01x04 - The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

[bunniefuu]

ANNOUNCER 1: Remain seated, please.

(in Spanish)

Please remain seated.

(lively music)

(elephants trumpeting)

MAN 1: The love of liberty.

(moans)

(screams)

NARRATOR:

If you've ever been to a Disney Park

and looked upwards,

there's a good chance you'll see

(firecracker crackles)

a tall tower piercing the sky!

And although none of these towers

look quite the same,

when it comes to the way they sound

-(creaking)

-(people screaming)

Well, that's the unmistakable squeal

of Disney Park's guests

being thrilled

as they plummet directly downwards

and upwards on one of the world's

most advanced drop rides.

NARRATOR:

With a theme lavished in Old Hollywood

ANNOUNCER 2: Hollywood, California.

It's an attraction that spans dimensions,

defies gravity,

and in some cases becomes

something else entirely.

You're welcome!

NARRATOR: But the true origins

of Disney's famous drop ride,

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

and later, Guardians

of the Galaxy, Mission: Breakout!

actually do begin in Old Hollywood itself,

the place where people have come

seeking fame and fortune

since the 1920s,

including a young Walt Disney,

who came over from Kansas City

to try his hand at becoming a big shot,

which obviously worked out pretty well.

REPORTER 1: This is the Walt Disney Studio

in California.

NARRATOR: And in 1989,

Disney paid tribute to this bygone era

with the grand opening of the Disney-MGM

Studios Theme Park in Florida.

-Which was appropriately

-Dedicated to Hollywood.

-And very soon it was clear

-The park was wildly successful.

REPORTER 2: Everyone gave the new studios

a big thumbs-up.

It greatly exceeded our expectations

on many levels.

NARRATOR: The park had made

such an impression

that Disney CEO Michael Eisner,

along with COO Frank Wells,

gave the order to

-Make it bigger.

-(audience cheer)

So, we were given the task to expand

the park to meet the guest demand.

So, what are we going to do

to expand this story?

We were working on what was a doubling

of the studio tour in Florida

as an expansion project.

NARRATOR:

Unlike their smaller Californian cousin,

in Florida, space is not an issue.

-However

-There are parameters.

We already know we are in 1930s,

1940s Hollywood.

GARY: That's a parameter.

NARRATOR: Also, it needed to be

based on an idea.

outside of the current Disney catalog

GARY: That's a parameter.

We also knew that the Walt Disney World

Resort needed another resort hotel.

NARRATOR: Oh, an actual hotel

as part of the attraction?

-That's a parameter. And

-What? There's another one?

Michael Eisner

was encouraging Imagineering

to produce some sort

of attraction that had

(people screaming)

a controlled-drop-type experience

for the audience.

(people screams)

That's a parameter.

NARRATOR: Well, being resourceful

as they are, the Imagineers wondered

-Could we have both?

-NARRATOR: Both?

A real guest resort hotel along

with an elevator-drop-type experience.

Because an elevator would be

perfectly in continuity

to being within a hotel.

NARRATOR:

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing

GARY: The Hollywood Tower Hotel.

It would fit the time and place setting,

it fits the glamor of Hollywood

at the time.

-NARRATOR: It also

-It just wasn't gonna work.

When I think of staying in a hotel,

I think of restful, quiet,

peaceful place to sleep in contrast to

(people screams)

the screams that you might hear

from a thrill attraction.

NARRATOR: Ah, restful.

So, with a "do not disturb" sign

put on that idea,

the concept, however,

requested a late check-out.

The hotel idea stayed.

NARRATOR:

And the elevator-drop concept, too.

But for that, guess who had a parameter.

Michael Eisner says,

"Well, I want the elevator doors

-to be able to open to the outside."

-Oh, my gosh.

Well, elevators don't move

when the doors are open. They stop.

-NARRATOR: Even still

-GARY: That's a parameter.

Why would elevator doors

open to the exterior of a building?

-Good question.

-Oh, yes.

But you have to admit

So, having elevator doors

that could open up

while you're 200 feet in the air,

and you have a view out over

Central Florida, that's cool.

-Who else is doing stuff like that?

-NARRATOR: Absolutely no one.

So, a drop ride based around an elevator

with doors that open to the outside world,

based on an acquired idea

that Disney could develop further.

