The Tomorrowland Light and Power Company in Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom closed permanently February 9, 2015. The 15,000 square foot space at the exit of Space Mountain was filled with arcade games and merchandise and was designed by McMillen Design International.
While Disney made no formal announcement, other than the boiler plate statement that “we are always evaluating our offerings and making adjustments,” it is reasonably assumed that the changes in Florida laws regarding bans on Internet Cafés (with the law stating among other things that a person can not win prizes worth more than seventy-five cents and that games need to be coin operated) could eventually be applied to this type of video arcade that dispenses prizes, as well.
The Disney Company is not in violation of the law by operating this type of arcade, but is taking the cautious approach that this is not a battle they want to fight if the interpretation expands. It is simply easier just to eliminate this type of arcade throughout the Florida property. In addition, it does not generate the income and attendance that sometimes makes it worth keeping in the long run.
I personally do not have any strong feelings one way or another about the closing of the location and it has been years since I visited it.
However, something that did bother me was that a friend had no idea what I was referring to when I used the term “Tomorrowland Light and Power Company” but did recognize it when I called it the video arcade near Space Mountain.
Her basic response was “Disney always comes up with such cute names for things.” I was tempted to lecture her that it was not a cute name, but part of a larger branding by Imagineering of the entire land that took place in 1994 to create “the future that never was….is finally here!”
However, I held my tongue and we went off to see a movie so you get the lecture instead about how the Disney Company is not sharing its stories with its guests and cast members and, as a result, stories are dying.
To power a metropolis the size of the Tomorrowland community which is the home of the League of Planets, a proper power facility is vital to maintaining its needs. It has its own distinctive logo and futuristic power transformers adorn the side of the building.
Where does this utility get its power?
A row of mechanical metal palm trees dotting the area in front of Space Mountain are Power Palms installed near the physical Tomorrowland Light and Power Company.
When their metallic fronds are extended, they capture solar energy that they store in the round, metallic, coconut-like globes that surround the top of the trunk. As they collect this energy, the globes glow, providing lighting in the area at night as well.
One Power Palm is purposely stuck in a half-way position with its fronds drooping and its globes missing, because they were supposedly harvested to remove the energy and will soon be emptied at the nearby building. Once that task has been accomplished, they will be returned to gather even more solar power until they are once again full, and the process will repeat itself.
By the way, with Tomorrowland’s renovation, Space Mountain got its first official future name: Starport Seven-Five, a reference to the official January 1975 opening date of the attraction at Walt Disney World. After all, the term Space Mountain sounds like an attraction rather than a functioning building you would find in a city.
The Tomorrowland Light and Power company, located at the exit to Walt Disney World's Space Mountain, recently closed or as some called it: “the arcade at the end of the ride.” Photo by J Jeff Kober
Cool story concept, right? And it is all just part of a much larger story. However, this vision was never really shared with guests and cast members. It was not even part of the official training to work in this area.
Walt Disney believed that the stories in the parks needed to be apparent and be shared with both guests and cast so that they could support it and enhance it.
Standard Operating Procedures booklets at Disneyland also originally included the history and storyline of the attraction, whether it was the Submarine Voyage (with commentary from Admiral Joe Fowler) or Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln.
A story is a living thing and if you don’t take care of it, then it dies. Things get added or removed from the story because of this unawareness and the story fades even more or gets mutated into something unrecognizable or inaccurate.
That’s the story of Walt Disney World’s Tomorrowland today. What was once a clever, consistent storyline that held together the theme of the entire land has been so forgotten that the closing of an obscure building brings no concerns of how that impacts the rest of the story.
It was Walt’s original intent that Disneyland’s Tomorrowland would reflect a centralized spaceport of “the future that was just around the corner” and showcase the latest in technology that would make “a great big beautiful tomorrow just a dream away” for everyone.
In 1955, Disneyland’s Tomorrowland featured no outrageous flying saucers, atomized rayguns or little green men from Mars. Instead, it offered a simulated flight to the moon based on authentic scientific information supplied by scientists like Werhner Von Braun and Willie Ley.
Great care was taken not only to accurately show the known landscape of the moon, but what the never-seen dark side might look like, after carefully consulting with experts at the Griffith Observatory.
However, Tomorrowland proved to be Walt’s most frustrating challenge.
“The only problem with anything of tomorrow is that at the pace we’re going right now, tomorrow would catch up with us before we get it built,” Walt reportedly said.
During his lifetime, he made two major overhauls of the land, in 1959 and 1967, and still was unsatisfied.
When Disneyland Paris (Euro Disneyland) opened in April 1992, it did not have the traditional Tomorrowland, but a place called Discoveryland instead.
