Now is the Time, Now is the Best Time

Now is the time, now is the best time for a refreshed and Re-Imagined Tomorrowland at Disneyland. Come June 15, California Adventure's grand reopening will signal in an emphasis on the resort that will be more powerful (and hopefully, more successful) than the launch of the park in 2001. Radiator Springs Racers will be the guest eater at the new Cars Land, families will happily wait in line for Luigi's Flying Tires, and the shops and restaurants of Buena Vista Street will fill with folks exploring the park for the first or fiftieth time. Shouldn't the beautiful and now beloved Blue Sky Cellar house an exhibit of what's next for the resort? Of course! Especially with the 60th Anniversary of Disneyland just around the corner!

Aside from the increasingly pretty Paradise Pier, there is not a single area in the resort that needs more work than Disneyland's disjointed, tired, and pitiful Tomorrowland. Perhaps in the history of the park.

I won't go into all the reasons why the land is in such a sorry state. See it for yourself. You would think that alone would be the motivation for improvement. The abandoned PeopleMover / Rocket Rod tracks and all... make this park lover cringe. And the area at large just lacks energy. It's dull, pedestrian, dated. Clearly, park management and planners gave up on the future long ago.

The unused concept above for Plectu's Intergalatic Revue presents a picture of past plans that never came to fruition. Truthfully, I am glad. The park did not need one more character based musical review. Yet, at least this represented an attempt at something unique and fresh instead of another excuse for a character overload or film tie-in.

Shanghai Disneyland's Tomorrowland seems to have Tron's Light Cycles on the way. I'm hopeful this will push the Imagineers to bring them to California. We know how much the current Company management loves to clone attractions, so this could be something of a no brainer. It will take some creative imagineering to find the right design and location, but the same folks that seemed to successfully rebuild the mess of California Adventure 1.0 into something cohesive should be able to figure this out as well.

Beyond the redo of the resort's second park and the coming 60th Anniversary, there's one more big reason Disney should jump on getting Tomorrowland into Project Sparkle mode: a very, very beloved little wizard named Harry Potter is becoming a nearby competitor. His Forbidden Journey is certain to drive traffic up the freeway with hoards of tourists and their pocketfuls of cash. The new kid on the block in Florida is changing the game in Orlando, and he's about to do the same in California!

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company. Photograph copyright Mark Taft.)