Defunctland: Walt Disney's City of the Future, E.P.C.O.T.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ต.ค. 2020
- Walt Disney made ambitious plans for a City of Tomorrow named E.P.C.O.T. just before his death in 1966, but the plans were soon abandoned. What were Walt's ideas for his city of the future, what happened to the project, and would it have worked?
Major Sources:
Walt Disney and the Quest for Community by Steve Mannheim
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Walt Disney and the Promise of Progress City by Sam Gennawey
amzn.to/34RG2ih
The Original E.P.C.O.T. Project by Sebastien Barthe, Jeff Williams, and Paul Williams
bit.ly/2SQnaLg
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Walt Disney was absolutely ahead of his time, he was the first person who developed a crippling SimCity addiction
Thank you for the aggressive chuckle I experienced
Dude was living the sim city life
If this man had cities:skylines, we would've never got Disney world lmao
if there's one thing you should've learned from this video, it's that EPCOT was planned as a company town, and company towns are way older than Disney's attempt at one. More broadly, planned cities are ancient.
BRUTAL 😂
i dont wanna be remembered for cartoons. i wanna be remembered for something fucking insane
i say this
This really was the vibe, god damn. Crazy how he kinda viewed his entire life's work as a silly little distraction and thought this weird dystopian company village would be the real thing that immortalized him.
@@AlbinoTuxedoi like to believe the world would be really god damn different if he had stayed alive for longer
@@AlbinoTuxedoI mean it certainly would have, but maybe not in a good light whereas his company is fairly mixed reception these days
Iger: "Fine, I'll do it."
"There will be no retirees"
Walt, retirees are 20% of Florida's population.
Walt, my dad and stepmom are retirees.
20% of Florida's population and people who go to Disney are retirees.
Waltuh, put your retirees away Waltuh. I'm not building another country club with you right now.
20%? That probably a lowball honestly (I live a hour away from Disney world)
They would have been executed in EPCOT
I wonder if EPCOT would also have a nice big exectution ground
@@TheLambdaTeam
There’s a serious “work will free you” theme underlying the entire project
I clicked expecting a theme park documentary and ended up learning that the bioshock games were a lot closer to potential reality than I'd thought
Where's the lighthouse?
Bioshock cities does draw Analogies from Company towns like these
It's not the first, nor the last
Doesn't hurt Andrew Ryan was visually based on Walt.
It's not a coincedence. BioShock WAS partially inspired by EPCOT.
Who is John Galt? That's right, it's Walt Disney!
Walt Disney really kept that childish innocence up to his old age, including the childish desire to become the iron-fisted dictator of a utopia.
It's his vision for what he can offer to society. You dont think most of the big tech ceos and leaders online are like walt disney now?
@@john-paulhunt8967 breaking news: CEOs today are also terrible people
"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." --Matthew 18:3
@@Mnemoniforma9.00 “Ummm...Chile...anyways so-“ - Nicki Minaj 6:9
@@eurydice72 My point is that God isn't much better than Kim Jong Un
I get the feeling Walt Disney would’ve really loved the sims.
He would build some epic houses
This made me laugh harder than it should have lmfao
He’d love stellaris
He is probbly rolling in his grave now...
It is now Divisionist Park.
I just rewatched this for the second time and muttered the same thing to myself, lol.
Despite how dystopian epcot would have been, Walt's thoughts on pedestrian-centric urban planning and gamified remote learning are surprisingly prescient for a mid-century mogul.
The failure of car-focused cities was already in people's minds by then, as evidenced by the books he had read to get those ideas in the first place
It is, but at the same time his solutions are more like an Elon Musk-esque techbro than those of a modern city planner.
I think he had ADHD
Incredibly smart and passionate about his special interests / hyperfixations but no patience or attention for things he found boring or unimportant
On the positive side, a creative and original thinker. On the negative side, mood swings and rejection sensitive dysphoria (couldn't be told "no").
Gamification is one of the best strategies for managing ADHD without medication. Disney probably realized that in his own life and knew it would have been a good way to teach him growing up
I have ADHD, and it's interesting me to see signs of potential ADHDers from the past
Especially since DNA research has found evidence of ADHD early in the human genome
We're a variant of humanity that has been around for a long time
@@janeeyre1990 ding ding ding you're right he did have ADHD
I am grateful I live in the timeline where I have to wait 3 hours to see a talking raccoon at Epcot and not the timeline where people are essentially a zoo exhibit with zero rights.
Don’t forget, you were also born on this planet rather than some other planet!
@@lookbovine hey maybe other planets are cool we dont know
No one HAS to live there.
When you think of it, things like the internet and social media do just that already.
A talking racoon? What where?
Walt Disney: "Death is not an acceptable Topic"
Also Walt Disney: *dies*
i mean RIP to him but if i were walt, i would have simply Not Died
@@sonozaki0000 same
Death is not an option!!!!
Claims to be anti death
Dies anyway
What a hypocrite
"It is worth noting that the unruly generation Walt was attempting to corral, was in fact, the baby boomers" My, how the times, and roles, have changed.
In 40 years we’ll be mocked by the present day generation.
Yeah
What are you talking about? Boomers are still unruly and hard to corral, it's just that nowadays they use money and political power instead of knives and molotov cocktails
Boomers ruin everything.
That entire generation protested the Vietnam war by raiding/burning buildings on their college campuses and now tell Millennials to sit down and shut up and conform. They became the very thing they sought to destroy. *Mainstream adults.*
I really want a dystopian film based on these plans. Everything is EXACTLY how Walt planned it, but it's the furthest thing from paradise
Disney is now building "Cotino", an actual community in CA, we might not need a movie...
@@mvzz
is it anything like that "Storyliving" idea they have?
Just play the Bioshock games for a glimpse of what could have been.
Cheers
It's basically Logan's Run (1976).
i've thought a lot about a movie like this ever since i first watched this video, and the only way i can imagine it ending would be with a terrible city wide riot
I work at Epcot now. Never thought I would, but literally every single day I use information learned from this video to explain things to my guests
Like what?
@@IGuessThisIsHello that epcot was originally meant to be a futuristic neighborhood for example, or that epcot was the plan BEFORE Disney World, or that Epcot is a circle with the fireworks in the middle instead of like magic Kingdom which has a bottleneck where people have to crowd around to see the one spot the fireworks are I order to address a magical day ending with such trampling that can aggrevate many especially parents w young children so being able to see them from all around the Epcot park almost equally is an improvement on purpose. Tons of stuff. The subterranean transit thing but I always point out it is impossible here because you hit limestone and water within 9 feet in Florida which is also why we dont have basements. Tons of things really.
That's really telling. There are some really nauseating hagiographies of Walt Disney out there. The Disney corporation is responsible for some of them, and it's not hard to see why Disney prefers to whitewash their history. Thankfully, there are videos like these (and books like _Walt and the Promise of Progress City_) that help to set the record straight.
I’m visiting in October! Tell me where you are around then 😂
@@MediumDSpeaks I've often thought Epcot is perhaps the best place in the world for fireworks, especially for whomever plans the show. The audience is equidistant with stellar viewing lines, you can sync audio nearly to the millisecond as there are speakers everywhere around the ring, you have fences and water to keep the audience at a particular distance, the island allows for hiding the mechanics, water surrounds the launch area for safety, etc. etc.
I love the overarching reason behind Epcot is "Old Walt trying to stop shit that annoyed him."
"Uncle Walt is Watching You."
That is seriously where my mind is going with the whole WEDCOM system. Maybe I'm just too cynical or paranoid, but a private city with a centralized surveillance system that also runs all the communications, where some of the citizens are already going to be incentivized to inform on each other, and where everything is perfect all day, every day? Sounds pretty Orwellian to me.
