Change at Epcot is inevitable. With an entire half of the park named Future World, one must expect things to evolve over time to keep up with our ever-changing world. Though it was tough to lose classic attractions like World of Motion and Horizons to things like Test Track and Mission: Space, these new rides have helped inject a new kind of energy into Epcot, even if they aren’t exactly keeping with the same optimistic, forward-thinking spirit that guided the initial Future World project.
Though you may or may not like the direction that Future World is going in, the closure of an attraction at Epcot has historically meant that something new is on the way. However, there has been one very pronounced instance where this was not true: the Wonders of Life pavilion. This collection of attractions under a single golden dome had a simple mission: to get guests excited about biology, health and their own bodies with blockbuster attractions, shows and plenty of fun, interactive exhibits.
For myself (and many others) Wonders of Life represented the pinnacle of everything Epcot could be as a educational theme park. It was educational and accessible to both adults and children without being condescending to either and had a variety of truly classic attractions, many of which became fan favorites over the years.
Though Wonders of Life had a strong start and certainly attracted plenty of guests over its 18 years of operation, this story is ultimately a tragic tale that not only covers the unfortunately all-too-rapid decline of Wonders of Life, but also its subsequent closure, abandonment and decay. But before we skip to the sad parts, let’s take a look at what made Wonders of Life so special in the first place…
Wonders of Life opens…and completes Future World
The idea of a pavilion devoted to health and fitness dates back to the original concept of EPCOT, but no corporate sponsor could be found prior to the park opening in 1982 to cover the costs of such a pavilion. However, eventually MetLife stepped in as sponsor, and Wonders of Life opened officially on October 19, 1989, completing the Future World concept only seven years after the park first opened. In addition to becoming the last piece of the Future World puzzle, Wonders of Life also has the distinction of being the last pavilion ever built that was an original, non-replacement attraction in Future World as well.
At a reported cost of $100 million, Wonders of Life certainly wasn’t cheap to build, but at the time MetLife was committed to maintaining their big investment at EPCOT. On opening day MetLife CEO John Creedon spoke about how the pavilion would “continue the MetLife tradition of educating the public about good health and healthy lifestyles”, and then added that “through Disney’s entertainment magic, our pavilion will continue to do that through the 21st century.”
MetLife’s commitment to maintaining Wonders of Life was certainly a big one, as the nature of the life science field meant that this pavilion needed regular updates. However, in those early days MetLife was able to step up to the plate and for a long time the Wonders of Life pavilion was one of the most well-maintained in all of EPCOT.
Opening day attractions impress and delight
Image: Justin Callaghan, Flickr (license)
Much like other EPCOT pavilions at the time, Wonders of Life was not an attraction unto itself, but housed many different exhibits, shows, and rides, each with its own unique purpose and function. Though not every attraction was a standout, here are some of the classics that helped define this pavilion as one of EPCOT’s best.
Body Wars
Whenever anyone talks about Wonders of Life, fond memories of Body Wars are normally the first thing that comes to mind. Body Wars was unique as it was EPCOT’s first true “thrill” ride, and was the first attraction at the park to carry a height restriction (guests had to be 40 inches to board the simulator).
The ride itself was very similar to Star Tours, which had opened at Disneyland Park two years prior, and would see a Walt Disney World opening later that year in December 1989 at Disney-MGM Studios (in fact, MetLife demanded that the opening of Star Tours be delayed until after Body Wars’ debut). The central concept of the ride was not unlike 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, which predicted a future where humans could shrink themselves down to a cellular size and interact with human bodies. As the ride had plenty of science fiction elements, it was right at home in Future World, but what made Body Wars such a standout attraction was the factual way it presented information about human bodies.
Image: Disney
The story involved rescuing researcher Dr. Cynthia Lair, who had been studying the immune system’s response to a splinter, and needed to be retrieved. However, as things tend to do during rides, things go horribly wrong, and riders end up following the wayward Dr. Lair as she gets sucked into a capillary, into the heart and then into the volunteer’s lungs where she is attacked by a white blood cell. After the cunning use of conveniently-equipped lasers to stun a white blood cell, riders are informed that there’s not enough power to beam back out of the volunteer’s body. However, riders are then reminded that the brain has electrical impulses that can be used to refuel their power cells. After a trip across the blood-brain barrier, the vehicle is recharged and riders are safely beamed outside the body and are able to disembark.
