BUILDING A NEW TOMORROW; DISNEY PREPARING TO UNVEIL FUTURE.

Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer

Disneyland is going back to the future to fix Tomorrowland.

In a little more than three months, Burbank-based Walt Disney Co. will unveil its largest - and most daring - reconstruction since the park opened in 1955. On the one hand, the new Tomorrowland probably will draw more people to the Orange County amusement park than any new attraction ever has, further enhancing Southern California's top tourist attraction.

But the redesign could backfire, much as when its Light Magic nighttime pageant replaced the popular Main Street Electrical Parade last spring amid massive hype. The successor disappointed legions of Disney fans, creating a minor public relations nightmare, and Disneyland announced in October that it had retired Light Magic after only one season.

``Disneyland fans can be very protective, so anything we change is very suspect,'' said Tony Baxter, senior vice president at Walt Disney Imagineering, during a sneak-peak tour of Tomorrowland for the news media Tuesday. ``What we're trying to do here is about reassurance and warm, fuzzy environments, which is the art of Disneyland.''

Baxter, a key architect of Disneyland's massive makeover of Tomorrowland, is promising fans they won't be jolted when the revamped section opens in May with five new attractions - Rocket Rods XPR, Disneyland's fastest ride; the Innoventions rotating exhibit hall; ``Honey, I Shrunk the Audience,'' a 3-D movie; the Water Maze; and the Astro Orbitor, which replaces the Rocket Jets.

Robin Roberts, a North Hollywood screenwriter and comedian, is one of those fans. On Roberts' most recent visit to Disneyland late last year, she found herself unexpectedly sobbing as she watched one of the last showings at Tomorrowland's Circle-Vision theater before it was permanently closed.

``I guess Tomorrowland did need some sprucing up but I'm just so sentimental about things because Disneyland is the world the way it should be,'' she said.

Baxter acknowledged the idea of Tomorrowland carries an inherent problem - how to capture a vision of the future that's not dated when the real world bristles with once-abstract concepts like satellite TV and hand-held computers.

Even with solid additions like Space Mountain in 1977 and Star Tours in 1987, hard-core fans have joked that Tomorrowland had become Yesterdayland.

For Disneyland, the upgrade project comes at a critical time. Tomorrowland is its largest and most expensive rebuild ever, costing more than the $100 million it spent to open the Indiana Jones Adventure three years ago. It is also a chance to kick-start the public appetite for its new $3 billion theme park, dubbed California Adventure and due to open in what is now the Disneyland parking lot in 2001.

The rehabilitation of Tomorrowland also gives Walt Disney Co., ever mindful of the extraordinary value of its image, the chance to improve a less than perfect record dating back to the first days of Disneyland. Historians have concluded Walt Disney's first version of Tomorrowland was not nearly as well-executed as Fantasyland, Adventureland and Frontierland.

Tomorrowland was the last part of Disneyland built and the least complete when the mother of modern theme parks opened in 1955. It featured the Rocket to the Moon, Space Station X-1, Autopia and Circarama, the predecessor to Circle-Vision. The Aluminum Hall of Fame, the House of the Future, the Skyway and the Bathroom of Tomorrow soon followed.

A revamp in 1959 added the Monorail and the Submarine Voyage and the 1967 remodel brought in the PeopleMover, Adventure Through Inner Space, Circle-Vision and the Rocket Jets.

``When Walt Disney was alive, the future was candy-coated,'' Baxter said. ``We were all going to have our own flying saucers and dress in gold lame.''

Walt Disney died in 1966. Since then, maintaining Tomorrowland as a powerful draw came up against another serious problem - the decidedly non-Disney belief among many people that the world was headed toward an apocalypse. ``People have seen a steady diet of films that show a very sinister future with decaying cities, overpopulation and acid rain, going back to `Blade Runner' and `Terminator,' '' Baxter noted.

So the new Tomorrowland is focusing on the twin values of reassurance and pleasant dreams when it opens May 22. Construction has swung into high gear and the signature attraction at its new entrance is mostly complete - a rebuilt Rocket Jets ride converted to the Astro Orbiter, modeled after a sketch made about five centuries ago by Leonardo da Vinci.

``We're trying to capture dreams because they fuel the future and have a consistency,'' Baxter said. So rather than trying to portray styles of a specific time period, Tomorrowland's ultimate goal will be make people feel they have re-entered the Garden of Eden, he asserted.

That feel-good feeling will be accomplished through a variety of subtle approaches:

The pervasive sleek chrome, steel and harsh colors are gone, replaced by earth tones and cobblestone pathways.

All the plants will be at least partially edible. Disney is cultivating some of Orange County's first new orange trees in many years.

The Rocket Rods ride will be Disneyland's fastest and longest thrill ride. It'll average 35 miles per hour - or 7 mph faster than Space Mountain - and last four minutes. With waits expected to top an hour, Rocket Rods' queue line will snake through a variety of distractions such as a rebuilt nine-screen Circle-Vision with multimedia presentations.

The two-level Innoventions, which replaces the shuttered America Sings revolving theater, showcases upcoming technological innovations, some within a few months of hitting the marketplace. Hosted by a wisecracking robot named Tom Morrow, it will borrow from the attraction of the same name at Disney's Epcot park in Florida.

``Honey I Shrunk the Audience,'' starring Rick Moranis, will feature a floor that shakes as one of the children ``picks up'' the theater and proclaims, ``Mommy, look what I found.'' It's also modeled after an Epcot site and replaces the closed Captain Eo attraction, which starred Michael Jackson.

The Water Maze will shoot bursts or ``walls'' of water from the ground as people walk through. It will feature a 6-ton granite ball ``floating'' on a cushion of water.

Finally, in a genuine back to the future twist, Tomorrowland has brought back a two-thirds-scale reproduction of the original Moonliner rocket, which will be on its side rather than upright.

``It's an icon that's returned,'' Baxter said. ``Even though it went out of style, it's probably become the most remembered part of the park. And we had to pay to rebuild it.''

THE FACTS

WHAT'S NEW: Rocket Rods XPR, Innoventions, ``Honey, I Shrunk the Audience,'' the Water Maze, the Astro Orbiter.

ESTIMATED COST: More than $100 million.

WHERE: Between Main Street and Fantasyland.

DEBUT: May 22.

COST: One-day admission for the entire park is $38, $36 for seniors and $28 for children 3 to 11.

WHAT'S LEFT: The oldest surviving Tomorrowland attractions are Autopia (1955), Monorail (1959) and Submarine Voyage (1959).

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Photo

PHOTO (color) Tomorrowland, says a Disney official, carries an inherent problem - how to capture a vision of the future that's not dated.