PABadger13 maybe orwell had the right idea. Humans on their own free will elected trump.
@@PABadger13 It makes me think of The Truman Show.
@@NissanSkyline901 Actually that was filmed around the Disney town of Celenration (a wholesome, clean - but slightly creepy - toy town).
@@TedShatner10 It was Seaside, another New Urbanism town in Florida, but on the Panhandle.
Meanwhile in an alternate universe: Today on Defunctland, we will discuss the history of Walt Disney's EPCOT, from it's inception, it's opening, the political problems, and the infamous 1974 riots that led to it's collapse, as well as explore the ruins of this controversial autocratic city.
Gd, I would love to read that story.
@@4dultw1thj0b Me too
Haha did you get nervous when he read off Disney's list of requirements? No retirees, everyone has a job, population control, and on and on haha
That sounds like a great story idea!
Disney world is actually awful tbh
As someone who's been to Florida several times I'm convinced there's something there that turns you insane the more you stay.
The EPA recently said that Florida has the most lead pipes in use in the US.
As a florida resident, I blame the heat
The heat here is an anomaly. It does more than make you sweat gallons; it messes with you, it gets to you man. In certain areas I wouldn't doubt its the reason the "florida man/woman" was being created
@@Maswartz226 and the fucking lead in the water
it's like how Arkham Asylum is warped in reality in that one story except it's an entire state
My now-ex lived there for 2 years with the military, can confirm he went irreparably sideways on that tour. We didn't last long after the FL stint ended.
Level one of learning about the original EPCOT: aw, that's cute. Walt wanted his own little town with fancy gadgets and stuff.
Level ten of learning about the original EPCOT: oh god, Walt wanted to be king of his own totalitarian dictatorship in the middle of Florida.
Somehow, that sounds absolutely normal for Florida . . .
From what I gather, he was wanting to build it with good intentions. Maybe he looked at the (then) current politics and saw how they could become corrupt if the wrong person (or people) had power, and so wanted no politics in his community whatsoever to avoid possible failure of his vision.
He wanted paradise, but knew that people and a community had a chance to be corrupted if left to is own device.
Basically, he had good intentions of building a self sustaining, and somewhat self governing community, but was overly cautious and wanted to make sure nothing ruined our corrupted a "perfect community". It's all very complicated, but just know that it sounds like he had good intentions with it.
Then the very people he entrusted it to took the very idea he had and made it into a money making system.
This was during the height of the Cold War, when tension between east and west was at its highest. Disillusionment with capitalism was not uncommon, and many individuals believed they could solve every problem if they had all the power. Disney's planned communities weren't the first failures and they wouldn't be the last.
@@volksdude1970 The problem with Walt wanting to be an enlightened monarch is there's no way to guarantee that any monarch is enlightened--least of all himself.
And as we've seen with the studio strike, he didn't deal well with other people disagreeing with his ideas of optimization and perfection. True, he had broadly benevolent intentions; eliminate crime, and traffic, and pollution--but his idea for how to do that was to create a perfectly micromanaged terrarium for people.
He saw unlimited control by a Great Man(tm) as the key to a better life for everyone, but that's maybe the greatest example of a road to hell paved with good intentions.
@@valritz1489
I understand. If Disney was willing to build houses and apartments for his animators to live in close to the studios where they worked, that goes to show how much he wanted to let his workers know they mattered. I've seen people talking about "but, if they were fired, they would be evicted from company property, ect..."
Not if he rented the property to them every month, or took the rent out of their pay (which is perfectly understandable. Gotta have some way to help pay for repairs and upkeep on property). If they were fired, I'm sure Disney would allow them to keep living in the apartment/house, if they continued to pay the rent every month.
Florida Man Attempts to Create Autonomous Dictatorship in Swamp
LOL when you take out the context of Walt Disney it just sounds like an insane crackhead
@@Shari_Jessica23 Everything Walt Disney sounds like that when you take it out the context of Walt Disney.
"Florida man makes fortune off tall tales regarding imaginary mouse."
"Florida boss bans employee relationships, marries employee."
"Florida man holds company party, horse jumps in pool."
"Florida man pays young women to dress as fictional characters."
"Florida man sells affection of furries to young children."
"Florida man bans homosexual fast dancing on property."
Walt Disney is from California, though. Well, Illinois, but most of his adult life until death was California.
Ok, that gave me a good chuckle XD
@@fallingpetunias9046 As the above video shows, his heart was in the Florida swamp.
It's seems that Walt's vision of EPCOT was less like a real city and more like a performance of a possible city. He wanted real people to act out what a city of the future could be, as if you were making a sci-fi movie with a entire city as the main cast.
Honestly I agree. And it makes sense that it would be like that, he wasn't a city planner. He was an entertainer. While he may have been good at just designing the basic layout of a small town, who knows, he couldn't have actually controlled it after the way he wanted. He was trying to play director with people's real lives and assumed he'd be able to because he bought into his own personal mythos. It's really interesting.
Agreed
It’s like an above ground rapture
The man just needed to play sims
He truly was born in the wrong generation
The image of a dying walt disney seeing a blue print on the ceiling is absolutely chilling
thanks defunctland
Okay, now I get why people say Andrew Ryan from Bioshock is basically a more deranged Walt Disney.
He was already modelled on him visually
Less deranged?
@@bunk95I mean... at least Walt didn't give people genetics rewriting drugs that caused superhuman powers?
Tragic that some people just miss their true calling of starting a cult -R
how does someone with 1 million subs only get two likes
Oh hey, nice to see you guys here
Oh he started a cult alright lol
Mr. Ozzie and Mofy Probably because it’s a week old comment on an 8 month old video. Not many people are gonna be roaming the comments section to see it I think.
But hey, wild OSP sighting, nice!
I mean, he did succeed in a funny, fandomish way.
Walt really said "I'm a good animator, so I think I can manage a small dictatorship"
Nothing really changes, does it? People still think someone is entitled to talk about any topic just because he invented an app someday.
Imagine living as a commercial for tourists. It's like living in Monsanto's House of the Future. Walt can come in at any time to tear out your appliances. Oh, Westinghouse dropped their sponsorship? There goes your washer machine. Here's a tiny Kenmore. Don't like it? Too bad. They bid less. No you can't buy your own.
People would also be able to invade your privacy to whatever extent deemed acceptable by Walt to see how you're living. Open House every day. 🏠 😂
He wasn’t even an animator!! 😂
@@bruja_cat He animated the living dead in his rides.
Wait a minute. There is a timeline not fair from our current one where MacArther state park and Singer island is turned into Epcot.
Been watching a lot of old defunctland lately after the disney channel theme documentary, and honestly this is one of your best. Your ability to paint a mental picture is insane, and the description of a man on his deathbed fruitlessly planning his legacy nearly brings me to tears every time i watch
Same dude
its a citizen kane reference
But also... The NEW Epcot documentary...
NEXT LEVEL.
There are a ton of good videos on TH-cam, you don’t have to keep watching this one…
wow. when i went to disney world, our family hung out in epcot the ENTIRE time. we loved the cultural theming combined with the futuristic look... and the radial design. we loved it. i always had this feeling in the back of my head that it was somehow *different* from the rest of disney world for some reason. there was just... something about it. never in my FUCKING LIFE would i have EVER GUESSED THIS.
That's soemthing I love about defunctland. A lot of us would have never learned or thought about these things if it weren't for these videos.
I thought it was just some weird side thing Walt was invested in, but never, "futuristic dystopia."