All set in a "Golden Age

of Hollywood" style hotel

that's not actually a hotel.

Easy enough?

But if not an actual working hotel,

then what?

Perhaps it could be a haunted hotel.

NARRATOR: Well, there was already

The Haunted Mansion.

Not exactly a hotel,

but still, the haunted thing

was kind of covered.

So instead, they thought

You can have a ghost story

that's more the paranormal.

NARRATOR: Paranormal?

In that case,

you probably can't go past

-The Twilight Zone.

-MAN: Your next stop, The Twilight Zone.

NARRATOR: This iconic series

only ran for five years.

But for many, it's a classic

that was ahead of its time.

The Twilight Zone episodes

always revolved around ordinary people

-This machine is predicting our future.

-in ordinary situations

Do you think I could just

walk away from it?

where something extraordinary

happens to them.

Tonight's story on The Twilight Zone

is somewhat unique and calls

for a different kind of introduction.

It's, like, fantastic.

It's a fantastic TV series.

Somebody end this now!

NARRATOR:

But would it make a fantastic attraction?

This isn't just watching

an episode of The Twilight Zone.

We are now going to be in it.

Oh, yes, it's good. It's very good.

NARRATOR:

The Imagineers sprang into action

by kicking back

and watching all the episodes.

They watched every single episode

to try to find ideas for the attraction.

NARRATOR: And they did, but it wasn't

one specific episode.

There was something

they all had in common.

Invariably, the stories dealt

with ordinary people

in ordinary situations

that have an extraordinary thing

happen to them.

So, this idea of walking into a hotel

and confronting an elevator

that takes you to another dimension.

That's not fair.

That's the twist that provides

us a doorway into The Twilight Zone.

NARRATOR: Yeah, but first, they needed

to provide an elevator door

that opened to the outside

and an entire premise for why on Earth

you ended up in The Twilight Zone.

-But not to worry.

-Coulter.

NARRATOR: Chief architect on the project,

Coulter Winn

I'm an Imagineer.

NARRATOR:

Well, he'd work it out, wouldn't he?

So, one of the first ideas

I came up with was,

"Well, I'm gonna make it look like

an earthquake hit this building

and part of it

collapsed in this calamity."

And Michael Eisner comes in,

looks at my illustration on the wall,

and goes, "I hate it."

First thing I did is

I call Michael Sprout up.

I'm what's called the the show writer.

I'm thinking, I'm gonna lose my job.

I've only been here for a couple of years,

but I tell him the story

of what went wrong.

I go, "Can't we make some

sort of phenomenon

or something to dissolve part

of this building?

Can't we do something?"

'Cause, you know, this sort of,

like, seems it didn't work out.

NARRATOR: And Michael Sprout thought

If we could actually put you

in The Twilight Zone,

-this would be something unique.

-NARRATOR: But how?

"Hey, maybe there's

spiritual phenomenon out there

that caused this building to disappear."

-NARRATOR: And like all the best ideas

-It was like lightning strike.

-And it couldn't have been more perfect.

-NARRATOR: And the idea

This bolt of lightning

strikes the side of the building.

NARRATOR:

Oh, it was a bolt of lightning. Right!

A lightning bolt phenomenon

hits the building,

vaporizes part of the building.

The guests

The elevator with the five guests,

you know, vanishes.

To get that feeling of weightlessness

in the pit of their stomach.

NARRATOR: But would Coulter

dare present this idea to Michael Eisner?

Michael Eisner loved it.

-NARRATOR: With his idea well received

-Oh, yeah.

-and his job secure

-I felt much better.

The Twilight Zone Tower

of Terror attraction was all systems go.

We were off and running.

NARRATOR: Now they had to work out

the most logical way

to create the ride system.

-But there was a problem.

-NARRATOR: What? Already?

There's an elevator drops

in a lot of parks.

And it kind of starts at the top,

and it just rolls down,

and then you roll out, and you slow down

as you go around the ground.

NARRATOR:

Well, that actually sounds kind of fun.

-It's not what we wanted.

-NARRATOR: Right, sure.

You wanna have that scary feeling.

Tower of Terror was designed

to make you think it was an elevator,

to feel like an elevator.

NARRATOR: Yeah, an elevator falling.

Elevator breaks loose and falls.

