Future World
in the Recent Past, Part 2
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Last month, I ran part 1 of a 2-part article comparing photos of Future World from a few years ago to similar photos taken recently.
Here’s the conclusion.
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 , Curator of Yesterland, December 26, 2008
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Direction sign near the base of Spaceship Earth, 2002
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Direction sign near the base of Spaceship Earth, 2008
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Most of the multi-panel sign is unchanged, but the top and bottom panels changed.
The Living Seas became The Seas with Nemo & Friends.
You can no longer “Leave a Legacy.”
That means you can no longer have your postage stamp-sized face(s) etched on a metal tile and mounted on one of the massive polished granite slabs at the entrance to Epcot for a fee of $33 for one face or $38 for two faces.
Instead, the bottom panel now answers the guests’ most common question.
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Sign at the entrance to The Land, 2004
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Sign at the entrance to The Land, 2008
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The Land has a new sign.
But the big change is that the pavilion is now hidden behind a forest instead of rising behind a few palm trees.
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The Land pavilion, 2002
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The Land pavilion, 2008
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Backing up a bit from the other pair of The Land photos reveals that the pavilion is the same, but the landscaping in front of it is completely different.
By the way, did you notice that there were more palm trees in 2002 than in 2004?
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Interior of The Land pavilion, 2003
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Interior of The Land pavilion, 2008
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Soarin’ wasn’t the only change made to The Land between 2003 and 2008.
Disney addressed the chronic lack of seating at the Sunshine Seasons food court by removing the fountain.
The changes to the decor speak for themselves.
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Garden Grill Restaurant in The Land pavilion, 2004
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Garden Grill Restaurant in The Land pavilion, 2008
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It appears that someone decided that the Garden Grill Restaurant needed a more contemporary, less “country” sign and check-in counter.
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Exterior of The Living Seas pavilion, 2002
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Exterior of The Seas with Nemo & Friends pavilion, 2008
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As part of the transformation of The Living Seas into The Seas with Nemo & Friends, the exterior gained colorful sealife graphics as decorations.
A new sign based on the logo of the 2003 Pixar movie Finding Nemo replaced the old sign that used the classic font from the early years of EPCOT Center.
The best change is the addition of the delightful seagulls that squawk, “Mine! Mine! Mine!”
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Interior of The Living Seas pavilion, 2002
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Interior of The Seas with Nemo & Friends pavilion, 2008
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In the upper picture of the The Living Seas interior, guests would still exit by way of the “Seabase Exit” and “return to surface via Hydrolators.”
The lower picture shows that there’s now a simply an “exit to Future World” through a gift shop.
Most of the pairs of photos in this 2-part series are examples of changes that many guests are unlikely to notice.
For example, who really remembers that The Land had a different sign and isolated palms instead of a dense forest as landscaping?
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© 2007-2011 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks
Updated March 29, 2011.
Photos of Future World: Werner Weiss (year shown under each photo).
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