I watched the Epcot movie when I got the Disney app for my girls a few years back! Same time this video was produced and I was amazed! So hoping one day I can visit it.. would rather see Epcot than Disney World :)
@@kmchatzkendra all power to you, but epcot *is* a part of disney world 😭its just kind of one of the sectors now in the same way magic kingdom and animal kingdom are
I’m waiting for the day (because it’s certainly only a few years away) that Walt Disney’s dream of the world of tomorrow can be fully realized in near-lifelike Virtual Reality. It might be a nice place to live in as one of its 20,000 inhabitants.
The irony is that he was so obsessed with his legacy, but if he had managed to do this in his lifetime, he'd be remembered as a madman
He kind of still is.
@@akabaneolivia9550 “Kind of” is. Had Disney gone through with it, his legacy would have been “America’s Uncle with a few control issues that slowly deteriorated into a micromanaging lunatic” instead of the mixed bag he is today.
Walt supported Germany during ww2 and so the little hat people got salty and destroyed his imagine as revenge
@@rumchata6569 how many times were you dropped on your head as a baby and why doesnt your mother love you
@@rumchata6569 isnt the Fuhrers face making fun of Hitler tho?
"a conservative obssessed with progress" is probably the best description I've heard of Walt Disney in my life
Yeah I'm quite happy with that too haha
Being in harmony with the Folkways of America does not make one "conservative" nor does planting a better future constitute "progress". Stop being American and people might stop thinking you have a disability
Conservative? He literally desined "utopia" and wanted to be it's dictator
@@TheFansOfFiction A good dictator will foster a good nation. Its not a communist utopia. it simply nativism taken to a level which American capitalists are not comfortable with.
@@TheFansOfFiction You do not understand what communism is. I would encourage you to do more research.
I wish someone could have explained to Walt that "entertainment" and "distractions"' are important. Sometimes the stories change lives, sometimes they just provide enough of a breath of fresh air for people to keep going in a hard world.
Media is a powerful tool.
There's a reason everybody loved what he did, and it wasn't a superficial one.
I was just thinking this. Storytellers sing the praises of the knights and rulers, of the skilled, the daring, or just the regular everyday person, but in so doing they themselves inspire all these to live their best story, no matter who and what they are. There's something so tragic and frustrating about an artist who evidently doesn't see themselves as a part of the humanity they're expressing -- whether it's someone acting like they're above everyone because they "made it as an artist and don't have to be an ordinary schmuck like you losers" or, as you mentioned, an artist who devalues their own contribution because they're comparing themselves to some other measure of productivity.
Im in 1000% agreeance with you on how powerful and important being a creator is, but i don't think that would have helped him. The paranoia and denial of his own mortality and his legacy was beyond him learning to appreciate the arts.
I was thinking this too.
As someone who was inspired to be an animator because of Disney films, because I thought it was so incredible I could relate to a drawing of a deer that had lost his mom-- something I was aware wasn't REAL-- but how that felt so real and incredible that we as humans could empathize so strongly with drawings done by other humans... it really made an impression on little kid me who was going through a rough childhood.
And I know I'm not alone in that, having met so many other passionate animators and storytellers. Or how there were so many people who watch these movies again and again because they feel something. It's so disheartening to hear the guy boil down that legacy to "he invented a mouse."
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Hate to leave a trite comment, but as a writer, I think I'll take that second sentence of yours and hang it on my wall.
@@fizzles5
Thanks, friend. And keep up the writing!
(Incidentally reading your comment without context nearly gave me a heart attack. I was trying to remember what grammar crimes and heresies I'd committed to get that response :P )
The fact that Walt thinks he has to be more than a storyteller to make impacts on people's lives when the very existence of Disney World continues to drive Florida's economy is deeply, deeply ironic.
Wait, so disney world deeply affected florida's economy to the fundamental level? That's... insane
@@AoMizu_en there was a grad student who tried to model what Florida would look like without Disney using economic metrics. The result was something that can be generously called "Detroit: the State." Pretty compelling stuff.
@@gamepapa1211 To get Detroit though you would need a boom though
Like what's more of an irony is that Disney World practically dwarfs all the other stuff in Florida to people like my dad - Disney's influence is so large that it practically *IS* the state and there's nothing else there, Myrtle Beach excepted.
I think it's sad really.
Walt Disney's plans for Epcot sound like the motivation and goals of a Pokémon villain
THIS COMMENT HKJFHAKAF
Summons Eternatus to power Epcot
Literally Andrew Ryan
@@twistanturnu529 max raid battles against Mickey Mouse 👀
That is unironically a great idea for that. I’m taking this for fakemon concepts.
Since Epcot is just Disney's version of Rapture, I'd like to see it after the society collapsed and theres just 10 foot tall Mickey animatronics roaming the overgrown swampy grounds.
So Nuka-world from Fallout 4?
Oh man Epic Mickey 3's gonna be bitchin'.
That sounds like that one creepypasta mixed with Bioshock with no powers.... Fuck that would make a good game
That sounds like it would be a good premise for a good indie horror film or something
"Disneys version of Rapture"
YOU SAY THAT AS IF ANDREW RYAN WASNT DIRECTLY INSPIRED BY WALT DISNEY
Walt: "From each according to his ability."
Me: "And to each according to his need, right?"
Walt: *stares*
Me: "...and to each according to his need, right?"
🤓
fjgkf exactly
Perjurer using Citizen Kane as a framework for Walt's hunger for power and legacy stemming from something Walt tried to get back is hauntingly apt.
I loved the framing in this video
You know, EPOCT sounds really cool until you get to the crazy dictatorship part.
We are already are living in a similar world already. Most of us just don't know it..
just like the soviet union
Only you would have the choice to live there
You can tell because the world is a 3d circle and walt loves circles
@@typhoonfox6478 You mean a sphere? lol
Epcot...is a people zoo. That's pretty horrifying.
I guess Disney has always known best, citizen.
I mean all Zoos are bad imo
atur chomicz rip to injured and endangered animals i guess
Man, I can't believe Defunctland put out the Halloween episode this early in October!
People zoo... yup. That sums up my experience there.
Yknow, the viability of EPCOT aside, it's kind of sad that the project literally died with walt. I suppose that most people knew that it was never really going to happen, but they wanted an old man to pass away in peace believing that it would happen, but that line, "Marvin, Walt's dead," just hit quite hard.
Thing is though.......alot of the core concepts of EPCOT could have worked out PERFECTLY fine.
Dude was foaming at the mouth for something he called "revolutionary".........when alot of people overseas..... *_would just call them WALKABLE CITIES._*
Its revolutionary _FOR AMERICA_ due to his idol Ford...........but most places overseas didnt have Ford's nonsense influencing every aspect of life that exists and still vibed with the usual city planning that was originally built around walking and biking. Walt hated the new city planning that apparently prioritized automobiles and seemed to not know what he was DIRECTLY asking for.
Nowdays........everyone knows to just say "American city structure sucks ass. Walkable cities are better for everyone involved." But he didnt know that. He TOOK some concepts from a walkable city in switzerland.......but just didnt say, "Man. This walkable city is great! Why are we moving away from that in America." I give him MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD props for trying to brute force walkable cities back into America....
but its his own fault for why it failed.
He was his own opposition to his project by ultimately being a "rich white man" about it.
You know the type......rich, entitled, controlling, not used to people telling him no, invincible, powerful, no concern for others A.K.A: the residents wont have a say on the place they live in, doing this 60% for YOURSELF and NOT because you noticed that we as a society started losing something and rightfully so.
He was more concerned with his legacy and control....that too many people ended up not beliving in him.
He smoked like a chimney apparently and he failed to convince Roy on his dream.
oh well.
