4. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! and Tower of Terror

Location: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (Walt Disney Studios Paris), Tower of Terror (Tokyo DisneySea), and Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! (Disney California Adventure)

The original (and objectively, best) of Disney's drop rides – Walt Disney World's Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – opened in 1994. Often imitated but never duplicated, the one-of-a-kind ride uses a trackless ride system technology and features a show scene unlike any other on Earth. Being so unique, we can say that there's not one ride like it, even among its (still astounding) sisters. So forget the Hollywood Studios original and let's examine its three younger sisters. They're the subject of discussion here, as three duplicate attractions exist in three very different forms around the world.

Image: Disney

We chronicled the in-depth story of Disneyland's disastrous second park in its own in-depth Disaster File: Disney's California Adventure. But one turning point in its uneven story was the 2004 addition of its own version of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. Seemingly custom-made for a park meant to celebrate the stories, legends, and settings of the Golden State, the haunting Hollywood Tower Hotel in California pioneered a new ride system meant to give the ride higher capacity, higher uptime, and a lower budget.

The more cost-effective-yet-still-E-Ticket version of the ride was then duplicated to the underbuilt Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris... two identical clones, each a new take on the haunted Hollywood happenings of Halloween night, 1939. 

Image: Disney

Here's where the plot thickens... In 2006, Tokyo DisneySea – the most heralded and celebrated of Disney's parks – opened its own Tower of Terror using the ride system developed for California Adventure. However, the spooky 1950s anthology series The Twilight Zone is unknown in Japanese culture, necessitating a change. True to form, Tokyo's designers decided to develop an original story within the cross-continental continuity of S.E.A. – The Society of Explorers and Adventurers. Set in New York City 40 years before the Hollywood Tower Hotel, the new plot follows a ne'er-do-well antiques collector who arrogantly steals a cursed artifact from an African village, dooming himself and his gorgeous Moorish revival hotel on New Years Eve, 1899.

As part of DisneySea's American Waterfront, we're transported to a New York of the 1920s, with the once-elegant hotel now in ruins. A preservation group is trying to raise funds to have the old hotel designated a historic landmark, and they're fundraising by selling tours of the hotel and its vault of cursed cross-contininental loot under a headline-grabbing nickname... "Tower of Terror." If the idea of a new kind of tower sounds tantalizing, dive into the complete history of the ride concept and its rebirth in Japan with one of our favorite features, Modern Marvels: Tokyo's Tower of Terror.

While The Twilight Zone might be well-known for its twist endings, nothing prepared fans for the most unthinkable plot twist yet... In 2016, Disney announced that barely a decade after its introduction (and less than four years after the park recieved $1.2 billion in development that gave the park a historic Californian story), Disney California Adventure's beautiful pueblo deco hotel would become a "warehouse fortress power plant" based on "the beauty of an oil rig" (these are Disney's words, not ours).

The park's Hollywood Land (and indeed, all of its romantic Californian lands) would now be lorded over by a sci-fi superhero prison and become the super hero themed Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! Derided by fans and understood by most as a short-sighted and ill-concieved IP-cram, the new thrill ride will re-use Tower of Terror's queue and ride, now redressed as a space warehouse. We chronicled the total, behind-the-scenes story of Disney's development of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and its demise in a must-read entry, Lost Legends: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. 

Think what you will of Disney's decision in California... The interesting end result is that three rides comprised of the same, identical ride system exist on three continents with three unique stories: Hollywood, 1939; New York, 1899; and... well... today, in outer space.

5. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril and Raging Spirits

Temple of Peril, via CharacterCentral.net

Location: Disneyland Paris (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril) and DisneySea (Raging Spirits)

When Disneyland Paris opened in 1992, it was met with a resounding financial thud. Overbuilt and undervalued by locals, the resort was bleeding money and hope seemed lost. Plans to give Disneyland Paris its own clone of the EMV-based Indiana Jones Adventure under construction in California were deemed far too expensive. What financers decided on instead was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, a more bare-bones approach to adventure that still managed to renew interest in the resort. Famously Disney's first ever roller coaster to go upside down (through a single loop), the 1993 ride was just the thrill Paris needed while the more elaborate Space Mountain – a totally new version with nothing in common with the American rides – was being developed for Discoveryland.

Image: Disney

In 2005, DisneySea opened a clone of the off-the-shelf roller coaster, likewise dressing it in elaborate temples, artifacts, and effects. Head-to-head, DisneySea's is more elaborate, dressed as a South American temple with flaming waterfall steps, a steaming finale, and carved crocodile heads that (strangely enough) tie this ride into the Society of Explorers and Adventurers universe, too! 

Tokyo's version of the ride is not themed to Indiana Jones outright... though, in a twist of fate that must sting particularly to Paris fans, it's right next to a built-out EMV-based Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull, wrapped into the South American setting of the park's entire Indiana Jones land, Lost River Delta.

A Shared Moment: Both rides are well known for their single inversion - a vertical loop. Tokyo's follows up the manuever with a photo-worthy dive under the temple's flaming waterfall steps where a burst of fog envelopes the train as it dashes to the final brakes. 

6. Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and Xpress: Platform 13

Rock 'n' Roller Coaster... without the box around it. Image © Rik Engelen.

Location: Disney's Hollywood Studios (Rock 'n' Roller Coaster) and Walibi Holland (Xpress)

Believe it or not, sometimes attractions get cloned outside of Disney's parks, too. And we're not just talking about those horrifying Chinese "small world" attractions. Disney works almost exclusively with roller coaster manufacturer Vekoma, and Vekoma makes roller coasters for any park that wants to buy one. As Vekoma was building Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith for Walt Disney World, it was re-building it without the box around it at Six Flags Holland as Superman: The Ride.

Six Flags sold its international parks in 2004. The park became Walibi Holland and the ride was re-themed to remove allusions to the Man of Steel. The Daily Planet queue became a travel agency and the ride was named Xpress. In 2014, it was given a dark twist and renamed Xpress: Platform 13, repainted in grey and black with a haunted queue and dark ride scene finale. In any case, the end result is an outdoor version of Rock 'n' Roller Coaster that reveals just how twisted and convoluted the three-inversion coaster really is. The only difference is that Rock 'n' Roller Coaster's layout is a bit more compact to make up for the lost speed due to the train's very heavy on-board audio system. 

Fun Fact: Vekoma's LSM Launched Coaster (the model name for Rock 'n' Roller Coaster and Xpress) is itself modeled after an even more twisted coaster built by Premier Rides, which also originated as an enclosed coaster before being built elsewhere outdoors.

Conclusion

Did you have an inkling about any of the shared pairs? Is this a healthier way to clone? Instead of directly duplicating attractions from one place to another, Disney is able to save big on technological sharing, but still provide unique experiences from place to place.