Almost everyone has heard of the EPCOT theme park at Walt Disney World in Florida. Although usually attributed as being a somewhat chaotic meshing of various themes, time periods, cultures, and intellectual property, EPCOT at one time looked very different.

Despite being considered a relatively decent park by modern audiences, EPCOT used to stand as a beacon of breaking the mold of what a “theme park” could be.

Its History

EPCOT Center opened in 1982 as a reimagining of Walt Disney’s original Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow project. If you know very little about EPCOT’s original, intended iteration, EPCOT was essentially supposed to be the “City of Tomorrow.” Instead of being a theme park, EPCOT was meant to be a flourishing, experimental city with real citizens living in it. This whole concept was meant to be the actual purpose of Disney’s investment in Florida, what Walt called the “Florida Project.” Florida’s “Magic Kingdom” would simply be an accompanying Disneyland to this EPCOT city. This is also why since its inception, up until recently, Walt Disney World had its own city status apart from the adjacent Orlando area.

Experimental Prototype

The point is, EPCOT, and by extension Walt Disney World, were meant to be something greater than just a theme park destination. It was intended to help catapult new ideas and concepts of what a city could be.

Now, let’s take off the rose-colored glasses really quick.

Would EPCOT have actually worked and been built if Walt were alive? There’s no telling, but it likely would have been a massive investment which could have put the entire company at risk (not like Walt hadn’t done that before on multiple occasions). Walt Disney died not too long after the announcement of a Florida expansion, leaving his brother, Roy Disney, to finish the Magic Kingdom park in his stead.

The original version of EPCOT died with Walt and Roy, leaving the remaining leadership stuck on what to do with the very publicly anticipated EPCOT project.

Apparently, in early discussions, the EPCOT Center theme park was named as such as the remaining city element would be built around it. Obviously, this never happened, but still gives us a view of how long the idea of using Walt’s original concept of EPCOT persisted internally in the company.

Permanent World’s Fair

After much deliberation, it was finally decided that EPCOT would instead be a “Permanent World’s Fair” featuring countries and companies from around the world. The Future World area at the front of the park would act as a peek into the future of technology and innovation. The World Showcase area in the back of the park would act as a sort of “world tour” of various nations from across the globe. Each “pavilion” would be sponsored by either companies and/or nations. For example, the World of Motion attraction was sponsored by General Motors (GM), Horizons by General Electric (GE), the Japan pavilion by Fujifillm, and the Morocco pavilion by the Moroccan government. The crown prince of Morocco himself actually sent his personal mosaic artist to work in the pavilion.

Tying all of the varying lands together was Spaceship Earth, an inspiring attraction at the entrance of the park meant to tell the past and future history of our planet’s culture and technology.

All elements of the park bore credence to the designers’ idea of “edutainment,” where one could learn while having fun.

EPCOT’s Uniqueness

What made EPCOT so unique was its focus on doing something different. It is easy to take for granted now, but when EPCOT first opened, it was more than just a theme park, it was meant to act as a world celebration. There were no classic Disney IPs; everything was new and original. Although many kids may have found the park rather boring, was it really meant to be only for them? Apart from a couple of rides, such as Journey into Imagination or the now defunct Wonders of Life pavilion, there wasn’t anything necessarily targeted towards children. I like that. EPCOT was a park unique in the fact it mostly targeted adults.

Disney, of course, would never do something like this again. The current company is far from being what it was during this time period, in both good and bad ways, but I miss the time when Disney cared less for only making a profit, and instead tried new and interesting ideas because they were new and interesting. It made the company feel more relatable and benevolent than what I can assuredly say many feel about them today.

Going Modern

EPCOT is far from being what it was in the 1980s, and in many cases that’s alright. The park is perhaps far more entertaining and engaging now then during that time, but at what cost? I feel many of modern Disney’s parks are getting to be too similar and uninspired, but that is a topic for another day.

I believe it is essential to appreciate both the old and the new simultaneously. In the end, modern EPCOT is not the same park as it was when it opened, and that’s okay. Let’s just not forget what made it special in the first place.