Project Gemini: Disney’s Abandoned Secret Plan to Transform Future World Forever

What images and impressions come to mind when you hear the word “Epcot?”

That probably depends on when you first visited.

For throngs of Walt Disney World guests in the 1980s, EPCOT Center was astounding. Vastly different from Disney’s other parks (which, at the time, were the three “castle” parks of Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, and Tokyo Disneyland), EPCOT Center was a place of sincere, grounded, intellectual wonder – a living example of optimistic futurism, corporate power, the emerging capabilities of the computer, and the chance to see distant countries… all in a pre-Internet world.

By the close of the next decade, “Epcot” meant something else. With the new millennium on the horizon, Epcot was looking squarely like a remnant from a bygone era. The architecture of the 1980s was unmistakably dated and Epcot’s once stunning line-up of dark rides was aging, too. None did much to reverse Epcot’s growing image as the “educational” Disney Park that kids dreaded “wasting” a day at.

Image: Disney

Disney fans often beg for a California Adventure-sized re-do, dismantling and re-building Epcot from the ground up. True to Disney form, Imagineers at the dawn of the new millennium were hard at work on that very possibility. Epcot was due for a total upgrade and a massive monetary influx that would’ve changed the park forever. PROJECT: GEMINI was a potentially game-changing reinvention planned for the park in the early 2000s… But would it have solved the park’s persistant problems?

With the benefit of hindsight, we can both lament and cheer the concepts from this distinctly-early-2000s overlay that never came to be. Some of the elements of Project: Gemini found life at Epcot and elsewhere. A few are stellar ideas still worth exploring. Others, we’re glad to have left behind. But either way, Epcot today would be a very different place if Project: Gemini had succeeded in its entirety. Let’s find out what could’ve been.

The lost city

To understand where Epcot is today (and why Project: Gemini needed designed at all), we have to consider the park’s origins. In 1982 when Epcot opened, it was sincerely groundbreaking.

In the design of Epcot, Imagineers looked to the forgotten “city of the future” Walt had designed – the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. E.P.C.O.T. then would’ve been just as its name implies: a real city where real people lived and worked. More than just an animator and designer, Walt was a dedicated futurist who sought to use his influence to design a living model for future cities. Smartly designed utilitarian urbanism, EPCOT would’ve featured elaborate mass transportation, ineffable urban planning, and energy efficiency; EPCOT would – in Walt’s imagination – inform the construction of every major city effort thereafter.

Of course, that EPCOT was never built. But the core concepts behind the park informed Imagineers in the construction of Walt Disney World’s second theme park. There, EPCOT Center would be Disney’s “permanent World’s Fair.”

But what exactly is a World’s Fair? It’s important here to take an aside. World’s Fairs (which still happen today, albeit with significantly less international reverence) are international expositions where countries and corporations come together to build massive pavilions showcasing technology and inspiring international cooperation. At least in modern times, World’s Fairs act as conduits between the people, corporations and countries. At 2015’s World’s Fair in Milan, countries from around the world came together to build pavilions showcasing their country’s innovations, cuisine, and culture.

Walt’s World’s Fair

The history of the Walt Disney Company and its namesake are tied very specifically to the 1964 – 65 World’s Fair. It was at that fair – hosted in New York City – that Walt was called upon by four corporations to design attractions.

• For General Electric, Walt and company designed an innovative, revolving theater-in-the-round following one American family through time as the wonders of electricity (and specifically, of GE’s appliances) simplified and advanced their lives. This show, titled “Progressland,” would be relocated after its World’s Fair showing to a theater in Disneyland’s New Tomorrowland, where it would be retitled The Carousel of Progress.
• The state of Illinois – represented at the Fair with its own pavilion – had Walt construct a stunning and unimaginable Audio Animatronics figure that left crowds stunned. It, too, was relocated to Disneyland after the Fair, where it became Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln.

• For Pepsi-Cola, Imagineers designed a dark ride using the same ride system as the soon-to-be-built Pirates of the Caribbean. Rather than swashbucklers, the New York version was flanked by singing dolls and international wonders designed in the charming storybook pop-up style of Mary Blair. “it’s a small world” was also relocated to Disneyland after the Fair.
• Finally, Ford Motor Company had called on Walt to design an innovative attraction where guests could be whisked around elevated tracks around the pavilion’s exterior in motorless Ford cars before traveling into the pavilion for a dark ride through the age of dinosaurs. The technology behind the ride became New Tomorrowland’s Peoplemover while the dinosaurs were added to the Disneyland Railroad as the Primeval World diorama.

Bringing it all together

So Walt Disney World’s second theme park would be Disney’s own version of a World’s Fair. The story goes that two competing Imagineering factions had different ideas about what form Disney’s permanent Fair park should take. One argued for a World’s Fair wherein corporations sponsored large pavilions, each dedicated to a single topic of science or industry. Another faction believed Disney’s World’s Fair should draw on the cultural, international-representation of World’s Fairs, with each pavilion dedicated to a country showcasing its culture, customs, and cuisine. Both views were accurate depictions of real World’s Fairs, but they seemed diametrically opposed.