Though Body Wars may not be as well-remembered as Horizons or the original Journey Into Imagination, it represented the best of EPCOT, combining action and education in a way that was never quite able to be duplicated. Chasing down a trapped scientist through the circulatory system while going up and down in a simulator certainly provided thrills (and certainly got attention), but Body Wars was unique as it also helped guests appreciate the intricacy of the human body on a level that was truly thought-provoking and made something as simple as the nervous system exciting in a way that textbooks or TV just couldn’t.
Cranium Command
Image: Stuart Newsom, Flickr (license)
Though the film Inside Out gave a face to human emotions in the summer of 2015, Cranium Command did it first at the Wonders of Life pavilion. This audio animatronic show allowed guests to sit inside the “control center” of the brain of a 12-year-old adolescent boy while animatronic character Buzzy facilitated communication (via screen) between different parts of the boy’s body, including the left and right brain, the heart’s right and left ventricles, the stomach, the adrenal gland, and even the bladder, all while trying to deal with typical 12-year old problems like love interests, bullies and school.
This show was fairly short, but it continued the theme introduced by Body Wars of viewing our own bodies from a new perspective, and was a great way to showcase the amazing way our brains manage every single part of our bodies. Though the way our brain processes information is obviously a little bit more complicated than just checking in with various organs via screen, Cranium Command helped bring the complex world of neuro-function to a wide audience via this simplistic conceit, and was yet another attraction that really proved that EPCOT was a place where guests could be entertained and learn something as well.
The Making of Me
Image: Disney
The Making of Me was a short film housed in the Fitness Fairgrounds’ Birth Theater about conception and childbirth, starring Martin Short. When it was first opened in 1989, it caused a bit of a stir, as the topic of human reproduction was considered to be one unfit for a theme park. However, it seemed that a pavilion dedicated to human biology and life science simply couldn’t exist without some mention of human reproduction, and even though EPCOT had to include a parental advisory warning, The Making of Me actually went on to become a highlight of the Wonders of Life pavilion.
The 14-minute film begins with Martin Short wondering how he was created by his parents, and then transports viewers back in time, showing how his parents enjoyed life as young adults (with Short stepping into the role of his young father). After some lighthearted courtship, the film gets down to the science stuff with a fun animated segment that shows cartoon sperm trying to win a “race” to get to a female egg. From there, the film goes on to show footage of actual fetal development in utero. Though the film ends with birth, nothing graphic is shown, and young viewers typically came away with a new appreciation for the process of human reproduction (even if some of the specifics were deliberately left out!)
Loss of sponsorship and the end of regular operation
While Wonders of Life was definitely a popular pavilion in the 1990s (with Body Wars becoming a headlining attraction at EPCOT), after Wonders of Life celebrated its 10-year anniversary the pavilion hit a major roadblock, one that would lead to the pavilion’s decline and ultimate closure several years later: the loss of sponsor MetLife.
In 2001, just 12 years after it publicly committed itself to maintaining Wonders of Life, MetLife abruptly ended its sponsorship of the pavilion, reportedly after a dispute about extending life insurance benefits for Disney employees. The loss of the sponsorship was felt almost overnight, with updates to the pavilion ceasing immediately and the pavilion switching to seasonal operations just three years later, in 2004.
During this seasonal period, attractions were still essentially frozen in their 2001 state, and exhibits like Frontiers in Medicine (which had previously been updated quite frequently to include recent developments in the world of medicine) began to fall out of date. Guests also reported that other attractions that needed maintenance during this period were often ignored, leading many to skip over this pavilion as guests never knew what attractions would be working on any given day.
Ultimately, Disney was unable to find a replacement sponsor after MetLife’s departure in 2001, and the pavilion closed for good on January 1st, 2007. Though the closure of this pavilion was certainly crushing for those of us who knew and loved Wonders of Life, in some ways the worst was yet to come, as this pavilion would fall further into disrepair in a truly bizarre case where Walt Disney World used the bare bones of this former structure almost immediately for something that actually had nothing to do with life science or even Future World…
Standing but not operating
In October 2007, nine months after Wonders of Life closed, the golden domed building that formerly housed the Wonders of Life pavilion reopened…as the Festival Center for that year’s Food and Wine Festival. As you can see in the image above (taken in 2007), almost all of the former attractions were left standing in place, with signage for Body Wars even up and illuminated in the background. However, despite being right in view, none of these attractions were ever operational after the pavilion’s closure, and guests wanting to peruse the various offerings at 2007’s Food & Wine Festival had to walk around the former non-working attractions to get to the Food & Wine Festival demonstrations, which was particularly painful for those who were still reeling from the loss of this pavilion.
