THEN & NOW: Illustrating the Before-and-After Ride Layouts of Theme Parks’ Lost Legends and Closed Classics

17. Communicore / Innoventions (1982 – 2019) // World Celebration (2023 – Present)

At the semi-annual D23 Expo in 2017, EPCOT’s future looked bright. After decades of piecemeal projects and varying visions that had shaped Disney World’s second gate into a puzzle of oddly-fit pieces without much to say, EPCOT was about to embark on the same kind of five-year, multi-billion-dollar, all-at-once, master-planned reimagining that had cured what ailed Disney California Adventure a decade earlier. Did it work? Well…

Imagineering fans (and particularly, EPCOT loyalists) will no doubt spend another few decades analyzing what happened (and what didn’t) between the reimagining’s definitive 2017 start and its divisive 2023 conclusion. But certainly the slowest Band-aid to be pulled off came by way of the park’s center – the congregating space just past Spaceship Earth. Long reigned over by the mirrored, parenthetical structures housing the park’s “Science & Innovation” pavilion (Communicore, then Innoventions), the long development of the central circulation space made EPCOT’s Future World a sea of construction walls for years. All the while, continuously-revised concept art showed gradually-reducing scope to the pandemic-squeezed project, well representing the unfortunate bad timing of EPCOT’s much-needed refresh.

THEN & NOW: Ultimately, the end result pretty well reflects the strengths and weaknesses of a “reimagined” EPCOT. Despite the larger EPCOT transformation embracing ’80s iconography and architecture of the park, the new space leans closer to contemporary aesthetics of wood, glass, steel, and greenery.

In a way designers have longed for for decades, the new “World Celebration” axes some of the vast, harsh, cool concrete leftovers of EPCOT’s ’80s origins in favor of a space that’s organic, shaded, and natural (as well as being a natural fit for the park’s ever-present festival entertainment and food stands). Critics say it resembles an upscale city park, but almost certainly, that’s the point.

As a statement of EPCOT’s future, the new World Celebration sure says something… but what that something is and how it’s received is yours to consider…

18. Universe of Energy (1982 – 2017) // Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind (2022 – Today)

Another of EPCOT’s fallen Lost Legends, Universe of Energy was an Opening Day Original at the park… and one of the strangest rides in Disney Parks history. That’s because the attraction began like theater, with room for 480 guests. However, as a rotating turntable aligned the theater with doors, the massive auditorium would break apart into six 80-passenger vehicles, traveling through a dark ride-style diorama of a prehistoric world. From entrance to exit, Universe of Energy was a 45-minute ride exploring the origin and future of fossil fuels as told by trusted energy expert (and only occasional oil spiller), Exxon.

Like the rest of Future World, the Lost Legend: Universe of Energy got an “upgrade” in the ’90s thanks to Disney’s purchase of ABC, transforming into “Ellen’s Energy Adventure.” In a synergy that can only come from ’90s Disney, the ride starred Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye the Science Guy, with appearances by Jamie Lee Curtis and Jeopardy!‘s Alex Trebek. Though the Ellen overlay added humor to the otherwise self-serious EPCOT Center original, it was still about fossil fuels… and it was still 45 minutes.

The Universe of Energy pavilion permanently in August 2017 (coincidentally, the same day as the only other ride at the resort with the same ride system, the Lost Legend: The Great Movie Ride). In its place would rise Disney World’s first Marvel superhero themed ride – one that would carefully skirt the Avengers: Custody War between Disney and Universal.

THEN & NOW: Universe of Energy was already a pretty massive ride with over 100,000 square feet of floor space. It wasn’t enough to contain Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, though. The existing pavilion serves only as the queue and station for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, billed as Disney’s first controlled-rotation “Omnicoaster.” A launch tunnel propels trains into a new, 140-foot tall “gravity building” where the bulk of the coaster experience takes place.

19. Triceratops Encounter (1999 – 2001 and 2010 – 2012) // Jurassic World VelociCoaster (2021 – Present)

A clever supporting, “world-building” attraction in the Jurassic Park section of Islands of Adventure, Triceratops Encounter was a walkthrough experience leading guests “behind-the-fences” of the island. After touring the field outposts and zoological support facilities that powered the park, guests were invited into a veterinary paddock to meet one of three “real, living” Triceratops under staff care. Cutting edge (for the time) animatronics allowed guests to get up close and personal as the creature blinked, breathed, shuffled its feet, reacted to touch, sneezed, and even peed.

The park’s lower-than-anticipated attendance upon its 1999 opening saw the Triceratops Encounter switched to seasonal status. In 2002, it was mothballed altogether, leaving the animatronic dinosaurs sleeping out in the jungle. Even a brief re-opening to soak up Wizarding World crowds in 2010 didn’t last, and after going dark in 2012, the Triceratops Encounter never re-opened.

In a radically different use of the same space, the jungles adjacent to the Jurassic Park Discovery Center became a construction zone in 2019. The last vestiges of the Triceratops Encounter were leveled as the space became a Velociraptor pen. In keeping with the “more teeth” mindset of the Jurassic World franchise, a roller coaster right through the predators’ paddock dives, twists, and inverts through jagged rockwork and snarling predators before launching in an entire second half (not pictured below!) that soars around the park’s lagoon.