It doesn't go out like that, it goes down,

and it has to stop

before you hit the ground.

(screeches)

We could scare you to death in this thing.

NARRATOR: Now that sounds fun?

But nothing's as fun

as an office field trip.

We went to an elevator manufacturer.

COULTER: So, imagine if a bunch

of Disney Imagineers come in and say,

"Hey, we want you

to help us build this attraction

where the elevator falls."

And then they look at you

like you're crazy.

We went to their tower

that was 300 feet tall, and they said

"You know, 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."

NARRATOR:

But the question was could it be done?

BOB: They said, "All we have to do

is take off the mechanism

that required this thing to slow down

to normal building standards."

As the Imagineers

and one elevator engineer,

who's gonna control this fall,

he hits the fall

-and screams.

-(screams)

(people screaming)

The elevator doors open,

BOB: Imagineers are all there,

the elevator guys are saying,

"What did you think?"

NARRATOR:

And Bob Weis could only muster four words.

It's not fast enough.

We realized that for you

to feel that you're falling,

it has to pull you, not drop you.

NARRATOR: So, throwing the laws of gravity

out the window, if that's even possible,

the Imagineers devised a concept

that would put Isaac Newton to shame.

This vehicle's design

has cables that are attached to the top

and the bottom of the cab.

Whichever way the huge motors up

on top move is the way you move.

TJ: It actually pulls you down

faster than the acceleration of gravity.

NARRATOR: Faster than gravity?

Gravity doesn't pull you down,

the ride is pulling you down.

NARRATOR:

Now the Imagineers had defied gravity

and were bending the laws

of nature to their will.

All the rules are off.

NARRATOR: Developing an incredibly

powerful motorized pulley system,

they soon discovered that what goes down

must also come up at incredible speed

and then down again.

All heck breaks loose

as you start to go up and down.

NARRATOR: Nice! That'll work.

They're always pulling one rabbit

out of the hat after another.

NARRATOR: But for their next trick,

they'd need more than magic,

because they wanted to go

Into the fifth dimension.

The elevator needed

to leave the elevator shaft.

NARRATOR: Leave? What on Earth?

-Now you're going horizontally

-GARY: And that alone informs the guests

that we're now moving

into the fifth dimension,

and we have absolutely no idea

what's going to happen.

NARRATOR: But the Imagineers did.

The fifth dimension

was based on technology.

That is, an autonomous vehicle,

sits on top of essentially

a lifting platform,

a vertical vehicle conveyance platform.

NARRATOR:

And this patented trackless ride system

allowed guests to board a bank of seats

that could go, well,

wherever they wanted to.

Those vehicles are actually following

the little eighth of an inch guide wire

that's underneath the concrete.

It picks up a signal and it follows that.

NARRATOR: So, to summarize

The way Tower of Terror in Florida

is designed,

you basically have

two independent ride systems

that are sitting side by side

in the building.

NARRATOR: Guests who dared enter

the attraction would walk into a

-Autonomous vehicle.

-that would move onto a

-Vertical vehicle conveyance platform.

-NARRATOR: Right.

MIKE: So, as guests come up

through the load shaft,

once they get to the fifth dimension

NARRATOR: That trackless ride system

kicks in, and you go

Across the building floor.

NARRATOR: As you do, driving about in

the fifth dimension, which leads you to

The drop shaft.

NARRATOR:

Where you plummet upwards and downwards.

In the dark, several times,

before it finally gets to the basement

level where it backs out,

basically allows guests to unload.

NARRATOR: Then returning you back

to the third dimension,

or otherwise known as real life,

the place where construction

on the brand-new,

200-foot-tall tower was happening.

-It was gonna be taller.

-We ended up maxing out at 199 feet 11.

NARRATOR: And the reason why?

Any building over 200 feet tall,

internationally,

has to have a flashing

red aircraft warning light on it.

That really wasn't gonna work

with our abandoned hotel story.

Tonight's story on The Twilight Zone

is somewhat unique

and calls for a different

So, we literally design the building

to 199 feet, 11 inches and change.

Just to avoid having to have the blinky

red light on top of the building.

NARRATOR: Well, if not a big, red,

blinking aviation light,

then what would be up there?

COULTER: One of the things

I was really tasked to do

was to give this a scary profile.

Now, you think of Mickey Mouse.

Mickey is three circles.

