A little overripe in places...
Written: Feb 08 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Educational; Large, air-conditioned pavilion.
Cons: Ridiculous, unnecessary waits for boat ride; Food Rocks.
The Bottom Line: Despite the drawbacks, the Land is a necessary visit for any trip to Epcot.
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| cactus_matt's Full Review: The Land |
As is the case with most of Epcot’s Future World pavilions, there has been some amount of renovation taking place at the Land, not all of which has made complete sense. The result was transforming something outstanding into something merely average, sadly, one of Disney’s better efforts as of late.
The Land was one of the pavilions present on the park’s opening day in 1982, and one of few to demonstrate tangible efforts towards actual progress rather than abstract, theoretical visions thereof. Granted, either was perfectly acceptable, but this distinction may have helped the Land survive through a significant sponsor change and otherwise troubled times at Epcot later on down the line.
The centerpiece of Epcot’s west side, the Land pavilion is Future World’s largest, boasting a movie, a musical revue, a boat ride, a revolving restaurant, a food court, and a gift shop. It’s all housed indoors, set in a circular arrangement around a spacious, two-story sunken room. A fountain and a number of colorful, umbrella-topped tables span the floor as a fleet of psychedelic hot-air balloons hangs from the ceiling overhead. It’s quiet, softly illuminated, and air-conditioned, making it an excellent place to cool down and relax, if just for that purpose alone. Of course, Disney wouldn’t exactly be upset if you purchased refreshments, and have actually gone to some effort to see that you do. More on that in a moment.
Living with the Land
This is the boat ride, the Land’s main attraction, a narrated tour through a series of greenhouses where Disney scientists are hard at work developing better ways of growing crops. The tour opens with the boats passing a selection of animatronic dioramas, each one depicting a different natural habitat. A pre-recorded spiel relates these habitats to the difficulty presented in sustaining particular sorts of life there, and concludes with the old-fashioned American farm. The dioramas look great, and you can actually feel the weather coming off each of them. The boats enter a room where movies are seen displaying methods of farming that the narration claims are becoming obsolete, which cues a live, on-board narrator to take over for the greenhouse portions of the tour.
The live narrator goes into detail about new growing methods being tested at the Land, most typically in an effort to harvest crops in less-than-ideal conditions. Ironically, some of the more visually intriguing methods have been on display since day one, so it apparently helps to stick with what works. In addition to ordinary crops, various types of fish and water-dwelling creatures are raised at the Land, offering the highlight of the tour for those who’ve never seen an eel or an alligator up close before. The narrator asserts that much of what’s grown in the Land is used in various restaurants at Disney World, leading many a guest to ponder what they’d eaten along the way that the eel could’ve possibly ended up as.
If one is so inclined, an hour-long backstage tour of Living with the Land is available by reservation, mostly warranting a closer look and more in-depth explanation of planting methods. It costs $6 for adults and $4 for children, who may or may not take infinite interest what there is to see. For those with aspirations of walking through and being part of a Disney ride, however, this may be their only (legal) chance.
Living with the Land is an anomaly to some. When Kraft, the original sponsor of the Land, chose to discontinue funding in 1992, the pavilion found itself looking to Nestle for financial assistance. Consequently, everything inside began to experience considerable change, starting with the boat ride. Initially titled “Listen to the Land,” it once possessed a catchy theme song and a slightly more inviting presentation. In times where Disney’s effort generally leans towards making everything more upbeat, it’s very difficult to understand why they’d want to make an attraction less fun, especially one whose climax is growing vegetables. Nevertheless, Living with the Land is still interesting for those with reasonable attention spans, regardless of it feeling a bit incomplete at times.
It was just recently that Disney installed a “Fastpass” for Living with the Land, which seemed a bizarre decision at the time, as lines had never been long up until then. Suddenly, the attraction began to take on waits rivaled only by those of Test Track, sometimes upwards of 40-50 minutes. Either people had caught planting fever, or there was something fishy going on. Something fishy, indeed. Disney has significantly cut ride capacity by sending fewer boats through at a time, making longer lines inevitable. It’s their assumption that the majority of visitors won’t want to deal with the wait, and thus the Fastpass comes into play. The probability is high that people who do get the Fastpass aren’t going to leave the pavilion. And those who don’t leave the pavilion are likely to pass the time giving money to the Land’s wide selection of eateries. What a profitable coincidence!
