Tomorrowland 2055: The Path to Imagineering’s Never-Built “Timeless” Tomorrow

1998: New Tomorrowland ’98 (California)

Location: Disneyland Park 
Lifetime: 1998 – 2003 

With practically no money, Baxter and Imagineers borrowed from their own catalogue to minimize cost. When Tomorrowland re-opened in 1998, it was clearly based on Paris’ thoughtful Discoveryland. But without the benefit of building it from scratch, that wasn’t saying much. The sum total seemed to be that the land was repainted from the bright whites and clean lines of the 1967 New Tomorrowland and covered instead with dark brown and copper paint, nonsensically splashed against obviously Space Age architecture.

The land’s entry fins flanking the mirror showbuildings were still carved with the geometric look of the 1960s, now just … brown. The beloved Rocket Jets that had revolved over the land for decades were decommissioned and a new spinner called the Astro Orbitor – an exact clone of Paris’ – was placed right at the entrance to the land, complete with the red rocks jutting from the earth around it. While beautiful, the contraption only served to further narrow the infamously tight paths of the itty-bitty Disneyland, congesting traffic.

If you can believe it, even the beloved and iconic Space Mountain was repainted in bronze and oxidized copper – a nonsensical color scheme to apply to the obviously Space Age building. While Paris’ “steampunk” Jules Verne inspired mountain was a sight to behold, it was simply stupid to apply the same colors to Googie architecture… It just made no sense. What’s worse is that upon going inside of the new, brown-and-copper Space Mountain, guests saw… well… exactly what they had since 1977 – cool grays, a 1970s style spaceship, and sci-fi computers from the era.

As for the land’s additions, there weren’t many. The rotating Carousel Theater (emptied in 1988 for Splash Mountain and intended to become Plectu’s Intergalactic Revue) finally got a new inhabitant after a decade empty: Innoventions, a tired rehash of the tired Epcot exhibit showcasing sponsors near-market or more honestly, outdated) products.

The old Mission to Mars building was closed in 1992 and preperations were underway to turn it into the debut of Alien Encounter. Eisner’s stop-order on Tomorrowland 2055 simply meant that the building remained empty and dark, just waiting for the go-ahead. Instead, Tomorrowland 1998 turned the building into Red Rockett’s Pizza Port quick service restaurant after Magic Kingdom’s Lost Legend: Alien Encounter proved far too terrifying for Disney World’s guests.

Nearby was the Magic Eye Theater, originally constructed to show Michael Jackson’s Captain EO. But by the late 1990s, that was a relic. So New Tomorrowland “debuted” a replacement: Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which had actually premiered at Epcot four years earlier and was itself based on a movie from 1989. 

The final (and only substantial) new addition was the a ride so disastrous, it earned its own in-depth feature in our series – Declassified Disaster: Rocket Rods. Disneyland’s venerated Peoplemover had closed in 1995 with promises that the track would be re-used for a stunning thrill ride as part of the New Tomorrowland. And indeed, the Rocket Rods were a thrill – the high speed, five-person cars (using a version of Test Track technology) took over the aerial highway, zooming along the elevated tracks of Tomorrowland. The Rocket Rods completed in three minutes a course that took the leisurely Peoplemovers 16 minutes.

The trouble is that with practically no budget, the Peoplemover track was not adequately prepared for the high-speed, high-energy Rocket Rods. The turns and twists in the convoluted track remained flat, and were not banked. The result was that at every turn, the Rocket Rods had to slow to a crawl before speeding up for every straightaway. The constant start-stop wore out tires daily and frazzled computer systems, E-stopping the ride constantly. Over its short lifetime, it was closed more than it was open. Ultimately closing after barely two years of on-and-off operation, the Rocket Rods today are remembered as one of the biggest flops in theme park history.

In Paris, the golden, bronze Discoveryland aesthetic was beautiful and substantial and a complement to the European style of its attractions… At Disneyland, things were different. To apply dark, grimy brown paint to Space Age stories was just wrong. Even those who appreciate the golden look of this New Tomorrowland would admit that the “European” style spinner and bronze exterior to Star Tours simply made no sense. It was style over substance. A fantasy exterior to sci-fi attractions.

If you asked Disneyland fans, the abysmal New Tomorrowland in 1998 had been a plight. As if it wasn’t bad enough that the land had half-heartedly and nonsensically been painted in dark brown, New Tomorrowland saw the closure of the Peoplemover and the Submarine Voyage (and the failure of Rocket Rods) effectively making the “redesigned” land amount to brown paint, a new 3D film, and Innoventions.

As a reminder of all that the land doesn’t have, the skeleton of the former Rocket Jets still sit atop the pedestal at the center of the land. The passenger rockets were replaced with satellite dishes to create what Disney called “the Observatron.” In initial explanations, the old skeleton would kick to life every 15 minutes to the elegant sounds of Discoveryland’s orchestral score. Today, it doesn’t move at all. 

Worse, the tracks of the Peoplemover / Rocket Rods remain to this day as a sad testament to the loss of one of the park’s most thoughtful attractions. Last year we published a must-read feature detailing the history of that elegant and much-missed fan favorite, and how its removal signaled the fall of Walt’s Tomorrowland. 

