All-New Nighttime Show to Replace "IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth" at Epcot
After nearly 20 years of delighting Epcot guests through music, fireworks, fire torches and more, the Walt Disney World Resort officially announced that “IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth” will be ending in the second half of next year. The Disney Parks Live Entertainment team is already busy creating new thrills to debut immediately following the conclusion of “IllumiNations,” continuing the tradition of nightly entertainment on the World Showcase Lagoon.
“IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth,” which is currently planned to run to the end of summer 2019, has entertained millions of Guests gathered around World Showcase Lagoon sharing the light and a story since it debuted in October 1999 as part of the Walt Disney World Millennium Celebration. During the coming year, the park will be celebrating this classic show, so Guests still have plenty of time to experience it again and again, as excitement builds for what’s next.
As most theme park fans know, Disney has got big plans for our multi-year transformation of Epcot, with new experiences that will “Wow!” guests while keeping true to the original vision of the park. And the all-new nighttime fireworks spectacular coming to Epcot’s World Showcase Lagoon will be part of the park’s exciting evolution.
The new show joins several previously announced experiences coming to Epcot, including the highly-anticipated “Guardians of the Galaxy” roller coaster attraction, a “Ratatouille”-inspired attraction in World Showcase, a new table-service restaurant adjacent to Mission: SPACE, and much more!
As most theme park fans know, Disney has got big plans for our multi-year transformation of Epcot, with new experiences that will “Wow!” guests while keeping true to the original vision of the park. And the all-new nighttime fireworks spectacular coming to Epcot’s World Showcase Lagoon will be part of the park’s exciting evolution.
The new show joins several previously announced experiences coming to Epcot, including the highly-anticipated “Guardians of the Galaxy” roller coaster attraction, a “Ratatouille”-inspired attraction in World Showcase, a new table-service restaurant adjacent to Mission: SPACE, and much more!
PHOTO: © 2018 Walt Disney World Resort. All Rights Reserved.
That's too bad, I really liked IllumiNations. If the past few additions/subtractions from the park are any indicator, the new show will most certainly NOT be in keeping with the park's original concepts. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see some variation on Universal's Cinematic Spectacular, featuring clips from animated Disney movies whose settings loosely fit with real-life places and cultures. It'll be something blatantly self-aggrandizing and self-promoting, under the pretense of a celebration of culture and humanity (I doubt they'll even try to pretend Epcot is still about science and the real world). In fact, that would be a perfect fit for the 'new' Epcot, which is really just an overflow space for the ride and show concepts that don't fit in Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios, sorted into the countries that their corresponding movies' settings most closely imitate. I can see it now, just as I accurately predicted what the Frozen ride would be like. A clip from Ratatouille here, a few bars of "Let it Go" there, the occasional interruption from a sombrero-clad Mickey Mouse and maraca-weilding Donald Duck, maybe a wide shot of Mulan on a windy mountain holding a sword. They might even throw in some culturally-ambiguous characters like Baymax, the Guardians of the Galaxy (who'll make some wise crack about being the only photorealistic characters), or the anthropomorphic emotions of Inside Out as some perverse representative of Future World or the "people of the Universe". Then they'll wrap it up in a big cutesy bow of the Circle of Life, or something equally cliched and reductive... And somehow, nobody will take issue with it but me lol
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