The "Expanded Universe"

Think of S.E.A. as a call to arms for Disney Parks fans... It's an international scavenger hunt that has Imagineering fans digging into the Disney Parks catalogue looking for potential connections, possible hints, and attractions tied to S.E.A. even if through retroactive-continuity.

To be sure, the "sightings" we chronicle on this page are unconfirmed, many fueled only by fan persistance. But, a few very intriguing educated guesses reside here, perhaps finding S.E.A. connections in corners you might not expect... And given that S.E.A. hasn't shown up in any notable rides in the United States, fans are willing to take any teases they can get.

So to finish off our list, here are some "could-be" connections that Imagineers have teased merely as ways to keep fans engaged, interested, and exploring. In our imaginations, we like to look for these cross-continental connections while realizing they can be hard sells!

1. Jungle River Cruise: Curse of the Emerald Trinity

Location: Hong Kong Disneyland
SEA Connection: Confirmed, but lost to time

Unbound by nostalgia or expectations as to what Disney can be, Hong Kong Disneyland is well-known by fans as an unrepentent lover of all things scary. In fact, the park's annual Halloween celebrations come with genuine haunted houses, real scares, and attraction overlays. (In fact, Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy originated in Hong Kong before being relocated to California.)

Among its experiments in seasonal scares was 2015's Jungle River Cruise: Curse of the Emerald Trinity. Though it's not the first time Disney's experimented with overlays to the ultra-classic, this is one of the most unique. News stories throughout the ride's boathouse reveal the story of Professor Garrett Reed, a disgraced adventurer, rival to Indiana Jones, and a former member of S.E.A. (dismissed, as the story goes, by Lord Mystic, for his graverobbing, underhanded ways).

The disturbingly dark take on the ride sends guests into the near pitch-black jungle in search of a set of legendary jewels called the Emerald Trinity, said to be hidden in the lost Altar of Souls. With Reed having apparently stolen the gems, supernatural havoc had overcome the outpost, with a hazy green fog carrying sinister vines through the jungle.

With two live actors on board (the traditional Skipper plus a double-dealing associate of Reed's, the Navigator), the turbulent nighttime journey including projection mapped vines strangling the ride's temples and chasing the boat, a voodoo tribe intent on restoring peace to the jungle, skeletal "vine zombies" rising from the hippo pool to attack the ship...

...and the gruesome end of the disgraced Reed, seen in silhouette against camp tents when the cursed vines pull the enchanted stone from his pocket, then promptly do away with him.

While Professor Reed is a confirmed (removed) member of S.E.A., the seasonal, temporary, and lost nature of his adventure seem to firmly establish him as an "extended universe" piece of the story. But it also doubles down on the connection between S.E.A. and the Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd., cementing once more that the two exist in the same shared universe, by extension confirming a place for the Indiana Jones mythos in both...

2. Raging Spirits

Image: tdrfan.com

Location: Tokyo DisneySea
SEA Connection: Perhaps a piece of the "expanded universe."

The Raging Spirits roller coaster at Tokyo DisneySea is a wonder to look at. (At this point, we can agree that everything at DisneySea is a wonder, right?) The temple – meant to look like an ancient Peruvian altar – is rich with detail and stunning architecture that looks fittingly ancient. But how does Raging Spirits fit into the continuity of S.E.A.?

Image: Disney

Simple. Remember those murals in Harrison Hightower’s hotel lobby, depicting his dastardly thievery from ancient cultures? One of those paintings shows Hightower making off with a giant stone serpent head. It should look familiar. As the painting clearly shows, Mr. Hightower got to the Raging Spirits site long before we did, making off with one of the temple's magnificent stone serpants. It's a tangential connection, but for Disney fans it's a gasp-worthy moment to see the two attractions theoretically connect, even if by a single story thread. Now that's Disney detail.

3. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Image: Disney

Location: Disneyland and Magic Kingdom
SEA Connection: Perhaps a piece of the "expanded universe."

When Magic Kingdom's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Magic Kingdom re-opened after an extensive refurbishment in Spring 2013, it brought with it an interactive queue where guests waiting in line could feel like they were part of the old mining operation. There were opportunities to explode dynamite (with real repercussions outside on the mountain), listen to miners down in the caverns below, and tour the Mining Office.