THEN & NOW: From a subtle, supporting walkthrough that merely made Jurassic Park feel more “real” to a cutting-edge multi-launch coaster reaching speeds of 70 miles per hour, Triceratops Encounter and VelociCoaster couldn’t be much different. But in a way, they do have something in common: both bring guests within inches of a dinosaur. In the case of VelociCoaster, it’s just a much meaner dinosaur, and it happens much more quickly.

20. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (2004 – 2017) // Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! (2017 – Today)

I know, I know… it’s hard to believe that The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror wasn’t included in Disney California Adventure to begin with. The story of the haunted Hollywood Tower Hotel does seem like a perfect headliner for a park focused on Californian places and stories. But it wasn’t until California Adventure opened to pitiful attendance and poor word-of-mouth that Disney got serious enough to green-light the ride for the resort.

As we saw in our Here & There layout collection, the version of the ride built in California is – operationally – vastly different from the Florida original. In short, rather than having separate “show” and “drop” shafts with a horizontal scene to connect them, the California model has one shaft used for both “show” and “drop” scenes. For a long time, that was viewed as an inherent drawback of the lower-cost model. But a clever reimagining saw that flexibility reassessed as the ride’s strength.

Doubt was high when Disney announced in 2016 that the ride – ostensibly an anchor of Disney California Adventure, and a major component of its then-recently-completed rebirth – would be overtaken by Marvel Studios’ intentionally irreverent, fourth-wall-breaking superhero team, the Guardians of the Galaxy. The idea of the historic Hollywood Tower Hotel being transformed into a “warehouse prison power plant” that would loom over Buena Vista Street felt… short-sighted.

And maybe it was. Even now – ret-conned into the Avengers Campus built around it – Mission: BREAKOUT! is an odd visual intrusion. But few can argue with the results. The ride itself now shifts from anxiety and fear to collective giggles, with Rocket taking control of the “Gantry Lifts” and blasting riders through the prison to the tune of pop rock soundtracks from the ’70s and ’80s. It’s a ride that’s high on thrill and joy, even if it arguably works better in a vacuum than it does at Disney California Adventure long-term.

THEN & NOW: In most of the “before and afters” on this list, a showbuilding itself stays the same, but all of the walls, scenes, and even track inside are removed. In that sense, the changeover from The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror to Mission: BREAKOUT! was relatively low-impact. (No wonder it took only six months!)

In short, the outside of the building gained pipes, satellite dishes, and warning stripes, while the inside of the building was stripped of its “old Hollywood” ornamentation to reveal the industrial steel warehouse behind. Even so, the two rides are so tonally and narratively different that each succeeds in its way without relying on comparisons to the other. Does that mean Mission: BREAKOUT! will make as much sense in 20 years as the Tower of Terror would’ve? Maybe not… But then again, maybe it’s not meant to, and it’ll be rebooted as readily as the “MCU” itself is.

21. Horizons (1983 to 1999) // Mission: SPACE (2003 – Today)

At its height, EPCOT Center housed pavilions dedicated to the seas, agriculture, imagination, transportation, health, energy, communication, and innovation. But only one pavilion brought them all together: the Lost Legend: Horizons. The keystone of Future World, Horizons explored what awaited us all in America’s third century if humanity successfully harnessed the topics in each of the other pavilions.

Horizons was a unique suspended Omnimover attraction, carrying guests through the “history of the future,” then into two massive, curved, cutting-edge OMNIMAX format screens. Then, the ride set off into the 21st century, following the family from the Modern Marvel: Carousel of Progress as they moved to the Nova Cite metropolis, Mesa Verde desert, Sea Castle ocean base, and Brava Centuri space station. The whole production came to an end with a “choose-your-future” interactive, allowing each vehicle to see the future in land, sea, or sky.

Horizons was clearly the pinnacle of Future World’s message: an ambitious, intellectual, scientific, and yet fanciful journey through an imagined, optimistic, and inspiring future for mankind. So when EPCOT pivoted from “brains” to “brawn” and refocused on “technological thrill rides” in the ’90s and 2000s, it didn’t stand a chance.

Though Mission: Space stands where Horizons once did (and is presented to-scale in our illustrations above), the two rides couldn’t have less in common. Once envisioned as a highly-franchisable ride that could be duplicated to Tomorrowlands across the globe, Mission: Space uses massive centrifuges to produce challenging, sustained G-force that makes it one of the most intense rides on the planet.

In other words, Disney got what it asked for: a ride that’s largely “brainless” (see again our complaint about “training centers” or “institutes”) and absolutely the complete opposite of a thoughtful, reflective, and joyful family dark ride.

A New View

Park Lore is all about seeing the parks and attractions we love differently. The hand-drawn layouts I created for our THEN & NOW collection are a tool for doing that. Still, for many of us, these closed classics and their modern replacements somehow coexist; two rides that will forever occupy the same space, just in two different times. My hope is that the layouts I’ve drawn here as part of this collection lend new context to both the stories of Lost Legends and their replacements, painting a fuller picture of what was.

But THEN & NOW doesn’t tell the full story of theme park attractions… Which is why I’m so excited that my hand-drawn layout project is far from finished! If THEN & NOW explores how the same spaces can house very different rides, then HERE & THERE is about how the same ride concept are “translated” to new parks, new spaces, and even new cultures… Then, in my ONE & ONLY collection, I’ve drawn up layouts of some of the most jaw-dropping, industry-changing Modern Marvels to add new context to the stories we tell about them.