The Future That Never Was: The Tomorrowland Problem
There is perhaps no more divisive refurbishment among Walt Disney World fans than the 1994 refurbishment of Tomorrowland. Billed as, “the future that never was”, New Tomorrowland went in a radically different direction than the iterations of the land that preceded it. No longer trying to realistically depict the near future, the new version of the land instead presented an intergalactic community that started with the futurism of HG Wells and ended with the pulp-fiction of Buck Rogers. It was a distinctly Disney vision of the future that could have only existed in Florida’s Walt Disney World.
In this series I want to take a look back at New Tomorrowland. The details and backstory woven into the land were often overlooked by guests, but it was a land that had a story to tell, and a good one at that. But before we take an in-depth tour of Tomorrowland 1994, however, we need to go back and look at what came before it. New Tomorrowland was very much the culmination of 40 years of Imagineering grappling with the idea of how to present the future, and it is difficult to fully understand the finished product without the context of what came before it. So let’s first look at the Tomorrowlands of the past and the inherent “Tomorrowland Problem” that they presented.
The Tomorrowland Problem
On a basic level, New Tomorrowland was a solution to the “Tomorrowland Problem” that had plagued Disney parks since its genesis. Disneyland’s original Tomorrowland was a sly combination of futuristic optimism and advertisements for America’s top corporations. Although Monsanto’s House of the Future or the Kaiser Hall of Aluminum showcased innovative household products, the only real glimpses into the future that guests got was a look at the soon to be built highway system on the Autopia and the Rocket to the Moon attraction. Besides these attractions, the land also featured such disparate attractions as, the Bathroom of the Future, a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea walkthrough attraction, and the “Phantom Boats”. In short, Tomorrowland didn’t exactly open as a model of thematic consistency.
Although the additions of the Monorail and Submarine Voyage certainly helped fill out the land, it wasn’t until its 1967 refurbishment that Tomorrowland as we know it today, really came about. Recreated as a crisp white land filled with bright colors and geometric architecture, 1967 Tomorrowland was an embodiment of the Space Age. At a time when man had not yet walked on the moon, the Star Jets, Adventures Through Inner Space, the futuristic transportation of the WEDWay PeopleMover and the holdover Flight to the Moon (as Rocket to the Moon was now called) attractions presented guests with a realistic look at a future that they could inhabit. Sure, guests were probably not going to shrink down to the size of an atom anytime soon, but advances in microbiology and the further exploration of space would surely impact their lives.
It was with Disneyland’s 1967 Tomorrowland as its template, that Imagineers set about to create a Tomorrowland for the Magic Kingdom. Reusing the white color scheme and “Googie” geometric architecture, Disney attempted to create a future that guests could theoretically experience in their lifetime. The problem with this plan was that Disney missed their mark. When the land opened, it featured two attractions that were dated the minute that they welcomed their first guests. By 1971, Flight to the Moon was no longer science fiction, but instead a quasi-realistic look at events that had happened two years prior. Likewise, America the Beautiful only made thematic sense as a Tomorrowland attraction when the CircleVision 360 format was new. By the time the Magic Kingdom opened, the format was fifteen years old.
The land’s other two attractions, The Skyway to Fantasyland and the Grand Prix Raceway did little to advance any sense of thematic cohesion or grandeur in the land. The Skyway was a Gondola system that served a practical purpose of transporting guests across the park. The Grand Prix Raceway, on the other hand, was a redesigned Autopia, with the idea that guests were taking part in an international car race (the completion of America’s highway system in the late 1950s having made the original Autopia theme obsolete).
For the first three years of the Magic Kingdom’s existence, Tomorrowland was the park’s least developed land. Imagineers had been aware of the land’s flaws since before the park opened, however, and had always planed on adding a Phase II of the land. A more cohesive Tomorrowland was on the horizon.
The Tomorrowland that most guests associate with the Magic Kingdom really emerged in 1974- 1975. At this time, Space Mountain, the Star Jets, the WEDWay PeopleMover and the Carousel of Progress were all added to the land, and for a time it seemed Disney had finally caught up with the future. With a sharp focus on space and the future of transportation, the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland was finally a complete land.
Throughout the rest of the 1970s and into the 80s, Disney attempted to keep Tomorrowland up to date without drastically changing it. The Carousel of Progress’ final scene was updated from time to to time, as was If You Had Wings. While technically still portraying a future that guests had not yet reached, Tomorrowland began to fall behind in an unexpected way. The problem wasn’t that the presented future was literally dated, the problem was that the way that Disney thought about the future had become passe.
