96 Days: Epcot Rumors

The whole post-a-day thing may not be exactly happening. But I'll try :-)

So Epcot just turned 35 and is in need of some love. The festivals have been great, but Future World is a shadow of its former self and the World Showcase hasn't seen a new pavilion in many moons. The Walt Disney top brass has promised a huge investment in Epcot over the next several years, big to the tune of billions of dollars, but has been pretty vague about the specific plans. As far as World Showcase is concerned we are to get a new Ratatouille attraction in France for sure, but nothing else has been confirmed.

This has left the rumor mills turning at full tilt. Two new national pavilions have been rumored to be pretty safe bets, Spain and Brazil. But Spain was to include a ride based on Gigantic, a planned re-telling of the Jack and the Beanstalk story set in Spain, and Gigantic has been scuttled. Will Spain survive?

An article I read a couple days ago (and I can't for the life of me remember what blog posted it) says no. This is a bit of a bummer from the perspective of wanting more countries represented, but it leaves money in the budget for other things, and those things are interesting.

Brazil is apparently on track, but will not feature an attraction. Its big draw will be a Brazilian Steakhouse, which is fine by me. The problem this leaves, because of the loss of Spain, is one of crowd flow/control. Disney Imagineers want an attraction in the space between Norway's Frozen and France's Ratatouille and that was to be Spain's Gigantic. Now they are looking at existing pavilions in which to build a ride and Japan has risen to the top of the list. One option is a Matterhorn-style coaster based upon Mt. Fuji. This was part of the original plan for the Japan pavilion so it stands to reason it's still on the board. But the other option is the one I'm excited for. Big Hero 6!

Big Hero 6 did well in theatres, the meet and greet with Baymax is popular and the franchise has a new cartoon on the Disney XD channel that is also performing well. The characters tie in well with Japan. I think it's a winner. LEt's see if the Imagineers think the same thing!

81 Days: Is Stitch Making His Final Great Escape?

I saw a rumor this morning from WDWThemeParks.com suggesting that Stitch's Great Escape will close towards the end of this year and re-open in 2018 as a new attraction. The rumor is classified as "Blue Sky," meaning it's just a rumor at this point, but I doubt anyone would be surprised to see Stitch leave Tomorrowland. It doesn't seem to be a hugely popular attraction, though if Disney fan social media is true to form it will attract a huge following the minute Disney announces its closure. Just watch :-) The fun question to me, though, is assuming a closure, what is the replacement? Let's play armchair Imagineer and put out a couple ideas.

My first thought for this spot was a Big Hero 6-themed attraction. It's right across the walkway from Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor and around the corner from Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, so another animated movie based attraction would provide some sort of flow to the area. It is a way to bring Marvel into the Magic Kingdom, which is a bit of a stick in the eye to Universal and as such much fun. The film is great and fun and colorful and would work great visually as an attraction. The setting is quasi-futuristic so it wouldn't be jarringly out of place, in my opinion. I'm not sure of the mechanics, though. I mean an entire year would be enough time to gut the present ride and create something new, as in not "theater-based," but Disney hasn't seemed to be in a start from scratch mode when updating or switching attractions lately. Which leads me to a second idea.....

What about a Tomorrowland-based attraction in Tomorrowland? I was telling the lovely and talented Lisa about this story and

my wish that somehow the Tomorrowland movie would be incorporated into Tomorrowland the Land, and she thought this would be a great fit. She's right. It would even work in its present configuration. The characters in Tomorrowland are transported to Tomorrowland by strapping into seats and having a shaking, sensory overloaded experience. That would completely work here. As Lisa suggested, you could even work in some sort of live-feed from a camera outside looking down the sidewalk toward Space Mountain as an ending shot. The downside to this idea is that the movie wasn't all that well received, but I loved it, so that should count for something, right?

What do you think? What would you put in Stitch's place? Or would you leave our little blue friend alone?