Redrawing the Map | Epcot Becoming Episode 1 | National Geographic

EPCOT really has been changing since the very beginning. But no matter where you look today, there's still going to be vestiges of those hallmarks of early EPCOT. EPCOT was Disney's first non-castle park when it opened in 1982. In 1982, this was the very first park map.

One of the great things about EPCOT is that it's taking two concepts that are kind of at odds. Early EPCOT was organized in two sections. The front of the park was Future World, the back World Showcase. This was a community of ideas in Future World and a community of nations in World Showcase. And that was great for a while... but EPCOT is based on the real world, and the real world changes faster than fantasy. So, we have to not only keep it up, but we have to keep up with it.

So, in 2016, the Disney Imagineers, who are responsible for designing Disney's parks and attractions, set out to transform the Future World section of the park. It was a challenge at first to think about, can we step away from the notion of Future World yet keep a lot of the core ideas? There's so much that's great in there. We just had to give it a new organization. Instead of one place called Future World, do they instead become a series of neighborhoods?

And what we came up with was three different ideas here. We have World Discovery... which is really about Mission Space and Test Track. Where you're talking about that anything is possible through human ingenuity and innovation.

We have World Nature, which is about The Seas with Nemo and Friends and The Land. It’s really about natural life, the love of nature, and what our responsibilities are. What about from Spaceship Earth, right through the middle of the park towards World Showcase? Let's call that World Celebration, because that really represents the idea of connecting and creating and dreaming.

Those have now become the three neighborhoods that make up the front portion of the park, and the ideas going forward will now be designed to fit into those so that they're very clear to our guests where they are and what to expect from a storytelling standpoint.

At World Discovery, the neighborhood of innovation, The Imagineers made room for a new cosmic attraction. The Universe of Energy Pavilion is now home to Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind. Using the Universe of Energy building, we more than doubled the size. You have to be very deliberate about the logistics of bringing everything inside a building that has roofs and walls. You can't just kind of bring a crane in and move things around however you want.

The creators of the original story set this fictional planet of Xandar in the real Andromeda Galaxy, which gave us a hook to hang some real science stories into our telling of this Guardians of the Galaxy story. From a roller coaster... to a lush trail at World Nature. Making her EPCOT debut with the Journey of Water inspired by Moana.

The creative team was given a space in the World Nature neighborhood to envision a brand-new experience. We wanted to create this outdoor space, and we really wanted guests to connect with nature. We started with layouts. What does the path look like and what do you do along the way? To create the pathway, Imagineers planted about 200 trees and over 100 varieties of plants. As they travel through, they see the natural life cycle of water.

In the center of the park, we're seeing World Celebration, and this beautiful new addition with a lot more green space. And, Dreamers Point section with a brand new statue of Walt Disney called Walt the Dreamer. World Celebration is really going to be, as we move forward, the center of celebration, the center of festival programming.

The festivals and a new Mickey and Friends character greeting will have a brand new space on the map in the upcoming CommuniCore Hall and Plaza, opening later in 2024. This space encourages you just to slow down, connect and enjoy the beauty of nature.

And throughout World Celebration... The EPCOT Anthem can be heard. The idea was that the music from the time that you enter the park, as you move to a different part, it adapts to your surroundings. So when you are at Dreamers Point, the arrangement is really inspirational.

EPCOT, the park now with World Nature, World Celebration, World Discovery, World Showcase, all coming together in harmony gives us a roadmap to look to the future with a whole heck of a lot of optimism.