This may sound like an underhanded tactic on Disney’s part, but it’s the only reasonable explanation for engineering a longer wait on an attraction. Those who use Fastpass receive nearly 90% priority when the boats are loading, making standing in line an all but futile effort.
The Garden Grill Restaurant
This is the Land’s table service restaurant and the only place in Epcot to be pestered by costumed characters as one eats. Family style breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served at moderate prices on a revolving floor that overlooks scenes from Living with the Land. Nothing special, but an ideal choice to avoid the pomp and circumstance that usually accompanies character dining.
Sunshine Season Food Fair
The Land’s food court offers BBQ, pasta, baked potatoes, soups, salads, and desserts. Touted as healthier than the typical Disney counter service fare, but considering that the latter typically consists of hamburgers, fried chicken, and pizza, that’s not saying a whole lot. Otherwise, the prices run about the same.
The Circle of Life
The movie that originally ran in this theater was entitled “Symbiosis”, a serious look at the problems facing the environment in the wake of human civilization. After Nestle took over the pavilion, popular animated characters from the Lion King were added for the sake of making it more accessible to young children, and Symbiosis became the Circle of Life. Although it was at least a tasteful decision to make the characters a part of the attraction, those expecting a happy-go-lucky cartoon should be warned ahead of time.
The wait to get in is usually ten minutes at most, and after that it’s probably not the sort of thing that a person will go back to see again during the same visit. The film opens with the same musical number that opened the Lion King, set to live-action footage of animals roaming free in their respective habitats. Cut to an animated scene of heavily licensed characters Timon and Pumbaa damming up a small river. Enter protagonist Simba, who lambastes the two for their actions and begins to lecture them on the way man has fouled up the environment. What follows is roughly 5 minutes of real-life footage of oil spills, smog, deforestation, and littering intercut with shots of cuddly little animals suffering the effects. This achieves the desired result on the emotions of the audience, but smaller children may find themselves a little overwhelmed.
Simba gives everyone the “People start pollution, people can stop it” sort of message, except without the single tear running down his cheek at the end. Reaffirming hope for the future, the dam is destroyed and the in-theater host thanks everyone for watching. The change from Symbiosis to the Circle of Life was probably for the better, although it’s still recommended to exercise a bit of caution. For those who are looking to take their kids for a crash course in environmental consciousness, however, one probably won’t find a better place to do so.
Food Rocks
The show originally housed here was “Kitchen Kabaret,” a musical revue starring Bonnie Appetit and her kitchen full of animatronic foodstuffs who collectively sang of the benefits of good nutrition in a jazzy style reminiscent of the 1930’s and 40’s. It wasn’t anything incredible, but it did make a proud addition to the Land. Again, with the transference of sponsorship, change didn’t lurk far behind.
This time things were taken a little too far in an effort to make the show hipper. Kitchen Kabaret was replaced with Food Rocks, a loud, uninspired display of dumbed-down, “poor man’s” animatronics and inane song parodies. It’s an insult to the high production standards set in the original show, resembling some sort of low-budget after school special rather than something out of Disney. Bonnie Appetit is no more; in her place is “Füd Wrapper,” arguably the worst gag name of all time. Füd Wrapper and his cheap, cardboard cutout-like friends relate reprocessed food facts by way of reprocessed rock songs for what seems like an eternity, prompting kids to groan and many adults to slowly edge towards the exit. Which is an uncomfortable situation easily remedied by steering clear of Food Rocks in the first place.
In Conclusion…
The Land is a mixed bag. Living with the Land and the Circle of Life aren’t the best of Epcot, but they’re certainly far from the worst, which is most likely Food Rocks. That terrible attraction and the outlandish wait at Living with the Land are what keep the place from getting a higher rating. Otherwise, people who don’t mind something more educational might find a favorite in this pavilion; everyone else will at least find something worth checking out.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cactus_matt
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Location: Florida
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 24 members
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