Circles are friendly, they're endearing.

But spiky, pointy things are not.

They're very off-putting,

you know, kind of eerie.

And you get the silhouette of the chimneys

or the finials and all the spires.

NARRATOR: So, as Coulter worked

to terrify onlookers

Yeah, right now,

it's just beginning to take shape.

You look to the top of the building,

you'll be able to see a little

more of the architecture.

NARRATOR:

But not just any old architecture.

It's got that Pueblo Deco style

that's very Hollywood.

NARRATOR: Ah, Pueblo Deco,

infused elements of Art Deco

and Pueblo Revival design.

YOUNG COULTER: Which is a real style,

but what we're doing

is trying to communicate

with the existing Hollywood

backlot architecturally.

NARRATOR: And to work that out,

well, they had another office field trip.

So, of course, we looked at hotels

that might be inspiration,

hotels in Los Angeles

that would fit the time and place setting,

and that all sort of fed

into developing that hotel story for us.

NARRATOR: A story that mostly took place

inside the building.

Then we brought in this

whole Hollywood glamor,

you know, the "Golden Age

of Hollywood" feel.

COULTER: The interior lobby

for Tower of Terror Florida

is reminiscent of the elegance

of those days,

but it's also kind of creepy.

Our set decorators

scoured estate sales, scoured shops,

did everything they could to find keys

or a tie-in,

even an overt nod to specific episodes.

It's nothing like seeing it in real life.

NARRATOR: Whether the guests notice

this level of detail and overt nodding

-You may never know.

-NARRATOR: What we do know

is that in their pursuit

of replicating that very special era

-Hollywood in the 1930s.

-the Imagineers had a lot of fun

with the Disney credit card

at the antiques store.

And by the summer of 1994

-We're getting there.

-they were getting there.

Now, as for the story

they were constructing

GREG: The story that we had come up with

was in an elevator cab,

this group of five people

are riding up the elevator,

this bolt of lightning strikes

the side of the building

and creates this amazing energy

that courses through the building,

culminating in the complete

disappearance of those people

from inside the elevator.

The lights and the thunder,

and they would just

-(electricity crackles)

-totally disappear.

The doors open, we enter into what looks

to be like maybe a maintenance elevator,

and we sit down, and we realize

People had been there five seconds before,

and they just vanished.

This may not turn out well for us.

NARRATOR: Yep, it might not.

Really. It was a plot

that could have come out of any episode.

This town happens to lie

on the outskirts of The Twilight Zone.

Tower of Terror was a film noir.

Right? A mystery.

An exploration.

So, a buildup of tension, and

And by the time you're sort of

having the story and story and story,

and then you're like, boom!

NARRATOR: So, true to this formula

Wouldn't it be great

if we could get Joe Dante

who had directed a portion

of The Twilight Zone movie?

And action!

NARRATOR: Now all they needed was

Rod Serling himself,

the creator and host of The Twilight Zone.

Really, they couldn't do it without him.

Sadly, he had passed away about 20 years

before our attraction opened,

which makes it challenging on

how do you put

make it authentically

a Rod Serling attraction.

NARRATOR:

Oh, come on. These are Imagineers.

They defied gravity

and the various dimensions in general.

They'll work something out.

Using digital technology

and a wonderful voice-over actor

who provides the voice for Rod

calls for a different

kind of introduction.

This is, as you may recognize,

is a maintenance service elevator.

NARRATOR: But the question was,

did they deliver

an authentic Twilight Zone experience?

As we visit the hotel today,

everything looks like it was left

just as it was at that moment

when the bolt of lightning struck.

GREG: And there is a staff of people

still working in the hotel.

And it seemed like

they're in on something.

And then, suddenly, the lights go down,

and there's a flicker

on an old television up in the corner.

And there appears Rod Serling.

Tonight's story on The Twilight Zone

is somewhat unique and calls

for a different kind of introduction.

And so, now it's up to you,

if you're brave enough,

to board one of the elevators.

NARRATOR: Well, on July 22nd, 1994,

people were very much brave enough

to go on The Twilight Zone

Tower of Terror.

Something very strange is going on

at Disney-MGM Studios.

Screams have been heard coming

from a 200-foot

-A hundred ninety-nine feet eleven.

-tower jutting into the sky.

