Behind the Attraction is a Disney Plus series that, as the name says, takes viewers behind specific attractions found in Disney Parks, but some of the episodes stretch the definition of what counts as an “attraction.” While the first season gave us the history of the Haunted Mansion and the new season gives us the story of the creation of Pirates of the Caribbean, Season 1 also included an episode on the Disneyland Hotel, and the brand-new Season 2, arriving on November 1, includes an episode about food in Disney Parks. Season 2 also includes an episode about an entire theme park: Epcot.
Rather than focusing on a single attraction found at Epcot, the episode of Behind the Attraction covers the entire park from its earliest concepts through the modern day. I had a chance to speak with series director Brian Volk-Weis and asked him about why Epcot got its own episode, and he said that it all came down to one guy named Disney... not Walt, but Roy. The director said:
I have always been very interested in Roy Disney…the story that to me is always encapsulated. The relationship between Walt and Roy is Epcot. because it's the handoff. Roy. I don't know how much, how well known this is or not, but Roy was always against it. He was always, always against it. He had a huge fight with Walt about it. Walt passed away reasonably, quickly between diagnosis and passing away, and Roy, just being a loyal brother. literally dedicated the rest of his life to making sure the whole thing happened, and as I'm sure you know, he passed away very quickly after he was done so to me. That's always been the most beautiful, bitter-sweet aspect of their relationship. And I kind of use this episode as a big excuse to show that.
The legacy of Roy O. Disney isn't nearly as well known as Walt's. The older brother who believed in the vision was the money man who managed the finances, often telling his brother that what Walt wanted couldn't be done before figuring out how to pay for Walt's dreams.
Walt Disney’s dream for Epcot was that it would be an actual city; a place where people would live and work, but with access to cutting-edge advancements in technology. As Brian Volk-Weiss says, Roy was very much against the undertaking, as it would be too difficult and too expensive.
That city would ultimately never happen (there’s certainly a question of whether Epcot would have ever worked in the first place), but the ideas behind it would live on in Disney World’s second theme park, Epcot Center.
When Walt Disney passed away in 1966, he had just finished filming a short movie about The Florida Project, primarily focused on what Epcot was going to be. Roy was planning to retire from The Walt Disney Company when his brother died, and so instead he stayed on with the specific intention of making sure Walt DIsney World happened.
Eventually, the idea of Epcot the city would be repurposed as Epcot the theme park, with concepts like a permanent World's Fair recreated in World Showcase and the focus on technology brought to life in Future World. Epcot certainly has a story unlike any other theme park, making it worthy of its own episode of Behind the Attraction.
Roy would die shortly after Magic Kingdom opened, so he wouldn’t live to see what Epcot became either, but it’s certainly true that had Roy not done what he did, there would be no Epcot of any kind. It didn't become what Walt wanted, but it became something. Epcot has seen a lot of recent changes, some of which aren't even part of the Behind the Attraction episode, but the core of Epcot remains, all thanks to the Disney brothers.
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