According to Disney folklore, it was one fortuitous day that the constructed scale models of the two theoretical parks were literally pushed together, building the familiar “figure-8” shape we know of Epcot – essentially, two very different parks united by their similarities.

And like a World’s Fair, the system seemed ingenious.

The futuristic pavilions of Future World would be sponsored by corporations interested in seeding their products and services into the experience. Those corporations would pay for the pavilion’s upkeep and – just as importantly – its updating. After all, no sponsoring company would want its name splashed across an outdated exhibit of retro-futuristic artifacts. In exchange for broadcasting their logos and products across the experience, corporations would foot the bill and keep their pavilions cutting-edge. It was a win-win situation.

It didn’t work. The systematic failure of Epcot’s sponsorship model might be directly to blame for the need for Project: Gemini. Read on…

 

When Epcot opened in 1982, it dispensed entirely with fantasy themed “lands” and instead contained two more concrete realms.

The southern end of the park was World Showcase, a tremendous display of international cooperation. There, detailed pavilions set out to recreate the corners of the globe. Eventually, World Showcase would play host to eleven country’s pavilions situated around a massive circular lagoon, each recreated with immense detail and offering attractions, restaurants, craftsmen, shops, and entertainment meant to bring a small piece of the country to the United States. All of the pavilions were sponsored by private companies with affiliations to the represented countries, and in turn were staffed primarily by actual citizens of the countries working through a J-1 visa agreement.

In the northern end of the park beyond the main entrance was Future World. Like the World’s Fairs of the decades earlier, Future World featured – at its height – nine fully self-contained pavilions. Each pavilion was focused on one single element of science or industry with a pavilion containing multiple shows, attractions, rides, and restaurants related to that overarching theme. Each pavilion was also presided over (and largely funded) by a corporate sponsor who maintained and updated the pavilion’s contents in exchange for advertising and the opportunity to interact more authentically with potential customers. The pavilions of Future World (and their sponsors) by 1989 were:

• Universe of Energy sponsored by Exxon (energy)
• Wonders of Life sponsored by MetLife (health)
• World of Motion sponsored by General Motors (transportation)
• Communicore with independently sponsored exhibitions (technology)
• Imagination sponsored by Kodak (imagination)
• The Land sponsored by Kraft Foods (land)
• The Living Seas sponsored by United Technologies (ocean)
• Spaceship Earth sponsored by AT&T (communication)
• Horizons sponsored by General Electric (all of the above)

At least in the early decades of the park’s history, almost all of those pavilions contained at least one grand, educational dark ride filled with animatronics, music, and details. These larger-than-life dark rides were unlike anything Disney had produced before – totally immersive, sweeping, and realistic portrayals of progress in each of the above fields of industry, chronicling the rapidly advancing understanding of each. To put it one way, the original rides of EPCOT Center may have been the first indication for many at the time that theme park attractions were works of art. Substance. Quality. Many would-be Imagineers today cite EPCOT Center as the springboard for their passion.

And with the involvement of corporate sponsors dedicated to the continual bettering and updating to their pavilions, EPCOT’s rides would have a long life, right?

Financing the future

It began with General Electric. The original sponsors of Walt’s Carousel of Progress had followed Disney to the Carousel’s “spiritual sequel,” Epcot’s Horizons. The attraction was positioned as the keystone of Epcot’s intellectual line-up. While each of the pavilions at Epcot focused on a single topic (energy, health, transportation, innovation, communication, oceans, land, and imagination), Horizons was purposefully meant to include them all and bring them together as the park’s culminating “thesis statement.” The masterpiece dark ride lost GE’s sponsorship in 1993. Consequently, it operated without updates or upkeep for a few years on-and-off before closing permanently in 1999, devastating Disney fans. It’s still considered one of the best dark rides of all time, and is revered enough to have earned a Lost Legends: Horizons entry here at Theme Park Tourist.

That same year, Kraft dropped its sponsorship of the park’s Land pavilion. Mercifully, Nestlé saw the potential and came on as its new sponsor, altering the pavilion’s three attractions to more closely align to their own products and services.

Metlife sponsored the park’s Wonders of Life health and medicine pavilion from its debut in 1989. When they dropped their sponsorship in 2001, the pavilion lost its life support, stumbling aimlessly with aging attractions and quite literally zero investment until it closed forever in 2004 in a sorry state. We even chronicled the rise and fall of the pavilion in a detailed and unbelievable Wonders of Life feature.

Kodak fulfilled their obligation to update Epcot’s Imagination pavilion, but with a razor-thin budget the resulting dark ride became a horrendous and despised installation destroying the revered and beloved original dark ride. If you miss Dreamfinder and the lovable purple dragon Figment, you’ll want to explore our in-depth feature, Lost Legends: Journey into Imagination, as well.

