Why Epic Universe Worked, According to a Former Disney Imagineer

Epic Universe has taken the world by storm, impressing theme park fans with its fantastic immersive nature, gorgeous lands, enticing rides, and so much more.

While the park has received mostly positive feedback from guests, it was recently revealed that the park still isn’t operating at full capacity, but might be very soon. Recently, a former Disney Imagineer got to hear about the park from some of its creators, and shared some really interesting insight as to why he thinks it works out as well as it is. After visiting the park ourselves and reading his thoughts, we can’t agree more!

When people think of Disney Imagineers, Joe Rohde is who comes to mind for a lot of people. He’s iconic for a reason — he’s known for being a large part of creating parts of Animal Kingdom, including Pandora and the DINOSAUR attraction, just to name a few.

Joe Rohde was recently invited to Bob Rogers’ annual legends dinner, where he got to hear from some of the creative executives responsible for Epic Universe — Eric Parr, Jody Keller, Katy Pacitti, Steve Blum, and moderator Bob Rogers. He shared his experience on his Instagram, where he made sure to comment that while he hasn’t been to Epic Universe himself yet, he was happy to hear them talk about their method.

Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG

One of the first quotes he shared from them was that there is a “Deliberate departure from accepted canon… Like making each land a cul-de-sac,” in Epic Universe, and after seeing that for ourselves, we totally agree. It really is like stepping into little pockets of your favorite worlds!

The one that really stuck out to us, and stuck out to Joe Rohde as well, because he mentioned this is what they [Disney] attempted to do with Animal Kingdom, is remembering “the simple notion that a Park is first a park… not a frantic highway of people rushing to and fro to try to ping off hyped up attractions.” Part of what makes Epic Universe so magical to us, and many others, is the design of Celestial Park. It doesn’t only serve as the entrance to the park and the gateway to the other worlds, but it’s truly stunning to explore at any time of day; some members of our team love nighttime the most.

Another point that stuck out to us quickly was that it’s “Not based on huge mega draws… but on a whole mixture of small intimate interactions, the value of which cannot be measured using typical metrics.” This is very true too! Lots of people are hesitant with Epic Universe at first, since there really aren’t *that* many rides, but the truth is that there’s SO MUCH MORE to explore. Yes, the rides are amazing, but the small details you can check out in each land are incredible and really encourage exploration. The PowerUP band game in Super Nintendo World is a big one, but did you know you can also TALK in real time to a portrait in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter — Ministry of Magic? Or how about talking to Ruffnut and Tuffnut in Isle of Berk?

This leads right into the next point as well, which is, “The principle that a world, imaginary or not, has levels… and this is what makes it seem real, argues against a fixation on monumental installations at the expense of detail and ambience.” Also very true. Many of these additional details that make the park feel alive aren’t large — they’re actually pretty tiny, or so easy to miss. But when you really take the time to explore, instead of just running from attraction to attraction, you likely find you get so much more out of your park experience.

We also got a laugh out of “‘If you have a land about dragons, there better be dragons'” — because YES! There are so many dragons to check out in Isle of Berk, not even including the flying ones that are only spotted every now and then and still being tested, it seems. You can meet Toothless in Isle of Berk, which, yes, is a huge draw, but you can ALSO meet Stormfly, as well as (if you’re SUPER lucky) some of the baby dragons around the land, among so many others. If you love dragons, this land doesn’t disappoint.

Additional points Joe Rohde mentioned were talks around value engineering and what value really means, team structure, and having a multi-talented team on all fronts, not staying in the boxes HR tries to put you in, and how the job of executives isn’t to say “no,” but rather to ask how something can be done. He also mentioned that there were a lot of young people in the room ready to listen, who will someday be ready to act, which we love hearing as well.

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We truly can’t wait to see what’s next for Epic Universe and how it’ll continue to grow. We’re crossing our fingers that the (expected) additions that are coming in the future are as great as the park is now, and even continue to grow stronger! Be sure to stay tuned to AllEars for all the latest Universal Orlando news — we’ll keep you updated with everything we hear!