Inside The Optimist: Solving Disney's alternate reality game - What We Know - Inside the Magic

Inside The Optimist: Solving Disney’s alternate reality game – What We Know

Join Inside the Magic in playing and solving The Optimist, Disney’s 6-week interactive alternate reality game.

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The Google Doc below is maintained by Ricky Brigante, but anyone can and should edit it to add information as it becomes available through storyorbit.com and anything else game-related. Edits should follow the same format as the rest of the document.

(Please do not abuse this feature or it will be switched to comments only.)

You can also access the Google Doc directly.

13 Comments

  1. Michel Lichand Mendonça

    Great idea, Ricky!

  2. Renee

    Just tought I’d mention that I send Lott Family Construction the following mail with a photo of Carlos:

    Dear Michael,

    Carlos was a writer, who submitted a story to Walt Disney and got invited to New York to work with Walt and a Special Projects Team. This would have been in 1964, around the time the World Fair was held. He probably was there for May 1st until the 23th. In his belongings there was a note with the text:

    Follow up with Lott about special work on iasw (607) 218 5820

    I enclosed a picture of him, maybe this will jolt your memorie? He is the man on the right.

    Thank you!

    Renee

    The answer was still only:
    Oh, yeah. I think he was a writer or some such. I think we chatted at the Fair a bit… but that’s all I really remember.

    Dead end?

    1. SamGreat2002_TheOptimist

      Guys go to plusultrasociety.ckm and type NT7141903

  3. Stephen

    Great idea with the Google Doc! Will join it now.

  4. monty

    Ok going out trying to make some connections but no assertions, just interesting historical facts that tie evidence presented above together;

    However, I do have 3 assumptions i’d like to share, these may be terribly off the mark, but i believe the evidence supports these assumptions;
    1) that the special project for the 1964 worlds fair was indeed successfully presented to a select audience, whatever it may be. 2) The special project was relevant to the “future” in some way. 3) That Bradbury, Von Braun and Hughes were included in the special group allowed to see OR THEY WORKED on the special project.

    Now on to the connections;
    1) Both Bradbury and Von Braun were obsessed with space travel (more accurately life in space),
    2) Von Braun worked with Disney for the “Man in Space” television segment, in this segment Von Braun presents his idea for a reusable space shuttle, i believe it was called the X-1. (The Mission;Space shuttle is based of his design);Hughes arguably had the means and the capital to build a prototype space shuttle, he had built experimental plains for years.
    4) Bradbury was also hugely influential in the creation of both the worlds fair and Epcot. Here is a recent Disney blog post that now seems suspiciously relevant;

    http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2012/06/honoring-ray-bradburys-contribution-to-epcot/

    5) Speaking of Epcot there seems to be a lot of little Epcot connections in the Wallace posters, however the one that stands out to me is the cell phone use in the IASW poster. This reference to communication echoes that of Spaceship Earth.
    6) Also remember that the primeval world scene was recreated in the Universe of Energy, and that Horizons was a “sequel” to Carousel of Progress.

    All in all im beginning to think that “the Optimist” has less to do with the worlds fair and more to do with the Florida Project; specifically Epcot, what it was originally meant to be, and what it is today. However, I have no idea how it ties into the “Orbits story” acquisition by Disney. Looking at the evidence, one can guess that “Orbit’s story” may have been renamed “Tommorrow” and with a name like “Orbit’s story” I’m leaning to believe it had some sort of space theme.

    Remember, this may all be irrelevant but i don’t think so.

    One question; does anybody know what the “three bells start our revolution” line means at the top of the Carousel of Progress poster. Im pretty sure the “For those just joining us” line in the primeval world poster is a reference to the Disneyland train’s recorded blurb, but i never went to the 64 worlds fair, so i have no idea if there’s an alternative meaning.

    1. Stephen

      I’m definitely on board with you Monty! I think the World’s Fair is definitely supposed to point us to the Florida Project and EPCOT, but it doesn’t feel like we are done with the Fair yet… The clues so far still come from the Fair and there are questions that remain unanswered—like M.T. Lott’s reference to the noise coming from the back of IASW.

      We are at the beginnings of this story, and I imagine that the Fair and EPCOT are not the last places the hunt will take us. Remember, we eventually will get to the Expo!

      I haven’t figured out the cryptic messages in the poster either, but something that popped in my head about the three bells is the NBC chimes, especially because it has to do with communication and broadcasting to the world…

  5. Michael

    Based on the notes I’ve read, I know for a fact that Ray Bradbury aided Walt in designing EPCOT before Mr. Walt Disney even came up with the idea of having disney in Florida. What brought my attention is The Mark Zero Project because it seems kinda suspicious in my perspective. Another thing I noticed from reading people comment on the It’s a Small World poster is if you connect the satellites into a circular motion, it gives off the logo for, guess what, EPCOT! As I read Amelia’s blog on the script, there was something that stood out like a sore thumb. The details on the script were not only filled with annagrams but also lines that were used in Spaceship Earth. So, in my theory, I think it is something that involves with EPCOT rather than it being about the movie “Tomorrowland”. I don’t know, it was something that I came upon while reading.

  6. monty

    New post at both storyorbit.com and disneycartogrophy.com. Looks like the special presentation at the worlds fair was an alternate audio track to iasw all about communication and “predicting” the smart phone. Also, according to the clues on the new images posted at disneycartogrophy.com, it looks like the next step is to head over to Disneyland’s Tomorrowland and ride the Autotopia and Monorail (maybe the submarine adventure).

  7. Kenn Kitt

    I received a post card in the mail today from Wallace

  8. Good blog post. I absolutely appreciate this website. Keep writing!

  9. Jay

    Response to the optimists? Enemies or just concerned citizens?

    Check it out!

    http://www.stopplusultra.com

    1. Geoff

      Looks like the game is back on! Much happening at http://www.tomorrowlandtimes.com/

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