The Timekeeper (also known as From Time to Time and Un Voyage à Travers le Temps) was a 1992 Circle-Vision 360° film that was presented at three Disney parks around the world. It was the first Circle-Vision show that was arranged and filmed with an actual plot and not just visions of landscapes, and the first to utilize Audio-Animatronics. The film featured a cast of European film actors from France, Italy, Belgium, Russia, and England. The film was shown in highly stylized circular theaters, and featured historic and futuristic details both on the interior and exterior. The Timekeeper and its original European counterpart Le Visionarium marked the first time that the Circle-Vision film process was used to deliver a narrative story line. This required a concept to explain the unusual visual characteristics of the Theater, hence the character Nine-Eye. Nine-Eye was sent through Time by The Timekeeper, so that she could send back the surrounding images as she recorded them in whichever era she found herself in. The European attraction was also known by its film name as Un Voyage à Travers le Temps, while the Japanese version was simply named "Visionarium", with the caption From Time to Time on the poster. The American Film Theater was known as "Transportarium" for a period of six months after it debuted, but the name was later dropped in lieu of "Tomorrowland Metropolis Science Center", or formally "The Timekeeper".
History Le Visionarium (the original title) was the first Circle-Vision 360° film in which Imagineers wanted to tell an immersive story and attempt a light-hearted dialogue, without just switching between scenes of landscapes, as had been done in all of the previous Circle-Vision films. The original concept for the film had included Jules Verne and the culture of past and present European history and events, and new inventions. Along with the previous elements, the story had to do with the idea of Time Travel with one concept including a child that explored the story of the great European scientists of the past on an intelligent computer. However, to keep the audience focused and use imagination to depict situations and places that do not cater to the average person, the number of visions of the past and extreme situations of the plot kept increasing all the time for the project. The film first premiered in Discoveryland at Disneyland Paris on April 12, 1992, as Le Visionarium. It was an extravagant attraction, and was touted by then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner as the showcase attraction of the land at the time. However, TIME Magazine derided the film as a "flop" of a "wan drama" in its review of Disneyland Paris. The next year, the third incarnation of the ride opened at Tokyo Disneyland, as part of that park's 10th Anniversary Celebration. The attraction had long been on the Discoveryland USA proposal for the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort. However, when financial difficulties arose because of the EuroDisney Project, this Discoveryland project was canceled. At one point, the attraction was to be extended into a restaurant featured next door to the attraction. The Plaza Pavilion was to receive a makeover as the "Astronomer's Club", where a stage would have featured actors portraying famed scientists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, or Galileo, who would appear in the restaurant, and then be called back to the past by either Nine-Eye or Timekeeper. However, the film was named From Time to Time and opened in the Magic Kingdom's Circle-Vision Theater, rechristened "Transportarium" on November 21, 1994, as part of the New Tomorrowland expansion. Six months later, the attraction underwent some name changes. The Theater was renamed "Tomorrowland Metropolis Science Center", and the film was formally known as The Timekeeper. In 2001, the attraction was moved to the seasonal list of attractions along with Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress due to the September 11 attacks. In February 2006, the Walt Disney World Resort reported that The Timekeeper was to be closed on February 26, 2006. Walt Disney World's version was the last version of the attraction to be closed. Both the Tokyo Disneyland and Disneyland Paris Visionarium films had closed in 2002 and 2004, respectively.
Pre-show synopsis
European pre-show Guests were ushered into a dimly-lit library-like chamber, complete with several artifacts, such as models of Jules Verne's Nautilus from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas and Albatross from The Clipper of the Clouds, Da Vinci's flying machine, or the first balloon ever created. A short movie about the history of Renault making cars is shown (until this company dropped its sponsorship in 2002). Guests were introduced to Timekeeper, who told them they were about to join him in an experimentation by viewing his last and greatest invention: his extraordinary machine to explore Time. Before he introduced it, he gave a short speech on how his machine would change the world just as the ones that surrounded guests in the pre-show room. He even sang briefly about visionaries. After that, he introduced the crowd to "Nine-Eye", and explained how she would travel through Time first and let guests see this through her eyes. Guests then watched Nine-Eye's training videos, which included a plunge over Niagara Falls, a flight into a barn full of dynamite in Topeka, Kansas, a swirling ride aboard a centrifugator, and lastly, hitching a ride on a space shuttle.
Japanese pre-show This pre-show scene was similar to the European version, however with some differences. Instead of the dark circular enclave as in the Paris location, a bright open area was present. The wall that separated the building from the Tomorrowland corridor was a large stained-glass mural featuring 22 famous inventors and visionaries. Also featured was the Timekeeper's study, library, and laboratory. The pre-show area also featured a 20-foot model of Da Vinci's Heliocentric Solar System, the Nautilus from Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, the Albatross from Verne's The Clipper of the Clouds, a real 1920s film projector from Walt Disney Pictures, and an actual copy of Verne's novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. This location's film focused on Verne and H.G. Wells, explaining how their work changed history. Then, Nine-Eye was introduced to guests.
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