Checking in to this hotel will make

your hair stand on end.

And for the rest of the '90s,

hairs stayed on end.

And Tower of Terror became one

of the most popular attractions

at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

-I won't ride again today.

-I will.

NARRATOR: And soon,

at other Disney Parks around the world.

Tower of Terror

for Florida was so popular,

we knew we had to put it in other places.

GREG: So, Disney's California Adventure,

when we had the opportunity

to expand and add it there.

NARRATOR: But as that park expanded,

for California Adventure,

the attraction shrunk a little.

California has three individual

show scenes,

all of which can be working at any time

and eliminates the need

for two very expensive other shafts

to have to be built.

It can do the whole thing with one.

Much more efficient.

NARRATOR:

But if you're looking for efficiency,

across the Pacific Ocean in Japan,

a new and exciting park was opening.

But unlike the original Tokyo Disneyland,

which was basically where they

Take Disneyland and move it to Tokyo.

NARRATOR:

That wouldn't work this time because

The Japanese know nothing

about The Twilight Zone series.

It's irrelevant to them.

This, as you may recognize,

is a map of the United States.

They knew that they had to come up

with a different story.

And what they decided to do

was to create a unique story,

unique to Tokyo DisneySea.

We created this story

about this interesting man.

GREG: Harrison Hightower III

is this wealthy explorer

who loved to travel and go

to different lands throughout the world

and collect artifacts.

Basically, pillage cultures.

On one of his adventures,

he found this idol called Shiriki Utundu.

He takes it

before the natives can stop him.

He whisks it away takes it

with him back to his hotel.

Looking at his idol in his penthouse

at the top of the tower,

and it came to life,

pushed him down the elevator.

-The elevator crashed.

-(electricity crackles)

DANIEL: But when they pulled apart

the elevator,

there was no one inside

except for the idol, Shiriki Utundu.

NARRATOR: Well, a convincing story

is one thing, but to really get this done,

they couldn't do it alone.

So, with a simple call to the wild

help came, stumbling out of the mountains

in the form of this guy.

JOE: An artist, a painter, a sculptor,

and a set designer.

-NARRATOR: He's also a professor and

-I'm an Imagineer.

I have been for almost 40 years.

NARRATOR: As the lead Imagineer

on Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park,

-Joe is a veritable lion among Imagineers.

-(lion growls)

I'm a storyteller who works

with real materials to tell stories.

All I've ever heard about Joe Rohde

is that he's a genius.

I don't write and I don't use film.

My stories are created with real stuff.

You go to Animal Kingdom,

that is Joe on a plate.

NARRATOR:

He also put Mount Everest in a theme park,

specifically Expedition Everest

at Disney's Animal Kingdom.

I had just gotten back from the Himalayas

because I was working

on Expedition Everest.

JOE: I had this great big beard.

NARRATOR: Instead of requesting designs

from this legendary bearded Imagineer

They requested that I model

for one corbel.

-NARRATOR: Sorry, a what?

-A corbel.

NARRATOR: Oh, yeah, a corbel.

A kind of bracket for a building

made out of art.

That's the thing.

NARRATOR: But it's a thing that remains

firmly in one place.

On the outside of the building,

there's a place where this window comes up

and there's this scowling face

built into the corbel.

And I have a good scowl-y forehead,

and so I was used as the model

for this scowling face.

And then the next thing it turned into

was architectural elements like murals

and stained glass windows

and whole installations.

So that in the end, there's something

like a thousand images of my face

as this character all over that building.

It's very peculiar.

So I ended up sh**ting

all these Japanese language commercials

as Harrison Hightower.

-(screaming)

-(electricity crackles)

MAN 2: Tower of Terror!

A very, very odd experience.

NARRATOR:

But while Joe's beard was big in Japan,

heading westward to a place

that specializes in towers,

Disneyland Paris was looking

to build a new one, American style.

Paris is identical to California.

The only big change is that

it's a concrete building, not steel.

NARRATOR: Oh, la, la.

They built buildings out of concrete.

NARRATOR: But it's not just the world's

most romantic building material or city.

Things are a little different in France.

So, we looked at the story

that was in there and said,

"You know, let's pull

a character out of that story."

And there's a little girl

that's featured in that story.

Let's make her the star now of the ride

and have her sort of step

out of The Twilight Zone static and say,

"I wouldn't go in there if I were you."

