Harmonious Soft/Cast Preview, Sept 29th Epcot

[reaganbetter]

Just sharing, Walt Disney World will host a soft opening/cast preview of Harmonious on September 29, 2021.
Public is invited. It's included with your Epcot daily-nightly ticket.
Show: 9pm EST
Disney announced it will live stream it for people that cannot attend.
Cast Members-Disney employees will be allowed to attend if they are not working.
Soft Opening: Epcot will be testing the lighting, sound, fireworks, staging and waterfalls.


https://blogmickey.com/2021/09/harmonio ... tember-29/
https://wdwnt.com/2021/09/disney-live-s ... 29-and-30/

[Spaceship Ears]

Sorry to say this, but Walt would be turning in his grave. Harmonious is anything but. It suffers from the same thing that plagues Happily Ever After - a seemingly random collection of Disney IP songs, strung together with no rhyme or reason. It's one thing to have this at Magic Kingdom, where some level of random movie IP is expected; but having it in Epcot is a grave disservice to the spirit of the park. About the only Epcot connection that existed was the inclusion of foreign-language versions in some bits.

Wrecking the World Showcase vista required a truly spectacular show in exchange. That's not what we got, sadly. This show will appeal to all the folks who have the Disney film soundtracks on 24/7 and who like pretty colors, but it does absolutely nothing to convey the spirit of what Epcot is supposed to be. IllumiNations and Reflections of Earth had their faults, but at least they weren't a glorified Disney Classics soundtrack.

2 out of 5, at best.

[Ace]

After watching it I very much enjoyed it. It was extremely visually appealing and the music was wonderful. I really like how they took their own IP and gave it a re-recorded twist to tie in the world music that is celebrated in the world showcase of EPCOT. It certainly fits in the park and I am excited to see it in person as multiple accounts say that the camera could not do it justice.

My biggest criticism for the show is that it could use more fireworks. I did see some complaints that the show lacks a story which is an odd criticism to me as epcot forever really didnt have a story and although illuminations had 3 settings there was no clear story in that show either. In fact many of the nighttime shows with the exception of Fantastic lack a solid storyline. Perhaps somebody who feels that way can explain that opinion to me better

I understand from reading the comments sections of several live streams last night that there are those who didn't enjoy it but despite those comments I think Disney put out a good show that will be appealing for most guests. I give it a solid B+ from the video with the expectation that it likely will be better in person(The only A+ I have given are HEA and Illuminations). Curious to see how everybody else feels.

[Ashley.in.Wonderland]

I don’t know how to feel about Harmonious. Dale did a great job streaming! But the show itself felt like it sort of left something to be desired. It felt like a mash-up of different Disney songs, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. My favorite parts were songs we hadn’t seen in a nighttime show before (Coco and Princess and the Frog (criminally underrated movie, in my opinion)). But, I didn’t care for the parts where they reused the same songs from Happily Ever After because this show just didn’t showcase them as well as HEA did. But maybe I feel that way because we had JUST watched HEA. I think I would’ve liked it more had it been entirely different songs or had there been some original new song, just for Harmonious, tying them all together.

I don’t really get the taco barges. The technology is kinda cool I guess, but it didn’t seem like they really added anything. I don’t really need or want to see videos of the characters during the fireworks, I’m watching the fireworks/lights/etc. already. The reason I think character visuals worked for HEA is because it’s projection-mapped onto the castle in a “how did they do that!?” way. But with the taco barges, I’m kinda just like, ok, it’s a giant tv screen? They just seem like they were very expensive to not add much to the show, in my opinion. I think just platforms that shoot up water DCA World of Color style and fireworks would’ve been better (and this isn’t necessarily about the day-time view in world showcase, I really just don’t feel like the tv screen part of the barge added to the show at all). I’ve seen some photos of the main projector on the waterfall in the ring barge, and I like that a lot better than just the screens. But, I do think it’s a problem that you can only see that from a few places when it’s supposed to be a 360 show.

I don’t know. I didn’t hate it, and there are parts of it that I really, really liked. I’ll probably try to check it out in person whenever I make it back to EPCOT. It was entertaining, but it didn’t really make me feel anything, which is what I’ve come to expect from Disney’s nighttime shows.