Im not bothered only because the idea of walkable cities didnt die. There is currently a small city in Arizona that is currently experimenting with the idea.......and theyre doing it THE GOOD AND HONEST WAY. Down to earth with none of the privacy invading and control issues. the idea isnt going anywhere.
People just dont want corporations going fucking feral and doing it. Cause Disney is what we invision when a corporation goes fukin feral with a good idea.
@@Tentegenbro calm down Walt wanted do something more than just walkable cities. was it insane yeah but also that’s how Walt got to the top never saying no and pushing limits.
I legitimately believe this season should be included in any museum about Walt Disney/the Disney company. It is a fair and well-researched series of videos portraying both the positives and the negatives about this iconic and pivotal figure in American history.
Someone should've given Walt a copy of Cities: Skylines to calm him down.
It would've been RT before RT was a thing.
@@Youhadabadday2021 rt?
@@CoolAndrew89 RumbleTumble Games
I don't think he has the patience or the self control to do something like manage traffic flow in Skylines.
He might just break and decide to conquer the world.
@@Youhadabadday2021 don’t do RT dirty like that!
Walt's attitude that there should be no retirees and that everyone must "productively" contribute until the moment they died seems to mirror his own obsession with work and his aversion to thinking about mortality, aging, and death. But it also seems like a reflection of the kind of America that reared him, where the primary measure of a person's worth was their labor-based contribution to the capitalist engine of production.
We see this reflected in the progress of American culture over the course of a century, as the elderly are increasingly pushed away into hidden places and special homes to keep them out of view and out of mind.
Had Walt lived longer, and continued to develop the epcot concept, I wonder if the realities of human life would have altered his perspective or if he would have stayed in denial.
@Ricky Shiffer you mean kind of like how the horse got turned to glue once he fulfilled his purpose and stuff?
Retirement in the modern sense is actually a relatively new concept. The idea that there’s a standard age where you stop your primary vocation and pursue other interests can be traced back to economic reforms in Germany (Prussia at the time?) under Otto von Bismarck in order to artificially decrease the labor pool and raise wages. For most of history, people worked in one form or another until they died, and if they became so frail in their old age so that they couldn’t work at all, they would be supported by immediate and extended family.
@Tip Of The Riceburg No lmao,it was an anti communist book.
Sometimes old people are put into homes because they're not safe on their own? I cant take my grandma in but she has dementia so she has to live in a home? Idk, im not obsessed with staying young so I can't really understand that mindset. It is sad, though
@@mayplaysgames7978 We're going to die one day. :3
Walt Disney was so concerned about his legacy. Did he ever consider who was going to rule EPCOT after he died?
He was gonna be a head in a jar... He was gonna live forever!
Are you kidding me? He would have had someone freeze his talking head and put it on a robot body.
He was gonna do it Cave Johnson style.
@@hotcocoa8373hahah
In all seriousness, though, given he threw a fit every time someone brought up death to him, tried to go back to work right after surgery, and worked on this right up until the moment he died, I'm going with Kevin being right about Walt having been in deep, deep denial over his own mortality.
"Walt tries to create a futuristic city, an utopia for all artists and creative people..."
Wow thats amazing, whats wrong with tha-
"...where he would micromanage everything down to molecular level"
....oh
"Walt and his team noticed a large undeveloped swamp area on Florida's turnpike near I-4, which at the time was under construction, and still is today."
As a native Central Floridian that gave me a good laugh. That road will stay under construction forever.
Majesty Building: “Buuuuuuuuuuuuu...”
*19 years later*
“...rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrn!”
Got 'em. 😏
Ah, the Floridian equivalent of the Seattle Mercer Mess, which was under construction while my mom was in high school, and is /still/ a Big Mood today.
Trump4Prison2021 Except there’s a stretch of I4 that’s probably been under perpetual construction for at least 5 years with absolutely no end in sight
And the building I previously mentioned is right along that stretch. It has literally been under construction since 2001. Never opened, still in the process of being built. They didn’t even have lights until 2 years ago
"Teenage crime was a major problem in cities."
I'm sure it had something to do with all that homosexual fast dancing.
If only they lived in Fordlandia where women were banned. Er...
Was it from Videopolis?
Ok Boomer
Homosexual fast dancer here, can confirm, we’re all teen street gangs
@@JBabyLeather Just getting ready to rumble with those greasy Sharks. As soon as I stretch out and get my Capezios on.
It's kind of sad that Walt couldn't see his contribution to industry and culture through the arts.
He changed people's minds about animation, and themed attractions in general. Convincing many that these were forms of art that deserved appreciation, instead of derision.
If only he understood how important entertainment and storytelling is to the preservation of America's cultures for future generations. If only he could have actually looked to the future, instead of trying to recreate the feeling of the past.
All you say is true, but I'd add that recreating the feeling of the past to exist side-by-side with the progress of the future ("Yesterday" and "Tomorrow") was too ambitious to succeed.
the minute kevin mentioned that you would be _required_ to work in Epcot, if alarm bells weren't ringing before, they definitely were now. and as much as Walt hated the suburbs, he was essentially making another suburb, a much more authoritarian one.
How was it a suburb, its was gonna be high density and walkable, not rows and rows of houses
@@dopaminedreams1122 less in structure, more in spirit. the same sort of people who would normally be in suburbs would be in these new homes, and keep the suburb mentality with them
@@dopaminedreams1122 and it was all about appearance, too, much like a lot of suburbs were - they wanted nice, clean, very very white neighborhoods, and disney wanted a neighborhood so neat it can be presented to tourists regularly
@@dopaminedreams1122The majority of the city was planned to be low density cul de sacs with large communal yards. A suburb.
I immediately thought of company towns and got chills thinking about how often they happen and continue to be proposed.
As a former Disney World employee: According to management , EPCOT stands for "every paycheck comes on Thursday." :D
That's bloody brilliant!
Nice😩😂😂😂👌
I don’t get it. What’s clever about that?
@@eddierichard1104 you don't get acronyms?
@@eddierichard1104 What's clever about it is its mundanity...for how high-minded the concept originally was, only for it to become something so plain...it's like watching a skyscraper being overtaken by creeping vines and crumbling. It's a degree of reduction of such scale that it elicits such a diverse range of emotions that the only thing left to do is nervously laugh at the absurdity of it all...a monument reduced to soft humor, so common in its implementation, that one might call it a cliché.
Notoriously anti-communist Walt suggesting that everyone be “employed to the best of their ability” threw me for a loop
There's nothing uncapitalist about full, satisfied employment.
@@christianfaux736 @Ricky Shiffer Except when you have freedom of choice of employment, the best doctors could be artists and the best artists doctors. Also, capitalism says you can retire whenever you want if you have enough money. Walt demanded labour until death. That is communist as heck, how did two different people convince themselves it's not?
@@frenchbreadstupidity7054 ...
@@frenchbreadstupidity7054 Ideologies don't necessarily execute ideas badly by default. Note that in practical examples of Communism (soviet union) labour until death was specifically reserved for those in gulags or work camps. Together with generally less refined healthcare and underdeveloped logistics (The soviet union had famously underdeveloped logistics) this probably had a negative impact on the average age where one could retire. But, retirement did exist in the soviet union. It wasn't all bad, just in some cases criminally mismanaged. That's something not limited to Communism though.
@@christianfaux736 Working in capitalism is, by definition, being exploited by parasites.
As an Australian who has never been to the Us, I know there are a lot of surprising things in this video, but I'm honestly still shocked to learn that Disney Land and Disney World aren't the same thing
Don't feel bad, I've lived in America all my life and only found this out recently myself. Like, within the last year and a half since I found this channel. I'm turning 30 in February, for the record.
samee except i live here
I had been to both as a kid, didn't realize until I was nearly 20 that it was two different resorts.
