Like a grand and miraculous spaceship, our planet has sailed through the universe of time. And for a brief moment, we have been among its many passengers. From the very beginning, we have always sought to reach out to one another, to bridge the gaps between us, to communicate.
The immortal words of Ray Bradbury, read by the incomparable voice of Jeremy Irons, began your journey through nothing less ambitious than the complete history of human communication. There have been many versions of EPCOT's flagship ride, all with their own strengths and weaknesses, but none more memorable and epic than the 1994 version, largely thanks to Irons's delivery.
(Pro Tip: When music appears at the start of an article, it's so you can listen while you read!)
That's not exactly an easy argument to make, though. Prior to Irons, the Walter Cronkite version of the show had more detail to the descent, and it's own theme that became instantly iconic, and helped both to make the experience "friendlier" and a bit more optimistic. Of course, Cronkite was also an incredible narrator. Post-Irons, the ascent has been partly improved with two extra scenes with more animatronics and two rather charming computer-oriented show scenes that didn't exist before.
This is fully subjective, and in a way this ranking recognizes all versions of the ride, but for my money the grandeur of that 1994 theme -- particularly on its descent -- and the perfect oration made for something that matched the ambition of what was unfolding outside the ride vehicles.
Spaceship Earth is an attraction with two distinct halves, and the first half has mostly remained unchanged, with just small details. Through ascent to the top, the Imagineers wove the history of western communication, which essentially just made it the history of western civilization period.
There have been many Audio Animatronic extravaganzas on the list, and there will be many more, but none really fit the, again, epic scope of Spaceship Earth. Amazingly detailed show scenes -- supercharged versions of a kid's diorama project in history class -- take you from early cave dwellers to Egypt, Rome, the invention of the printing press, and beyond.
"Epic" is a word much bigger than its number of letters, but it fits here, and no subject matter is more deserving of its application.
The details are amazing. Cave writings subtly move, displaying the imagination of their artists. A horse runs down the road in Rome, followed by the iconic smell of smoke as the city burns. You pass under a miniaturized version of the Sistine Chapel being painted, and past a gigantic moving newspaper press. Spaceship Earth is channeling some of the best historical educational designs, but in a plus-sized way as you sit down and get carried past in ambient darkness. Irons -- in the same year where he portrayed H.G. Wells in The Timekeeper -- gave that history the gravitas it deserved.
All of that culminates in 360 Top, one of the greatest moments of any attraction. The music swells, and the narrator introduces you to, "this, our Spaceship Earth," as you turn rotate backwards for the view of a massive starfield and our beautiful, blue planet in the distance. It is beautiful, as well as being simultaneously cautionary and optimistic at the same time, the perfect crescendo for the story of mankind sharing time -- and words -- on this rock hurtling through space. That's what EPCOT is all about.
And it's not even the end. The descent is where the different versions truly stand apart, and in a way this ranking of the 1994 version stands here less because of how good it would look today and more because of what it represented in its moment in time.
The descent of Spaceship Earth is all about how the past you've watched in the ascent is going to improve the future of communication. In 1994, that meant talking to us about the Internet, real-time communication across vast distances, and 24 hour news cycles. In 1994 those concepts were a lot more, uh, fun than they are in 2021.
Which is not to say they weren't played beautifully, intelligently, and optimistically in Spaceship Earth, and that's the point I'm trying to make: they were such exciting things in that moment in time, and that only enhanced the emotions of the attraction itself. In a lot of ways, the ride got it right, as you rode past families talking to one another essentially via webcam and FaceTime, celebrating interstellar discoveries and the births of family members across the globe. Children from the U.S. to China became friends over their shared interests, and an absolutely enchanting model of Progress City covered in fiberoptic lights indicated the coming future of thousands of points of interconnected communication coming our way. The closing of the ride was a few moments of lights and dramatic music, encouraging you to contemplate all you'd seen and all that was coming, the perfect come-down from such an epic.
And that probably just wouldn't play the same today. We had every single reason to be hopeful and excited about the world wide web and up-to-the-minute news in 1994. All the good and all the excitement was right, it just happens now that we have seen the ways all these technologies can corrupt a society, and that's not really a great tone for a theme park attraction. That only makes me even more nostalgic for this version of the ride, though: I'm not just missing the music and the narrator, I'm missing the moment in time that connecting us across the globe instantaneously could only possibly be good. WDI did a tremendous job of showing us what could be, we all just kind of collectively dropped the (giant geodesic) ball.
Fortunately, there are so many elements of Spaceship Earth's design that are good and timeless. Starting with how awesome a move it is to have an omnimover -- a certified people-eating ride system -- right there at the entrance of a theme park. Capable of carrying thousands of people in an hour reliably, it ensures guests are given an immediate experience without a long line; no other park can really say that, and it works perfectly for Epcot.
The real timeless charm is on the outside, though. I've repeatedly said on this list that an attraction is not just about what happens when the lapbar comes down -- or the side door closes -- but, among other things, what it adds to the world around it.
On that note, top this:
Every child of the eighties or early nineties who passed through those wide turnstiles and squinted up at the glare of the Florida sun off that big geodesic sphere left the park permanently marked with its message. How easily we can come up with phrases like "nature's plan will shine above", or "the future world is born today", or "if we can dream it, then we can do it", or "one little spark of inspiration is at the heart of all creation" - all genuinely good advice, and all from EPCOT? These sound like notations not from a theme park, but from something like "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth".
Spaceship Earth -- the structure, not (just) the ride -- is the icon of that message. The world's largest free-standing geodesic sphere is one of the most iconic structures in the world. It freely stands for a generation, for an ideal, for one of the most monumental accomplishments in the history of Walt Disney Imagineering, and for the promise and challenge of tomorrow. And it just looks so gosh darn pretty. No matter which way you approach it, it never stops looking good. Epcot has gone through many changes over its life, but that structure, a monument to what humankind has and will yet accomplish, remains there through it all.
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