Tomorrowland itself, even in the 1980s, was a natural extension of the optimism that Walt Disney felt for the future. Walt believed that technology and human innovation would make the future, and society itself, a better place. He believed that humankind was on a natural progression towards utopia. By the 1980s, however, the future began to look muddled. Perhaps influenced by the social unrest of the 1960s and 70s, American’s no longer viewed the future as an inherently good thing. Movies like Star Wars, Terminator, and Blade Runner were reflections of this changed cultural consciousness, and they in turn reinforced the idea that the future might not be something to look forward to. These films depicted a future in jeopardy, a place where things could go terribly wrong. The future was no longer the place that would save us, but instead something that we had to protect, or be destroyed by. At this crossroads, Disney had a decision to make. They could give in to a darkened future and try to capitalize on the trends of the time, or they could offer something brighter- a future rooted in the ideals of Walt, that could overcome the permeating negativity of the present, and inspire us to do better.
Alternative Options?
EPCOT Center
Disney’s first real chance to respond to this reframed view of the future didn’t come in Tomorrowland, but in the company’s newest park. Opening in 1982, EPCOT Center stood in stark contrast to the prevailing gloom of the time, and inspired a generation to work towards a brighter tomorrow. When creating the park’s Future World attractions, Disney offered a unique solution to the Tomorrowland Problem, by theming EPCOT’s pavilions after an individual subject (Energy, Communication, Transportation, The Seas etc.) and presenting it on a macro-level. Except for Journey Into Imagination, the Future World attractions took guests through the history of the subject. Often starting in ancient history, the rides moved chronologically, usually showcasing the “future” of the subject in the post-show, or briefly at the end of the attraction. Examples of this layout could be seen in the World of Motion pavilion, Spaceship Earth, SeaBase Alpha, and the Universe of Energy attraction. While this did not completely solve the Tomorrowland Problem (by the 1990s, the original Future World attractions were becoming dated) it did slow the rate at which the remedy needed to be applied. Setting aside the problematic similarity of the original Future World ride systems, Disney could have kept the attraction’s up-to-date with periodic refurbishments and kept the general premise and thematic integrity of the rides themselves intact.
Discoveryland
Fresh off his work on EPCOT Center, in the late 1980s Imagineer Tony Baxter was given creative control over the creation of Disneyland Paris. When designing the park, he offered his own radical solution to the Tomorrowland Problem- he eliminated Tomorrowland altogether. Reimagining the land as an ode to the great French futurists, such as HG Wells and Jules Verne, “Discoveryland” (as the Tomorrowland substitute was called) killed two birds with one stone. On one hand, the new land was a celebration of French contributions to our understanding of the future; the works of Wells and Verne have inspired generations to dream of the future and Discoveryland highlighted that spark. On the other hand, however, Baxter created a land that celebrated the general concept of tomorrow, without having to actually depict it. Instead of the sleek white Googie architecture of its predecessors, Discoveryland is an architectural expression of how various European futurists have imagined what tomorrow may look like.
At the front of Discoveryland, stands The Oribitron (a version of the Star Jets concept) which is designed to appear as if it was lifted straight out of one of Leonardo De Vinci’s notebooks. This ode to the Renaissance thinkers features a bright, gold color scheme and an archaic representation of the planets. The bulk of the land, however, seems to have been dreamed up by Jules Verne. A seamless combination of future-tech and Victorian architecture (a combination that has come to be known as Steampunk), the heart of Discoveryland is made up of three buildings inspired by Verne’s work. Here guests find, Space Mountain, which has been reimagined as a structure found in, From the Earth to the Moon. Les Mysteres de Nautilus (a version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) and the Hyperion Cafe (based on the 1970s Disney Film The Island At The Top of The World) continue this Steampunk theme and show how inspiring the combination of fantasy and tomorrow can be.
When designing the rest of Discoveryland, Imagineers strayed from the Steampunk architecture and instead moved forward to show how later generations imagined tomorrow. The land’s star attraction, Le Visionaroum (The Timekeeper) was housed in a building that featured the art-deco style of the 1920s and 30s. The Autopia, on the other hand, featured the Rayhun Gothic style that entered popular culture through shows like the Jetsons and Lost in Space. Finally, the back of the park featured the modern minimalist view of the future in the architecture surrounding Star Tours.
A New Tomorrow?
In the late 1980s and into the early 1990s, Disney set about creating a plan to update Tomorrowland in both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. With the experiences of designing EPCOT Center and Discoveryland behind them, Imagineers had a decision to make about what kind of future Tomorrowland would depict. The decision that they came up with, was a radical redesign of Tomorrowland in a way that combined the European futurism of Discoveryland with the pop science fiction of American culture. These concepts were melded into a New Tomorrowland, which was designed to look like a futuristic metropolis that someone in the early 20th Century would have dreamed up. “The future that never was” as it was billed, was a daring solution to the Tomorrowland Problem, and one that we will take a closer look at soon!
Justin Hermes is a Columnist for the Boardwalk Times.
