Saturday, October 6, 2012

The Problem With Tomorrowland

I'm really getting tired of dystopian stories. Sure, I like some Gothic melancholy sometimes, but all the negativity of the dystopian angle is just too much for me. I suppose I find it sad that we've lost the once bright and positive view of the future we had in, say, the fifties.

Walt Disney designed Disneyland as something to be constantly evolving and improving (as long as imagination was left in the world, to be exact), which applies in an even greater degree to Tomorrowland. As we move further into time, what the future is changes. But depending on who you ask, Tomorrowland has been having a tad of trouble lately. There is the nearly unused space in Innoventions and though Autopia has love, it isn't very futuristic. The problem is, what is today's future?

Modern portrayals of the future tend to be negative, which isn't terribly Disney. So how do you compromise? Do you bring a darker future into a happy park? Do you try to temper visions with reality? There's a space theme going on in Tomorrowland right now--do you continue on with that, or expand into other areas, too?

Or instead of telling what the future is or what general society right now sees the future as, does Disney tell what their future is? Main St., USA tells history Disney-style (aka. with lots of nostalgia and charm); should it just be the same way with the future?

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