[AlexisW]

I'll have to wait until I can see it in person to really get a good feel for it (and that's not happening until January), but I'm okay with it. IMO Illuminations and Epcot Forever were better, but this was serviceable.

Music felt like what you'd get if upper management at Disney imposed a "soundtrack must be Disney music" constraint on Imagineering and Imagineering did their best effort at turning that into something that can fit at Epcot. The end result was a show with a lot of music recycled from Happily Ever After (plus a few like Coco and The Princess and the Frog)-- but at least it was all rerecorded and some of it in different languages so it's not the exact same show.

I liked the lighting and water effects on the barges; the show could've used more fireworks, although I wouldn't be surprised if the total fireworks count is about the same as Epcot Forever given that this is a much longer show. The finale in particular didn't really feel big enough to be a finale-- not much pyro (relative to either Epcot Forever or Illuminations), plus the show ending at what feels like a musical "down" point made for an awkward ending. If you leave people confused about whether or not the show has ended, something's wrong with your show.

The biggest criticism I have, though (at least, that I can tell from the stream) is similar to my biggest complaint about Happily Ever After-- heavy use of projections restrict the viewing areas where you can fully appreciate the show. The screens on the "taco" barges are clearly meant to be viewed from anywhere on the lagoon (you can always see at least one), but the projections on the central ring are only visible from the north and south sides of the lagoon-- and viewing angles there are further restricted by the "tacos" themselves; Dale couldn't get a clear view of anything on the ring because there's a barge in the way when viewing from the Germany dock (which was a great spot for Illuminations and Epcot Forever). That leaves a very narrow space where you can actually see everything-- basically just the former FastPass viewing area on the north side of the lagoon, and the little stretches of sidewalk on either side of the amphitheater on the south side (with my favorite spot between Japan and America likely still being perfect-- but I'm going to guess that's about to be hard to get now). You can forget about seeing everything from Mexico or Norway or the other side by the UK, as you'll only be seeing the sides of the ring from there.

My ratings:

Illuminations RoE: 9/10
Epcot Forever: 8/10
Happily Ever After: 7/10 (viable viewing angles and hub area crowding mess up this one for me; the soundtrack's fantastic)
Harmonious: 6/10, subject to change after I see it in person

[BJN]

Huge disappointment. IP does not belong in Epcot period. Epcot’s purpose is to inform, entertain, and inspire. When the park first opened there was 0 characters and 0 music from the movies for a reason. Of course Figment came later in March ‘83 and was the only character in the park for some time. (In my opinion still should be. But different topic for another time.)

Music is awful. I’m all for the different languages, I’m fine with that. But the remixes and mashup of songs doesn’t flow at all. And what is the story? Ok so music is a universal language but why are all together at world showcase tonight for? Again if it’s the reason that music is a universal language, why did they choose the songs they did? They could have come up with a new original song for show.

And again, why is Disney only using the same songs from the same 5 movies?

I feel like it’s trying to be a world of color but is not anywhere near as good. Overall, 3/10. I’ll give it time for them to work everything out, but doesn’t fit Epcot at all.

[AlexisW]

Liked it a little better on tonight's stream-- being able to see better made the show more enjoyable. That mostly just accentuates my main concern about the show above, though-- seems like the show's really sensitive to bad viewing angles, and a lot of World Showcase doesn't have the straight-on view that it seems that the show was designed for.

Also kind of weird that the show wasn't fully-functional for the "official" premiere-- there were projections in the "stargate" in earlier showings that were missing tonight.

[ADantuono]

First off, big shoutout to Dale for doing a great job last night

But yeah, it wasn't completely terrible, but I think this could possibly use a little retooling as well. I loved the fireworks. They were the best part of the show for me. But the projections, the soundtrack, the fountains, I'm a little on the fence about.

The more I think about it, maybe it would have been better had Disney waited to debut Epcot Forever until the 50th Anniversary. That show seemed to pay much more tribute to Walt, and to Epcot as a whole, while Harmonious seemed to only pay tribute to the World Showcase.

[AlexisW]

Music felt like what you'd get if upper management at Disney imposed a "soundtrack must be Disney music" constraint on Imagineering and Imagineering did their best effort at turning that into something that can fit at Epcot.

Well.... https://blogmickey.com/2021/10/disney-c ... -at-epcot/