I’m sitting on a bench, wondering about something one of my readers said on a recent comment. He said, and I quote: “I preferr Burton’s version because its more true to the vision Dahl had.” That made me think abou two things. First, he has a point, and two, the phrase “true to vision”. Lots of people say that some of Disney’s decisions are true to Walt’s vision, but think, there is one major thing that didn’t exactly follow Walt’s vision, and that something is called Epcot. And I’m here to prove that. Or not. We’ll see.
We all know Walt’s original plans for EPCOT. He wanted it to be a city, a living community, a place where people would live, work and have fun. Yeah, that never happened. Or maybe… it did? Well, I don’t know if you know, but Walt Disney World is on two cities created and maintained by Disney- yep, WDW is not on Orlando. But going back to Walt’s vision of EPCOT, one of the things that he wanted EPCOT to be was a living blueprint of the future. Now, that is EPCOT’s main theme- a living blueprint of the future. That’s why one of its two lands is called Future World. Sure, things may have changed, the information on Universe of Energy may be outadted… And perhaps in the future we won’t have animated fish swimming on the seas… But EPCOT is all about the future.
So, lets think for a moment. Sure, the EPCOT we got is not the EPCOT that Walt envisioned, but that doesn’t mean its not true to his vision. Walt wanted a place where the future could be seen, touched and felt, where the future would be your neighbor next door, where you could dream it, and then do it. Sure, EPCOT is not a city, like he envisioned, but it is, like he wanted, a living blueprint of the future.
What is trully “true to a vision”, after all?
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