Saturday, Sep 6, 2008
Instead of predicting future technologies, Disney's updated playground opts for the predictable.
May 28, 1998 | When Tomorrowland first opened in the 1950s, the future looked a lot like plastic.
Disneyland's original Tomorrowland was home to the Monsanto House of the Future, an oddly shaped house in which everything was made of synthetic materials -- plastic so durable that it had to be hacksawed apart when it was finally retired in 1967. It was also home to the Bathroom of Tomorrow, the Monsanto Hall of Chemistry and the Aluminum Hall of Fame. Walt Disney, it seems, was very fond of materials.
Tomorrowland was a pet project for Disney, who often expressed his belief that modern technologies like plastics and freeways would revolutionize and improve our world. As he said, "Tomorrowland is a vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying man's achievements ... a step into the future, with predictions of constructive things to come. Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure and ideals: [the] Atomic Age ... the challenge of outer space ... and the hope for a peaceful and united world."
Peace and unity are no small goal for a theme park, but Walt was never one for thinking small. Tomorrowland was his kingdom's attempt to predict which unbelievable technologies would make our lives better. Back in 1955, that looked like freeways and monorails and plastic houses and men on Mars -- a vision that was played out over the years through rides like the PeopleMover (a snail-like tram), the Flying Saucers ride (essentially, bumper cars held up by air), multiple Autopia rides (even kids can drive a car!) and a ceaseless stream of 360-degree CircleVision movies that took you to the Moon, into atoms, out to Mars.
But in the 1990s, Walt's original prophecy of the golden future has come and gone -- and so the Disney Imagineers (the creative gurus behind the Disney theme parks) faced the task of updating Tomorrowland. The future has always been too potentially strange and ominous to find a neat place within Disney's realms of beautiful princesses and cuddly animals; but Tomorrowland was part of the Walt Disney inheritance -- the future couldn't simply be jettisoned from the Disneyland package. So the Imagineers faced the question: How can you predict a future that isn't scary, isn't alienating to most of the population and still captures the whimsy of Disneyland?
The acceleration of technological development today only compounds the Imagineers' problem, making it a lot harder to predict what's next, to showcase visions of what might be. And if you're dumping millions of dollars into that vision, you sure don't want it to end up looking as outdated as Monsanto's House of the Future.
"The microwave in the House of the Future was there for 12 years," explains senior Imagineer Tony Baxter. "Today, if we put a DVD player into Innoventions, next month we'd have to put a DivX player in."
The Imagineers' solution in 1998? Forget the future -- let's look at the past. Even the technology Disneyland does offer, in the form of a new exhibition area called Innoventions, is less about what might be than about what has already been.
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