It was purposely themed to “yesterday’s future” with an emphasis on the 19th-century style future envisioned by French writer Jules Verne and the latest scientific discoveries. In this way, the land would not need to be continually updated like a Tomorrowland but have a sense of timelessness and fantasy.
So when it came time to update Walt Disney World’s Tomorrowland just two years later in 1994, the Imagineers decided to Americanize that concept by re-making it into “the future that never was.”
That is to say, it would be the future that resembled the one predicted in all the science fiction magazines and movies of the early 20th century. As a result, it would be a future that would never be out of date and also be able to incorporate some humor that was sorely lacking in earlier versions.
“New Tomorrowland [of 1994] was conceived as the meeting place of the universe,” stated Imagineer Alex Wright. “It is an interplanetary hub chosen to serve as the headquarters of the League of Planets. Everything in this land relates to excitement and optimism about the future. Every detail relates to this theme.
“Ours is a retro-future concept replete with all the trappings of an intergalactic spaceport,” Wright said. “We all remember when we thought the future would be like this. Tomorrowland offers us the opportunity to visit it.”
In keeping with the theme that this is a city that exists in some alternative version of the future, at the entrance is a huge sign from the Tomorrowland Chamber of Commerce that welcomes guests with its motto: “The Future That Never Was Is Finally Here.”
This is a metropolis where humans intermingle with aliens and robots and is the headquarters for the League of Planets, an organization that governs the peaceful universe with a firm-but-just hand.
Just like Main Street USA, there is also a main street in Tomorrowland that is designated the “Avenue of the Planets.” As in many cities, there is a Chamber of Commerce posting at the entrance, but without the shields of the more familiar Lions Club or Kiwanis organizations.
Instead, there are colorful emblem logos representing several businesses as well as organizations like The League of Planets, The Loyal Order of Little Green Beings, Galactic Association of Retired Aliens (rather than the AARP) and the Sleepless Knights of the Milky Way.
That’s “knights” with a “k” and it brings to mind the fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus, as well as the mighty heroic warriors that sometimes filled the pages of science fiction pulp magazines of the 1930s.
In addition, it references the fact that a person can’t sleep at night in the Milky Way because all those darn stars are shining so brightly all the time.
On the left-hand side of the entrance, there was the InterPlanetary Convention Center with additional advertising posters inside about upcoming shows and exhibits. In 1995, the building had a demonstration of the latest in teleportation technology from X-S Tech.
In 2004, the building was converted into the Galactic Federation Prisoner Teleportation Center to handle “undesirables.” Residents and tourists can see a demonstration (just like in a regular court house) of how justice is done. In this case, convicted prisoners are teleported away from this golden city of tomorrow rather than sent to the local prison. In fact, today, Experiment 626 (commonly known as Stitch) is to be dispatched.
On the right-hand side of the entrance was the Tomorrowland Metropolis Science Center, featuring a demonstration by The Timekeeper about time travel. Today, that building is the home of the Tomorrowland Expo Center (taking on the role of the former convention center that closed across the street) hosting The Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor comedy club that opened in April 2007.
On the buildings there are clever and amusing posters for the Tomorrowland Towers Hover Hotel (three miles directly above Tomorrowland on the Atmosphere Three Skyway Exit); Leonard Burnedstar, who will be conducting the Martian Pops Orchestra; the Space Home and Garden Show; and the Antique Rocket Show and Swoop Meet (that will feature the fabled Moonliner from Disneyland’s past).
These posters also serve the purpose of indicating that there is a much larger community than guests will be able to experience just as Center Street on Main Street USA used to tell the story of “more Main Street just around the corner” before the Emporium extension was built.
Walking between these two buildings down the main street of the Avenue of the Planets, guests find themselves in the central hub of Rockettower Plaza. The names are a playful reference to New York’s famous Rockefeller Plaza and the Avenue of the Americas.
It is here at this hub where the main transportation system for the community is located, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority that was renamed the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover in 2010 as an homage to its original 1975 title of the WEDWay PeopleMover.
This attraction serves as an urban mass transit system for the citizens and visitors to this popular space port.
The Blue Line, which all guests and tourists seem to use, primarily provides intra-city service to destinations throughout the city from a beauty parlor to a merchandise shop. It is also the delivery method for businesses like Earth Crust Pizza.
However, a close look at the signage reveals that there is the Green Line for commuting to the Hoverburbs (the city’s suburbs where people live) high above the city. In addition, there is the Red Line that takes riders off the planet to other destinations in the galaxy.
In 1994, the iconic Star Jets attraction was updated and renamed Astro Orbiter. The huge central rocket was replaced by a highly stylized iron-work launch tower along with various spinning planets on the outside of the attraction so it seems like the rockets were weaving between the planets.