-NARRATOR: With nothing more terrifying

-I wouldn't go in there

-if I were you.

-than a creepy kid,

Disneyland Paris was set,

and Tower of Terror

was on all four corners of the globe.

REPORTER 3: Thirteen-story Twilight Zone

Tower of Terror.

ROD: Wave goodbye to the real world.

NARRATOR:

And the little scary girl's warning

I wouldn't go in there if I were you.

was thoroughly ignored.

(people screaming)

NARRATOR: And for the coming decade

It is one of the most popular attractions

at Disney California Adventure.

-Disneyland Paris.

-(people scream)

-JEANETTE: Walt Disney World

-Tokyo DisneySea

People loved it.

NARRATOR:

And they kept loving it year after year.

Guests came back again and again

as the Tower of Terror

stood proudly as a beacon

of unchanging, terrifying perfection.

One might assume that

it would stay that way forever.

However

-Walt Disney said

-Disneyland will never be complete.

NARRATOR: He also said

There will always be

something new and unusual.

-Right.

-Right?

-Right.

-Mm-hm.

NARRATOR: Well, it just so happened that

the Disney California Adventure Park

was looking to have a new

and unusual attraction

up and running by Memorial Day 2017,

which was only about 11 months away.

Oh, my.

Clearly not enough time

to build a new attraction from scratch,

the Imagineers set their sights

on taking an existing attraction

and sprucing it up a little.

And some people call this reprogramming.

-Or

-NARRATOR: Sprucing up?

-Changing up.

-NARRATOR: Good enough.

And now you have the opportunity

to take something that the guest

already knows as an experience

and give them something

that they weren't expecting.

NARRATOR: As for working out

which attraction that would be,

they turned to the model Imagineer,

-or at least the guy who modeled

-For one corbel.

But this time,

they wanted him to take just one look

at the Disney California Adventure Park.

Joe is always game

for any kind of experience.

NARRATOR: And one such experience

was when he partnered with Jeanette Lomboy

to create Aulani,

a Disney resort and spa in Hawaii.

I think to create these places

that are based on culture

and have this richness and depth,

you have to be that.

NARRATOR: So, with that

Memorial Day 2017 deadline looming,

Disney approached these

cultural specialists and asked

Uh, so how about we convert

Tower of Terror by Memorial Day?

Although not exactly in his wheelhouse,

the legendary Imagineer

must have been between projects, so

That's the same day

I am opening Pandora: The World of Avatar.

NARRATOR: So, not between projects at all.

(speaking Na'vi)

NARRATOR: Because this expansive world,

being built in Florida, mind you,

had Joe's hands very full, so

-So

-(screaming)

How's that gonna work?

NARRATOR: Putting that impressive

furrowed brow to good use

I have a common, initial, cranky response.

NARRATOR:

But he thought he'd have a look anyway.

And using

those Animal Kingdom instincts

I approach from behind,

so I'm not really seeing the theming

of the building.

JOE: Just a mass. And

NARRATOR: And, as he looked upwards,

Joe Rohde realized

It's not that hard to get this

to not look like a hotel anymore.

It only looks like a hotel

because of the superficial additions

we've put on it.

If I remove those, it becomes anything.

-NARRATOR: Anything?

-Anything.

NARRATOR: Turning that brow upside down,

Joe Rohde was on board,

-only slightly reluctantly.

-(muttering)

And so, we literally sat down and said

"Okay, what could Tower

of Terror be?" Well

There's not a lot of time.

We don't have a lot of time

to do this job.

Let's try to make the job easy.

NARRATOR:

Well, a little bit of good timing

would at least

make their decision-making easier.

Fortunately for us,

Guardians of the Galaxy

was coming out with a second film,

and, actually, we both liked the movie.

Because I like the irreverent,

self-referential,

let's have fun with the form.

That is fertile. That's gonna pay off.

And then things cascade very rapidly.

And then it is kind of like an epiphany.

JOE: Where you look at the building,

and suddenly,

you can see through the building

to the bones of the building.

Like, "Oh, it could be like

some kind of fortress."

And if it was a fortress,

who has a fortress?

NARRATOR: Well, this character,

the Collector, played by Benicio del Toro,

-he has a fortress.

-That could be interesting.

