Disney Cartoon #3:
"The EPCOT Film" (October27, 1966)
by Albert Gutierrez
This week's Saturday Matinee is unique, as
I've decided to pick a short that was never
screened in theatres and went largely unseen
in its entirety until 2004. In fact, less
than half of the film is animated, the rest
is live-action material shot in
Disneyland and with Walt.
The EPCOT film was one of the last projects
that
Walt Disney worked on, and was a
basic outline and proposal for his lofty
Florida Project. It was intended to create
a futuristic and ideal community, designed
with a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic areas
of commerce, and pedestrian-focused
residential areas. The film is quite
fascinating not only from an animator's
perspective, but from economic, business,
and urban planning perspectives as well.
It starts with a narrated look at
Disneyland, offering us a nice and
contemporary (for 1966) view of the park and
its many lands. Its focus is on how
Disneyland has been hailed as the "greatest
piece of urban design in the United States"
(James W. Rouse, 1963), as it had become one
of the best planned communities, by raising
the standards and performances of what a
theme park is. From there, we move on to
the "Florida Project" room, as Walt gives
his own introduction to the project. He
explains how EPCOT will benefit from a lot
of things that Florida has to offer: the
sheer size of the property (over 27,000
acres), the two highways that can bring in
tourists, the
new theme park, the electric-powered
transportation system, etc. But most of
all, he focuses on the city that has been
designed as the centerpiece of the entire
"Disney World": EPCOT, the
Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow.
At this point, we get to see the plans for
EPCOT. Sketches of the city and limited
animation allows us to see how such a
community would function, based on the
"radial plan" that was used in Disneyland.
It's quite a sight, especially when you
consider how New Pedestrianism practically
dominates the entire design. The use of
electric-powered vehicles like the
PeopleMover and the Monorail also show the
evolution of transportation and an
opportunity to move on from the reliance on
gasoline and other polluting fuel. What
really struck me the most, however, was the
residential areas. Although they are a part
of EPCOT, they also feel like their own
sub-community. It's very much like the
suburban sprawl that develops in growing
cities, although it is much more organized,
pedestrian focused as mentioned earlier, and
less concentrated in terms of number of
homes per-square-inch.
After the spiel and summary of the EPCOT
city, we also get a very brief discussion of
the Industrial Park, which for all intents
and purposes would gradually evolve into the
"Future World" attractions that we have at
the Epcot park. A showcase for future
technology, although the proposed Industrial
Park is more business and technology minded
than the theme park is, as it is proposed to
be fully-functional work plants and
factories. Finally, we return to Walt, who
says some closing words and then
enthusiastically ends with, "We're ready to
go right now!"
As lofty as the EPCOT film is, it sadly did
not come to fruition the way that Walt ever
dreamed. True, we did get a theme park and
monorail system, and
EPCOT Center did open in 1982. But a
planned community on such a scale was sadly
never accomplished. Celebration, Disney's
planned community in Osceola County, is
nowhere near the lofty vision that EPCOT
ever was. As such, the EPCOT film is rather
bittersweet. It captures one of Walt's last
dreams, which sadly still goes unrealized
today, although there is always hope for the
future, which is what EPCOT was all about.
Given the size of Disney's Florida property
and the scope of the Disney corporation, I
firmly believe that one day, EPCOT as Walt
envisioned will one day be a reality.
For those interested in viewing the EPCOT
film, it's available on
YouTube, but I recommend purchasing
it in "Walt
Disney Treasures: Tomorrow Land", as
it also includes several
technological/future-themed episodes of
"Disneyland", an interview with Ray
Bradbury, and a very insightful interview
between
Leonard Maltin and
Marty Sklar, the Disney Legend and
Imagineer who wrote the script for the EPCOT
film.