All in all, this New Tomorrowland was nothing to write home about.

Apologies

In 2003, Matt Ouimet (now CEO of Cedar Fair) became the president of the Disneyland Resort. With the open wound of California Adventure still fresh and the park’s highly-anticipated 50th anniversary approaching, Ouimet had one goal: to reverse the cost-cutting of his predecessors and give Disneyland a new lease on life. He had his work cut out for him, but one of his top priorities was the restoration of Tomorrowland.

Just five years after the copper paint, Ouimet and company began to transition Tomorrowland back toward its roots. Space Mountain closed for an in-depth, two year rebuild that gave the ride completely new track, new trains with synchronized on-board audio, a renewal of its ‘70s retro style, and – of course – its return to white.

The rest of the land followed in a publicized and intentional repaint as part of the 50th Anniversary celebration, returning not to its original white, but to blues and silvers and purples that brought it more in line with Magic Kingdom’s, just without the ornamentation.

The long-vacant north showbuilding that had been a Circle-Vision theater and then the queue for Rocket Rods became Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters, an interactive laser-shooting dark ride, in 2005 as well.

By 2007, even the Submarine Voyage – empty for a decade – re-opened as the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage and the legendary Monorail received all new trains.

Essentially, there’s no evidence today that Tomorrowland’s 1998 renovation ever happened, except for the golden, ground-level Astro Orbitor (though half-painted silver, with the rest left as the only gold in the land) and the empty Peoplemover tracks. But the piecemeal corrections and character-infused attractions also leave Tomorrowland more creatively weak than ever, with both a disjointed style and disconnected substance. That brings up the essential question…

What’s Next?

In 2019, Disney announced movement in Tomorrowland… in a strange bit of concept art, they revealed a “new” entrance to the land, excising the path-clogging “Discoveryland” rockwork in favor of mid-century-stylized planters, painted gleaming white. But with the grounded, golden Astro Orbitor still snuggled between silver Space Age turrets and mish-mashed cartoon IPs as its stars, the reimagining of the land’s entry doesn’t really feel like an improvement.

Instead, it seems like yet another piecemeal placemaking swap; not even an upgrade, just another change that only further entrenches the land in a muddled mess of contradictory designs; the “can being kicked down the road” yet again instead of the proper, fundamental redesign the land needs.

Every once in a while, Disney fans get ahold of new concept art like the set by Imagineer Scot Drake design of Shanghai Disneylands Tomorrowland) shown above and below (found around 2008) that at least indicate that Disney is aware of the problem and has top minds working on a fix for Tomorrowland. And just look at the art shown here: a vibrant, sleek Tomorrowland of color and light, floating fountains of mist, pulsing searchlights and glowing arches that highlight the 1967 fins rather than trying to hide them beneath brown paint or planters.

Golden ribbons streaming with light wrap throughout the white and silver land, encircling stepped fountains with statues and spires celebrating humanity’s reach for the stars… The apparent removal of the Magic Eye Theater, providing up-close access to Space Mountain and a return of its grand escalator entry. And perhaps best of all, the artwork below imagines that a beautiful, kinetic (and silver) jet-pack-based Astro Orbitor be incorporated into this new Tomorrowland, too, but painted silver and placed back atop the land’s central pedestal where it belongs, with rockets circling above the new KUKA Peoplemover.

(Given the spectacular vision he exhibited in reimagining Disneyland’s Tomorrowland in these theoretical drawings, it’s no surprise that Scot actually was put in charge of designing an entirely new generation of Tomorrowlands for Shanghai Disneyland, centered around the iconic Modern Marvel: TRON Lightcycle Power Run. In fact, that signature thrill ride is now “rezzing” in Magic Kingdom, kicking off yet another facelift of the land [this time removing the alien ornamentation and returning it to the ’70s-style retro-future]. Insiders have reported that a true facelift planned for Disneyland might be centered around the TRON attraction, too…)

Is it all too much to ask for? Maybe. But one thing is certain: a New New Tomorrowland needs to happen. As it is, Tomorrowland is an odd mix of the architectural elements of the 1967 New Tomorrowland, golden embellishments from 1998, Pixar movies, Star Wars, abandoned tracks, empty buildings, and underused space. Like every other land at Disneyland, Tomorrowland should be a thoughtful, detailed, cohesive, and smart land that’s inviting and bright, with well-themed attractions telling the stories we want to hear. It should not be a catch-all for Pixar (Monsters Inc., Stitch, Buzz Lightyear, and Nemo?), a Marvel hero headquarters, or as a secondary place to stash Star Wars outside of Galaxy’s Edge.

While the “new” entrance taking shape at Tomorrowland’s entry in 2020 looks like a signal of a return to retro soon-to-come, so far Tomorrowland remains a mess. And to think, it’s all because budget officially axed the incredible Tomorrowland 2055 that could’ve been.

But we wonder, would Tomorrowland 2055 really have been any more timeless than Magic Kingdom’s sci-fi version of the land (which, again, is being stripped of its story as we speak)? Is an alien spaceport really as evergreen as Imagineers hoped? Does any version of Tomorrowland – be it scientific, sci-fi, or fantasy – ever have a chance at remaining relevant? Is cramming the land with Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and TRON the answer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.