NARRATOR: With the deadline looming,

things seemed to be clicking into place.

-Click, click, click.

-(finger snaps)

NARRATOR: See? Especially because

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

was due to hit the big screen

on May 5th, 2017.

Just three weeks before

-Memorial Day.

-on May 29.

Are you kidding me?

NARRATOR:

And much like the original attraction,

-filmed elements would be needed.

-Tower Hotel.

But unlike the high-tech

reincarnation of Rod Serling

Different kind of introduction.

this time, they didn't need

the fifth dimension.

They were in production

NARRATOR:

Just a four-hour flight to Atlanta.

Which meant there were cameras

and actors ready.

So we need to storyboard now.

Like now, in the next three weeks.

'Cause when we hit the ground,

we need to know what we're sh**ting.

-NARRATOR: So, what were you sh**ting?

-Something, right?

-NARRATOR: Right.

-Okay, let's see

if we can create a premise

that makes sense.

NARRATOR:

And here's what they came up with.

JEANETTE: The Guardians are stuck

in Tivan's fortress.

They're part of the collection,

and Rocket wants to get them out,

so he needs our guests

to come and free them out.

-That's kind of interesting.

-It just worked.

It was like everything fell out of the sky

and it magically worked

because it's funny.

-That is true!

-Well, look at Rocket.

-Rocket's filled with antics, right?

-That is also true!

NARRATOR: Well, ready or not,

it was time for action.

Amy Jupiter called me and told me

that there was this plan

to re-skin the Tower of Terror.

And taking all of the parts and pieces

and reimagining

what you could do with them.

And everybody was really excited

about that.

It was a huge opportunity

to partner with James Gunn

and being able to partner

with the film talent.

They shot the entire thing

with the genlocked cameras all together,

so that later, they could do moves in post

that could mirror the perspective

of where the audience would be sitting.

Cut! Great. Okay!

NARRATOR: But a wrap for the actors

was just the beginning for the Imagineers.

They had a ride mechanism to modify.

We did not have time

to modify the ride mechanism.

NARRATOR: You didn't? So

So the ride mechanism is exactly the same.

NARRATOR:

So how would it be different, then?

Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

is all aiming at this feeling

of scream-y fear ride.

NARRATOR: Well, why would that not work

for Guardians?

Not appropriate

to Guardians of the Galaxy.

We needed different emotion.

We need laughter.

(laughs)

And we need a gleeful kind of scream.

-(man screams)

-(Rocket laughs)

NARRATOR: Well, if you want to change

a scream from this

-Boo, drop, horror.

-to this

We needed to change the physics

of the up-and-down part.

NARRATOR: Ah, changing the physics.

Well, that sure takes us back.

Back to the brilliance

of the original Imagineers

-for the project.

-It goes down.

Who not only changed

the laws of physics, but

The up-and-down part.

-NARRATOR: If only there was a way

-Change the physics.

-to find out what they knew

-I'm an Imagineer.

-and just how they did it

-I'm an Imagineer.

NARRATOR:

Oh, hang on. Maybe there is a way.

We had to gather together

the original architects and designers

who worked on this thing originally.

That's me.

And we are going to grill them

like prisoners.

Actually

What is safe to deal with

in terms of schedule?

How does that thing really work?

NARRATOR: Well, by any means necessary

-How far can we push it?

-Joe Rohde

What can be done with that building

-in this amount of time?

-got answers

from whoever was left

that he didn't scare off.

NARRATOR: With the physics lecture over,

Professor Rohde wrote the new rules.

We changed the top of the physics

of that arc so you hover more.

Like, the hang time where you're like

(gasps)

breathing.

Breathing happens there.

You do, you know, still fall,

but you spend a lot more free fall time.

-Right?

-NARRATOR: Right.

Right?

NARRATOR: This altering

of the existing mechanism resulted

in a wildly different experience.

It was amazing to us, all the things

you could do with the motion.

And then the music would fill it.

NARRATOR: Ah, yes, the music.

It's a big part of the movies.

JEANETTE: When we landed on great music

from Guardians of the Galaxy,

I thought to myself, that's it!

(finger snaps)

I think this could really work

in a way that's never been seen

or done before in any park.

NARRATOR: So, music it is. But what music?

