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International Expansion

From the moment Walt Disney World opened, executives at Disney began to toy with the idea of international expansion. But it wasn’t until 1983 that Disney’s first embassy outside North America opened.

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

Tokyo Disneyland is a wonder, first and foremost because it’s neither owned nor operated by the Walt Disney Company. Instead, it’s overseen by the Tokyo-based Oriental Land Company (OLC) who pays Disney (big time) to use characters, stories, and licenses somewhat like a franchisee. Disney, in turn, contracts Imagineers to design and build new rides and attractions that OLC finances (which helps to explain why Tokyo Disney’s rides always seem grander and more built-out than their American cousins… And explains why, the same year that the Walt Disney Company opened the starved, $600 million Disaster File: Disney’s California Adventure, the Oriental Land Company opened the $4 billion Tokyo DisneySea, a Mecca for theme park fans the world over).

Image: Disney

But the most peculiar thing about Tokyo Disneyland is just how familiar it feels to visitors from the U.S. That’s because, when it came time to design and build Japan’s park, Imagineers were tasked with something they never expected: exactly duplicating Magic Kingdom. OLC’s executives had little interest in customizing their park to Japanese culture or even putting a "Japanese spin" on Disney's classics.

They wanted a recreation of Walt Disney World’s park with all of the Western influences in tact. A turn-of-the-century Midwest town, an Old West mining town, a European fairytale village, and a '70s-influenced Space Mountain looming over a white, geometric Tomorrowland…

Image: Disney

While the idea of excluding “Japan” from a Japanese park might’ve baffled Disney’s Imagineers, OLC was right on the money. Tokyo Disneyland was instantly accepted and beloved by the Japanese, with a rabid enthusiasm and enormous cultural consumption of all things “Disney” permeating pop culture. In three years, OLC paid off its $1.4 billion construction loan, and to this day, Tokyo Disneyland remains in the top three most-visited parks on Earth every year.

That meant that, at once, Disney set their sights on their next market: Europe.

La Résistance

From an initial pool of 1200 potential sites, by 1985 Disney’s executives had narrowed their search to four places – two in Spain, and two in France.

While the Spanish sites located on the Mediterranean offered tropical climates closely aligned to Orlando and Anaheim, France offered a more competitive financing deal, and just like that, Euro Disneyland would open in the rural village of Marne-la-Vallée just outside of Paris. And given that the 5,000-acre site was no more than a two-hour flight away from over 300 million people, it seemed that the choice was the right one.

But one thing Disney learned right from the start: France is not Japan.

Image: Disney

Prominent French intellectuals and writers at once denigrated Disney’s planned resort, with the unfortunate label of a “cultural Chernobyl” becoming a common refrain. Critics called the plans a radical move of cultural imperialism – an American invasion meant to force the unhealthy consumerism of the U.S on France. One reporter for a conservative French daily paper wrote, “I wish with all my heart that the rebels would set fire to Disneyland."

French labor unions attacked the company over an appearance code limiting makeup, facial hair, tattoos, and jewelry, seemingly imported from American parks with no consideration of French culture or the fact that such restrictions are illegal under French law unless it could be demonstrated that the restrictions were requisite to the job responsibilities and do not exceed what’s necessary. (Instead of relenting, Disney countered that the restrictions were necessary, as employees not adhering would undermine the company’s identity and thus the park’s success.)

Like the Eiffel Tower a century before, the French were determined to oppose the garish Disney resort at all costs, blockading its construction and protesting its development. It seemed that nothing Disney could do would quell the anger and hatred that the French felt toward what would surely be an American blight in the French countryside.

But Disney had a coup: Tony Baxter.

European Stories

Image: Disney

A Disneyland in Paris was going to court controversy, period. But Tony Baxter was just the right person to minimize that effect. By now, his portfolio had expanded. Baxter topped the credits for Big Thunder Mountain, Discovery Bay, Epcot’s Lost Legend: Journey into Imagination, Disneyland’s New Fantasyland, Star Tours, and Splash Mountain. (He’d go on to create what may be his magnum opus, Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye in 1995.)

But Disneyland Paris would be his biggest project yet. Disneyland was Americana personified – a gleaming icon of U.S. pop culture. Now, Baxter needed to inject just enough European romance to make a signature piece of Americana feel unobtrusive in a culture hostile to its very existence.

Image: Disney

What his Imagineering team created is, in the opinion of most, the most beautiful Disney Park on Earth. Disneyland Paris is a wonder. To its credit, it’s often described as the perfect combination of Magic Kingdom’s size and grandeur while somehow retaining the intimacy and coziness of Disneyland in California. Larger than life, yet packed with incredible detail, each of its themed lands is contained within its own berm, totally immersive and entirely self-contained.

Given free reign, Baxter's team designed incredible themed lands that are more cousins than siblings with their American counterparts. Each land is a built-out world with an overarching story connecting each of the land’s rides, attractions, shows, and even restaurants with unimaginable continuity.

Image: Disney

Consider the park’s Frontierland. Here, it’s the dusty town of Thunder Mesa, de facto ruled by the mighty Mr. Henry Ravenswood who oversees the mining operation within Big Thunder Mountain. But when his daughter falls in love with a miner, the tragic tale that ensues leads to his once-glorious home becoming the stuff of legend and the park’s haunted house, the Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor. Infused with European storytelling, orchestral music, dark romance, and unfathomable detail, the one-of-a-kind ride is an entirely new take on a classic, and one of many such reinventions in the park.

But the most impressive was yet to come.

