It all begins in FuturePort, where guests board the unique, geometric suspended Omnimover vehicles that will soar through the future. (As silly as it might sound, perhaps you could compare these specialized, overhead Omnimovers to the ride system of Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. With nothing below, you feel as though you’re flying, turning to face scenes as your elevation changes – albeit, smoothly and gradually here. Like Forbidden Journey, you’ll also transition from sets to screens effortlessly… but that’s in just a few minutes…)
Pulling back and away from Futureport, your vehicle appears to be flying. And it is. You’re floating among glowing, undulating clouds. The father and mother from Carousel of Progress will be our guides and narrators here, but en route to the future, things have changed. Now a little older, the characters are grandparents, and we’re going to visit their three children who’ve scattered around the world to three very different cities of the future.
The father speaks up first: “Wait till you see the new towns of tomorrow: desert farms, floating cities…. Even colonies in space! But you know, this isn’t the first time that anyone’s tried to make this trip. People have been dreaming about the future for centuries.”
Looking back at tomorrow
Leaving the glowing clouds behind and floating through the darkness, the sky would suddenly light up with the sketches of Leonardo Da Vinci’s contraptions. Then, the sky showed a glowing golden illustration of the Columbiad cannon launching a space ship toward the moon, taken from Jules Verne’s novel De la Terre à la Lune.
Nearby, an animatronic of Verne himself (and his chicken) float inside a lantern-lit capsule, bound for the moon. The father laughs, “Jules may not have had all the answers, but he had the right idea!” To which his wife replies, “He was just a little ahead of his time.” Around the corner, a projected George Méliès moon with a space capsule in its eye brings Verne’s grand fantasy to life. Back to Earth, a gorgeous pop-up-book style vignette of Paris shows people riding zephyrs and standing atop steampunk style towers, all with the Eiffel Tower beyond.
Just past the Parisian landscape is more current vision of the future – a sleek, mod apartment with a window overlooking a glimmering, metallic Avenue of Planets. A man looks out across the plaza as a robotic butler vacuums.
Just beyond, grandpa is getting a complete haircut and facial thanks to a robotic chair, while a robotic chef cleans up a mess in the kitchen.
A new vision of the future is around the corner: tomorrow as seen from the 50s. Sky needle towers, neon lights, hula-hoops, dogs with jetpacks, martini glasses…
“It’s a bit far out, don’t you think?” the mother laughs. And it is – a future that shaped The Jetsons. The father replies, “I guess so, but we always thought the future would be kind of fun!”
Next, the Omnimover floats into an incredible Omnimax domed screen, surrounding riders in a continuous projected film images – DNA swirls around them, then fish and SCUBA gear; crystals crinkle across the screen; the sun and its limitless energy…All the while, the narrator discusses our increasing awareness and understanding of these micro- and macroscopic concepts, and how they’re feeding the future.
“What you’ve just seen are the building blocks for the future up ahead…. And while it may look fantastic, remember: it’s all possible. And we ought to know – we live there. Come on, take a look at 21st century living: on land, at sea, and even in space. But let’s start off at our place.”
Nova Cite
It’s our first chance to see the father and mother as we enter their futuristic living in the urban habitat of Nova Cite. And wouldn’t you know? Rover’s here too! Outside of the massive paned windows, monorails and Peoplemovers zoom by angled skyscrapers. Out on the porch, plants are growing through genetically modified means, creating crops that are taller, heartier, and more nutritious than ever. Their daughter is visiting, musing over her job overseeing the variable solar control at the crop harvesting center.
“Isn’t it something?” the father laughs. “Send a city kid to college for seven years and what happens? She becomes a farmer!”
“Oh, I think agricultural engineer is more like it!”
“But hey, with today’s transportation, we’re just minutes away from our kids!”
Mesa Verde
Floating on, the Omnimover has made its way to the home of the first daughter, overlooking Mesa Verde, where endless rows of abundant crops proceed on into the mists of distant mountains. The daughter stands at a control panel overlooks the fields proudly. “A few years ago, this was all barren desert. No crops; no irrigation. Quite a transformation!”