Unless you grow up living in either Florida or California, half of US residents don’t know (or care) either
Lol meanwhile, I grew up in CA and have been explaining the differences since I could talk
I remember hearing in an interview at least a decade ago that character of Andrew Ryan from Bioshock was in some part based on, from his mannerisms to his ideology, Walt Disney.
I guess I see what they were getting at now. Really goes to show how you'll never quite know how history will remember your actions until you are long gone.
I'm glad he's remembered for his effect on our childhoods and not whatever the hell this would have ended up becoming.
And now this totally puts into perspective Phil Vischer's failed "Christian Walt Disney" dreams and why I'm like, *angelic choir*
If you don’t have the sims you just gotta do it the analog way, I guess
You win lol
Me at the begging of this episode: wow! This sounds great so sad he never built it!
Me at the end: thank you god for not having him create this dystopia.
Yeah, I was liking all the public transport, improved infrastructure, re-imagined school system, futuristic robo-houses, etc.
But once in got into, nobody retires, surveillance everywhere, the only TV is closed circuit from inside the compound, and everyone agrees to be on display for tourists and has no private life, I was like "Holy crap! NO! Bad Disney!"
@@TetsuDeinonychus especially the part where he was like “no democracy”
@@joshmorton7283 That too!
For someone that claimed to be against communism, EPCOT sounds dangerously close to the USSR...🤔
@@Ironcabbit Epcot is literally capitalistic autocracy
“Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No, says the man in EPCOT, it belongs to the Mouse”
Thanks to AI voices, I wanna see someone make a mod redubbing all of Andrew Ryan's lines with AI Disney.
Walt is really fascinating to me because he was clearly a megalomaniacal plutocrat, but he was a megalomaniacal plutocrat who sincerely believed in his own bullshit, which is almost scarier and more dangerous than one who just cynically puts on an act.
"Walt Disney the politician" is something from the darkest timeline lol
Guess she don't like the cornbread either. mmm eats not caring.
President Walt Disney.... I shudder at the idea.
We’ve had worse celebrities play at president.
Would be have been worse then Trump? Somehow I doubt it.
@@jennifergriel861 IIRC, there is actually an alternate history story based on the idea.
It doesn't end well...
'The teens of the 60s loved nothing more than hanging out with a bunch of narcs in a building designed by a 60-year-old man'
Just the perfect way he delivers that line...genius!
vs lion tigers and bears over there for big oil money? OH MY!
I kept trying to think of what EPCOT reminded me of, and I suddenly realized: it was just like the communities in Lois Lowry's The Giver.
They're made to be absolutely perfect, and everyone is given a distinct purpose to make that community function, practically assigned their roles from birth. In order to achieve "perfection", the citizen's rights, freedoms, and even some of their individuality is stripped away. When a citizen grows too old to be a productive member of the community, they are no longer viewed as having any value and are systemically disposed of.
The parallels aren't perfect, of course, but they're similar enough to be very, very concerning.
I thought the same thing, and apparently so did the folks who made the movie adaptation. The cities in the movie look exactly like this, down to the hub-and-spoke layout.
Such dystopias are so common in American fiction precisely because they did happen, and they keep happening.
It also reminded me of Brave New World, EPCOT being a little less scary but almost the same concept after all.
It reminded me more of Bioshock. A star struck visionary with so much hubris that he tries not only to create his own city, but his own civilization. A civilization that was supposed to be the “city of tomorrow.” One where hyper productivity is the highest priority.
reminded me of The Giver as well
Kevin, I want to give you the highest compliment I can give within the context of my family: While discussing the Reedy Creek Improvement District controversy, I told my 82 year old father about this documentary and how he'd walk away from it understanding everything. I know he never likes sitting through ANYTHING for very long, so I figured he'd never get around to it. The next day he texted me and we discussed the issues in your video, from beginning to end, meaning he watched every second. This is, truly, a testimony to how great this is.
"Because the teens of the 60s loved nothing more than hanging out with a bunch of narcs in a building designed by a sixty year-old man."
I love how completely neutral you deliver great lines like that.
Thank you!!!! That line had me folded!!!
regarding white flight, they're escaping the economic and social ills that come from an abuse of the mentioned factors. nothing inherent about immigration or integration drives white flight. but government mandates and the crime that result, does. also, cities do not fall into disrepair because of white flight itself, but from the root factors that drive white flight, ie increasing crime rate, expanding government oversight, etc. it's important to remember that any one habitat does not have unlimited resources, living space, or job opportunities. the surplus people that arrive into an environment introduces scarcity and have an overall damaging effect on the surroundings because they have to obtain resources outside of normal means. this means crime, corruption, kick backs, etc. i'm not saying immigration or integration is bad, but when it's artificially ramped up such that there is a surplus population and thus a scarcity of resources, it becomes damaging.
@@cagneybillingsley2165 wow that's a lot of whistles you got there
@@nuclearbiologist they going "toot toot"
@@cagneybillingsley2165 A good chuck of crimes in America happens from white people, so I highly doubt that's the reason why it happens. Sounds like excuses to justify not wanting to live with people they consider to be minorities if you asked me.
EPCOT was just a giant transmutation circle so Walt could sacrifice his workers for eternal life. I've seen this plot before.
oh my gosh, what a perfect comparison
This made me want to read FMA again 😭
Full Motion Animator
FOR WHAT COULD EQUAL THE PRICE OF A HUMAN SOUL!?!?!
@@pyro-millie5533 the 17.6 billion a year Disney world makes must come close. That’s all those boys needed. Unlimited money.
As questionable as EPCOT’s success would have been had Walt built it, the last days of Walt’s life sounds like it was truly heartbreaking.
He was no saint but not a devil he was just a man and tell me does not everyone dream of a paradise town
The Burj Khalifa and many buildings in Dubai took design directly from Walt's EPCOT blueprints. Really cool to see on google maps, and see actual images of places built almost identical to what he sketched.
To their credit.. the researchers weren't wrong. These cities are largely ghost cities, incredibly separated by wealth.
I briefly visited that area a few years ago, but never the super-rich areas. Being ferried in a cab from the city's outer limits to what I assume was a low- to medium-income district was so surreal - blocks and blocks of hotels, in various states of unfinished or unfurnished or unsold, all uninhabited, 30-story buildings built in a huge grid that to my eyes seemed to stretch for miles in any direction. Like being in a flyover panorama shot in a Blade Runner film. One of the more unbelievable experiences of my life, but the unbelievability came from the thought that none of what I saw could possibly be sustainable or ever put to use on the scale to which it was being built. I've seen some ghost towns, but nothing like outer Dubai before or since.
“Why be a major when I’m a king?”
*worried laughter*
*mayor
King of what as you sold out for the money? Respect is lost just like that here as your side fights for the oil money.
@@pariahmutt3589 you do know you can edit your comments, right?
Smart man ... and dont forget, he was constantly negotiating with the rest of the "Kings" running their portion of the world. I am reminded of Gates, one of the 10 most powerful people in the world, being called before .. Congress .. sitting there smiling.
*shrug* why let your vision be absconded by people actively impeding progress if you can help it.
I dunno if this is a strange thing to admit, but I'm currently watching this with my hands clasped together on my desk like this is some kind of secret presentation
this finally "un-spaghettified" the old EPCOT map plan for me, finally! i've wondered for years what was drawn really meant.
How shiny are your anime glasses glinting in the darkness right now, on a scale of 1920s vaudeville mad scientist pulling a lever, to Gendo Ikari?
Cause the secret of Epcot is this. If you have the creativity, the will and the dream. IT can become real. So long as people have that. Epcot the city of tomorrow has a chance of becoming reality. If you presented this to people like from Clownfish tv or say a few others right now like the guy from the quartering they would likely say something negative and chew out modern Disney. If you presented this to a artist, to a dreamer. To a child. They see a possible future.
