Original Spaceship Earth

One of the major problems with today's imagineers is their show writing. Attractions like Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage and the new Spaceship Earth have cringe-worthy dialogue that come across as either juvenile or dumb. I thought it would be appropriate to share all of the versions of the Spaceship Earth script throughout the years, starting with the original one.
The original script to Spaceship Earth was written by science-fiction author Ray Bradbury. Personally, I think his script is too dry and doesn't capture the human quality of the story. That's probably why it only lasted for four years before a song and simpler narration were added.
I'm not really a fan of Bradbury's work after struggling through his Fahrenheit 451 in 9th grade English. He uses very poetic structure, meaning there are plenty of incomplete sentences. Nevertheless, this work is far beyond the quality seen in today's attractions.

Spaceship Earth Original script

Where have we come from, where are we going? In the dust from which we were formed, answers recorded on the walls of time. So let us journey into that past, to seek those walls, to know ourselves and to probe the destiny of our Spaceship Earth.

Now, suns reverse, moons re-phase, let us return to ancient caves where first we learn to share our thoughts ... and to survive. Where are we now? It is the waiting dawn where vast things stir and breathe. And with our first words and first steps, we draw together to conquer the mammoth beast. It is the dawn of a new beginning, the dawn of recorded time. On cave walls we inscribe our greatest triumphs, a growing record of our deeds, to share with others so they too may greet tomorrow’s sun.

Ages pass and more walls rise in the valley of the Nile. Man-made walls of hieroglyphics. Then with new symbols, we unlock our thoughts from chiseled walls and send them forth on papyrus scrolls. On fine Phoenician ships, we take our scrolls to sea. Real scrolls simplified by an alphabet, eagerly shared at distant ports of call.

Deep in the shadows of Mount Olympus, our alphabet takes route ... flowering with new expression. Hail the proud Greeks: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. The theater is born.

North, South, East, and West, all roads lead from Rome, a mighty network reaching across the land, welding far-flung garrisons into a growing empire. Glorious Rome, until consumed by the flames of excess. Imperial Rome, lost in the ashes of darkness.

Far from the dieing embers, Islamic wise men preserve ancient wisdom and weave a rich network of new knowledge linking East and West. In Western abbeys, Monks toil endlessly transcribing ancient wisdom into hand-penned books of revelation.

At last! A new dawn emerges. The dawn of the Renaissance ... and a wondrous machine performs as a thousand scribes. Now for all: the printed word. Our books fuel the fires of the Renaissance. It is a time to discover anew the worlds of poetry and philosophy, science and music. As our minds soar, our hands find new expression in the flourishing world of art.

Behold, the majesty of the Sistine ceiling. The Renaissance: a beacon through the mists of time, guiding us to a new era. A time of invention and exploding communication.

With each day come more paths, more ideas, more dreams, and we build new machines: computer machines that think, that store, sift, sort, and count, and help us chart our course through an age of boundless information. With these machines comes a wondrous new network of communications, a vibrant maze of billions of electronic pathways stretching to the very edge of space.

Verged on the threshold of infinity, we see our world as it truly is: small, silent, fragile, alive, a drifting island in the midnight sky. It is our spaceship, our Spaceship Earth.

Now our Future World draws near ... and we face the challenge of tomorrow. We must return and take command of our Spaceship Earth ... to become captains of our own destiny ... to reach out and fulfill our dreams. Our journey has been long. From primal caves we have ventured forth traveling the endless corridors of time seeking answers to our tomorrow. With growing knowledge and growing communication, we have changed our lives ... changed our worlds.

From the reaches of space to the depths of the sea, we have spun a vast electronic network linking ourselves as fellow passengers together, on Spaceship Earth. Today our search for understanding is unbounded by space and time. Vast stores of information, knowledge from everywhere, standing ready at our beck and call to reach us in an instant.

With our great network, we harness our knowledge, give it shape and form to serve us, to help create and communicate a better awareness of ourselves, and our world. Ours is the age of knowledge ... the age of choice and opportunity. Tomorrow’s world approaches, so let us listen and learn, let us explore and question and understand, let us go forth and discover the wisdom to guide great Spaceship Earth through the uncharted seas of the future. Let us dare to fulfill our destiny.