As much as the Imagineers where excited by the idea of creating a true 3-dimensional recreation of Nemo's Secret Lair as the backdrop for a whole Jules Verne "mini land" inside the Discovery Mountain they knew that in order to get this project of its feet, they would have to cleverly pitch the idea to the heads of the Euro Disney project. So the first EuroDisneyland park master plan, which was the base for a large model actually on display in the Espace EuroDisney preview center which opened three years before the actual resort, featured prominently a huge Discovery Mountain taking up all the south-eastern part of Discoveryland - while there was no sight at all of Autopia.

That’s right gang, in order to make this dream of every Jules Verne fan (and of quiet a few Imagineers) become reality Tim Delaney and his team were more than willing to skip one of the classic attractions of Disneyland: Autopia which since Walt opened the original Disney in 1955 had always been present in one form or another in all of Disney's Magic Kingdoms. Delaney and his team came up with numerous possible scenarios during their brainstorming sessions to find the most successfull looking way to get the Disney brass to actually green light the construction of this extremely ambitious project for phase one of EuroDisneyland despite its, at least for the 80s, extremely high price tag of 150+ million Dollar.
But even so the EuroDisney model in the preview center already featured a huge Discovery Mountain Delaney and Baxter soon realized that in order to get this attraction built as they and their team had envisioned it, in other words to get the Disney brass to accept the bitter pill of having to pay 150+ million Dollar, the only way was to propose to move it to the park’s second phase, which would have ment an opening right before the planned opening of the Disney MGM Studios Europe in 1996. This would also handed the marketing guys great material to convince guests that they actually would have to visit both parks countering the expected negative effect of the new second gate.

As Tony Baxter had already proposed a similar scheme for his Geyser Mountain - planning to include it in the park's third phase (1997/8+) - and the top brass of EuroDisney was more than happy to accept this proposal, he hoped for a similar answer in the case of Discovery Mountain. As they saw it these two big attractions would supply the resort with new rides and thrills to pull in repeat visitors, thereby solving a possible long range problem of the resort, while at the same time getting financed out of the coffers of EuroDisney, which they expected to be full once again by the time the construction would have to start, while the opening budget would get a little relieve.
You see my friends, according to all forecasts, surveys and marketing research done by Disney scouts all over Europe there was just nothing which Europeans wanted more than to visit EuroDisney. If one believed, and the top brass did believe, in those research groups, focus groups, survey results, telephone marketing campaigns, television ads etc. once the gates of EuroDisney would actually open Europeans would be flooding in non stop for years to come providing a steady source of income for the company and filling Mickey’s coffers up to unprecedented heights (no commenting allowed on this point please my friends)! Therefore when Delaney and Baxter went up to Fitzpatrick, Wells and Eisner to actually say that they where willing to move Discovery Mountain to phase two the top Disney men immediately agreed and told them to start actively to design the area reserved for the huge show building. They even went to the length to show that they were only postponing the project and were still supporting the mountain's construction by earmarking money for “the future development of Discovery Mountain" (and a point that would proove immensely important later on).

Unfortunately once the Imagineers actively started to study and then to prepare the area destined to accommodate the huge show building of Discovery Mountain (to give you an idea: the original show building would have been roughly three times as big as the one now in place) the problems started. Tim Delaney and the engineers studying the show building's structure soon realized that in order to find room inside the mountain for all the elements / attractions originally envisioned - in other words the Nautilus and it’s lagoon, the roller coaster, the restaurant on the third floor and the freefall ride - the building would have to be realy big ... say 180 meter in diameter (instead of the 62 it is now) and roughly 80 meter high (instead of the 43 plus 10 underground which were realized later) - a bit on the west side of HUGE!
As if the pure size wouldn't be enough such a huge building would have needed about 35 pillars to hold it up, which is a very high number of columns to be themed in such a detailed environment as the one which the Imagineers wanted to create. This added another problem for Delaney and his creative team has they had to develop a coherent environment while all over the place these columns were standing in their way and further limitations due to the building’s mammoth size were piling on top of it too.