@@Quetzalcoatl_Feathered_Serpent
Not sure about that Quartering fella, but Clownfish prooved many times, that they are on the side of the of the artists. They hate the corporate bullshit, not the artist themselves.
@@kompuglobalhypermega I would hope. Just so much negativity these days. The last 4 years indeed been the worse.
for a somewhat Disney-centric channel this is one of the most level headed and unsentimental documentaries on Walt Disney that I have ever seen...admirers of uncle Walt get a refreshing dose of harsh reality here...
Defunctland has always taken the more unsentimental views on Disney in general.
What’s crazy to me is that Walt didn’t realize the legacy he already left behind. All of the cartoons, movies, and theme parks he created raised generations and will continue to do so. He truly was a visionary, but he was his biggest obstacle. The ideas for Epcot weren’t so bad, he just needed outside influences to help balance out the feasibility of his plans. Epcot was sounding great until he said that the residents there had to work and that they couldn’t retire, or that if you were fired from your job you were evicted as well. Walt knew how to build a city, but he didn’t know he had to let the city function by itself without his involvement, or he didn’t want to
Epcot sound like the setting of an amazing dystopia game franchise. The law of Disney isn't aggressively enforced, but all the citizens know to stay in their line. You've lived there since birth and have never left. Your father moved to the secondary community three years ago, and you have very little contact with him. Theres a big reveal about the outside world being 1992, despite Epcot still having a 1960s Futurism vibe. Your objective is to get your family out, but the authorities are onto you and have locked down all the outermost regions of the city. You meet a journalist from the outside who has a reputation for going to dangerous parts of the world, and she wants an interveiw with whoever is in power in the city. Whammo, video game shenanigans ensue
Haha!
You ever play Bioshock?
@@bee2bee880 maybe a hybrid between bioshock, we happy few and a few totalitarian novels.
We Happy Few kinda sorta hits that vibe, me thinks.
half life 2 vibes also strangley enough. Imaging walking out into town square and beamed on a massive 60's tv screen. "TO ALL WHO COME TO THIS HAPPY PLACE... WELCOME..."
if you ever feel scared or hopeless about the world today, just remember that we narrowly escaped a world where schools, churches, hospitals, and roads were all owned and designed by disney.
he wanted to make a city, not take over the world lol
@@PePe-kv2se idk man, I wouldn't be surprised if the city was just a first step and an example of how he wanted the whole world to be.
hey now, there's still time!
Thankfully, we live in the reality where single family homes are unaffordable to the younger generation, and getting sick and getting a higher education can ram the average citizen into debt for several years.
@@PugandOwn exactly to bad his frozen head is DEFINITELY NOT in a barrel in the pirates of the Caribbean ride
Is a man not entitled to his city of the future?
“No!” Says the cynical EPCOT board member. “Nobody will want to live here!”
“No!” Says the arrogant permanent resident. “I deserve basic rights and freedoms!”
“No!” Says the selfish 7 year old child. “I don’t want to see boring buildings, I want to see Elsa!”
"I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... *EPCOT*. A city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientists would not be bound by petty morality, where the dreamers would not be constrained by the small-minded! And with the sweat of your brow, EPCOT can become _your_ city as well."
There's something tragic about Walt's drive to construct EPCOT in the waning hours of his life. His desperation to secure his legacy at the very cost of it comes across like a man hopelessly searching for immortality.
Everyone feels the end coming as they age. All people learn they want to leave a legacy. For most this means being kinder and perhaps more giving and involved in church and charities...allowing for a nice turnout at the funeral. For those with rapidly acquired wealth so heavily in the public eye, internal pressure can build, and has in many, to do something spectacular with that wealth to create lasting change. But that kind of wealth comes with the belief that anything can be bought...even freedom.
One thing never changes, people who lack the ability to create dedicate their live to throwing stones at the successful
@@DarkPesco
Jesus fuck, this reads like the prologue to some deeply disturbing thriller packed with social commentary…not a TH-cam comment 😂
It is. As grim and terrifying an idea as a privately owned city is.
Honestly I think Walt had a lot of unresolved issues. Probably stemming from his childhood and all the difficulties he had in his life.
pretty sure the three major symptoms of depression are fatigue, loss of interest in activities, and crying to feed the birds on a daily basis
I think the brilliant thing about this episode is exploring how trying to design a perfect city also exposed the deeply flawed, deeply _human_ side of Walt Disney. The line “this is where Lillian and I will sit at night and watch the people” haunts me.
@@ShootingStarNeo A dying man who refused to accept his mortality, and felt he had so much more to give to this world, blind to the awful implications of what he wanted to bring into existence. It's genuinely so tragic.
@@ShootingStarNeo yeah he definitely knew about the cancer way before he got admitted to the hospital.
One of the ultimate failures of Walt's entire concept was his apparent refusal to consider old age and death. "No retirees"? So what happens when someone is too old to work? Do you just kick them out? Are you making space for cemeteries near the churches, or would people have to leave town entirely in an expensive rented car to go visit a loved one's grave? Old age and death are facts of life, and it seems like he (very mistakenly) assumed that we'd have achieved immortality or at least a way to completely halt the detrimental effects of aging by the time this city was complete. Also he wanted so much to be automated, but also everyone to be employed. Why not focus on the automation and implement a universal basic income to guarantee a base quality of life for all residents? This would also go a long way towards promoting what he claimed to want - an emphasis on the arts. Art is at its best when it's done for the love and passion of it, not for commercial gain. Would Epcot-housed artists considered "employed" if they're not working for Disney?
I think that Walt's problem is exemplified in how the people close to him had to respond to his ideas - you could never just tell the man "no". You had to say "yes, but..." even if the idea at its core was unfeasible. And you know what happens when a creator stops being told no? The fucking Star Wars prequels is what happens. Nobody would tell Lucas "no" anymore because the original movies were so successful, even though it was partially because so many of his ideas were shot down that the original trilogy was any good in the first place. If Epcot had ever even come close to reality, that's what it would have been - Walt Disney's Prequel trilogy: overhyped, poorly executed, and focusing on the aesthetic over the actual necessary tangible aspects that make a film (or a city) work the way it has to.
Also a "one man, one vote democracy" is not a fucking thing. That's called a dictatorship. Democracy is by definition a process involving a group that can agree and disagree. From OED: "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state." So yeah, he wanted a literal Walt Disney World - his own world, his own magic kingdom, where his imagination ruled, logic and the happiness of the inhabitants be damned.
I also Wonder "what If they became disable or Just born with some kind of disability" accidents can happen even in a "perfect city" and automation needs maintace, i think the whole aging and death thing it was just walt projecting his own desperation about himself into his projects
Its strange to me you think it would have failed or made people unhappy or that he couldnt have developed things more as he went along. I guess its to be expected, Leftish personality types are usually projecting their own failures, moral and intellectual, onto others.
Sounds like "Logan's Run". You DIE at age 30...
I'm begging you, watch the behind the scenes clips of the Star Wars prequels. Do even the slightest amount of research about it.
I get it, YOU hate the Star Wars prequels, because you don't want movies with any depth to them. But most people love them.
O.K. The stupid prequel trilogy analogy aside, this reminds me of what happened to Big Idea during the production of Jonah except it was way less egomaniacal and more naïve: Phil Vischer wanted to be the Christian Walt Disney with Veggie Tales, but that didn't pan out and he got humbled by it...but not before the company went crashing down due to the cost of the movie.
I get the warm fuzzies when seeing Phil's Twitter page because he kind of is Walt Disney in the Christian circles - a more humble version of him.