Entering the new millennium, the dated Universe of Energy attraction featuring Bill Nye and a two-decade-old representation of Ellen DeGeneres was in need of serious reimagining. Instead, Exxon bailed in 2004. So those hoping for a triumphant re-design might want to look to the past and temper their expectations… No sponsorship, no investment. The best indicator of future performance is relevant past behavior, Universe of Energy will endure a slow decline to irrelevance (which seems to already be the case given its woefully outdated style), then (potentially) death. 

Why did the sponsor model of Epcot fail?

The failure of Epcot’s model – with pavilions sponsored, financed, and updated by mega corporations – fell flat on its face. But why? For one thing, the approaching new millennium carried with it a cultural shift.

In the earliest days of Epcot, the idea of corporate sponsorships was appealing if not a little retro. Think of the 1960s and its New York World’s Fair again, with people flocking to see what seemingly incomprehensible wonders companies had invented. For General Electric to have had its name affixed to the grand Carousel of Progress designed by Walt Disney was a coup and a tremendous karmic credit to GE – a way to connect more authentically with the public and build some brand association in a world before the Internet. People would forever remember General Electric’s pavilion at the Fair and the message of General Electric that was woven into the detailed attraction and its associated exhibition.

But by the 21st century, things were changing. With the breadth of human knowledge in our pockets, the growing wealth gap, and the movement against the “1%,” Americans today tend to vilify massive multi-billion-dollar companies for existing at all. Practically cemented into our cultural psyche as a villainous corporate oil giant making billions in profit of off our gasoline prices while decimating the environment, there’s little to be gained for Exxon-Mobil by having its name plastered across a Walt Disney World attraction.

So what incentive would Exxon have for extending its sponsorship, pumping millions into a theme park ride?

For that matter, do we want to hear Exxon-Mobil preach to us about energy?

Or consider Kodak – the now-lost sponsor of Epcot’s Imagination pavilion. In theory, the relationship would’ve benefited both Disney and Kodak. Kodak would pay for periodic updates and refreshing of the pavilion and in exchange, its products, services, and logo would be peddled throughout. But with the advent of digital photography, Kodak was crippled. Losing money hand over fist, Kodak minimized the budget for its ill-fated renovation that turned the beloved “Journey to Imagination” dark ride into “Journey Into YOUR Imagination.” For the same reason, it stopped sponsoring Disney Parks maps and Kodak Photo Spots just a few years later. And you can see why. Shareholders would doubtlessly (and rightly) ask how Kodak could continue sponsoring a theme park ride while filing for bankruptcy, which it did in 2012.

The result was that half of Epcot’s would-be futuristic pavilions were left without any financial resource. The “educational” park was no longer even educational, touting tired architecture, ancient technology, and whitewashed corporate messages that were – frankly – at odds with American ideals of the 21st century.

Groundwork

Hemorrhaging sponsorships, retaining the dated look of the 1980s, and lacking lovable Disney characters to disguise those shortcomings, Epcot was in need of some serious investment if not a complete rebranding. Project: Gemini would’ve been a kick-start. Akin to the first round of updates to Disney California Adventure, some quick plussing, replacing, and adding would’ve created in Epcot a new foundation and identity – a springboard for the future.

Named for the park’s dual identity and two twin components (Future World and World Showcase), Project: Gemini would reinvigorate the park and make it worth visiting to a 21st century guest.

What would the new Epcot look like? On the next page, we’ll step into Epcot post Project: Gemini and have a look around. Ready? Read on.

Welcome to Epcot. The year is 2006. After almost three years of being behind a sea of construction walls, things look very different here than they used to. It begins at the park gates.

The first thing you’re likely to notice is Spaceship Earth. That much hasn’t changed. But Spaceship Earth itself might have. Since its opening 1982, Spaceship Earth has been a magnificent monument. The 180 foot tall geodesic sphere is an architectural wonder, supported by pylons dug 120 feet into the earth and holding inside of its over 2 million cubic feet of space. But your first inclination that things are different at Epcot might be that Spaceship Earth is no longer white.

While a white Spaceship Earth fit the more “sterile” ideals of the 1980s future, it won’t do in a 21st century park focused on discovery and adventure. The gleaming sphere is now re-paneled in a brilliant, warm gold that reflects the tireless Floridian sun in dancing waves across the park.

This golden Spaceship Earth is likely based on the plans for Westcot (from which the above concept art is taken), the officially-announced-but-never-built second gate for Disneyland. There, a much larger “Spacestation Earth” would’ve taken on the same golden face with a lattice of white based on the astounding American Pavilion from Montreal’s World’s Fair, Expo 67.

Passing through the park gates and approaching new golden sphere, you’re likely to notice something else, too: a new show building structure has appeared under Spaceship Earth’s northeastern leg, splitting up what was once the park’s wide, open, concrete entry. Now, all traffic is diverted through angled pathways to the right of Spaceship Earth, passing along its side. What might be most unusual about this new path is that it signals the new thesis of this area of Epcot.

