Imagineeringland: the busiest place on Earth

Long, kickass Wired feature about the reuilding of Disney's Tomorrowland in an era of a small, neutered Imagineering department.

Tomorrowland has always been the most seamful piece of the Parks, starting with the 1955 Disneyland opening. They ran out of money long before completion and had to triage a lot of the park (workers ran around putting Latin plaques on all the weeds that hadn't been landscaped out of existence, turning them into instant botanical exhibits). Tomorrowland was essentially written out of the budget and given over to private corporate exhibitors, like the Dairy Farmers of Amercia (Cow of Tomorrow: a papier-mache cow with an IV in her hock who watched videos of pastures all day), Kaiser Alumninium (Aluminium Hall of Fame: a giant, walk-through aluminium telescope with exhibits on the was that aluminium makes for a better tomorrow), and a nonsenical exhibit that consisted of a tent containing a midget in the giant-squid costume from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, waving its tenticals.

Over the years, there have been many attempts to modernize — and retro-fy — Tomorrowland and nail the moving target of The Future.

The Imagineers will begin testing Mission: Space, first with Disney employees, later with park guests in Orlando. The goal with big attractions like Space is to move through as many as 2,500 guests an hour. If Space turns out to be a landmark attraction — the kind of ride people get in line for again as soon as they come — it'll help Epcot's attendance, which dropped 15 percent last year, more than any other Disney park. (The 20-year-old Epcot is still the third-most visited park in the US, after the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland, according to Amusement Business, an industry publication.) And it would give Disney bragging rights if tourists consider Space to be even cooler than Universal's $100 million Spider-Man ride across town, which is widely regarded as the industry's most advanced attraction.

For the Imagineers, building a ride like Mission: Space is a reminder of the good old days, a visible indicator that everything is actually OK. "If there's a perception that the business guys have taken over, I would point out that the projects we're doing now have the same or higher budgets as we've had before," says Goodman.

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