Discoveryland

If Disneyland Paris were dedicated to redefining Disney’s tried-and-true formula for European audiences, the biggest hurdle would be Tomorrowland.

The first issue to address was that Tomorrowland was purely American; a stark, white, geometric land born of the Space Age with swirling rockets, Missions to Mars, Captain EO, the Carousel of Progress, and the wonder of the American freeway system. As per Walt’s dedication, Tomorrowland celebrated The Atomic Age and the challenge of Outer Space… concepts wildly important to Americans during Walt’s time, but significantly less compelling to European audiences of the ‘90s.

Image: Disney

The second issue was that the Space Race future brought to life at both Disneyland and Disney World was already losing its gleam. As the 1990s neared, the Tomorrowlands in the United States were looking increasingly dated, and the naivety of their opening years (1967 and 1971, respectively) was showing. Each was overdue for yet another respective rebirth, and it was clear to executives that their attempts to sincerely predict the future would always fall flat by way of becoming outdated or – worse – by coming true.

Image: Disney

The future Disneyland Paris brought to life would need to be different. It would need to minimize the land’s “Americanism.” And ideally, it would be timeless, too, never needing an expensive foundational redesign.

But to create a vision of tomorrow that could never become today, designers – led by Imagineer Tim Delaney – would need to forget science and instead look to a future envisioned by the past; a fantasy future rather than a scientific one. And there it was, already sketched out in Baxter’s portfolio: Discovery Bay.

The coincidence was too great to pass up.

Image: Disney

So Disneyland Paris wouldn’t have a Tomorrowland at all. In its place would stand Discoveryland, a retro-futuristic, semi-steampunk take on the concept borrowing from Discovery Bay’s lofty ambitions. Discoveryland would represent the future as envisioned by great European thinkers of the past: Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Leonardo da Vinci…

Image: Disney

Forget the sterile, concrete, white, geometric Space Age Tomorrowland. Discoveryland would be a gold-and-copper port with organic, iron-rich red rocks jutting from the ground, bubbling lagoons, submarines, zephyrs, wind sail towers, golden accents, forested hillsides, rivets, and cogs. Discoveryland would bring to life a European take on tomorrow in vibrant gold, red, green, and bronze. And best of all, it could never become outdated, because it could never become real!

Discoveryland opened with the swirling golden Orbitron at its center, flanked by a floating dirigible docked at Videopolis, a journey through time in Le Visionarium (later transported to Magic Kingdom as the Lost Legend: Timekeeper), and the Café Hyperion; parts of a natural, warm, romantic vision of tomorrow.

Image: Disney

Even if Disneyland Paris didn’t feature a Space Mountain upon opening, Tim Delaney and his team of Imagineers had already laid out the plan… And when the starry peak did join the park’s lineup, it would be in a groundbreaking new form. On the next page, we’ll dissect the plans Imagineers developed to bring a new kind of Space Mountain to Paris.

 
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Comments

Excellent article! I was among those who had hoped for a return to the original theming and was utterly disappointed when Hyperspace Mountain was announced. I consider myself lucky that I managed to ride Space Mountain in all its grandeur back in 1998 and I will keep hoping that someday De la Terre à la Lune will make a glorious comeback!

Great post! Even though I rode SM million times and already knew a lot I could learn some new stuff here. :)

I have a little golden nugget for you that either you did not know or were not mentioning intentionally. But anyway, there's a really great 3D modelled reincarnation of Space Mountain (or Discovery Mountain as even the then built ride should have been named, as far as I know?!): https://youtu.be/ttgSaGR5s90 Also check out his website http://www.noacco.net/immersarium/ where you can get a live 3D version of Space/Discovery Mountain where you can even move. I just love it. :)

The same guy did also 3D model Star Tours, check out his channel.

Thanks,
Max

This guy is so frustrating. He writes great in-depth articles and then completely ruins it by shoehorning his tired opinion that everything new is awful at the end. This quote for example.....

"It’s the most recent in what’s become Disney’s new calling card: hastily and thoughtlessly stuffing hot intellectual properties into the parks, even at the expense of cannibalizing classics and decimating themed lands."

Wah wah wah

I rode both De La Terre a la Lune and Mission 2 countless times, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that Mission 2 blows De la terre out of the water on every level. Hyperspace Mountain will no doubt be incredible, by this guy wants to dump all over it before it has even begun because in his mind everything should stay the same as it always was - nothing should ever change or evolve. How boring.

It's annoying because he's clearly a good writer and his articles are informative and entertaining, but he feels he HAS to drive in his bored, polarising opinion at the end.

In reply to by SteveRage (not verified)

While I think you're right about the articles being too negative about anything new, saying that Mission 2 was better or even close to as good and consistent as De La Terre a la Lune is something I can not follow at all.

As the article states, it still was one of the best themed coasters ever, but it was completely lacking the soul and uniqueness of the original while also forming an odd contrast to it's exterior and the whole of discoveryland. I still hope it will return some day as the new trains still have that look to them. For me, the original Space Mountain Paris will always be the greatest roller coaster overall experience ever.

It's often inspiring and heartbreaking to see what has "could've been." I've often daydreamed of an additional to Animal Kingdom (perhaps replacing Rafiki's Planet Watch) that would adapt the Thunder Mesa concept as a trip to the arctic. Rather than a giant mesa to explore we are brought to a glacier face, inside could be a Journey to the Center of the Earth inspired ride!
Or how about a reimagined Edison Square edition just off Main Street where we have a Mystic Manor style visit to Menlo Park?!

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