Soarin' Over Canada2 -- The view in World Showcase -- ss01112005

So why does Soarin' look so strong behind Canada?
It can't just be the different architectural styles. When you get down to it, all of World Showcase is a display of dissimilar architectural styles arranged within site of each other. That arrangement is part of the charm of what WS is all about.

But so far it's been a side-by-side "landscape" orientation, and there's usually a buffer of trees and such between each country. You get used to that side-by-side pattern.

From the east side of the lagoon the Swan and Dolphin at least tend to continue that side-by-side appearance of dissimilar architectures on the horizon. It's harder to position yourself somewhere on the lagoon to see the green pyramid "looming" over a country.

But Canada and Soarin' is the first time two dissimilar styles have appeared in "portrait" orientation, and from quite a large portion of the lagoon. On top of that the Soarin' building has no distinctive style of it's own. It's just big, regular, smooth-edged, and looks utilitarian more than decorative.

You have to work pretty hard to get any two other buildings to appear over/under in WS. And even then, they still have two distinctive styles. Remember the classic picture of the Canada buildings completely framed by SSE in the background? It had to have been captured from high up, from a backstage location, and then with a huge zoom lens.

I think the portrait orientation, the lack of a buffer of trees, Soarin's plain "soundstage building" architectural look, and Canada's "distant mountain range" illusion are what make it different from the other mix of styles already in World Showcase.

(1) Here's the west side of World Showcase, viewed from the east side. The countries and buildings are left-to-right, with buffers of trees in between. (The Swan and Dolphin are not part of WS, but I have always felt they had an "Emerald City off in the distance" feel in this view.) It's Morocco -- trees -- Swan -- trees -- France -- trees -- Dolphin -- trees -- UK

(2) Zooming in a little closer on the same view -- This image shows France's buildings better than the previous shot. This view works because the Eiffel Tower is not too close to the Swan or Dolphin. In reality the Swan and Dolphin are further distant than the Eiffel Tower. But in this view you can believe otherwise, that it's the Eiffel Tower that's furthest distant. Because we know in the "real world" the Eiffel Tower is much taller than either of them.

(3) Here we come close to some distant non-WS building "looming" over an existing WS pavilion. But the Swan isn't high enough to appear above Morocco. And it carries a distinctive architectural style of it's own which doesn't clash too much colorwise with Morocco. The fact that the Swan has those fantasy swans way up high says to me "here for a reason" instead of "put here for the sake of budget." The lagoon island's trees in the foreground act to soften this view too.

(4) In my opinion this view is the toughest "looming" clash of existing buildings. I finally got the Dolphin to "loom" over something specific in WS. Here we clearly see that the Eiffel Tower is in front of the Dolphin. The illusion is broken when we can see that the tower is much smaller than we believed it to be before. (Unless the Dolphin was somehow as tall as New Jersey) BUT -- the loss is softened because so many trees obscure France in this view, and the Eiffel Tower is sticking up from the trees. At first glance it's hard to tell what it's supposed to be. The foreground lagoon island trees help obscure as well.

(5) Here's another clash of existing buildings. Morocco with the Tower of Terror in the far distance, hanging above the bulk of the Morocco pavilion. But the TOT is clearly very distant -- you can tell by the haze, and the focus. The fact that TOT has such a distinctive architectural style also says "here for a reason." If the TOT were just a plain old square office building of obvious modern era, this view would be terrible.

(6) A clash of two existing WS buildings -- Norway and China are the only two pavilions that sit directly next to each other, with no trees or space in between them. In this view you can get Norway to "loom" over China. But at least both carry a distinctive style and coloration of it's own. This view to me says "two nations side by side at a World's Fair" instead of the more relaxed WS message "nations near each other in a community."

I like the way that most of the current World Showcase nations have been buffered by space and/or trees. (But then, maybe that wasn't the original intention? Maybe those buffer spaces really exist now only to serve as place holders for some nation to fill in someday?)

(7) Okay -- back to Canada and Soarin'. The Land and Imagination pavilions to the right in this view are an example of "acceptable clash." Canada is separated from them by a buffer of trees. And they obviously carry a style of their own. But the Soarin' building behind Canada has no distinguishable style. It says "utilitarian" rather than "here for a reason."

Disney can't even use trees to help. The rocky mountain range immediately behind Canada is constructed to give the illusion of being mountains way off in the distance. It even has trees of diminishing sizes on the mountain range to help carry that illusion. If you put trees behind Canada to help hide Soarin', the illusion of the big rock range would be broken -- like the Dolphin being behind and above the Eiffel Tower.

But by leaving it this way your mind says "if that big building is so far beyond the mountain range, it must be a GIGANTIC building." And maybe that's part of the rub. The detailing and illusion in the Canadian mountain range are so well done that they make Soarin' appear even bigger than it is. And it's truly big already.

(8) So in summary, Soarin' behind Canada is different because --

Two dissimilar structures in portrait mode, rather than the more usual WS landscape orientation.

Soarin's architecture is not distinctive. It doesn't say "Here for a reason." It may as well be Boeing, building airplanes off in the distance.

Canada's "distant mountain range" background clashes with the obviously much further distant building. The mountain ranges used to say "way far away." Now they say "in front of a building."

There are no trees to help buffer -- and you couldn't use them anyway. Trees behind the mountain range would automatically break the illusion of distance, because people know the size of trees. The size of Soarin' off in the distance is unknown.

So the solution is (so far) -- Paint it light blue so that it can hopefully blend into the horizon, and not destroy the mountain range illusion too much. The mind can almost rationalize that big blue thing being some mountain so big and so far distant that you can't see detail.

Thank goodness the Soarin' building is interestingly curved. If it were a big square building, the mind wouldn't ever think "distant mountain."

Don't you think? -- The WDI designers already created a "distant mountain range" behind Canada when it was first built. Couldn't the same idea be extended to Soarin'? Couldn't it's facade be broken up along the top to look more like a range of mountains, instead of the smooth building edge it has now? A mountain range paint job would help carry the image instead of the light blue trying to make it less noticeable.

Because the Soarin' building is truly in the distance, a mountain range paint job wouldn't have to be as detailed as one that would be much closer to the guest. And the fact that it would be two dimensional wouldn't be visually apparent. Things way off in the distance appear two dimensional anyway.

What do you think?

Or are trees actually a possibility? -- What about this? Suppose you put a row of trees behind Canada and in front of Soarin.' Maybe they wouldn't be tall enough to hide Soarin' entirely, but they would clearly be a buffer between Canada and Soarin'. Check out the Millenium Village blue skyline peeking out over the trees between UK and Canada for a sample of what the trees could do.

From a distance and from this view I think it could work. From this far away you can't really tell it's a mountain range behind Canada anyway, since the mountain range is already limited by the trees to the left and right. From this distance the mountain range just looks like a pleasant backdrop for Canada.

But when you visit Canada up close you'd be looking up at the mountain range in such a way that the trees beyond would not be visible. So the mountain range illusion would still work up close.

Is it possible that a simple row of trees behind Canada could work?