Armchair Imagineering: Theme and the Tomorrowland Problem

Today, I'll be talking about that most vital yet hard-to-define of Disney park concepts: Theme. As Walt Disney explained while developing his revolutionary idea—and as we fans are quick to remind people—Disneyland and its successors are not mere amusement parks but theme parks...but what does this actually mean?

The basic definition of a “theme” is a unifying idea, principle, or motif. Walt Disney's disgust with the filth and disorganization of the amusement parks and fun fairs that were standard in the first half of the 20^th Century led him to imagine his own park as a place that would be kept scrupulously clean and logical in design. He settled on a handful of themes he wanted to express and gave each one its own area of the park. Everything in each “land”—the architecture, landscaping, Cast Member costumes, food and merchandise, and of course the rides and attractions themselves—was designed to match the associated theme. Even when he ran short of time and money to complete the park, Walt managed to preserve his designated themes so that the areas were recognizable and consistent.

It is common knowledge which themed areas were present when Disneyland opened, but it still bears repeating. Main Street, USA functioned as the introduction to what was at the time a brand-new concept, and provided familiarity and a friendly atmosphere with its theme of the American small town circa the 1900s. Adventureland was a wild tropical jungle composited from all the jungle areas of the world—Africa, Asia, South America, the South Pacific. Frontierland was a tribute to America's Westward Expansion period of the 19^th Century. Fantasyland was a place of fairy tales and children's stories...especially as featured in the animated films of Walt Disney Studios. Tomorrowland was a vision of the future and the excitement of developing technology. All these themes were easily distinguishable from each other, and all loomed large in the American imagination of the time.

So far, so good. But how have the area themes fared as the park has continued to grow and evolve? Main Street, USA has remained more or less the same—with few specific attractions, its theming hangs almost entirely on atmospheric elements such as building design and Cast Member costumes, and these have changed very little. Adventureland has also held onto its theming pretty well. Its palette has been broadened but mostly remained in tropical jungles—the one exception is Aladdin's Oasis. Frontierland has weathered the decline of the Western gracefully enough without losing its focus. (It helps that the parts that diverge the most have been spun off into lands of their own—New Orleans Square and Bear/Critter Country.) Fantasyland's theme has expanded without necessarily being diluted (a trick perhaps to be examined in a separate article). And Tomorrowland...

Ah, Tomorrowland, we hardly knew ye.

There's no getting around it—Tomorrowland is a mess. It's always been something of a mess, though the exact reason has varied over time. Funding shortages left it with only a few functioning attractions as of Opening Day, and those were mainly promotions for the corporations that sponsored them. The “futurism” was very thin indeed, even if the clean-lined white buildings looked the part. The years to come brought improvements, primarily in the wholesale renovations of 1959 and 1967, but each upgrade only seemed to highlight the central issue: How do you portray the future when it keeps catching you up?

Well, one way is to abandon all pretense that what you are portraying is a realistic future. The original Tomorrowland purported to be set in the year 1986—more than 30 years ahead for Opening Day guests. That version of Tomorrowland didn't exist long enough to see its own predictions fail to come true, but it may be telling that the real 1986 was the year Disneyland's Tomorrowland took a hard left turn into science-fiction of the most fantastic sort, with the heavily Star Wars-influenced Captain EO debuting in the Magic Eye Theater, and then Star Tours itself opening the following year. Suddenly, aliens and robot buddies (to say nothing of brave Knights in tunics sword-duelling black-robed Lords to decide the fate of princesses) were the order of the day—a far cry from the more sober ideas about space travel and technology that had held sway previously. Throughout the rest of the Eighties and Nineties, the holdovers of the previous era were gradually decommissioned: CircleVision 360, the PeopleMover, Mission to Mars. The Disneyland Monorail fortunately remained, its actual transportation function (to and from the Disneyland Hotel) far too valuable to lose. So did Space Mountain, whose roller coaster thrills continued to attract long lines.

1998 saw the debut of yet another “New Tomorrowland,” a last-ditch effort to revitalize the suffering area. But a failure to hammer down a consistent theme—and, reminiscent of Opening Day, a lack of allocated funds—hamstrung the project. The one new E-ticket, Rocket Rods, broke down frequently and was permanently shuttered a scant two years later. The flashy Innoventions leaned too hard on corporate sponsorship and failed to please guests now used to greeting expressions of corporate benevolence with skepticism. The new bronze-dominant color scheme, meant to evoke the wild imaginations of Leonardo da Vinci and Jules Verne, struck most people as tacky and out-of-place. The Subs remained closed. And for all its attempts to express genuine futurism with Innoventions and “Agrifuture” (food crops grown as part of urban landscaping), the New Tomorrowland still had the fantastical Star Tours right inside the land's entrance. In short, the 1998 remodel flopped, hard.

Further changes to Tomorrowland have only added to the confusion. Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters puts guests in the role of toy-sized “Space Rangers” firing laser guns at targets in a sort of ride-through video arcade. The Submarine Voyage did eventually re-open...as a Finding Nemo ride basically rehashing the highlights of the movie. Captain EO was brought back for a few years before the Magic Eye Theater was given over to sneak previews of science-fiction movies being released under the Disney banner. Marvel superheroes were installed in Innoventions, overshadowing the exhibits of genuine technological advances. A much ballyhooed update to Star Tours added more direct references to its source material and—in the queue area—references to Disney characters. Tomorrowland is cartoonier and more disjointed than ever before. The only real future Management seems concerned about when approving projects is the future of their own bank accounts.