It was a pretty depressing moment for the Imagineers of the Discoveryland team when they had to realize that all their detailed plans, renderings and dreams just could not be brought to life in any effective way and built as planned in EuroDisneyland’s second phase. In order to get the project of the ground anyway the Imagineers had to devise a way to solve the problem, circle around it and end up with at least a similar result. Unfortunately the moment they carefully voiced there doubts to the executives in charge of building the park was the same in which the first doubts on the incredible amount of extra costs involved in theming and building the place where being considered.
The Accountaneers immediately used this opportunity to point out that the whole Discovery Mountain concept (meaning a mini land filled to the top with details and rides) was too ambitious. They flat out refused to hear any possible solutions (meaning added costs) to get the project of its feet. Instead (to sweaten the bitter pill for the Imagineers) the accountaneers immediately offered to add another attraction to Discoveryland during phase one, something which wouldn’t cost a fortune and would allow the Imagineers to realize their Discovery Mountain later with less attractions, therefore being less expensive. As one can understand the Imagineers were depressed - Delaney’s dream to build this amazing environment inspired by Verne’s novels, a true mini land which was sure to be appreciated by fans of Disney and Jules Verne, was crumbling right before their eyes and they were unable to do anything. Instead they had to design another low cost attraction in little time while they were still dreaming (and hoping) to find a way to actually construct "their" Discovery Mountain later on.

Luckily enough at the same time the EuroDisney sponsorship department was actively looking for a way to get Mattel into the EuroDisney picture and offered Imagineering to return to the "old" Autopia concept only this time prominently featuring Mattel cars. Imagineering (and to no suprise the accountaneers) immediately accepted this proposal even so it was obvious that the whole attraction had not much in common with the original Discoveryland-theme (except for the design of the station) while the cars had quiet a lot in common with quiet a few Mattel toys found in many major stores. While answering the short term call for a low-budget attraction the Imagineers still were trying to solve "their" big problem: how to realize Discovery Mountain. As if the situation was not bad enough (keep in mind the price tag and the size of thes tructure) EuroDisneyland had opened its gates in the meantime and was loosing something like a million Dollar a day.
Terrible situation, right? Nope, not for our heros - the Imagineers! (I had to say this)

Delaney, Baxter and Tom Morris (at that point in charge of Imagineering for the park) knew that there was no better way to help the park to pick up again in such a desperate situation then to do dare to do something shocking and brave: to open a great thrill ride like noone but Disney could come up with - their answer to the resort's problems had two words: Discovery Mountain!
Walt Disney Company CEO Michael Eisner is a man who knows how to handle risks and business but most of all he is a man with creative talent and taste, he is a kid at heart. Together with Philippe Bourgignone (EuroDisney's president at the time) he was the one of the really very, very few executives in Burbank who believed in trying such a desperate move - and, luckily, he got his way by using the money that had once been earmarked for a first partial funding of the work on Discovery Mountain as an excuse to actually “having to build it”. All problems solved?
No, because even so money had been earmarked due to the terrible financial siutation there was actually no money left and the funding had died off. But once again a creative solution was found: Walt Disney Imagineering had to build and finance (through a subsidiary) Discovery Mountain and lease it to EuroDisney SCA.

Once the financial problem was solved what still remained was the creative problem of the building's size. But once again another creative solution, this time from Imagineering, was coming up: the Nautilus was moved out of the actual mountain, placed right in front of it and was constructed before the mountain thereby reducing the dimensions and costs of the project while still providing the park with both, a rollercoaster thrill ride, a highly themed Jules Verne environment and that classic visual Disney weenie for Discoveryland.
So finally Discovery Mountain was built - just the name was changed, as we all know, to Space Mountain only a month before its grand opening. The very same entrance sign of theirde up to a month before opening read “Discovery Mountain” and was changed in a fortnight to the current "Space Mountain". This decision was made in order to preserve the “Space Mountain legacy” and because, as often stated, surveys (hopefully not the same conducted prior to the park's opening) seemed to indicate that the word “discovery” was more linked to the idea of a museum exhibition than to a theme park experience in the mind of Europeans.

All this leads us up to 1995 with the true Disney masterpiece Space Mountain - De la Terre à la Lune dominating the skyline of Disneyland Paris and effectively still taking the top spot in the indoor roller coaster category. In the meantime various offsprings of this state of the art ride have been created by Imagineering - the California Screaming and the Rock'n'Roller Roller coasters - and it has been used as a source of inspiration for Tokyo Disney Sea’s Mysterious Island (which was realized by the same "Visuals Gang").
But to me personally every time I see that roller coaster masterpiece which probably saved the day for Disneyland Paris I can’t help but think about the wonders which could have been held inside Discovery Mountain.

For now it's TTFN - tatafornow

MickeyFantasmic