I think about this video constantly because it begs us to consider Walt’s legacy and what to make of it. And honestly i think the whole thing reflects how we see him today. Because Epcot and all its likely consequences never came to be, it remains simply a heap of inspiring ideas to consider. And that’s a blessing in disguise. Because its consequences never came to reality, Walt’s reputation doesn’t have to be tangibly tarnished by it. He remains a fascinating figure in a grey area between inspiring and troubling. For better or worse, that’s his legacy, but in my opinion its for the better as far as he should be concerned.
Living at EPCOT sounds a bit like having to deal with Windows Update. "New appliances are ready to be installed. Would you like to restart your house now or tonight?". Then sometimes you won't get the warning and the appliances get installed anyway, right in the middle of cooking a meal.
Hahaha 😂, amazing!! Or even an explanation of why the EPCOT ride was so torturous. I grew up in Florida and never experienced the whole ride without stopping (or getting stuck in it for a few hours) until I was probably 25. It did make for a decent nap, rain shelter though.
This comment made me realize how annoying it would be to swap out the fridge.
HONEY I GOT MY ARM STUCK IN THE TOASTER AGAIN
FUCK MY FOOT IS STUCK IN THE CABINET
OH GOD NO NOT THE FRIDGE
"A futurist, that traded in nostalgia."
Excellently put, Kevin.
That's fascism
@@DiodeMilliampere bruh
@@DiodeMilliampere that word hardly has any meaning anymore
@@Wewwers Considering fascism is on the rise in a way that is only rivaled by the 1930s it has more meaning than ever.
@@MongyBongy Nostalgia for an idealized past that never really existed is a key element of fascism.
This video feels like a very different experience for me after getting so attached to the documentary on the disney channel theme. Every defunctland video is, in a way, about legacy, but these two stick out as the most directly involved with the subject, and the difference in tone and feel for what legacy these people leave behind is incredible, especially relative to the supposed significance of their respective legacies. I can't help but contrast the quote of "Fancy being remembered around the world for the invention of a mouse" to "Any one of us, artist or otherwise, would be fortunate, blessed even, to be remembered for a single note"
I love that venomous shift in tone when Kevin mentions Monsanto.
“I-4 was under construction...and still is today” bruh central Floridian gang lol
Gotta love the constant 5:30 I-4 traffic 🤦🏾♂️
Only the elite know it takes an hour to get from Orlando to Orlando
Forreal lmao. Polk County boi
Ah yes
People are aware of things happening outside of their local geographic area.
"You can't experiment with people's lives?"
Walt Disney: "Why not?"
Modern Megacorps: "Yeah why not?"
I mean, why not?
"Yeah, you're not the boss of me! I'M the boss of YOU!"
Disney (today): "Why not?"
@@notgray88 *Bob Iger
Mmm I _love_ late stage capitalism 🥴
Walt Disney's father actually worked as a carpenter at the Chicago World Fair, creating parts of the famous White City. According to "Devil in the White City," Walt Disney was inspired by this unearthly (now almost mythical) city and used aspects of its design in his own theme park.
You had me at “No retirement” LMAO I don’t think anyone would want to live somewhere where they have to dream of labor till they die.
"And still is today"
*laughs, then cries*
*honks horn*
Came here to say exactly this!!
Truest. Statement. Ever.
I had the same exact thought! Oh how I hate the I-4 roller coaster.
I laughed because it was so hilarious, but then cried because it was so true. Hahahahahhuuhuuhhuuhuu....
This feels like a genuine classical tragedy. Hubris, fatal flaws, and sorrow in the end as the protagonist fails. You’re a storyteller among storytellers.
The choice to reference Citizen Kane in the intro and outro is brilliant.
And all in a desire to get back something he never could. The framing device really hit the nail on the head: EPCOT was Walt's Rosebud.
@Bubble Wrap he could've been a classic Simpsons writer
A classical tragedy has good intentions behind it. Epcot was a pretty despicable idea from the start. It was a company town, through and through
@@harrylane4 Everyone must be employed and nobody gets to retire. A true capitalist paradise.
I find it interesting that walt disney’s nature as he got older was that he didn’t like the legacy he had created. To me making films that brought smiles to children and families globally is about as aspirational as I could imagine. But he didn’t want that, instead he wanted to be what appears to be a dictator of a cardboard utopia.
Actually very interesting how he seemed consumed by epcot.
I don't think he "didn't like" the legacy he had thus far achieved. Rather, I suspect being the king of animation wasn't a grand enough one--he wanted achieve something more significant, in his way of thinking. He wanted to be remembered for more than just Mickey Mouse and Snow White.
It's sad that Disney got so ambitious, thinking he needed to go bigger and bigger to be remembered and change people's lives, because his studios movies DO change people's lives! Every time I watch a good Disney film, I feel touched with how brilliant it is.
Not all of them are good (hi, Wish), but when they’re good they’re EXCELLENT.
Imagine being so mad about garbage trucks waking you up that you make a whole new city.
Misophonia has entered the chat.
The only reasonable reaction
Spite, the great motivator
This is the most relatable thing about Walt.
Walt's EPCOT was scary, company-owned cities are almost always distopian. The fact that you could loose your house if you were fired, in a place where unions aren't allowed and you can't vote is just terrible.
And yet, is that not the direction the US is headed?
@@SillyShib unfortunately yeah :(
That is the definition of a company town. No one, except the owner had a say, workers never owned the homes, only the company. Like an apartment. Even now, lose your job and you lose your home, especially if you are renting.
Didn't Amazon attempted to build their own corporate run micro-city in New York last year?
@@barbiquearea whoa they did
It's funny hearing Ray Bradbury was a friend of Walt Disney when the over abundance and shallow consumption of media warned about in Fahrenheit 451 pretty much sums up modern Disney's practices.
RIP Walt Disney, you would’ve loved city skylines
He had some genuinely good ideas: the radial design, the people movers, the renewable energy, and the underground road and parking. If he treated it like a normal but advanced neighborhood with privacy and freedom it could’ve worked.
He should have started with a community of his own, some of his Board and family, etc. See what troubles may arise from there.
I think he was just so afraid of losing control. It had to be the perfect city, and, if the people of the perfect city had the ability to control the city, they might make it not so perfect.
Just an inability or unwillingness to consider the imperfections of life. Any city, in reality, wouldn’t be perfect, but, maybe, with complete control, he’d be able to convince himself it was.
Yes, there were a lot of great ideas in his plans. The biggest flaw was the vast scale of the project which of necessity would have to incorporate strong central control. If he hadn't been so grandiose in establishing his legacy, he might have succeeded in promoting portions of the design in different locales instead of failing because of attempting a totally unwieldy conglomeration of all of them all at once. I think it was his vanity (and all the sycophants he surrounded himself with) which couldn't be reigned in with any consideration of realism.
yeah it's more good in theory, modern musk with his tunnels is a good example where on a theoretical level it works but when you start to reach into modern safety regulations and especially fire laws, you're going to be in a world of hurt very fast.
@@libbybollinger5901He was a perfectionist. Apparently, he nitpicked every single frame of Snow White and had the animators redo drawings if they weren't perfect. This attention to detail is what makes Disneyland work and makes their films so beautiful. However, it just doesn't work when you have thousands of people not employed by you living in one area.
Every time I caught myself thinking "You know, that doesn't sound so bad," I then remembered that a lot of EPCOT's function hinged on corporations being benevolent overlords and I'd almost immediately think of both mining towns (good on you for mentioning company cities!) and cyberpunk wageslave cities.
I saw a video about the lore behind Night City from the Cyberpunk RPG series, and my first thought was, "This is just EPCOT but black and chrome."
