... I entered a conversation on a discussion board about the Tokyo Disney Seas Tower of Terror storyline, shared what I heard had been proposed by the folks in Glendale and Marne la Valle as a possible take on the attraction’s Rod Sterling like tale and suddenly - my inspiration is struck by lightning (recurring phrase hey?) and I am mysteriously forced to explain it in a full fleshed out article. Does that sound like a good way to inspire an F-File? Then let’s move on! In an effort to add some more or less solid elements to the ongoing discussions and share what I know about this forever rumoured to be coming Disney E-ticket I’ll tell you what the Imagineers have proposed for the Paris’ Tower storyline. But be warned in advance; this does not mean that I will speculate on when the ride will open in Paris!

As you know across the sea in Orlando the storyline of the ride starts when the guests are entering this once great Hollywood landmark hotel, appropriately named “Hollywood Tower Hotel” (there you go with the “HTH” sign above the gates in hte back of La Terrasse), where al the glitz and glamour of Tinsel Town would stay when celebrating the premiere of a new movie or the Oscars, schmoozing around in the bar and lobby of this luxurious palace. But that was once – as the dust that has accumulated everywhere signals, the hotel has long been abandoned by the stars. The cause for the demise is only revealed once the guests have checked in and are guided into a warm, cosy library. On the TV-set guests can now watch, how once during the heydays of the hotel a handsome young couple accompanied by a bellman enter the elevator on their way to their room and a child actress in blond curls and frilly dress with her stern governess steps on in the last moment. The doors close and seconds later the elevator, its passengers and several sections of the upper stories of the hotel vanish when the hotel is struck by lightning.

Now try, for those of you who actually experienced the ride, to remember how much language intensive this storyline is. Sure the whole queue line, the gardens and lobby plus the eerie sounds and music all help in recreating the mood of a later 1930’s hotel abandoned due to something mysteriously occurring. But consider what the narrator (a Rod Sterling sound alike) actually has to say in the libraries, where the script goes like this:

“You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into...The Twilight Zone“

And then, with the video showing the story of the passengers:

“Hollywood, 1939. Amid the glitz and the glitter of a bustling, young movie town at the height of its golden age, The Hollywood Tower Hotel was a star in its own right; a beacon for the show business elite. 
Now, something is about to happen that will change all that.“

And there goes the movie to show the elevator being struck by lightning, the passengers disappearing followed by Rod Sterling showing us today’s episode of the Twilight Zone of which we are the central characters:

“The time is now on an evening very much like the one we have just witnessed. Tonight's story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. 
This, as you may recognize, is a maintenance service elevator still in operation, waiting for you. We invite you, if you dare, to step aboard because in tonight's episode, you are the star. And this elevator travels directly to...
…The Twilight Zone."

Ok, ok, granted that this black and white movie, the Rod Sterling sound-alike voice, the whole mood set by the library plus that great effect of lightning striking simultaneously during the video when Sterling states that “The time is now on an evening very much like the one we have just witnessed” sum up to one of the greatest pre-shows ever conceived, but think about it again. Just how language intensive is this? Already in the pre-show segment of the ride Paris guests, if this version would have been used, would have found themselves in the midst of the most language intensive “non ride” in Paris. And this only in the pre-show! If you consider all the language which guests experience in the ride shaft Imagineers feared that too many non English speaking guests of the Marne la Vallèe park would not get the whole idea behind the tower, probably mistaking it for yet another more or less standard freefall ride only.

But then there is the creativity the Imagineers are using in cooking up the storyline for the Tokyo Tower, where the storyline tells that the hotel was the location of a fabulous sail-away party the night before the maiden voyage of the American Waterfront’s icon, the U.S.S. Teddy Roosevelt. On the maiden voyage of this impressive new ocean liner, the vessel sank without a trace. All hands onboard were lost whilst the staff of the hotel where all the guests partied the night before the ship sank began reporting strange occurrences. Mysterious sightings in the building's rooms, corridors and ballrooms - as if the spirits of all the passengers who were killed when the ship sank were returning to the last place they were happy at: the luxurious hotel towering over the American Waterfront. With the death of the ships (and hotels) owner the four star hotel was eventually forced to close. As due to the property's increasingly bizarre reputation the hotel was never sold it just stood empty for decades. Until - of course - the folks who operate Tokyo Disney Sea decided to open the hotel's doors once more. So that the most daring guest to Tokyo’s sea themed park could tour this haunted high-rise hotel ... If they dared. See (or should I say Sea?) what we are getting at here? This take on the whole Tower of Terror story is pretty intriguing if you consider how well it integrates itself with both the surrounding theme of Tokyo Disney Sea’s American Waterfront area and the whole Japanese tradition of spirits of the departed to return to the last place they visited. However thinking about this version it becomes obvious that once again it heavily relays on language plus Japanese conventions and traditions (not to mention the rides location) to be understandable. Therefore adopting it for Paris would probably not work very well either.

