Tower of Terror. Rip. The best parts of Disney World have almost nothing to do with the rides. The most impressive part, is how clean it is. I live in Utah, our park is basically a truck stop restroom by comparison.
Favorite defunct rides: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mr. Toad's Wild ride. Favorite extant: Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Haunted Mansion, Pirates. No, I haven't been to Disney since Mission To Mars was still Mission To Mars. Someday I'll Make it out to CA to ride the Matterhorn.
One of my earliest memories is when, after begging him to take me to Disneyland for what felt like ages, my dad finally gave in and said "let's go". Right then and there we got in the car, crossed the border (we lived south of the California-Mexico border) and drove to Anaheim. We arrived in the evening and got a room at some motel near the park. The next morning, we got up very early and spent the entire day at Disneyland. I was 4 or 5 years old, so I only have some mental photographs of what we did that day (we didn't bring a camera and my dad didn't bother to buy a disposable one), but I do recall very vividly how amazing everything was, so much so that I am teary eyed right now as I'm typing this just remembering how it felt to spend an entire day with my dad at Disneyland, just the two of us. I don't have many other memories of my dad and I doing anything together, and my parents separated and got divorced not long after that trip, so this is one of my favorite memories from my early childhood. I am 35 years old now and I haven't been back to Disneyland since, despite having multiple chances and living relatively close. I think I haven't gone back because deep down, I've been afraid that it just won't be as perfect as it was on that day. I think maybe I'll save the return trip for when I have children of my own so that, hopefully, they too can feel as happy as I did that day. I loved the video, thank you for making it.
My story is similar but I lived in Coral Springs Florida. I begged my dad to take me to WDW. I had great memories of visiting EPCOT with my dad because we both loved watching science, nature, and cultural programs on television. I was weird for a kid and pre-teen. My dad passed in 2014 and I hadn't been to WDW in over 2 decades. I just revisit WDW last February. I went by myself to "scout it out" because WDW has changed alot. When I revisited tomorrowland they were repainting it a stark white and were restoring the vertical people mover roof supports back to the way I remembered them in the late 80's to early 90's. I had missed the whole mid 90's refurbishments (maybe a good thing.) There was a voice in my head knit picking about what terrible shape EPCOT and tomorrowland is in these days. It sounded alot like my dad lol.
Another point of interest. When Disneyland Paris was floundering, the company put someone in charge of parks to give it a serious overhaul to renew interest to the French. One way they did it was rebranding "Tomorrowland" into "Discoveryland" and the park would be renovated into a giant homage to the works of France's most famous science fiction author: Jules Verne. The rebranding must've worked since Disneyland Paris is doing well and the Jules Verne theming of its Tomorrowland makes it unique amongst the other locations.
Tomorrowland became a "future that never was" much like a retrofuturistic sci fi world. It went into a major transformation that drastically changed it's surroundings while not changing at all. Now we see it as a sci fi world from back then.
Your Disney experience is never complete without that one Traumatizing ride. I went on the Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom when I was around 6 and I was pretty convinced I was in hell. But hey at least I got a decent sized rubber Carnotaurus out of it.
I love when you do videos about theme parks.... Personally i love discoveryland from disneyland paris,in that place os based upon 20 century...80's retro science fiction... Just hope in a not so distant future they refurb or fix disneylands tomorrowland,this one needs the most help of all the parks.
Though my brother and I are avid fans of theme park history, we've never seen a video thematically explore an area of a park, so this is real novel stuff : ). We'd would absolutely love to see more analyses like this; especially, off the top of my head, Adventureland.
I want my Southern California mid-century modern masterpiece back. Like the Jules Verne theming for Paris, the style is a perfect match of nostalgia and fantasy for the location. DCA succeeded at Buena Vista Street and Grizzly Peak/Grand Californian. So it's not impossible for Disney to do.
The real problem isnt tommorrowland it's that futurism and good scifi is pretty stale as a society. As the movie tommorrowland states, the future that most sci-fi predicts these days is dystopian, and no one has a real positive outlook or vision anymore and its sad. I did like your explanation as to why tomorrowland became star wars land though.
Hey Matt, I watch a ton of Disneyland videos (no joke, it's probably an addiction 😄) and this video was top notch because it not only brought in facts and history but also thought provoking ideas and philosophy. Definitely more impactful.
Imagine living in a post-scarcity society without the internet (atleast in the advanced form we see today), and technology that was advanced, but so simple as the people of the 50s imagined it. Not only that, but to think that the idea of the nuclear family, "dear hearted Neighbor" society would stretch out into the 21st century (it didn't even make it past the 60s in our timeline). Some would say it's going forwards, others backwards compared to what we actually achieved. But in the ways that count, what they imagined is a hella lot better than the dystopia we got going for us today.
It really is a shame that Tomorrowland never got to see its full potential in any of the Disney parks. I remember when I went to Disney World a few years ago, I didn’t really spend much time there, only went on the Buzz Lightyear ride (Space Mountain sadly broke down when I was there). I really like these Theme Parks videos with Haunted Mansion and now this. Hope there’s more in the near future. Can’t wait for October’s Halloween videos.
As usual, very interesting and well told exposé but I just wanted to say that I am THE seemingly one and only fan of the movie 😄 I love it and rewatch it regularly. Also as a kid in Europe when I saw a piece on the opening of Epcot I was mesmerized. I took 20 years before I could go but I also loved it (I guess a lot because of that long belated dream)
Tbh Matt. You make videos that are more interesting than many other 1,000,000 sub channels out there. Keep making noise. Keep branching out. Keep it up!
I think one of the reasons why Tomorrowland bombed is described by Herbert Marcuse's One-dimensional man. The American dream of that time did not account for many socio-political issues and movements. It is as Matt described it, it just became a relic of the past. Standing the test of time with all the new changes ever since.
Wow man what a blast into the past 👏 I am glad I stumbled upon this video it was cool to see the history of tomorrow land I was there when I was little kid and I can remember this one thing it was like A forensics They pictured a picture I guess it took a picture of me and then it aged me it was like an aging thing to see how you would Look from say age of 7 years old to 87
I have like no memory of Tomorrowland. I didn’t even know about it until the Brad Bird film came out and I just thought “damn I didn’t pay much attention to Disneyland.” I didn’t know it was transformed into a Star Wars themed attraction so it’s been a while since I’ve been at Disneyland.
Were the rocket jets ever "novel"? Maybe back in the sixties? I was born in the seventies and I've never been to any amusement park or traveling carnival WITHOUT some variation on that type of ride. They go up, they go down, around in a circle, whee. I never understood why people traveled to Disneyworld, spent a fortune, and then wasted so much time in that line when there were better unique rides right over there.
Honestly, I feel this land needs to just be replaced with something else, because let's face it, they can try everything, and no matter how they change Tomorrowland, it will always feel dated and after 5 years, fans will cry out demanding that it get "fixed up" and changed, all while ignoring the other lands who have had FAR less attention to them (seriously, we've had a decade of people wanting Tomorrowland to undergo a 5th retheme, yet Toontown was left untouched since 92 and only NOW get's attention to it, yet fans were saying to just get rid of Toontown).