It made me think of the coal company towns pre-mining wars.
Corporations weren't even willing to stick around in the EPCOT we did get and that one was purely marketing, imagine trying to get companies to try to stick around for this, a city where they have to pay for every appliance and employ everyone.
Yeah Company cities with terrible idea. Walt Disney and Epcot remind me of Elon musk and Mars. I love the idea people settling on Mars but having private corporations and controlled of anything sounds like a truly be terrible idea.
@@aurorawaxwing5866 when it comes down to the eventual exploration of space,
there are two spectrums that people fall under there are The Optimist and the realist. Optimist hope for something more along the lines of Star Trek, while realist view it from aliens perspective that will reach the Stars through corporate control.
I had no idea Epcot reached this level of aspiration. Pretty scary but impressive stuff.
Its sad seeing how drawing and animation went from being Walts passion and success story when he was in his 20 and 30s to being in his 60s and that being the thing he was absolutely terrified of being his only legacy. He forgot about and just completely ignored his roots in favor of becoming some weird dictator of a city.
The thing is, from everything I’ve seen on the subject, his actual art talents were just decent and a bit charming, not genius level stuff. It also doesn’t help that the Company likes to play fast and loose with what Walt did and what Ub Iwerks and others did. What I think Walt’s real talent’s were in crafting a story that broad audiences will enjoy, putting faith in “crazy” ideas and seeing them through, and most importantly finding and cultivating talent and pushing them to their limits (often past this limits) to create art, wether it’s good for them or not. That’s the thing though, I wonder if he felt like so little of the accomplishments were actually his? It’s also terrible that while his success was built on the talents of other people, he felt that he was the only one who was right, and that he had to be in charge at all costs.
"This is where the park bench will be, where Lillian and I are going to sit at night, and watch all the people."
God that fucking hurt to hear. In spite of all his flaws, that's just one of the most human things I've ever learned Walt said. The fact that he died just a few months after makes it even more tragic.
41:15
I don't know if it was true, but there was a thing like apparently Disney recorded a last video before dying where he actually showed how proud he was toward all the people of his company, showing that despite he was a terrible Boss director, he was just a strict father who didn't showed his real emotion.
While I'm glad this never came to pass, that did stand out to me as well. He genuinely wanted this to be a thing and to work.
That was so sad, in combination with him dying and the project getting scrapped *immidiately*
He was a controlling jerk to a lot of people. But he was also a human with dreams and love for his family.
@@sd-ch2cq Well even dictators are often humans capable of love, believing they create better world.
Nicely put together documentary! It really does come off as something of a harrowing as well as cautionary tale... painfully ironic, almost. Walt focused so much on "tomorrow" that he missed "today," it would seem. He was unsatisfied with his life as head of a film studio and wanted to be more than that. Which, I mean, is understandable, but like...that's what makes it a cautionary tale, I think. Anyone can get obsessed over a dream. Anyone can make that dream all about them and fail to think of all the other people involved and affected by it, hence him falling into this classic trap of making a utopia which quite likely could have fell into the opposite direction. However, even though most people don't nearly the amount of resources as Walt, I just find the story in this light to be so striking, because I feel like I *see* this exact attitude in so many other places, without us even realizing it. I guess, at the end of the day, it comes down to balance? Don't get so wrapped up into yourself? Pursuing passion is great, but don't let any project become your god, especially when you make yourself the god of that project
If you can ask Walt now, I don’t think he regrets it.
Yes, his great prior successes under unlikely circumstances made him think that, as long as he was in control, he couldn't possibly fail to fulfill his urban dream the way other community planners of the past had done (including himself, as seen in the previous Disneyland strike!)
Holy shit Walt went off the rails at the end. To be honest I really would like to see the world where this would actually exist. Like for maybe a week. Yes it is a dystopian nightmare but I actually really want to see it.
Nobody:
Walt Disney: "EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE CIRCULAR!"
The man loved his roundabouts!
Puts on security smart glasses to read blanked out text on this comment. oh okay.
Hahahahah well ... it works haha
It worked for Mickey...
Ironically, something Walt and Soviet urban planners had in common.
This video is a good example of good ideas from bad places.
A mostly carless city with a lot of green areas, self powered homes with renewable energy, with emphasis on pedestrian ease of travel with a radial design where most civil service vehicles are away from public eye to reduce congestion and noise? It sounds like a dream.
and of course Walt turns it into a nightmare by making it a dictatorial surveillance state where the only way to retire is to "retire" from life itself. I have to wonder if walt ever read 1984.
The residential idea is on point with some hiccups. The ruling idea is where the issue sparks because many European countries follow this green and sustainable ideaologies
The most telling aspect of the city is that it still relied on cars and trucks, it just hid them underneath the city. The squeaky-clean, “eco-friendly” city of tomorrow is just a cover. Underneath is all the problems that modern urbanites are used to, and many of the people living there would be faced with these problems directly since they need employment somewhere. The same thing is true with all cities now; the rulers claim to care about environmental concerns by planting trees on top of ugly glass buildings and using “renewable” energy (which still needs non-renewable energy for manufacturing and still damages the environment by taking up a ton of space and disturbing wildlife in general).
Let's not forget, this would've been *1960's era renewable energy* so, a huge joke.
@@thesapphiremawile5180- You brought up an interesting point. All those subterranean spaces... how much control could the Disney corporation possibly have had over them? Would they have become havens for the homeless and conduits for black market activities or worse? What corporation would want to spend the money that policing them would require?
I disagree with your side-point about renewable energy, though, although I hear it all the time. It takes non-renewable energy to build renewable energy tech now, but that won't always be the case. It took water power and literal horsepower and blacksmiths using human muscle power to build the first steam engines, but do we still use horses and blacksmiths in manufacturing? No. Opponents of green energy look at each individual part - just transportation, or just wind power, or just solar power, or just energy storage, etc. - as if research and development on each were all that is happening, but progress is being made on all fronts simultaneously (which scares the Established Providers and their stockholders to death).
@@thesapphiremawile5180 except that’s… not really true? The city wouldn’t really rely on them at all. Did you even watch the video? People living within the city would be able to commute to work and the city center entirely via public transit, and would only need to use cars to go outside of Disney’s territory (which is fair because at the time Florida wasn’t even considering basic public transportation). Trash would be managed by pneumatic tubes. He even stated he didn’t want people to own cars unless they absolutely needed to. People coming from outside the city would have cars (unless they came
in via plane), but again, this was Florida in the 60’s.
“ death is not an acceptable topic.” Said the guy who was known for having a lot of death in his early animations.
*AHEM* Bambi
The radial design of Epcot kept reminding me of Midgar from Final Fantasy VII. Even in the way all the different sections and layers were divided off.
I spent 10 minutes scrolling through the comments trying to find this one. Through this entire video I kept seeing the Midgar parallels. A corporation owned dystopian city, with a radial design, a tall building in the middle that’s surrounded by major roadways. It’s kinda interesting thinking that years later Cloud and Mickey would be in the same world.
I really was not expecting a Citizen Kane reference.
Rosebud The Wooden Sled
ANYTHING can happen in Defunctland.
I was initially thinking he'd have disney say "kurt russell."
@@ajvark Those were his last WRITTEN words.
Appropriate though
Epcot Citizen: *Wants to Keep an Appliance They Like*
Walt: “So you have chosen...D E A T H”
Walt: “Hippity hoppity, you *are* my property”
I feel like I can see an Among Us thing here:
"According to Walt, everyone trying to fix the ship in the wrong way will be ejected as an impostor."
@@WasatchWind Can you imagine him in the emergency meetings? He'd dominate them. 80% of the talking would be by him, if not more.