Wonders of Life

Tim

Tim

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Staff member
Well, the giant DNA helix and signage are gone as of my last trip... pity, I never partook of any of the attractions that Wonders of Life offered. A good friend of mine took me thru the pavillion last November during Food and Wine but there was very little left to suggest that anything interesting might have been inside.

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I think that building is cool. I wish they would have just rehabbed is instead of totally getting rid of it. I went there when they had it open for just a short period of time maybe a year or two ago and thought that cranium command was funny but the hands on stuff hadn't been touched in a long time. I'm kinda sad to see this go but not really.
 
What upsets me is that it was a serious attempt at making an educational pavilion, arguably the last true example of the original spirit of Epcot. Many of the hands on exhibits were really more amusing than educational but I still enjoyed them, it's amazing how many ways there are to trick the human brain into experiencing things that aren't there.
In many ways I enjoyed Body Wars more than the Star Wars ride. It was very jerky, I know it made a lot of people sick, but I just thought that the story was a lot stronger, I never cared for the "tourists get dragged into a battle by a clumsy pilot robot" plot. I'm saying this as a big Star Wars geek, mind you. Body Wars had real drama, you do get drawn into conflict through an accident but on the other hand you get out of it through skill and daring.

At least I got to ride it once more when it was open for that brief period of time. Not only that, I nearly had the entire ride vehicle to myself, almost no one was riding it. I haven't seen a Disney World ride THAT abandoned since the time I rode Imagination during an extra magic hour night, I felt like they turned the ride on just for me it was so empty.

I just hope they do something with the building and the simulator pods. It's a shame to see all that motion simulator hardware sitting idle. At least I assume it's sitting idle... I mean for all I know the cast members have plugged computers into them and are using them to play flight simulator games.


No, no, of course they're not. But it's what I'd do if I could do it without getting fired.
 
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dan, i agree with your sentiment about WOL being the last remaining chunk of future world that was "edutaining, except for maybe living with the land. if you look around the pavilions now, you see that the audio animatronic journeys through space, transportation, energy, imagination, etc. seem to have been "dumbed down" in favor of their more trilling current iterations. i would LOVE to go back to the epcot of the 1980's to re-experience the classic attractions that i didn't care about when i was a bratty kid and just wanted to go to MK every single day. i think that's why "the epcot thing" had such a profound effect on me.

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"Dan" said:
At least I assume it's sitting idle... I mean for all I know the cast members have plugged computers into them and are using them to play flight simulator games.


No, no, of course they're not. But it's what I'd do if I could do it without getting fired.
Click to expand...


Woot! 80386 at 16 mHz! Betcha it can keep up with the 16 colors!


Me too Dan....that would have been fun.
 
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Tim, that's interesting that you state that you didn't pay much attention to Epcot when you were a kid. I'm exactly the reverse, that's why I'm so passionate about this. My absolute fondest Disney memory from going there as a kid takes place at Epcot at night. It starts out with riding Journey into Imagination (original flavor), then goes on to the sort of gift shop that they had back in that era (filled with educational type toys, all sorts of scientifically themed things), and then ends up with me lying in bed at our hotel practically bursting with excitement at all the amazing stuff I'd seen, it's easily one of my happiest childhood memories. I WAS the kid in the Disney commercials they used to have that was all tired out from a big day but still too excited to go to sleep. Epcot was the real deal for me. Technology, futurism, robots that you can talk to, touch screen informational kiosks (which was a big deal to me back then, now I have a touch screen phone), video reservation phones (if I'm remembering it right, I seem to recall video phone kiosks that you could use to make reservations at restaurants).. I loved the Magic Kingdom as well, of course, but when I think back to Disney World when I was a kid everything is focused around Epcot. Well.. that and having to do homework at night in our room. Yeah, we would go during October, I think, for some reason that was our traditional time. Since I was being taken out of school for it I'd get the assignments that I was missing and do them at night.