You are no longer in Future World. With its once-educational components repositioned and its identity now tied to the idea of “discovery,” this realm of the park is now called Discoveryland. Separating from its “futuristic” identity and the need for continual and expensive technology upgrades in a rapidly advancing world, Epcot’s Discoveryland is not necessarily a place of tremendous learning, but of discovery, inquiry, and exploration.

And one of the key components in this transition is the complete overhaul of the old Future World aesthetic. Epcot’s Future World reeked of the 1980s – wide concrete plazas, beige buildings in dated architectural styles, and a barren, sterile, cold view of the future. Discoveryland couldn’t be more different. Discoveryland is an oasis, with dozens of acres of trees, rocks, waterfalls, fountains, escalators, bubbling springs, sparkling and winding paths, and wildlife. Leaving behind the unwelcoming plazas that had become known as the “Republican future,” the new, warm, inviting Discoveryland would incite exploration. Winding paths leading to forested alcoves, organic shapes, and warm colors would overtake the land and fundamentally reposition Epcot as a place worth exploring.

Center

The wide, winding path around Spaceship Earth would lead to a forested plaza at the center of Discoveryland, still built around the exquisite stepped Fountain of Nations (presenting elaborate shows every 15 minutes, and otherwise acting as a natural spring). The two parenthetical buildings of what was Innoventions would be split and reformed into six separate facilities, creating a more organic and natural orientation than the strict, clean, geometric look of the old Future World.

Leading Edge would continue to display a rotating showcase of innovative technologies. To the south, an unnamed robot restaurant would feature theme park fare served alongside “battle bot” shows of live robots programmed to go through the paces in front of diners. One piece of the former Innoventions would be recast as a proper Home of the Future, recreating a home of advanced technologies existing alongside nature (rather than in opposition to it as Epcot’s former Innoventions did).

The signature element of the park’s central promenade, though, would be Spaceship Earth. And we’re not talking about that old, clunky dark ride from the 80s. The towering gold icon would now contain a thrilling dark ride / roller coaster called Time Racers. This stunning ride would take visitors on a high-speed adventure through time using physical sets and time-lapse photography. The ride would feature a thrilling finale in which the vehicles race out of the sphere for a lap around its circumference before diving back into the new show building.

East – Industry

Exiting east down a straight path from the central plaza, you’d encounter an element of Discoveryland unlike the rest. This eastern half of the park retains some of the more geometric paths, straight lines, and 90-degree-angles of the old Future World. That’s on purpose. The eastern half of Discoveryland would feature four pavilions, each focused on a more scientific element of discovery: energy, health, space, and transportation. The “hard sciences,” if you will.

The most significant changes to these four pavilions would be:

• A complete replacement for Wonders of Life. When the Project: Gemini plans came to light in 2003, the Wonders of Life pavilion was still open, though its sponsor – Metlife – had been gone for two years. Disney apparently anticipated the closing of the pavilion by working a complete replacement into the Project: Gemini plans. It’s unclear if the replacement would’ve continued to be health and medicine related.

• The opening of Mission: Space. The thrill ride was already under construction when Project: Gemini was first disclosed, and Mission: Space was meant to open early as its first phase.
• The Jr. Autopia would’ve joined the Test Track pavilion. The leisurely family attraction nestled into the new woods and forests outside of the pavilion would’ve been a perfect ride for children not quite ready to brave the high speed Test Track.

West – Life

The West side of the park would be different. Based on more natural and organic subjects, the three West pavilions would be accessed by winding paths, bridges over streams, and thoughtful interactive displays. These softer, more exploratory sciences (oceans, lands, and imagination) earn softer, coiled paths very different from the angular ones on the east side of he park. In terms of the reach of Project: Gemini, the differences here would be quite astounding.

• The Living Seas pavilion would become Under the Sea, a celebration of the oceans in the spirit of The Little Mermaid. The pavilion would now play as a showcase of what living in harmony with the sea would bring. The finale, when guests can explore the massive aquaria (what was formerly Seabase Alpha) at their leisure would be recast, losing the 1980s sea base aesthetic and instead built out as Triton’s Kingdom and a living example of living alongside the seas in peace.

