In 1964, in Queens, New York, Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress debuted, and with it, its iconic theme song: There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow. The chorus to that song, written by the incomparable Sherman Brothers, concludes with the line, “there’s a great big beautiful tomorrow / and tomorrow’s just a dream away.” That idea embodied Walt Disney’s vision of progress; namely, the future will not simply arrive on its own, but only when we finally are ambitious enough to invent it ourselves.
While the song traveled with Carousel of Progress as it made its way from the 1964 World’s Fair to Disneyland, and later to Walt Disney World in Orlando, it actually had a cameo appearance in yet another attraction in 1983. In fact, that attraction, since demolished, was located in the theme park built as tribute to Walt Disney’s most ambitious idea: Epcot.
The attraction was Horizons.
Though it closed in 1999, Horizons remains one of the most beloved attractions in Disney’s history. Fans of the ride have pieced together countless video tributes, photo essays, and even a complete 3D rendering of the full experience – all because they simply love and miss this unique Epcot offering.
But why? Disney has opened and closed dozens of attractions at its parks, and most disappear without much fanfare. Even some of the beloved attractions are memorialized rather simply, with little more than a passing mention on a Wikipedia page. Not so for Horizons. It’s been closed for 15 years, and yet its echoes are still felt through the Disney parks and Disney community. There are even references to the attraction in Mission: Space and Space Mountain, the latter of which were added in 2009 – a full ten years after Horizons originally closed.
The reason why it continues to resonate with Disney fans is both hilariously simple and frustratingly complex – that is, it was a really, really, really good ride. And, moreover, it asked questions that theme park goers aren’t used to hearing, while showing guests images they weren’t used to seeing. And it did all of that while staying true to the central promise of the Disney Parks – creating an incredible experience that can be enjoyed by the whole family.
At a park with Spaceship Earth and Soarin, as well as the removed Journey into Imagination, it’s tough single out one attraction as standing above all the rest ever to inhabit it. But nevertheless, Horizons has a very strong claim as the best attraction Epcot ever produced. Here’s why:
1. Story
Disney’s best attractions don’t just tell stories, they tell ambitious stories. The Haunted Mansion is about fear of the afterlife. It’s a small world is about the unity of mankind. Spaceship Earth is about how humanity learned to connect and communicate. Those are pretty big ideas.
Now think about some of Disney’s less successful experiences. Stitch’s Great Escape? It’s about little more than a particularly gaseous escaped alien. Journey into Imagination with Figment? That’s about a trollish dragon rudely interfering with an ex-Monty Python member’s valiant attempt to simply do his job.
This isn’t to say that all of Disney’s rides have to tell some high-minded story (I love the mindless fun of Toy Story Mania as much as the next guy), but rather, when Disney allows its imagineers to tell important stories – stories worth telling – the resulting attractions tend to make a more lasting impression on guests.
Horizons fit into this mold perfectly, telling the story of humanity’s dreams about the future. It looked at how we envisioned the future many generations ago, and then, how we imagine the future today. Just as Carousel of Progress did decades before, Horizons focused its view on a single family, and showed just how different their lives would be in the years to come – complete with agricultural engineering, immersive marine biospheres and massive space habitats. It showed how, even as families drift further apart and are spread more widely across the globe, technology allows them to be even more connected than ever before.
Those are some big ideas, and not the kind you’d usually find in a theme park. But it’s that level of ambition that ultimately has helped Horizons stick with so many people. It’s hard not to think about what life might be like for the next generation, and Horizons gave its riders a small peek into that future.
2. Scenic Design
It wasn’t just the ride’s expansive story that captured the minds of Epcot’s guests, but its futuristic and awe-inspiring design work too.
The exterior of the pavilion made Horizons look like a spaceship that had landed smack in the middle of Future World East. As guests approached it from the front, it seemed larger than life and, visually, echoed the mysterious promise of the ride’s promotional tagline: “Take the trip you’ve always dreamed of.” Upon entering the pavilion, guests encountered what looked like a futuristic port of departure, with signs pointing toward the boarding gate for “Horizons One” – the vehicle in which guests would take their trip.
The ride system was an odd combination of Disney’s classic omnimover system and a suspended tram, with guests sitting in continuously moving cars suspended from an overhead track. This unique system truly made the attraction feel like something from another time – or, more broadly, like it had the power to take you to different times and eras. And then, of course, the individual show scenes were designed with the same precision and eye for detail as all of Disney’s other classic attractions.
All in all, the design of the ride conveyed a sense of vastness that connected the visual aesthetic of the ride to the overarching themes of the ride – exploration, invention, and ambition.
3. Music and Sound
The overall auditory experience of Horizons remained consistent with its hopeful story and its futuristic visual aesthetic. Disney composer George Wilkins produced a beautiful and moving score for Horizons – one that matched the airy, electronic vibe contained within the attraction itself. While most Disney composers are tasked with more straightforward stories and tones, Wilkins’ duties included writing music that could thematically link across vastly different settings, including a Southwestern desert, undersea habitat, and orbiting space station. And, on top of all of that, he’d have to compose a theme song for the attraction – one which was as inspiring and hopeful as the ride itself.
He did all of that, and his song “New Horizons” served as a perfect intro and conclusion to the ride experience. His music, like some of the other great compositions in Disney history, worked perfectly in tandem with the ride, such that both the sound and the visuals were even more beautiful together than either was separately.
Add to that a wonderfully scripted narration that connects the two halves of the attraction – “looking back at tomorrow” and the trip to the future – and you wind up with an attraction so aesthetically complete that a generation of Disney fans still can’t stop thinking about it.
4. Message
One popular interpretation of Horizons is as a sequel to Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress. In both attractions, we follow along with a family as they interact with the world around them, encountering different innovations and inventions that mark the passage of time. Just as Carousel of Progress takes guests on a trip back in time, Horizons takes the park goer forward, and shows them what that same family might experience decades into the future.
But just as any sequel pushes the story forward, so too does Horizons explore a deeper meaning for the concept of progress. In Horizons, progress isn’t just the invention of a stove or an electric light, but rather, something larger and more universal. Horizons’ progress isn’t just trinkets, but social movements.
In Horizons’ future, mankind has spread much further apart, now inhabiting areas previously thought uninhabitable – the desert, the ocean floor, and space. But these areas aren’t just for work, either. We see children learning in an undersea class. We encounter a kid playing with his shoe in zero gravity. These people live in this areas out of intellectual curiosity more than anything else.
Similarly, while Carousel of Progress focuses on the nuclear family, Horizons expands its scope to the extended family – with our two narrators showing us how each of their children have lives and families of their own.
And so, ultimately, what separates Horizons from its fellow Epcot attractions is its message – a synthesis of all these elements: story, design and music. For in Horizons, the future is about exploring what it means to be human, and empowering yourself to do that exploration on your own terms.
“If you can dream it, then you can do it,” goes the chorus of New Horizons, seemingly drawn from the Sherman Brothers’ declaration that “tomorrow is just a dream away.” And for this reason, the ride concludes by asking guests to choose their own ending. The future doesn’t arrive on its own – you’ve got to create it for yourself.
