Fun Find Friday

January 14, 2011

Location: Epcot: Future World West

While walking from Spaceship Earth to Soarin' you will most likely walk over the following picture:
                        

"What is it?" you may ask. It is actually two things. One obvious, the other not so obvious.

Let's start with the obvious. If you take a closer look at the ground you will realize that there are several different layers present. The middle layer is simple at first glance. Just an ordinary grey circle that is the center of this ground display.

The next section (a darker section of the circle) is broken up into five sections. Each section is a different quote by someone famous in history:
   

You see, keeping with the whole Future World theme, Imagineers decided to pay tribute to the people of the past that made their "Future World" the one we live in today. The next layer is where things get really interesting though. Here you will find five small circles spread out from one another. Each circle has the words, "Prehistoric Era" written upon it and an invention that came out of that era:
            

As you look at each layer you will realize that each is connected to a certain era in history and in each era you have the inventions that helped make the future easier for others. For instance, in the Middle Ages you only have one invention present, the printing press, while the Renaissance Period brings us six inventions including the telescope.

As soon as you reach the Industrial Revolution (12 inventions) and 20th Century (14 inventions) you begin to realize how far the world has come in the last 200 years. However, the timeline present isn't here to show us what great work mankind has done over the last 3 million years. If you really take your time to look at the inventions of the past you can see that they helped the inventions of the future even if those future inventions are now in our past.
   

This ties in with Future World perfectly due to the fact that we are looking ahead at the future, while still acknowledging those that helped us get to where we are today.

I know what you are thinking, "You said there was a not so obvious thing present as well!" There is. In the very center of the circle is the foundation of the future. Every invention that has had an impact on history revolves around one thing and that is the future.

At the same time, you have to think of Walt's original plans for Epcot where all of Walt Disney World would revolve around this Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. So my friends, next time you are in Epcot stand in the grey circle in the middle because when you do, you'll be standing in the exact center of Walt Disney World and you can know that everything is revolving around you at that moment.

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