Further on in the desert, we enter the daughter’s home after a day overseeing the fields. Her husband and son are making dinner in the desert home’s kitchen where the smell of oranges fills the room. Meanwhile, while her daughter is in the living room, speaking via videophone to her boyfriend, who’s elsewhere working on repairing a submarine.
The narrator – a protective grandfather, no doubt – speaks up. “Shouldn’t she be studying instead of talking to that beach boy?”
“He’s not a beach boy,” his wife corrects. “He’s studying marine biology there on the floating city!”
Sea Castle Research Base
As the vehicle floats out of the living room, we’re suddenly on the other side of the conversation, watching the boyfriend repair the sub with the narrator’s granddaughter visible on a massive video screen nearby. The Omnimovers dive to reveal an entire set underneath the Repair Bay – it’s an undersea classroom of animatronic students meeting a seal for the first time, all dressed in wet suits.
Now underwater, the Omnimover floats alongside the outside of Sea Castle where a little girl is leaned against a bubbled window looking out into the deep. Elsewhere, people relax and have dinner in an underwater resort. Octopi, sea horses, and other creatures hide among the sea grasses under the floating Base.
Pressing through the tall grasses, the Omnimover enters yet another film sequence, this time as the class from the classroom sets off in the water, diving through the kelp farms with the submerged towers of Sea Castle in the distance. In the dark depths, a machine harvests seaweed and kelp from the floor of the ocean as the narrator mentions, “Seawater has become an excellent source of energy as well as being valuable for desert irrigation. Kelp is a tremendous source of low cost fuel! We’ve found lots of good things under our oceans.”
“And don’t forget space!” his wife reminds him. “We’ve found lots of good things out there, too.”
Brava Centauri
At once, the darkness of the ocean becomes spotted with distant pinpoints of light as we find ourselves in space. Then, ahead, scientists are suspended upside down in the darkness repairing a telescope, with a massive space station – Brava Centauri – floating silently in the distance.
Entering the colony through a gravity-free spaceship dock, the Omnimovers enter into a zero-G chamber where a family plays in the weightlessness. In the next room, a laboratory is experimenting with floating crystals. The father and mother announce their departure (it’s their grandson’s birthday) and that they’ll catch up with us later.
And indeed, in the next room, three video screens broadcast all the members of the family that we’ve met in Nova Cite, Mesa Verde, and Sea Castle. (“Holograms” cleverly brought to life via the Pepper’s ghost illusion, like in the Haunted Mansion’s hitch-hiking ghosts encounter.)
Choose your future
Next comes the part of Horizons you’ll want to write home about. A kind female voice speaks. “Attention Horizons passengers. You are now invited to choose your own path back to the Futureport. Please look down at the lighted panels in front of you. Press one of the three ride choices: Space, Desert, or Undersea. Everyone can choose, majority rules. All passengers make your selections now.”
In front of each seat, three buttons illuminate: for Omega Centauri, Sea Castle Resort, and Mesa Verde. The ride’s finale will take guests into the distant future of one of the three biomes explored today through a 31 second simulator video – a different film for each Omnimover cab based on the selections of riders.
The videos were a simulated flyover of the futuristic terrain, all achieved through cameras flying over scaled models. Those models – produced in 1983 by 30 model makers – were built and filmed in a hangar at the Burbank airport, with the desert model alone measuring 32 feet wide by 75 feet long (see Sea Castle, above).
Father: “Well, we’re almost back from the future.”
Mother: “Oh, it went by so quickly!”
Father: “Yes, but one of the nice things about traveling into the future is that the journey’s just beginning. And I’ll tell you something: if we can dream it, we really can do it. And that’s the most exciting part.” As always, we like to end with a point-of-view video that might give you a better idea of what the scenes and sights above really felt like:
Of course, the story of Horizons isn’t over yet… Read on as we explore the end of the future at Epcot.