The above summarizes the problem. But what about a solution? Can Tomorrowland be saved? Is there any place left in it for genuine futurism, or is the public too cynical anymore to believe in an optimistic future for the real world? Even if that won't work, is it possible to devise a unified theme for Tomorrowland, or is it doomed to be a dumping ground for lucrative Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Pixar concepts that don't fit anywhere else, spatially or thematically?

I think it can be saved and I think it can once again have a unified theme...but that theme will not be the “City of the Future” Walt initially envisioned. Tomorrowland has to evolve. Its salvation is not to be found in the patterns of its past...and isn't that just appropriate?

It should be obvious to anyone that trying to present a purely realistic future will not work anymore. Idealism can no longer be taken for granted, and technology advances so quickly these days that any development we can confidently predict will come to pass before an associated attraction could be completed. Conversely, setting a target year far enough out to avoid the above problem necessarily requires a more speculative, and therefore a more fantastical, approach.

Therefore, consider this as a possible direction for Tomorrowland, in the present and going forward:

An undisclosed number of years into the future, a city is built where engineers and scientists—mad and otherwise!—can gather to test their bleeding-edge inventions. No idea is too far-fetched to be considered, and as a result of this unlimited freedom to dream, some mind-bending discoveries have been made. To name just a few, the residents of Tomorrowland have invented personal pleasure spacecraft fueled by rapidly charging “Hench energy,” plumbed the depths of oceans on Earth and other planets, explored the limits of the human body and pushed through those limits with powered armor and strength-enhancing serums to make themselves into superheroes, and even harnessed the power of the human mind to make contact with a mysterious Force that permeates the universe!* And now they have invited the citizens of the world—of all worlds—to visit them and witness these wonders of science and imagination for themselves.

Sound intriguing? I consider this thematic idea to have two main strengths. First, by not pinning the setting down to a particular year, it avoids looking dated as that year approaches in reality. “Someday” we'll have personal spacecraft, super-serums, and psychic powers, and “someday” moves with us. Secondly, it allows most of the major attractions currently present in Tomorrowland to remain pretty much as they are. It takes hold of all the unraveling threads and pulls them together. It would be necessary to introduce the concept of the new theme to guests as well as indicate how each attraction fits into the overall framework, but this could be accomplished relatively simply with signage and placemaking details in the shops and eateries.

However, I do not believe all current attractions are well suited to this idea. I would like to see the Submarine Voyage re-themed to be a realistic exploration of the ocean's abyss...or better yet, an exploration of an extraterrestrial ocean (such as that which may lie beneath the ice covering Europa). The Autopia is an unreliable, pollution-spewing dinosaur that desperately needs to be upgraded or converted into something else altogether. Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters is probably popular enough to stay, but it would be harder to work into the proposed theme. Perhaps the arcade aspect could be emphasized, with reference to ultra-immersive virtual reality.

A third advantage to this idea is that it still accommodates genuine futurism as part of the theme—the geniuses of Tomorrowland could dream up realistic advances and discoveries as well as fanciful ones. As technology is increasingly a part of our lives, its finer points should be celebrated. By the same token, though, the most exciting developments are often those that are not part of our everyday lives, or at least not part of everyone's. Ever more powerful and easy-to-use personal computers are easy to take for granted, but other brand-new and developing technologies still have the power to surprise and impress. Consider the medical field's advancements in cybernetics, or the urgency of green technology.

Could such an ambitious yet economical re-skinning of the Tomorrowland theme actually come to pass? It's hard to say. Disney seems hellbent on packing Disneyland with yet more Star Wars material in order to capitalize on Episode VII: The Force Awakens, currently in production. However, well before that hits the cinemas, we can expect a very different type of science-fiction fare from Disney. May 22, 2015 is the scheduled release date for a live-action film entitled, simply, Tomorrowland. It is the first movie to be based on an entire area at a Disney theme park rather than a single attraction, and the brief glimpses of the eponymous place seen in the teaser trailer look pretty much like classic Tomorrowland—small flying craft weaving at fantastic speed among elevated transportation tracks and Space Mountain-esque spires. It seems to me that Disney would not release a film with this title and this aesthetic if they were planning to abandon the concept in their parks. The real kicker, though? The tagline on posters advertising the film: “Imagine a place where nothing is impossible.” Not only is my above-outlined theme proposal feasible, it may be similar to what Disney is already intending to do with this suffering area.

There is something simultaneously ironic and poetically appropriate about the fact that Walt Disney's idealistic vision of the future is the one area of his park whose own future has always been so uncertain. The other themed lands are all to some extent nostalgic, and the past is what it is. Tomorrowland, despite everything, looks to the future, and the future is nebulous. But if there's one thing we can learn from Tomorrowland and all its failed predictions, it's just that: The future is never certain. Tomorrowland's current state of sloppiness does not mean it is inevitably doomed. Its theme may yet rise from the ashes to live anew.

* I wrote this before the official announcement concerning “Star Wars Land” had been made. I am adamantly against that idea, but if it's destined to happen anyway, I would rather Star Tours were moved there than that it remain in Tomorrowland. It doesn't need an entire land and an extra attraction in a different land.