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dragonflymanor
Guest
I decided to start a new thread based on JeffJewels comment about how futuristic has a limited shelf life.
I dont think anyone would argue, although I might get a whack on the head from DVC, that the statement is effectively a true one. Sci-Fi of the 50s is a campy joke today. So the question then, in my mind, goes to the question of how often to update the vision of the future.
Or not at all .
Disneyland Paris pretty much went backward and in a really cool way. Rather than try and present Tomorrowland as something that will exist, it puts us back in time only to look forward at what was, at that time, thought to exist.
So whats the difference between a 1950s tomorrowland and an 1890s tomorrowland? Why is the 1950s lame, but the 1890s cool?
Because we all have images of the 1950s either in real life, or through old television, movies, pictures. Its hard to glamorize the 1950s sci-fi version of the future. Ed Wood was lame, Jules Verne was a visionary.
So, does that mean that the future of good themed entertainment lies in the past. That only when sufficient time has passed where the general population can again glamorize the time is it possible to use the theme effectively without it coming across as lame, weak, or campy? Im sure that folks living in the 1890s really thought that the 1860s were all that romantic (Civil War and all), or that the 1890s were just a hoot. Life was life, you get through it. Now we romanticize the era and it works for us. 1950s Sci-Fi doesnt work because we are in living it. Sitting at tables that look like our Parents/Grandparents had doesnt give us an esacpe. Sitting in a next to a giant 19th century cannon that shoots a shell all the way to the moon provides that escape.
The future of tomorrowland is the 19th century (for now, then it becomes ancient history).
I dont think anyone would argue, although I might get a whack on the head from DVC, that the statement is effectively a true one. Sci-Fi of the 50s is a campy joke today. So the question then, in my mind, goes to the question of how often to update the vision of the future.
Or not at all .
Disneyland Paris pretty much went backward and in a really cool way. Rather than try and present Tomorrowland as something that will exist, it puts us back in time only to look forward at what was, at that time, thought to exist.
So whats the difference between a 1950s tomorrowland and an 1890s tomorrowland? Why is the 1950s lame, but the 1890s cool?
Because we all have images of the 1950s either in real life, or through old television, movies, pictures. Its hard to glamorize the 1950s sci-fi version of the future. Ed Wood was lame, Jules Verne was a visionary.
So, does that mean that the future of good themed entertainment lies in the past. That only when sufficient time has passed where the general population can again glamorize the time is it possible to use the theme effectively without it coming across as lame, weak, or campy? Im sure that folks living in the 1890s really thought that the 1860s were all that romantic (Civil War and all), or that the 1890s were just a hoot. Life was life, you get through it. Now we romanticize the era and it works for us. 1950s Sci-Fi doesnt work because we are in living it. Sitting at tables that look like our Parents/Grandparents had doesnt give us an esacpe. Sitting in a next to a giant 19th century cannon that shoots a shell all the way to the moon provides that escape.
The future of tomorrowland is the 19th century (for now, then it becomes ancient history).