one, although.
Photograph: Disney
So, I deeply admire that Check Monitor 3.0 embraces its World of Movement roots whereas augmenting them.
Nonetheless, I’m a bit confused why Disney didn’t wait till this summer season to say the top of EPCOT’s transformation.
After all, had the corporate waited, the modifications would have remained a work-in-progress.
As talked about, Spaceship Earth additionally simply underwent important modifications.
Disney enhanced the journey by enhancing a number of of the Audio-Animatronics, just a few of which had been lengthy within the tooth.
Imagineers additionally enhanced the projection in a minimum of the Wooly Mammoth scene.
The audio is undeniably higher as properly, and a few scenes just like the one in Egypt appear extra sensible.
This plussing of Spaceship Earth clearly isn’t the one Disney supposed, however it reinforces a present philosophy.
Disney needs to make each a part of the theme park expertise higher.
So, the corporate seems to have made an inventory of all of the points of interest in want of some love.
Photograph: Disney
Now, Disney is systematically focusing on these points of interest by plussing each to make them higher.
I’d hoped that Imagineers would clear up the again finish of the attraction, which is *ahem* dated.
Photograph: Disney
That transfer may nonetheless come later, however we’re nonetheless speaking about two 2025 enhancements on the park.
The Subsequent Two
Frozen Ever After
In 2026, Disney will make two extra modifications. Notably, they’ll happen on among the park’s hottest rides.
First, Frozen Ever After will shut for refurbishment early within the yr.
Photograph: Disney
In contrast to Spaceship Earth, we already know the upgrades coming to Frozen Ever After.
Disney will improve the Audio-Animatronics on this journey to deliver it extra according to others.
Picture Credit score: Disney
When Frozen Ever After debuted, it featured state-of-the-art robotics.
Because the Disney Parks Weblog notes, Frozen Ever After featured a number of trendy improvements.
Photograph: Disney
The journey was “the primary attraction to have all-electric Audio-Animatronics figures, and the primary to mix electrical motors and 3D printing.”
That article explains among the challenges Imagineers confronted in designing the journey.
Disney
For starters, Disney wanted to seek out methods to cover the wires in plain sight.
These are the varieties of issues the place folks give you higher concepts over time.
Photograph: Disney
That’s why World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland options a greater model of Frozen Ever After.
Fairly than permit the unique EPCOT model of the journey stagnate, Disney is doing one thing in regards to the disparity.
Credit score: Good Morning America
I commend park officers for being proactive about this form of factor, as Disney wasn’t earlier this century.
Numerous points of interest failed to enhance for an prolonged time period.
(Photograph by Hulton Archive/Getty Photographs)
That habits violates Walt Disney’s acknowledged expectation for the Imagineers who got here afterward.
Lately, Disney has honored that want, and it’ll achieve this once more subsequent summer season.
In a transfer Uncle Walt would have cherished, Disney will add a patriotic model of Soarin’.
Whereas Disney hasn’t clarified how short-term/everlasting the transfer will probably be, we all know it’s coming.
Soarin’ Throughout America will debut in time for America’s 250th anniversary.
This model of the journey will fall someplace on the spectrum between Soarin’ Over California and Soarin’ Across the World.
Will EPCOT Ever Be Accomplished?
In complete, that’s 5 points of interest launched or plussed because the ostensible completion of EPCOT’s redesign.
Extra are seemingly within the offing, too. Rumors a couple of new model of Figment have percolated for years.
As I mentioned on this month’s Disney Rumors, one thing could also be occurring with Wonders of Life as properly.
Extra importantly, the timeline means that EPCOT will get extra additions in some unspecified time in the future within the mid-term.
Photograph: Disney
In 2032, this park celebrates its 50th anniversary. I’m assured Disney will do one thing particular for that.
So, the alleged completion of EPCOT’s 21st century transformation strikes me as illusory.
This park, like each different Disney theme park, won’t ever fairly keep the identical.
So long as Imagineers could make EPCOT and each different theme park higher, they may.
Disney’s saying that the challenge was full was an overstatement about what’s occurring right here.
Photograph: MickeyBlog
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