One of EPCOT’s most iconic attractions is officially getting a major update.
Disney announced during D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event that Spaceship Earth will be reimagined for the first time in nearly 20 years, with Walt Disney Imagineering preparing to bring the attraction’s story into the internet age and beyond.
The current version of Spaceship Earth takes guests through the history of human communication, from some of our earliest methods of sharing ideas through the technological advances that eventually connected people around the world.
With the upcoming reimagining, Disney says Imagineers will broaden that concept. Instead of focusing specifically on communication, the attraction will explore the larger theme of human connection, something Disney describes as still being “classically EPCOT.”
And honestly, that’s about all Disney is telling us right now.
We don’t yet know which existing scenes will remain, what will change, whether new Audio-Animatronics or technology will be introduced, or what the attraction’s trip into the internet age will actually look like. Disney also hasn’t announced when Spaceship Earth will close for the work or when the reimagined attraction is expected to debut.
For longtime EPCOT fans, however, this is a significant announcement. Spaceship Earth isn’t simply another attraction inside the park. It has been EPCOT’s centerpiece since opening day in 1982, and its journey through the history of communication is one of the experiences most closely associated with the park.
Now we’re incredibly curious to see how Imagineers take that story from human communication to human connection without losing what has made Spaceship Earth feel so distinctly EPCOT for more than four decades.