• The Land pavilion would be a hub for the park’s new “discovery” angle, beginning with its exterior. Once featuring a half-dozen pruned palm trees at its front door, The Land would now be shrouded by a forest at its entrance. There within the forest’s canopy would be an inverted Canopy Coaster. Of about Big Thunder Mountain levels of intensity, this family coaster would zoom through the trees in a thrilling race with the queue and lift hills providing for some immersive learning and discovery. Once inside The Land, guests would find Soarin’, a version of Disney California Adventure’s hit Soarin’ Over California. Epcot’s version would – of course – feature an entirely new ride film meant to showcase the many ecosystems of the planet.
• Perfectly situation between The Land and Imagination pavilions would be a sprawling hedge maze. The misty, exotic, gorgeously maintained maze would serve as the perfect continuity between the two pavilions, combining the wonders of Earth with our inquisitive minds. While we don’t know, it’s logical to imagine that the hedge maze might share some elements with the Quest for the Unicorn interactive attraction once planned for Animal Kingdom’s lost Beastly Kingdom land, perhaps even featuring interactive animatronics, clues, mystic codes, and imaginative creatures, just like the outstanding Adventure in the Valley of the Unknown.
• The Imagination pavilion itself would need its own revitalization, as in the early 2000s it was reeling from the disastrous introduction of Journey Into YOUR Imagination. The half-baked Journey Into Imagination With Figment that came after (and survives unto today) would doubtlessly have been fixed. The five minute ride is a shadow of its former 12 minute self, and one would expect that any renovations at Epcot from 2003 on would include a real, worthwhile change to Journey.

World Showcase

The park’s World Showcase would likely get beefed up, too, as the other “twin” of Project: Gemini.

• A long-rumored Switzerland pavilion would appear on still-vacant land between the park’s Germany and Italy pavilions. The pavilion would, of course, have been loomed over by a 192-foot (that’s taller than Spaceship Earth) recreation of Mount Matterhorn. The layout of Magic Kingdom’s Space Mountain is a near-identical clone of Disneyland’s Matterhorn Bobsleds, so Disney would reverse the script here and borrow Disneyland’s Space Mountain layout for Epcot’s Matterhorn Bobsleds. The towering coaster would dive through the mountain and extensive show scenes featuring the Swiss legend of the Abominable Snowman.

• Just on the other side of the American Adventure pavilion, a second mountain peak would rise above Epcot. The Japan pavilion would gain a Mount Fuji roller coaster.  For this attraction, think more along the lines of Expedition: Everest, as the coaster would be mostly contained within the towering mountain and likely include an encounter or two with an awoken guardian dragon. Another lost-lost concept for the Japan pavilion was a bullet train simulator – sort of a way to broadcast the country’s wonders in a slightly more thrilling package than the traditional 360-degree Circlevision films. It’s unclear if the bullet train might’ve joined the potential Mt. Fuji attraction in Project: Gemini had actually happened.

So…what happened?

You’ll likely notice that some of Project: Gemini actually did come to fruition.

Other elements of the expansive and sweeping renovation didn’t. Of those, there are some we would still love to see, and some that we’re glad we narrowly avoided. On the next page, we’ll discuss what could’ve been, what is, what isn’t, and why. 

Project: Gemini never launched, and Epcot has yet to receive a California-Adventure-sized rebuild. Over the years, Disney has bandaged the park with piecemeal additions – some of which were elements of Project: Gemini.

…What happened

Nestlé renewed its sponsorship of The Land in 2003, agreeing to renovate the pavilion’s interior and exterior as part of Project: Gemini. The interior renovation cleaned up the dated look and the exterior planted the forest in front of the pavilion, but the Canopy Coaster never appeared. The pavilion did get a clone of Disneyland’s Soarin’ Over California, but Epcot’s kept the Californian ride film for more than a decade, and the eventual Soarin’ Around the World version that opened June 2016 features more world landmarks than it does natural habitats and ecosystems.

The Living Seas did get an injection of character, but it wasn’t from The Little Mermaid. The 2003 Disney-Pixar film Finding Nemo was a box office smash, and its characters fit perfectly in the pavilion. While the inclusion of Nemo and Friends was a smart alternative to The Little Mermaid (which already permeates across the resort to the point of saturation), the tired 80s “sea base” theme and aesthetic mysteriously remained, creating an odd juxtaposition of characters seemingly forced into a dated shell. Here, the creation of Triton’s Kingdom would’ve been a much more appropriate (and expensive) bet.

Mission: Space was already under construction when Project: Gemini became known, and opened to lukewarm reception and some very public medical concerns that leave a portion of the multi-million-dollar ride system practically wasted. (Fans’ perception of the ride is also unfairly tainted by the fact that it replaced the beloved Disney masterpiece Horizons).

…What didn’t

Today, much of the park continues to languish.

Unfortunately, the Energy pavilion continues to show the woefully outdated Ellen’s Energy Adventure.

The gutted Wonders of Life pavilion is a seasonal expo center.

Junior Autopia never came to Test Track.

Imagination is still in deplorable condition with a maligned dark ride and a rotating schedule of tired 3D films.

Innoventions is perhaps the saddest place in Walt Disney World, still open but mostly long hallways of construction walls and fences, like an abandoned mall.

Time Racers never replaced the Spaceship Earth dark ride (which, if you ask us, is a good thing. We – along with many, many Walt Disney World visitors – love Spaceship Earth as is).

