Mousekingdom Blog

Many a thousand young and old near and far would love to have their own magic wand - but there is one magic wand that has been the lightning rod for criticism for years: the magic wand towering over EPCOT’s Spaceship Earth, held high by a disembodied hand of Mickey as sorcerer’s apprentice. But Epcot Vice President Jim MacPhee on Thursday finally announced officially that the wand will be taken down during the 5 month long closure of the Spaceship Earth attraction starting on Monday, during which the ride will see an extensive rehab and upgrade paid for by the attraction’s new sponsor Siemens.

According to the extensive coverage of the subject by the OrlandoSentinel (which also cites critics of the wand from some of the web’s best known Disney fan sites) MacPhee stated that considering the ride’s rehab and EPCOT’s upcoming 25th anniversary this fall (for which not a single event is announced so far) “We think the timing of the removal is right.”

The magic wand was originally installed for the 15 month long Millennium celebration and featured the letters “2000″, which were later one replaced with the writing “EPCOT” as the wand was kept. Fan critics decried the wand mostly because of the intrusion it represented into the concept of futurism which is supposed to be represented by this area of EPCOT. With the wand Walt Disney World’s highest structure will be taken down as the 50 ton structure was 257-foot-tall towering high above EPCOT’s original iconic, the 180-foot-tall Spaceship Earth. The “record” of highest still standing attraction should go to Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom, that is said to be 199.5 foot tall (and thus about 0.5 taller than the official height of Disney MGM Studios’ Tower of Terror).

If you would ask me personally I welcome the removal of the magic wand. While I thought it was a fun photo opt during the Millennium celebration, when it stayed on it (for me) overstayed its welcome. Everybody know’s that Spaceship Earth is located in EPCOT as it is one of the few truly global icons connected to a location. So there was no need for this structure, which to me never fitted into the concept of EPCOT. Somehow I am really looking forward to taking pictures of Spaceship Earth again at night without the wand … hopefully already this fall.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Disney Theme Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.