Back in Paris plans for a Tower of Terror like ride where continuously taken in and out of the first and second phase of the new studio park, resulting in numerous versions. But all of them have one thing in common: the Imagineers in Paris where heavily conditioned by the same factors which had conditioned EuroDisney since day one: language barriers and themeing. It is a well known fact that EuroDisneyland / Disneyland Paris is the Magic Kingdom with the most astounding layers of themeing, a park where every sightline, every shot has been studied, every angle smoothed for the best effect. What many don’t realise though is that the actual plans for the Disney MGM Studios Europe, on which the actually built Walt Disney Studios park is still based, were not supposed to be as lavishly themed as EDL next door. The whole idea for the European take on the Florida park was to build a theme park with a studio being its theme (while in Florida guests are supposed to step into a world of Hollywood that never was). So when it came time to transform the plans of the Disney MGM Studios Europe into the Walt Disney Studio (which without lying to you right now only consists 1/3 of what its proposed predecessor would have offered) the themeing needed to be reduced even further, all the way to a minimum. Imagineering was afraid that, since the themeing of WDS is very “light on details” (I’m being euphemistic here), the guys up in Glendale and behind Frontierland would be afraid that guests would not “get” the idea that the Paris version of the tower was actually a real for real hotel, there in the middle of a studio – basically throwing all storylines from the other versions straight out of the window!

You see gang in the Disney MGM Studios guests have a highly themed “entrance corridor” leading to the ride, to build up the atmosphere surrounding the tower: the Sunset Boulevard. Thinking of the 1994 opening day it was more or less “just” a highly detailed extravaganza, consisting of the Theater of the Stars, where Beauty & the Beast is presented, various shops, restaurants, food courts and finally the Hollywood Tower Hotel at its end. No Rock’n’RollerCoaster, no Fantasmic – just a street, a set to build up the atmosphere and storyline for the tower. Now take the Walt Disney Studios Paris. Though some will say that it is a cheep excuse for not building the Sunset boulevard, the whole idea, even in the original Disney MGM Europe designs (on which believe it or not WDS is still based as I can’t say often enough) the whole idea was to create a theme park themed to look like a real studio (not themed to take guests into the movies like Disney MGM in Florida). For Europe the reference was more taken from Universal Studios Orlando (or its beautiful Osaka version) - a theme park about the studio, not a studio’s theme park!

Taking it from here, learning from all the language problems DLP has had and the fact that management (erroneously) considers that guests don’t “get” all the themeing and eye candy present in the Disneyland Park (some honchos down in Burbank believe that even HongKong Disneyland, the Walt Disney Studios Paris and Disney’s California Adventure have too much unnecessary unscathed themeing), what is the proposed storyline for the Paris’ tower supposed to be? Well, without speculating about when this E-Ticket will actually start to scare guests, I have come to hear this allegedly ingenious and elaborate plotline:

Some time ago movie crew was filming this classic-style movie, set in this luxurious hotel, when an unfortunate an incident occurred … the actual elevator in which a scene had to be shot mysteriously disappeared with the cast of the movie when a lightning struck the building! Certainly the set was sealed off by the police to investigate what had happened, but as no clues indicating a criminal background or technical malfunction were found, the actual set has now been reopened and awaits future movies to be shot. But the place is said to be haunted by the ghosts of those actors which had mysteriously disappeared years before.

This would have actually been a nice variation of the Disney-MGM/DCA take on the story as it preserves the idea that the Paris’ studios actually have some sets, thereby reinforcing the concept of of being in a "working studio themed park", which is also why having "guests staying in the hotel" for a storyline would not have made much sense. Plus: in this version of the story it was thought that the dialogue could have been brought down to a minimum. To set the stage for this “abandoned set” concept the whole building would be made sure to look like a site for multiple movie sets, all dusted with the actors’ chairs still in place and untouched. Certainly the ride’s guests would be treated to a short movie pre-show too in which they would witness how the director of the ill-fates project called the now infamous shot, the thunder struck and the actors disappeared. Obviously thisd is followed by a Rod Sterling look-alike and the rest takes very much the classical “Twilight Zone”-TV series mood.

As I stated previously at this point I don't know if, and certainly don’t want to speculate, when and how we will get a TOT (it's actually/hopefully more a question of "when"). But for sure I hope that management builds "the other half" of the WDS before constructing this (or any other) major E-ticket ride, possibly taking out from the morgue some of those incredible ideas they had planned for the Disney MGM Studios Europe. I Hope this pushes away some of the fog surrounding all the mysteries of the Paris version of the classical Disney ride but let me close this F-File by saying:

“A warm welcome back to those of you who made it and a friendly word of warning; 
something you won't find in any guidebook: 
The next time you check into a deserted hotel on the dark side of Hollywood, make sure you know just what kind of vacancy you're filling. 
Or you may find yourself a permanent resident of…
...The Twilight Zone"

For now it's TTFN - tatafornow

MickeyFantasmic