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Epcot and its Future World as a whole continues to be the lack of cohesion. The pavilions run the gamut from Disney characters to Ellen Degeneres; thoughtful and groundbreaking dark rides to early-2000s comic relief showcases; elements distinctly remaining from the 1990s exist alongside the very modern and current stylings of Test Track; the dated 1980s sea base of The Seas is populated by the computer animated fish from 2003’s Finding Nemo. Architecture, characters, pop culture, technologies, and attractions from each of the last 30 years mingle with no steady identity for the park or even within individual pavilions. It’s like the mish-mash of Tomorrowland on steroids, with no clear message, no unity between pavilions or within them, no world building…

And in Disney’s attempt to downplay the park’s World’s Fair / educational components, they’ve added thrill rides like Test Track and Mission: Space that appear entirely opposed to the park’s core belief. 

To be clear: Especially in hindsight, we can see that the pieces of Project: Gemini would NOT have solved Epcot’s identity crisis. Perhaps at this point, that’s a job too large for anyone. Elements of the project did come to life, and those elements are undeniably and tremendously successful. But the piecemeal addition has cost the park a few classics and left fans with a bitter taste, as the park seems to drift further and further from its original intentions.

So what was the intention of Project: Gemini, and how successful was it in those regards? There were really three major elements to this proposed and never-completed Epcot renovation:

1) A future-Less Future World

In their time at the creative helm of Disney Parks, Imagineers have stumbled upon a few truths. One of the most prominent is that “tomorrow” always becomes “today.” Dubbed by many as “The Tomorrowland Problem,” the idea is that any attempt to foresee the literal scientific progress of the future will eventually do one of two things: become an outdated view, or – worse – come true.

Disneyland’s original Tomorrowland in 1955 had been exceedingly futuristic, set in the then-distance 1986 and (more or less accurately) predicting the look and feel of the Space Age. Just a decade later, it was tired, necessitating New Tomorrowland in 1967. The streamlined, white, Space Age view of tomorrow might be back in vogue today, but in the 1990s it looked positively primeval, necessitating yet another (and much-maligned) updated in 1998 that fans expect will be similarly scratched soon.

The point is, foreseeing the future is not an easy task, and the notion of keeping nine pavilions filled with cutting-edge technology in rapidly advancing scientific topics was daunting. With sponsors jumping ship, the bill would fall to Disney, and Discoveryland would fix that. Like Magic Kingdom’s science fiction Tomorrowland or Paris’ fantasy version (below), Epcot’s reborn Future World would be future-less – there, too, would go the pressure of keeping emerging and expensive technologies on board.

This Discoveryland would also disguise the misgivings of 80s architecture and mask the cold, open, concrete expanses of the park that felt so lifeless and sterile. A more timeless Future World would probably be a good thing, as even constant paint switches can’t disguise that the buildings – while beautiful – are so definitively design elements from a bygone era of architecture and thus not futuristic.

2) Characters on parade

Epcot’s original thesis had called for it to be a very different kind of Disney Park, especially when viewed alongside the only other examples of Disney Parks known then (which were all “castle parks”). To leave Disney characters out completely was nothing short of groundbreaking. The strategy had its pros and cons. Today, fans fondly recall the more serious dark rides that the original Epcot played host to, and they adore the original characters Disney created in place of beloved classics.

But as we know, Epcot also earned a particular place in pop culture. The park was often recognized as the Disney Park kids dreaded. Why would a child ever elect to replace a day at the fantastical Magic Kingdom with a day at Epcot, which practically amounted to learning? Disney’s plan with Project: Gemini included the infusion of known Disney characters throughout Epcot with the official plans likely representing only the first phase. And as we know, that’s one element of the plan that did come to fruition to varying degrees. As we’ll discuss on the next page, we’d rather Epcot go all-or-nothing with character infusion than the piecemeal inclusion. For The Seas to involve Finding Nemo and Imagination to not have Inside Out feels very odd. Either go for it, or don’t.

3) Inject some adrenaline

All but announcing the failure of Epcot’s more intellectual origins, the plan to infuse Epcot with thrill rides was perhaps not misguided, but certainly sad. Few would deny that Epcot was a bit slower paced than any of the other Disney Parks (especially as the decades after its creation saw the addition of Tower of Terror, Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye, Star Tours, Expedition Everest, and more at the other parks), but maybe that was alright for many people.

Alongside the beginnings of Project: Gemini, Disney began to market Epcot as a “discovery” park. More than just an advertising-friendly synonym for “educational,” Disney meant to position Epcot as a park worth exploring, with more to see and do than ever. If some learning happened, so be it. But this adventurous discovery park was meant to show the under-18 crowd that thrills were part of Epcot, too.

Project: Gemini would’ve seen more thrills to Epcot than eventually arrived. Sure, Soarin’ and Mission: SPACE came about, but the park never did get its high speed Time Racers roller coaster, Mt. Fuji, the Matterhorn, or the inverted rainforest flying coaster that Gemini envisioned. Again, that might be a tragic loss. Or maybe we dodged a bullet.

