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In the Details

Image: Shenghung Lin, Flickr (license)

There’s perhaps no Modern Marvel on Earth as mysterious as Tokyo DisneySea’s one-of-a-kind Tower of Terror. Beautiful in every way, the ride is truly a masterpiece of themed entertainment and storytelling. Faced with the challenge of bringing a headlining drop ride thrill to the most beautiful theme park on Earth, Disney Imagineers did their due diligence and crafted a story to enrapture fans the world over.

Which brings us back to the question: will the legend of Harrison Hightower ever make it closer to home? 

Image: Disney 

Maybe the real question is... is it here already?

S.E.A. Stories 

Naturally, the nautical exploits of the Hightower Hotel weren’t the last we heard of the members of S.E.A.: Society of Explorers and Adventurers. In fact, the nautical and spectacular stories of S.E.A. members – both esteemed and evil – and their international explorations connect Disney Parks attractions in ways you might not expect.

The story of S.E.A. is like an international mystery just for fans of Disney Parks to explore and speculate on.

Image: Disney

For example, a mural proudly displayed in the Hotel Hightower's lobby shows Harrison making off with a massive South American serpant head...

Image: Disney

...stolen from the altar of Raging Spirits from the park's own Lost River Delta! You see the way that these sometimes-subtle hints connect attractions in thoughtful and "gee-whiz" ways, leaving Disney Parks fans hungry for more as they search for hidden details.

But it's larger than DisneySea. In fact, the story of S.E.A. unites rides, shows, attractions, restaurants, and even whole parks across the Walt Disney Company into a massive, overarching frame story.

Image: Disney

Perhaps the most overt E-Ticket connection is via Hightower’s own colleague, Lord Henry Mystic. Like Hightower, Mystic scoured the globe for adventure and came across some priceless artifacts long the way… but unlike the New York hotelier, Lord Mystic gathered his collection the old fashioned way: by making friends.

Mystic’s collection of gathered wonders is housed in his own private residence – an eclectic estate deep in the jungles of Papua New Guinea that he shares his with primate traveling companion, Albert.

Image: Disney

The wonders on display inside that Modern Marvel: Mystic Manor are likewise enchanted, sending us on a wild dark ride through the home’s international cultural collections in what some call Disney’s best dark ride ever. For fans of Disney Parks and Imagineering, that Mystic Manor entry is a must-read.

The connections continue in that S.E.A.: Society of Explorers and Adventurers definitive guide, but connections between Tower of Terror and the rest of Disney Parks expand well beyond… for example, a handwritten letter on display among the crowded halls of Downtown Disney’s Lost Legend: The Adventurers Club saw Club President Pamelia Perkins gossiping about Hightower and how his idol “really took him for a ride.”

To drop the jokes for a moment, the question on many Disney Parks fans minds is, will the uniquely-S.E.A. based Tower of Terror forever remain exclusive to Tokyo DisneySea? The answer is that it may already have been duplicated stateside…

From Hotelier to Collector

As American Disney Parks fans eagerly await their own S.E.A.-based attraction, the truth is, they may already have it.

Image: Disney

As we discussed in one of our favorite features covering Disneyland's Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Disney California Adventure’s version of the freefall ride might’ve been an anchoring cornerstone of the park’s $1.2 billion redesign… but it didn’t last. Five years after the park’s Grand Re-Opening and its infusion of California-themed stories and settings with the Hollywood Tower Hotel as a pillar, the ride fell to a new experiment.

In 2017, under the leadership of Imagineer Joe Rohde (body double inspiration for Harrison Hightower), the pueblo-deco hotel was reskinned as a “warehouse prison power plant” based on “the beauty of an oil rig” to fit into the park's 2020 Marvel-themed Avengers Campus.

Image: Disney / Marvel

For most Disney Parks fans, most every idea presented in that paragraph is objectionable, but the end result (Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!) is a thrilling, fun, laugh-out-loud romp through a comic book adventure (though even its most ardent defenders admit that it’s not exactly a brilliant, timeless, long-game decision; more based on stuffing flavor-of-the-week intellectual properties into the parks than any long-term consideration for storytelling or longevity.)

Image: Disney / Marvel

However, the storyline Rohde and his team concocted for the sci-fi superhero action ride is of The Collector, a mysterious intergalactic treasure hunter who has stolen artifacts from cultures across the cosmos, hoarding them in his palatial space fortress. We, as visitors, come to tour his vaults before boarding a Gantry Lift to view the tour’s highlight, leading to an unexpected free-fall plunge through the tower. Re-read that sentence, but omit any sci-fi vocabulary and… voila… you’ve got Tokyo’s Tower of Terror. Could Rohde and his team have simply repurposed Tokyo’s storyline to create their own “new Tower of Terror”? It sure seems that way.

In any case, it’s created a unique situation wherein three physically identical rides in the U.S., France, and Japan are each stylistically unique – which is why we placed them among our list of 6 Ride Clone Pairs You May Not Recognize.

Modern Marvel

Image: Disney

Tokyo’s Tower of Terror is a wonder. It brilliantly shattered the then-cemented standards of what a Tower of Terror could be, recasting the ride as a New York penthouse plot connected to a larger-than-life continuity across Disney Parks.

One phenomenal testament to the ride? Even though it’s structurally identical to the “cheaper” “cop-out” ride system designed for the Towers of Terror in California and France, it’s the rare Disney Parks fan who even bothers to point it out. The ride is so smartly wrapped and so well crafted, the “downgraded” ride system re-used bolt-for-bolt doesn’t feel like a drawback.

Image: Disney

Rather, Tokyo’s Tower of Terror manages to stand among the best – including feeling like a peer to the otherwise unreachable Walt Disney World original! Maybe it goes to show that story really can outweigh all else at Imagineering, proving what a phenomenal difference a creative investment can make.

What’s more, Tower of Terror is simply one more icon of Imagineering to call the Tokyo Disney Resort home – and, hopefully, one more reason to book your trip to see the original, one-of-a-kind wonders this exceptional and sought-after park has to offer.

But there are so many more adventures out there. Be sure to make the jump to our Legend Library to set course for another Modern Marvel, a beloved Lost Legend, or an inside look at a never-built Possibilityland that could've changed your favorite theme parks forever.

Image: TDR Explorer

 
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