The thing that was most striking for Disney fanatics, though, was the hinting of a new back-story... and a never-before-seen character.

Image: Disney

A portrait of a miserly looking man named Barnabas T. Bullion adored the new queue, and it seemed certain that this man (who was indicated as President and Founder of the Big Thunder Mining Company by a brass plaque) could have a connection to S.E.A. After all, it certainly fits the late 19th-century mythos to imagine the enigmatic persona (who looks suspiciously like Imagineer Tony Baxter, the ride's creator) as a member of the society.

But what's even more interesting is the character's connection to another. Originally, Tony Baxter envisioned Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain as merely the first part of an entirely new land that would continue Frontierland's narrative. On the north shore of the park's Rivers of America (where Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge sits today) would rise the Possibilityland: Discovery Bay – a steampunk, sci-fi San Francisco of inventors, storytellers, merchants, and explorers drawn to the eclectic coastal port founded by the inventor of Big Thunder Mountain's drilling equipment: a man named Jason Chandler.

Now, Discovery Bay never came to be, and Jason Chandler was relegated to an Imagineering myth... Until the introduction of Barnabas T. Bullion. New props added to Magic Kingdom's mining offices include a letter to Barnabas from Chandler, written on S.E.A. letterhead:

Dear Barney,

 

Great Caesar’s Ghost, old chap, I haven’t heard from you since our little misadventure in El Dorado! I am indeed sorry to hear of the second disturbance within Big Thunder Mountain, but I did warn you that you were prospecting at your own peril when I sold you the drilling machine. I took the liberty of consulting Madame Zarkov at the Museum of the Weird , and it is her considered opinion that you should abandon the entire operation at once and find a less volatile site. I wish I had better news for you, old boy, but some forces simply are not to be trifled with.

On behalf of your compatriots of SEA, I do hope to see you around the club a bit more often!
 

Yours in Exploration and Adventure,

 

 

Jason Chandler

 

Founding Member The Society of Explorers and Adventurers

That's not all, either. Chandler – now a confirmed member of S.E.A. – appeared elsewhere in Disney parks, as well. At Disneyland, a stagecoach parked along Big Thunder Trail is carrying a trunk addressed to him; at the Skipper Canteen, a map of the Hyperion Airship's journey (another Discovery Bay reference) has Chandler listed as its author; Chandler owns one of the S.E.A. paddles on display in the Tropical Hideaway (for his 1882 trip down the Elaho River in British Columbia); and in Il Museo del Volo, Chandler himself signed Camellia Falco's S.E.A. membership certificate as the Society Secretary.

Disneyland's Big Thunder Mountain has its own separate mythology with a potential connection to the Society of Explorers and Adventurers in the form of an entire lost land chronicled in our in-depth feature Possibilityland: Discovery Bay – one of the most incredible and ambitious projects Disney Imagineering ever designed.

4. The Haunted Mansion 

Click and expand for a much larger and more detailed view. Image: Disney 

Location: Disneyland and Magic Kingdom
SEA Connection: Perhaps a fan-service piece of the "expanded universe"

The Haunted Mansion was not developed overnight. As a matter of fact, Walt's untimely death left the project in limbo. Without his final seal of approval, his Imagineers weren't sure what exactly the Haunted Mansion's stately white plantation house should have inside... a sincerely scary haunt? A somber, grim, and unsettling walkthrough? A musical, whimsical, silly ride? While the Mansion that eventually opened in 1969 had a little of everything, one thing it intentionally lacked was a story. There's really no through plot or overarching tale; rather, the Mansion is full of vignettes and special effects that are haunting in their simplicity.

In 2006, an ethereal, spooky bride who had long inhabited the Attic scene was replaced with a more overtly murderous mistress whose husbands just can't seem to keep their heads on. "I do... I did..." she coos as a ghostly axe appears in her hand. Throughout the attic, portraits of the so-called Constance with a handful of different men appear, with the grooms' heads fading away as if by magic. It was a ret-conned story, and still not an overarching one to explain away the whole Mansion.