Instead…

The rest of the attractions and overlays disappeared into time, and that certainly includes what was perhaps the most important element: the redefining and rebuilding of Future World. Maybe that’s for the best. While fans still beg for a billion-plus dollar California-Adventure-sized renovation to Epcot, Project: Gemini might not have been the right answer… Why not? And what would a good Epcot re-do look like? Check out the next page to see our thoughts and share your own!

As we suggested earlier, we imagine that the key to refreshing Epcot lies in unity – that even if the park’s nine Future World pavilions focus on entirely different topics, they’re united by common threads and can share similar, complimentary styles. In other words, they ought to look and feel that they’ve come out of the same stylistic family and school of thought, even while displaying entirely unique concepts in very different ways. Confused yet?

We’ve seen the idea of united-yet-distinct themed environments before. Here at Theme Park Tourist, we were so impressed by the COSI science museum in Ohio, we wrote about how it’s practically the new EPCOT – totally immersive, theme-park-style learning worlds that are very different from one another in texture, style, design, and delivery, but feel as if they were born of the same mind.

Cast in the same unified style, we might rename Epcot’s Future World pavilions:

• Energy (Universe of Energy)
• Body (Wonders of Life)
• Space (Mission: Space)
• Transportation (Test Track)
• Mind (Imagination)
• Land (The Land)
• Sea (The Seas With Nemo and Friends)
• Communication (Spaceship Earth)
• Innovations

Already, the simple re-branding and unifying of the pavilions under a single canopy of names would add something that the park is currently missing: continuity.

Based on that very simple renaming, there are two branching schools of thought as to what Epcot should do next. At the end of the day, it’s all about character. Disney characters, that is. The big question that will redefine the future of Epcot is: Should Epcot (Future World and / or World Showcase) contain Disney characters?

In our opinion, when it comes to Disney characters in Epcot, we ought to go all or nothing. Either involve Disney characters across Epcot or don’t. So the road ahead forks: will Epcot be filled with Disney characters, or not? Taking the nine pavilions above and extrapolating them down the two paths, here are some ideas.

PATH 1: Epcot…with character

If the future of Future World rests in the inclusion of Disney characters, then here are some thoughts.

• Energy ought to be an attraction incorporating the characters from Disney’s Big Hero 6 and taking on the appearance of the Ishioka Robotics Lab from the film. Leaving behind the dinosaur dark ride entirely (which is only tangentially related to energy to begin with), the new Energy pavilion could include multiple attractions like Baymax Energy Blast, a dark ride through the Ishioka Robotics Lab as Baymax and Hiro explore the laboratory trying to find a real-world power source to keep Baymax’s battery charged. The pavilion might also include a Energy Hero Labs exhibition with interactive energy games and exhibits.
• Transportation is practically already poised to take on direct TRON theming in its main attraction (which might as well be renamed TRON Track) with its post-show experience aligned.

• Mind is recast as Headquarters from Disney-Pixar’s Inside Out, featuring an epic and world-class dark ride called Inside Out: Mind Maze following the film’s cast of characters through the wonders of the human brain and the emotions we carry with us through our experiences.
• Land becomes the home of the characters from Up, featuring Soarin’ Over Paradise (a hang-gliding simulator over the natural and ancient wonders of the world), Wilderness Explorer Greenhouse Tours (a boat ride through the simulated environments and greenhouses of the pavilion with Russell and Dug guiding the way) and Up: A Musical Adventure playing on stage.

Similarly, we’d expect World Showcase to take on full, worthwhile character theming rather than the half-baked cop-out plan of today, which consists mostly of meet-and-greets.

Disney can even keep World Showcase as a representation of real countries and simply insert characters into the closest approximation of their setting (as appears to be the case with Frozen in Norway). This strategy is not unheard of. Consider Tokyo DisneySea, where a Scandanavian themed port will have a small portion dedicated to Frozen with the rest representing a more authentic Norwegian village. Also at DisneySea, the Arabian Coast port is kinda-sorta themed to Aladdin, but stands on its own, too. 

Given this strategy, Disney could insert characters wherever appropriate, assuming each was given a worthwhile dark ride or experience. And truthfully, that would be absolutely wonderful in many ways. Just imagine:

• A version of Disneyland Paris’ Ratatouille: The Adventure in France.
• A classic suspended magic carpet dark ride called A Whole New World for Aladdin in Morocco, flying over the wonders of the ancient world for a final encounter with the gleaming palace of Agrabah – a sort of Peter Pan’s Flight meets Storybookland Canal Boats;
• A Jolly Holiday dark ride with Mary Poppins in the United Kingdom;
• Mulan: Honor to Us All – a full, appropriate dark ride in China;

• Pinocchio’s Daring Journey – the classic Disneyland dark ride – in Italy.

