Fact-Checking 5 Epcot Rides That Predicted the Future

The shameless futurism espoused at Disney World's Epcot theme park in Orlando, Fl. was taken in by generations of kids who saw the world through Walt Disney-colored glasses. But did any of these imaginings come true? Here, we look at five visions of the future in hindsight—and see how they hold up.

By Seth Porges

Epcot has always been the most curious of Disney World's parks: a place of slow (and some might say boring) rides that focused more on education than on adrenaline-boosting thrills. This is a park where utopian ideals (the park's name originally stood for "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow") meet multicultural reverence, with a huge section of the park devoted to miniature recreations of various countries. Epcot has always been a place of shameless futurism, where, for the price of admission, visitors can spend the day exploring contrasting and often unrealistic visions of the world to come. In an attempt to keep up with changing technology, these attractions are regularly closed and replaced with more modern fare. But the extinct rides of Epcot's past are all fondly remembered by the generations who grew up with them. We thought it'd be fun to look back at five of the park's past visions of the future. Here is how they held up.

Horizons

(1983 to 1999)

Horizons is all futurism, all the time. The animatronic-filled, slow-moving, dark ride first pays tribute to some of the past's more outlandish visions of the future, with sci-fi dioramas showing off robot butlers, tube-based mass transit and a healthy dose of neon lights. The ride then takes a turn for the serious, replacing cartoonish prognostication with faux-realistic visions. Surprisingly, some elements of this vision of the future have actually come to pass, at least in some form:

-A family is depicted engaging in television-based videoconferencing in their living room. To anybody who has Skype, this is simple and possible. But the glasses-free 3D that the videoconferencing is presented in is a little more difficult to pull off today, even with recent advances that have made home-based 3D TV cheap and easy to use.

-A man is seen playing a keyboard that is controlled by waving his hand over it. Could this futuristic theremin have been forecasting today's DIY laser harp trend?

-Robotic farming: A former desert is shown being farmed by large, fully automated robotic machines. Bot farming is still fairly new, with applications limited to a few specialized, custom-built machines, but it definitely exists.

-Underwater personal subs: Residents of an underwater mineral-mining city (it's never stated what minerals they are extracting) are shown venturing out into the their backyards using personal subs. We aren't living under the sea just yet, but personal submarines are here—if you have the cash.

World of Motion

(1982 to 1996)

World of Motion is primarily a trip into the past. This slow-moving ride gives visitors an in-depth lesson on the history of transportation: from foot power to jet planes. When the history lesson reaches the present day, visitors ride through a tunnel of swirling light while a narrator waxes: "Ideas are there to help us fulfill our age-old dream to be free. Free of mind, free of spirit, free to follow the distant star of our ancestors to a brighter tomorrow." The future vision shows a hologram of a curvaceous futuristic car, which visitors can see their ride car transform into when they pass by a trick holographic mirror.

This attraction does not give any hint to technologies that could win out for future transportation—there is no talk of electric, hydrogen or plant-powered vehicles. But for those keeping score, the futuristic car does bear a striking resemblance to Aptera's all-electric Typ-1 e.

Captain EO

(1986 to 1994)

While most of Epcot's future-filled attractions sought to fill visitors with wonder at the site of what could be just around the corner, this Francis Ford Coppola-directed 3D film (which was replaced at Epcot in 1994 by the Rick Moranis-starring Honey I Blew Up the Audience) played off the same sort of far-future space-trotting sci-fi that forms the basis for Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica. In it, Michael Jackson and his "ragtag band" of alien Muppets travel through the galaxy delivering packages and completing missions for a vaguely defined leader. The real draw: a singing and dancing MJ using the power of music to battle a mutant alien queen (played by Anjelica Huston).

Predictably, Captain EO's liberal use of sci-fi technology makes it tough to nitpick due to the fact that none of it has yet seen the light of day. Some of Captain EO's not-yet-here prognostications: sentient humanoid androids, furry (and very cute) alien life, and the ability to use pop music to transform bad guys into scantily clad dancers.

Spaceship Earth

(1982 to present)

In Spaceship Earth, visitors ride through a massive geodesic dome while learning about the history of human communication. Unlike the other attractions in this list, this ride is still in operation. After all, its giant golfball exterior is the park's major landmark, and is unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon—instead, as the ride becomes outdated, Epcot continues to update it to bring it up to the times. So, for our purposes, we're going to look at the future presented by its prior iteration, which was in operation from 1994 to 2007.

In this version of the ride, kids are seen videoconferencing with each other while watching TV on the same screen. Today, the combination of Hulu and Skype makes it free and easy for anybody with a laptop and an Internet connection to pull off this trick.

The more out-there tech shown in this attraction is the instant audio translation. Two kids are depicted speaking over the tubes, with each hearing the other's speech in his own language. A primitive version of this technology can be found today in various forms—in voice-to-text-to translation, but the Department of Defense continues to research better, more instant translation tech. DARPA's Global Autonomous Language Exploitation (GALE) program aims to develop software that can interpret speech and text in multiple languages on the spot. But while progress has been made, the ease with which this Epcot-envisioned translation occurs is not quite in our technological capabilities.

Carousel of Progress

(1964 to present)

Alright, so Carousel of Progress is at Magic Kingdom, not Epcot. But its futurism would fit right in at its cross-town sister park. This show (it's not really a ride) was devised by Walt Disney for the 1964 World's Fair. In it, an animatronic family shows off how the latest technologies of different eras are making life easier, from the turn of the century ("our icebox now holds up to 50 pounds of ice!") on up. It was Disney's dream for the attraction to be continually renewed to keep up with changing times. But since the show was last updated in 1994, it is ripe ground for anachronisms and misguided visions of the future.

In the final scene, the family is shown playing a virtual-reality space-pilot game. The characters use a wearable joystick (a glove) to move a spaceship through a game. Real-world motion is mimicked onscreen—a lot like what Nintendo has done with the Wii and what Microsoft is looking into with Project Natal. The characters also reference "laser discs and high-def TVs". One of these technologies is ubiquitous today, and the other is nearly dead. Also on display in this show is voice-activated home automation, in which the father character is able to adjust the oven just by saying "oven temperature to 375." While such functionality is certainly possible today, given recent advances in voice recognition and home automation, it's hard to imagine voice control being a more practical controller than, say, an iPhone.