Actually I guess Imagination wasn't technically educational in nature. I know the reason they changed it wasn't because they thought it needed updating but because it was an expensive ride to maintain. But beside that... I don't know if all the futurism stuff appealed to me because I already liked that sort of thing or if I have Epcot to blame/thank for my obsession with futuristic ways to do things better. But it sure seems like it was a powerful influence on my way of thinking.

Oh, and Roger, my 386 had 256 colors. Woot indeed.
 
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"Dan" said:
if I'm remembering it right, I seem to recall video phone kiosks that you could use to make reservations at restaurants)..
Click to expand...

That's funny Dan. Dina and I were just talking about those. We have spent the past three nights watching videos of old attractions, world of motion, universe of energy, and horizons.

We used those monitors to make dinner reservations in 1991, 1992 or 1993, (maybe 1994). We cant remember. I remember we made the reservation for San Angel Inn. Dina remembers saying "this is so cool" and the woman kind of chuckling at her. Dina also remembers that the woman never really made eye contact, like she was looking at a camera off center

So here is the point: Does anyone remember where these kiosks were? Can you still see or find the remnants of them? Are they completely gone?
 
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whoa whoa whoa

weren't those at what is now Innoventions East? Or part of Mouse Gear? If I remember correctly, wasn't the Art of Disney store upstairs above the original Mouse Gear store, and the kiosks were back there....I remember them or something back there in 1996.
 
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Art of Disney was definitely upstairs at the Centorium! I loved the cool glass elevator! The current art of disney used to house the teacher store
 
Boy is this thread bringing back memories.... Body Wars starring Otter, er Tim Matheson and Elizabeth Shue....I was only able to go in Wonders of Life once. In 1996.
 
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yep, we only rode body wars once, made dina pretty sick. but star tours is ok.
In WOL, I always played with the sensory stuff that was in the back. We never did anything else in WOL.
 
Somewhere behind the "Centorium" there was a long hallway. I once slept on a bench back there while Dina shopped. They used to have a big Mickey Christmas Carol display back there too, Maybe that is where the kiosks were?
 
The last few years those kisoks were used they were mostly over beside the guest services building in little "booths" off to one side of the building that look as if they still are there, from what i remember seeing at the meet where we toured Epcot just after Beverlyfest. I also remember using one in Germany of world showcase on our first trip to epcot back in 96 or one of the trips i took in 97 but it was gone shortly thereafter the structure it was in resembled a cross between an ATM kiosk and a gazebo (in fact I think it may have had an ATM built into one of its sides as well.)
 
They used the pavilion in the fall of '07 for the Food and Wine Festival, and I must say it was VERY empty inside. They had pretty well gutted all of the old stuff that they could have for the festival. Maybe we will see something new and exciting be announced this year! I hope.
 
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Thanks Big-brian. You are right too about Germany. According to this map, they were called Worldkey Information Satellites.
This map looks a little different than what I am remembering though. We were standing outside under cover of some kind. And it looks like the one near SE was probably inside.
Maybe Dina and I used the one between the communicores.


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Cool map Craig! I had an older one of MK, 1982 I think, in German, so I gave it to my friend who has a PhD in German. I did scan it first tho'!
 
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Not to give any premature hope (as I don't think anything is reopening there anytime soon), but the original attractions are intact at WoL (albeit "boarded up" so they aren't noticeable when it's used for festivals). The testing for Star Tours 2.0 has been taking place at Body Wars. The pavilion itself is now used for private events and various festivals.
 
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That's true that as long as they are still there, they can do something with it.

Just ask Disneyland's subs.

But ignore the Peoplemover track. Or the old Motorboat cruise lagoon. Or the Festival of Fools arena. Or the Keelboat beached on Tom Sawyer's Island Pirate's Lair at Tom Sawyer's Island.

And that dilapidated building in WDW's Fantasyland across from Peter Pan. Or that building on top of the waterfall in Tomorrowland.
 
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Here's a look at the Pavilion over 10 years ago:

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