If characters are the way to go, World Showcase can blend them creatively into existing countries without being offensive. We wouldn’t argue that that defeats the original purpose of Epcot, because it pretty entirely does. But in terms of improving the park’s quality, adding these attractions would certainly do something to boost the park’s reputation and offerings, and that’s hard to debate.

PATH 2: Epcot…character-free

The original designers of Epcot purposefully kept the park free of recognizable Disney characters, hoping instead that the park would be something different. In their stead, beloved characters were replaced by original ones developed just for the park, and real historical figures who were worthwhile inspiration. If an eventual renovation of Epcot decides to downplay characters (which may or may not be the right thing), we can think of some great ways to develop original attractions that feel like part of the same continuity. Again built off of the simple, unified naming conventions at the top of the page, here are some of our original ideas for a character-free renovation to Epcot:

• The Energy pavilion could feature Energy Explorers, a trackless, LPS-style dark ride designed in a blacklight, pop-up comic-book style. In the preshow, guests would meet three animated young people. When a blackout strikes the city, the trio reveals that they’re really the Energy Explorers – energy waste fighting super heroes. The gang then brings guests along with them as they track the outage and explore renewable and non-renewable resources en route. The finale sees guests restore power and enter the bustling comic book cityscape watching as energy flows around them.

• The Body pavilion might feature a classic Omnimover dark ride called The Incredible Voyage Within. Based on the style of Disneyland’s Adventure Thru Inner Space, this slow-moving dark ride would use physical sets and animatronics to miniaturize guests and send their Atommobiles into a human and through the cavernous wonders of the blood stream, heart, lungs, and brain.
• The Sea pavilion would continue to feature a dark ride, but replace Nemo and Friends with demonstrations of the wonders of ocean research – pressure, buoyancy, sonar, submersibles, etc. The dark ride portion would then lead into a massive shipwreck, where guests would disembark and find themselves in the ancient Chamber of Poseidon, reigned over by a massive statue of the ancient god with the windows of his expansive temple looking out onto the wonders of the sea. In this way, the Seas pavilion would deal with the realities of ocean research and our connection to the seas through literature and storytelling.

• The Mind pavilion could, of course, return to its original incarnation with the wonderful Journey Into Imagination dark ride – updated for the 21st century – guided by Dreamfinder and Figment through the wonders of imagination and discovery. This would also see the re-opening of Mind Works, the interactive post-show exhibit of hands-on demonstrations. As well, the current 3D theater could be re-incorporated into the pavilion as Figment’s Flight, a daring motion simulator in the style of Universal’s Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem.

Think about it…

Starting quickly after its lackluster opening in 2001, Disney’s California Adventure began adding attractions to try to get people in the gates.

“A bug’s land,” Tower of Terror, Toy Story Midway Mania, Monsters Inc. Mike and Sully to the Rescue, Main Street Electrical Parade… While wonderful experiences on their own, they wouldn’t have earned the park the praise it gets today. They were temporary bandages; piecemeal additions meant to help bolster the park short term. But even if California Adventure had added a dozen such attractions, it wouldn’t have been enough. Why?

Because the problems with California Adventure were foundational. The park was fundamentally flawed… it needed more than just new attraction. It needed a new identity. It wasn’t until 2007 – 2012 during the five-year, billion+ dollar renovation that California Adventure was fixed at its foundation. More than just new rides, it had a new thesis; a new identity; a new core.

If you ask us, that’s what Epcot needs, too… More than just new rides, it needs a new chance. Project: Gemini might not have been exactly what the park needed, but it did attempt one radical and necessary thing: to fundamentally redefine Epcot’s aging Future World with a little more unity and mask to hide the dated aspects of a park that’s still very definitive in its 1982 birth year.

Our very simple plans for Epcot presented on this page probably aren’t the exact answer, either, but we tried to do the same thing: to break Epcot down to the foundation (which works) and rebuild it from that perspective into something that could last.

Whether you think Project: Gemini would’ve worked or not; whether you think Epcot needs characters or not; whether you liked our brainstorming or not, we think you’ll agree that Epcot needs something big. Frozen Ever After might get guests in the gate, but it’s a Band-Aid, and only serves to make the park’s foundation even less cohesive. Ten Frozen Ever Afters wouldn’t solve Epcot’s problem. It needs to be reborn, just like Disney California Adventure. Disney Executives allegedly balked at Project: Gemini’s $500 million price tag. But now, a decade later, we can safely imagine that it will cost well past double that to give Epcot what it needs, whether that’s the “Discoveryland” overlay or something else.

So you’ve heard what Imagineers planned in the early 2000s. You’ve read our brainstorming thoughts for the park. Now it’s your turn. In the comments below, tell us what you think Epcot needs if the park wants to stay relevant for families. Or maybe you think the park is fine just the way it is. Is Frozen being included in World Showcase the worst thing ever? Or is it a sensible direction for a park that seems pretty directionless? Just based on our brainstorming on this page, would you rather see an Epcot filled with characters, or completely devoid of them? We can’t wait to hear your thoughts and discussions.