The new storyline is that the League of Planets was giving inexperienced pilots an opportunity to learn how to fly their own rocket ships before unleashing them into the universe. It is a sort of futuristic driver’s training program.
Nearby is an actual working Metrophone booth from the Galactic Communications Network (GCN).
As it states on the phone: “Bringing the World Closer Together. Toll Free From Anywhere in the Galaxy.”
Since 1999, punching several numbers will bring up one of nine possible hilarious one-sided conversations from Rocket Realty, Sonny Eclipse’s agent Johnny Jupiter, Earth Crust Pizza (delivering anywhere in the Solar System in less than two light years or your order is free), Intergalactic Movie Line (with information on the movie Attack of the 50 Foot Earthling), Psychic Robots Network, and more.
By the entrance to the TTA PeopleMover, is a robot newsboy selling his newspapers. The Robo-Newz vendor is always up to minute and supposedly guests can get their daily paper printed “while u wait”.
The main case shows that the latest physical newspaper is a copy of the Galaxy Gazette with its headline: “Stitch Escapes!”
Those who wonder WHERE Stitch escapes to can find the answer when leaving the Galactic Federation Prisoner Teleportation Center. The upper part of his body is sticking out of the top of the ceiling in the Merchant of Venus (a humorous pun on Shakespeare’s famous “Merchant of Venice” play) merchandise shop.
Unfortunately, the store uses the same unreliable teleportation technology as the prisoner teleportation center next door. It is laced throughout with blue cable coils from the ceiling that connect to collection orbs atop the fixtures so quality goods from throughout the universe can materialize in these mini-teleport chambers.
Of course, many other businesses operate in this community of tomorrow, including Mickey’s Star Traders, a prominent importer and exporter of goods that does not use teleportation technology to stock its shelves.
From the design inside the shop, it is apparent that the owners do indeed purchase their wares through a variety of sources but that they are brought in by spacecraft. The artwork captures the 1930/1940 comic book art style of what the future was going to look like.
In the future, Coca-Cola maintains its predominance in the soft drink industry.
The Thirst Rangers (“Delivering Refreshment to a Thirsty Galaxy”) in their red and white (the traditional colors of Coke) rocket ship are perched high on a landing platform. At the bottom of the platform are gray crates (for Standard Transgalactic Delivery) with images of a Coca-Cola bottle and amusing shipping labels and alien languages.
The Disney Imagineers created this spaceship out of the hull of the prop of the Trimaxian Drone Ship from the 1986 Disney film, Flight of the Navigator. One of those ships was originally on view for several years in the boneyard on the backstage tour at Disney MGM Studios.
A good example of not taking the future too seriously is Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café, a popular chain of intergalactic franchise Starlight Cafés throughout the universe. “This is the FIRST Earth Restaurant Franchise from Outer Space” proclaimed the original poster for this food and beverage location.
For a limited time, guests dining in the Starlight Lounge can enjoy the song stylings and snappy banter of audio-animatronics performer Sonny Eclipse during his approximately twenty plus minute performance.
This Audio-Animatronics figure was actually modified from a similar figure, Officer Zzzzyxxx who was at the baggage screening desk outside of the Star Tours attraction at Tokyo Disneyland.
Direct from Yew Nork on the planet Zork, Sonny Eclipse is the “Biggest Little Star in the Galaxy.” The Bossa Supernova and Eclipso musical stylings of Sonny and his Astro Organ, along with his ethereal and invisible backup singers The Space Angels have entertained guests for almost two decades.
It’s easy to get lost in the future, so there is a huge black globe at the entrance to the plaza near The Merchant of Venus that is a map to the universe. It weighs approximately six tons (more than 13,227 pounds) and rests on a fountain of water that allows it to rotate smoothly with the slightest touch.
This granite kugel ball shows all the routes you can take to get around, including Route 88, 44 and 5 but, most importantly, Route 66. There are other symbols on this massive sphere, as well, including where the nearest gas stations are to fill up your rocketship, and the nearest Metrophone booth. See if you can locate Cinderella’s Caste, as well.
The new live-action feature film Tomorrowland will have no direct reference to this storyline, other than some whimsical touches, like an image of Space Mountain in its skyline.
I suspect that many of the readers of this column were completely unfamiliar with this two-decade-old storyline. That’s why closing The Tomorrowland Light and Power Company has not resulted in any outcries, and why my friend, who is a big Disney fan, did not recognize the name of the building.
It was part of a larger story that no one really knew in the first place, so it has no greater impact than guests thinking if their children want to go to an arcade on Disney property that they should probably check out the resorts.
And, so, another Disney story quietly dies.
