Epcot Forever premiers over World Showcase Lagoon
Note: This post contains mild spoilers for the new Epcot Forever show. If you like to be surprised, you might want to skip this one. On the other hand, if you hate surprises, you can catch Disney’s livestream of the premiere here.
I’m going to confess something that will probably ruin my chances of ever being a big-time Disney blogger: I never really got into Illuminations: Reflections of Earth.
Illuminations was the nighttime show at Epcot from Oct. 1, 1999 until Sept. 30, 2019. With fountains, lights, fireworks, music, and narration it told the story of Earth from the beginning to today. It was a remarkable spectacular that was well-loved by thousands upon thousands of Disney fans. I appreciated Illuminations for its grand scale and impressive pyrotechnics, and I understand why so many people loved it. It just never thrilled me. Because I don’t have the long, affectionate history with Illuminations that many folks do, I skipped the final performance.
Epcot Forever premiered Oct. 1, 2019, 20 years after Illuminations’s first performance. October 1 is Epcot’s birthday, and the nostalgia-heavy fireworks show felt like an appropriate birthday tribute. Epcot Forever is meant to be a temporary show, until HarmoniUS debuts next year.
It’s apparent that Disney created Epcot Forever in response to the park’s longtime, die-hard fans — those who went to Epcot as kids in the 80s and 90s and fell in love with its particular brand of edutainment. The show begins with “One Little Spark”, which threads through the entirety of the performance, which highlights the role of imagination in the park’s origin, past, present, and future. There are several voice clips of Walt Disney talking about Epcot, reminding us how important the dream of the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow was to Uncle Walt.
The soundtrack also includes new arrangements of music from classic Epcot attractions past and present, including “Listen to the Land” (from the early days of Living with the Land), and “Veggie Veggie Fruit Fruit,” among others. I don’t have a childhood history with Epcot — my first visit to Walt Disney World came in 2013, long after the closing of Horizons and Kitchen Kabaret, but I love reading about the history of the parks, and hearing the music from Epcot’s golden days was a treat. In addition to the clips of Walt, a child narrator provides sparse narration.
How does Epcot Forever compare to Illuminations? They’re two totally different animals. Epcot Forever doesn’t have much of a narrative arc, much of it feels like a standard fireworks show. It doesn’t really make use of World Showcase Lagoon in the same way. This is an advantage in one way: Illuminations was best viewed from the first couple of rows deep from the World Showcase. If you stood too far back, you would miss a good portion of the show. Epcot Forever is almost entirely above you, so unless you’re standing directly behind something, you’ll get a decent view. But much of it feels like the temporary show that it is, less grand and impressive than Illuminations.
Of course, I can’t end a review of this show without talking about the kites! These are truly amazing. Jet skis race around the lagoon with huge lighted kites. They first appeared with the music from Soarin’ — that music always gives me goosebumps, and so seeing those kites suddenly rise up and soar through the air took my breath away. The kites appear several more times, during the show and are the main thing that distinguishes Epcot Forever from an ordinary fireworks show. I would watch a nighttime show that just involved kites.
As the show draws to its finale, “One Little Spark” becomes “A Whole New World.” To me, this seems like a message from Disney to Epcot’s die hard traditionalists: say goodbye to the old, something completely different is coming and oh, yeah, that something completely different is gonna have A LOT more Disney Characters.
Would I take Mighty OJ (age 5) to see Epcot Forever? Only if for some reason we weren’t seeing Happily Ever After, which has a much broader appeal for little kids. It might be different if I had a longer history with Epcot. I can see how it would be fun to share memories of your own Epcot experiences with your niblings, and the music in Epcot Forever would be a great way to do that. And if the kids in your life have already seen every nighttime show the World has to offer, put Epcot Forever in your plans — the music is fun, the fireworks and lasers are cool, and the kites are jaw-dropping.