Image: Disney

But one particular portrait is of great interest for fans: a painting of the bride smiling while gripping a rose with a mustacheoed would-be husband in a gilded frame marked: "Constance & George, 1877." (Clicking and expanding the image at the top of this section will allow you to see that this frame is the one Constance keeps closest to her in the attic.) If you believe the legend of the newly-contrived backstory, this final husband was the reclusive owner of the Mansion, bequeathing it to Constance in his quickly-enacted will.

Interestingly, it would seem that the infamous Stretching Room also includes George, though only as a tombstone with an axe in his head and a woman smiling stop, holding a rose...

Image: Disney

... look familiar? 

What's this got to do at all with S.E.A., you're doubtlessly wondering. Perhaps it would help to know Constance's final husband's full name: George Hightower. Yes, it's supposed that George's brother, Harrison, was the millionaire magnate and hotelier in New York City who would follow his brother into the afterlife 22 years later in a most unusual elevator accident...

5. Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar & Grog Grotto

Image: Disney

Location: Disneyland Hotel (Disneyland) and Polynesian Village Resort (Walt Disney World)
SEA Connection: Probable, but not direct

Located in a tribal hut outside the Disneyland Hotel in California, Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar is certainly a possible U.S. S.E.A. outpost. The miniscule bar (which fills quickly) serves drinks based on Polynesian landmarks and adventures. Order the right one and the bar will come alive in response. Krakatau Punch? Watch as the volcanoes outside erupt, the building rumbles, and the bar’s lights turn red.

The walls of the bar are completely covered in maps, newspaper articles, and relics from adventurers. While the Bar gives the impression of a S.E.A. storyline, that's not confirmed. What we do know is that Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar takes place in the same continuity as Disneyland’s Adventureland (newspaper articles announce the discovery of the Temple of the Forbidden Eye by Indiana Jones, for example), which is pretty cool in its own right!

And if you believe that Adventureland takes place in the S.E.A. universe by way of the Tropical Hideaway, than Trader Sam's does, too, even if indirectly.

Image: Disney

In 2015, the original Tiki Bar was joined by the equally-miniscule Trader Sam's Grog Grotto at Walt Disney World's Polynesian Village Resort. Even if Trader Sam wasn't a member of S.E.A., his bar fits the timeline and aethetic perfectly. 

6. Jules Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires

Image: gadgetfreak.gr

Location: Disneyland Paris & Tokyo DisneySea
SEA Connection: Unlikely, but very interesting! 

In keeping with the late 1800s / early 1900s stories that most of the existing S.E.A. tales occur in, we can’t discount Jules Verne or his character. Captain Nemo (of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Mysterious Island fame) was exploring in the 1870s. If you can imagine him as a member of S.E.A., it brings Tokyo’s Mysterious Island land into a whole new focus. Even with Nemo's potential admission notwithstanding, it just fits the bill. After all, S.E.A. members at Fortress Explorations are examining and recording Mount Prometheus' activity... Certainly they realize that volcano is also Nemo's Mysterious Island, right?

Even beyond DisneySea's stunning central land and its headlining inhabitants (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth), imagining that the Extraordinary Voyages of Verne's character might've taken place in the same universe as S.E.A. gives new depth to Magic Kingdom's Lost Legend: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – Submarine Voyage and to the unimaginably brave, French reimagining of Tomorrowland and its creative anchor, Disneyland Paris' Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune. If those adventures happened in tandem with Hightower, Mystic, Oceaneer, Pleasure, et. al, that would be a breathtaking connection...

More stories to be told…

Harrison Hightower III. Lord Henry Mystic. Mary Oceaneer. Camellia Falco. Dr. Albert Falls. Jock Lindsey. Barabas T. Bullion. Jason Chandler. Merriweather Pleasure.

Could Indiana Jones Adventure, Mystic Manor, Typhoon Lagoon, Tower of Terror, The Enchanted Tiki Room, Pleasure Island, Jungle Cruise, and even Haunted Mansion all be connected by this cross-continental secret society?

It's just the beginning. As the portrait hanging in Mystic Manor shows, there are plenty of adventurers out there, and plenty of stories to be told… Just think of the stories you could tell using the characters pictured above that we haven't met yet! 

In the mean time, may we live by the hope of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers: to set forth on voyages of great discovery, returning to share tales of distant shores, astounding adventures, and amazing scientific achievements.

Image: Disney

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