Behind the Attraction: Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
When Disney+ posted the episode list for Behind the Attraction, one ride grabbed my attention.
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror stands apart as a curiosity among Disney theme park attractions.
Disney neither owns the Twilight Zone license nor initially intended to utilize it for this ride. So how will the episode approach this unique situation?
We’ll talk about it in the recap for Behind the Attraction: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
Okay, So We’re Just Gonna Ignore Reality
Disney doesn’t produce these episodes. Instead, The Rock and Dany Garcia’s Seven Bucks Productions handles this gig.
Since we’re talking about guests in Disney’s home, I guess nobody should be surprised that they maintain etiquette and courtesy here.
Early on, we know the episode will play a bit fast and loose with the facts. It starts with a mention of how Disney’s Hollywood Studios was an instant success. It wasn’t.
Also, the narration indicates that Imagineers always intended to tie the premise to The Twilight Zone. They didn’t.
That’s okay, though! This attraction doesn’t need the fluff anyway. Its origin story is plenty remarkable enough on its own.
CEO Michael Eisner wanted to make Hollywood Studios bigger, hoping to double its footprint.
Disney had the space, but it hadn’t done a terrific job in defining appropriate ride premises for Hollywood Studios.
Oddly, the park’s setting helped to define Tower of Terror, though. The general setting of the 1930s-1940s Hollywood, the Golden Age, worked well.
Imagineers could tell a story that matched the somewhat nebulous Hollywood Studios overall theme.
Eisner also wanted a drop tower ride and a ride building that doubled as a hotel. Unfortunately, we only got one of the two.
I realize that sounds incorrect, but the Imagineers reveal one of the best anecdotes about the attraction.
The initial plan called for a full-fledged hotel, the kind that hosts guests, combined with a theme park attraction.
Friends, have you ever walked down Sunset Boulevard toward the Hollywood Tower Hotel? You can hear the screams the instant you set foot on that street.
As such, the Tower of Terror couldn’t work as an actual resort. Nobody would ever get any sleep!
The Oddities of Safe Ride Design
Eisner comes across as fairly pushy in this discussion. For example, he requested another odd feature for Tower of Terror.
At some point during the ride, the elevator doors must fly open, providing guests with a surreal view of Hollywood Studios.
Let me pause to ask another question. Have you ever watched the doors open on a moving elevator? It’s the kind of critical error that will make people flip out!
Imagineers found themselves building an elevator attraction that violated one of the core safety rules in place. Elevator doors should remain shut at all times!
That wasn’t the last safety violation, either. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Before that could happen, Disney needed to settle on the look and style for this non-functional hotel.
A decidedly odd restriction caused problems for Imagineers. They couldn’t very well create a ghostly hotel, as that would infringe on Haunted Mansion’s territory.
So, they spitballed ideas and came up with a hotel design that showed…earthquake damage.
Suffice to say that Eisner hated it, which explains why you don’t recognize it.
Instead, the Imagineers teamed up to add a more appropriate premise. Guests would enter the hotel and discover that they’d entered the Twilight Zone.
From there, the storytellers could connect the dots from classic Golden Age Hollywood to this seemingly abandoned hotel trapped outside of time.
You may think that Shirley Temple-esque child actress and celebrity couple were picked randomly.
Instead, they tie Tower of Terror directly to Hollywood Studios! Again, Disney theming continues to stun with its attention to detail.
NOT an Elevator
Something else that Imagineers do remarkably well is intuit the flaws with popular ride designs.
Most elevator attractions involve a controlled descent. That’s much easier to build, but it’s also logically flawed.
Folks, if an elevator fails, you drop straight down! So, Tower of Terror must mimic that overwhelming sensation of “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!”
Imagineers took a field trip and spoke with an elevator manufacturer. After explaining their intent, they received this truly hysterical reply:
“Basically everything that we, as a company, have tried not to do is what you would like us to do in the design and engineering of this attraction.”
Yes, Tower of Terror breaks all the rules of safe elevator design to create the most realistic ride experience.
Somehow, the story gets even funnier than there. After Imagineers tested the decidedly unsafe elevator drop, they believed that it wasn’t fast enough.
So, these wizards of physics defied the laws of gravity to pull down the elevator. So, yes, the drop on Tower of Terror exceeds the expected gravity-based descent.
In other words, the Tower of Terror goes down faster than if a real elevator suddenly suffers hardware failure and plunges to the ground!!!
The HARD Part of the Ride
By the way, this part of the ride design wasn’t even the challenging part.
The Imagineers describe the moving parts of the attraction, and I must admit that this part is something I’d never considered.
The seating area in the “elevator” is really a ride cart in and of itself. It’s a trackless ride that follows computer signals to find the correct placement.
Your ride cart transports you from one ride system to another ride system.
I understand that’s challenging to conceptualize. Basically, you get in your ride cart immediately. Then, it lifts you up to the “Fifth Dimension.”
You may not know the name, but that’s the section of the ride where your elevator seat detaches and moves across the floor. It’s where you see all the weird Twilight Zone imagery.
At the end of this “Fifth Dimension” path, you enter a new ride system. It’s the up/down elevator drop portion.
In a way, your ride is your seat on the elevator. It takes a lift and walks across the floor.
Then, your ride takes a ride up and down the elevator shaft! You’re just along for the trip.
In fact, you’re like a bug on your jacket who accidentally flies across the country with you when you travel to Walt Disney World.
Oh, the Imagineers faced one more odd constraint. The ride building, aka the Hollywood Tower Hotel, couldn’t exceed 200 feet in height.
Otherwise, Disney must ruin the illusion by adding warning lights for oncoming airplanes.
So, Disney designed the ride as 199 feet…and several inches. It’s as close as they could legally get to 200 feet without exceeding it.
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror pushes every conceivable boundary in theme park design.