Return to Earth

Well it's open (sorta) and the reviews are pouring in to every Disney site, so what's the verdict?

My sweetheart and I were pleased to see Spaceship Earth open for our visit last month. It's hard to imagine going only once a year and not getting to ride the flagship attraction of the park but refurbs happen. I know that from experience, going on vacation mainly in off-peak weeks we've missed Splash Mountain the last 2 years to refurbs.

Unfinished or not I was informed from the boards at wdwmagic what to expect and ready to keep an open mind about the whole experience. I love SE and I've been pleased in the past with most of the changes. The ride has always been a little bumpy but from what i've read it's unfixable, just a byproduct of the mechanisms that keep you from plummeting backwards. The narration has been first class since the beginning with Walter Cronkite and suprisingly even better with Jeremy Irons. It was grand and elegant, accompanied with one of the best ride scores anywhere. The music has had subtle changes over the years but recently ended with one of the most moving, uplifting ends of any ride.

In my eyes one of the best elements of SE has always been the animatronics. SE is, in a way, an aa showcase much like American Adventure, showing off some of the more innovative uses of audio animatronics. In the best dark rides you forget that you are watching AAs and think of them as actors, as characters.

Sadly, that's one of the only things I still like about this ride. Even that they haven't quite got right.

From the beginning the new Spaceship Earth seems promissing. With the crane-like Mickey Wand gone the sphere is clean and classic, befitting of a park icon. Also gone are the tacky Leave a Legacy carny booths that blocked the mirrored pillar at the base. The area is much more open and inviting (not as much as it will be if Legacy gets moved for good) and the new signs and lighting are tasteful and well done.

The ride also begins well with new computer graphics on the TVs letting everyone know that when your ride car begins to turn it isn't possesed, it's supposed to do that. Oh, and don't stand up jackass. This was previously followed by a bit of darkness as you were welcomed by Cronkite or Irons. You begin to ascend and as you enter a red lit tunnel your picture is taken (we'll come back to that later).

Now you immediately turn the corner to see a huge, long wall projection of early man, duking it out in the snow with a wooly mammoth. It's a well done visual, nicely indroducing us to the "time travel" element of the attraction. We are also now welcomed by new narrator Dame Judy Dench. This is painfuly one of the problems with this new incarnation. I love Dench but she never really has a chance here. Like any good theater you have to start with a good script and this one ain't it.

The writers of the refurbished ride apparently were concerned about children and idiots not understanding the old script because this one seems intended for grade schoolers and morons. When the invention of language is explained (one of the most significant events in human history) it is compared with kids learning their "ABCs". The invention of papyrus and therefore the ability to send messages all over an empire is turned into a joke about taxes and Rome's groundbreaking system of roads is called the original world wide web. It goes on and on....

Gone are some old favs like the Greek theater scene, the Roman chariot and the video phones. The last was expected as the refurb is directly related to the new sponsor Siemens, who took over from AT&T. The original story was focused on the evolution of communication while the new story focuses on computers and it's foundations in math and innovation.

The rides travels still take us through the radio, film and TV ages yet they are reduced a bit and talked over by Dench (who's voice can still be heard echoing from other cars much more than it should). Walt Disney is also strangely absent, with a livingroom scene now focused on the moon landing. That event is used to springboard us into one of the new scenes, an IBM-style computer room circa 1960-something. This huge set is impressive at first until you have a moment to see how under-utilized and empty it is. Is something else supposed to be in here? No? Hmmm...ok. How's about the woman on the left? Her outfit is kitchy '60s cute with the large afro, mini-skirt, yellow leggings and knee-high boots but come on....who could actualy get away with wearing that at a large electronics company in the 1960s. "The man" would not stand for that.

We then travel to a garage in the '70s where icons like Gates, Allen and Jobs helped bring computers home. The scene is a bit dark but well themed and pretty representitive of the era. A hippie computer programer sits hunched over his monocrome 6 inch screen and we're told this is the beginning of the age of the personal computer.

From there we are teleported to the top of the sphere through a "Matrix" style tunnel to the last vestige of the old SE. The revealing of the outer-space view of earth is still breathtaking in it's beauty and yes...still interupted by a voice telling us that the cars are, in fact, supposed to be turning around.

This is where the real problems start.

Spaceship Earth has always used most of it's room for the scenes on the ascent but it made good use of the limited room on the descent as well. Now, all we have are some hanging lights and the glow of the computer screen in our car as it comes to life. The screen uses the images taken of us at the beginning of the ride and superimposes the faces of you and your fellow passenger onto what amounts to a cheap flash animation of "the future". The future presented in "The Jetsons" 40 years ago that is. Also sorely missed is the sense of hope and grandeur brought on by the original soundtrack, now replaced by cute music accompioning the animation.

All of this not so gracefully ends and dumps you into the ride exit, where you walk to Project Tomorrow to get the bad taste out of your mouth. It's heartbreaking for loyal Epcot Center fans to see the ride reduced to this. To be frank I can't even give Project Tomorrow a honest review as I was just ready to leave both times I rode and not willing to wait for one of the few games and video displays to become available.

All in all it's nice to have the old girl spiffed up a bit, but I would gladly take the signs of age over the "progress" on display. Tomorrow's Child....indeed.

Brat.