In an even stranger twist, some of the former attractions were retrofitted for use during the 2007 Food and Wine festival. For instance, the entrance of Cranium Command was turned into a stage where wine seminars were held. Though the attraction itself still existed behind this entrance, the front was converted into a makeshift stage and used for several years while the screens and animatronics used in this attraction simply sat behind walls.
Another part of an attraction that was retrofitted for Festival Center use (though not in 2007) was the former extended queue for Body Wars, which is instantly recognizable thanks to its half-circle topped archways and was eventually used as a holding area for guests who want to check out demonstrations as part of the Flower and Garden Festival. In fact much of the queue for Body Wars is still intact even now…but has been reduced to being used for storage.
Check out the video above for a look at how the interior queue for Body Wars looked just last year…
Gutting the pavilion…slowly
Though much of the Wonders of Life pavilion was still present when the Festival Center made its debut in 2007, Disney has been removing some of the more overt pieces of Wonders of Life over the years in what has been a painfully slow process. The most notable example of this is probably the Body Wars simulators, which remained in place for several years following 2007’s closure, and were only removed just recently (and reportedly broken down for parts). However, the Body Wars simulators aren’t the only part of this former pavilion that has been removed in recent years.
The Birth Theater, which housed the aforementioned The Making of Me film had a big curtain over its signage for the first few years when the facility was being used as a Festival Center. In 2008, The Making of Me sign came out from behind the curtain (even though the film never did), but sadly this piece of Wonders of Life history was pulled down for good the following year, negating the need for an inconvenient curtain.
In recent years (2013 and 2014) Disney has finally gotten around to painting the area that previously housed Goofy About Health in the center of the pavilion and have installed permanent signage around this area indicating its status as a special event stage.
Though traces of Wonders of Life still exist in the Festival Center (just look up the next time you find yourself in the Festival Center if you need proof), it seems like every year more of this original pavilion is erased.
The legacy of the Wonders of Life closure
Though Wonders of Life isn’t the first attraction to be lost thanks to a sponsorship gone sour, its closure was particularly devastating for fans, as this pavilion housed several classic attractions that were neglected when the sponsorship first ended in 2001 and then fell into decay and disrepair while the pavilion operated seasonally. Reports from guests in 2005 and 2006 recall headlining attractions like Body Wars and Cranium Command being in ridiculously poor shape, hardly ever being open, and breaking down frequently. By the time this pavilion limped along to its closing date in 2007, it was already in the saddest shape of pretty much anything at Walt Disney World at the time, and looking back, its closure was almost a mercy killing as this once-amazing pavilion had simply been allowed to slide too far into disrepair to ever make a comeback.
However, beyond the rapid decay of Wonders of Life after the initial sponsorship was lost, the real tragedy of Wonders of Life is what replaced it. Though Epcot certainly needs a space for events related to the Food and Wine Festival as well as the Flower and Garden Festival, they took out a whole pavilion with two major attractions (and several smaller ones) and replaced it with…something that is only open 1/3 of the year and has no real value to most Epcot guests. More importantly, the Festival Center has nothing to do with the larger Future World area, and just doesn’t make thematic sense in this portion of Epcot.
Instead of teaching, entertaining and thrilling guests by taking them inside the circulatory system or demonstrating how different parts of the body work together in concert with your brain as the conductor, the former Wonders of Life building simply exists to give guests space to experience upcharge wine tastings and buy merchandise related to Epcot’s two annual events. Hardly an inspired tradeoff.
It’s crazy to think that an attraction pavilion that closed nearly a decade ago still hasn’t been replaced (or at least demolished) and simply sits like a monolith next to the Universe of Energy, reminding longtime guests of what once was, and what will never be again. Though many longtime Epcot fans point to the losses of Horizons, The Living Seas and even World of Motion as negative turning points in the development of Future World, in this writer’s opinion it was the closure of the Wonders of Life pavilion (and subsequent failure to replace it with anything) that really changed Epcot. It’s one thing to try to update an attraction and/or replace it with something else, but to just close an attraction and give up on the concept behind it (which was one of the best in all Epcot) is just a shame and makes Wonders of Life the saddest (and most pointless) closure in Walt Disney World history.