(clatters)

NARRATOR: The soundtrack

to Guardians of the Galaxy

is very important to the storyline, but

How do you bring music into an attraction

that didn't have music before?

NARRATOR: And how would they choose

just one song?

And some of them were, like,

iconic songs that you were like,

"This is gonna be so great."

NARRATOR: Well, the Imagineers

took this part of their job

very seriously.

So, we would ride at night.

To find something

that really wanted to say

It's gotta be a certain tempo.

A certain speed.

-Disruption, irreverence, a driving beat.

-It's gotta have a certain feel to it.

And the timing. Like, you know,

you only have a certain amount of time.

NARRATOR: With a certain amount of time

and an infinite amount of music

AMY: We would ride and ride and ride.

I was screaming bloody m*rder

the entire time.

We would ride a lot. A lot.

Pass. I think I'm done.

NARRATOR:

With an unhelpfully long shortlist,

the Imagineers and Joe Rohde

began to realize

I'm might be able to afford

two versions of this show.

NARRATOR: So, two versions of the ride

with two different songs?

I'm not buying it.

NARRATOR: Hmm.

Well, not quite satisfied with just two,

Joe went back and reassessed the budget.

I can afford six.

NARRATOR: So that's what they did.

Six uniquely programmed experiences

for six completely different songs,

randomized so no one knows

which one they'll get.

Each profile,

each of the six different songs

has its own unique profile,

so it's different

every time you get to go on it.

It's randomized, so we don't even know

what you're gonna get

until you actually get on it.

NARRATOR:

Well, soon enough, people did get on it.

We've been looking forward to this moment

for quite a long time.

-NARRATOR: Because on May 27th, 2017,

-Memorial Day.

it finally opened.

ANNOUNCER 3: We now pronounce Pandora:

The World of Avatar open.

NARRATOR:

Oh, yeah. That opened that day, too.

And somehow, Joe even managed to make it

to the grand opening of both.

I hope not to have to repeat

this travel schedule again in my career.

NARRATOR: Well, when Guardians

of the Galaxy, Mission: Breakout!

finally launched directly upwards

-MAN 3: This is so cool!

-and downwards,

the Disney California Adventure Park

would never be the same again.

-It was a

-Well?

-Thankfully, it was a hit.

-NARRATOR: Of course, it was.

In less than a year,

the Imagineers had turned

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

into what could well have been

a completely new attraction.

DAVE: And you see it there, it's like,

"Oh, yeah, this was just built.

This is amazing."

NARRATOR:

And when the first guests entered,

any doubts anyone had Guardians

of the Galaxy, Mission: Breakout!

went out the window.

See? There they go.

(screaming)

People really doubted.

Our guests really doubted

that this was gonna be an attraction

-that they wanted to get on.

-Until it opened.

NARRATOR:

And there's a very good reason for that.

Because it's good. It's good.

NARRATOR: Because at the end of the day

We do these things,

we do them for the guests.

-NARRATOR: And they'll keep doing them.

-Well, hello, boys.

NARRATOR:

In fact, the Guardians of the Galaxy

have become so popular in California

that there are very big plans

for their next big adventure.

This time, in Epcot, Florida.

Guardians: Cosmic Rewind is going

to be one of the biggest attractions

Imagineering has ever done.

NARRATOR: Not to mention Stark Expo

at Hong Kong Disneyland,

and Avengers Campuses

at Disneyland Resort and Disneyland Paris.

-And really, the sky's the limit.

-NARRATOR: Is it, though?

A hundred ninety-nine feet eleven.

NARRATOR: That's more like it.

In whatever form this attraction takes,

these four towers now stand proudly

in four Disney Parks around the world.

But it was only when Imagineers

took the time to

See the bones of the building

and what else it could be.

NARRATOR: It became clear that like

many of life's great lessons,

it's what's inside that counts,

especially when it's

A very large motor

pulling a vehicle up and down.

NARRATOR: And it's the Imagineers who

built this gravity-defying mechanism

That's me.

who laid the groundwork

for unlimited storytelling.

You can take the same typewriter

and tell a horror story or a comedy.

The typewriter's just a tool.

It's what you do

with that tool that counts.

NARRATOR:

And this heavy-duty storytelling tool

was not only able to change the rules

of gravity, but also people's lives.

You just do your job,

but it's more than that.

CÉDRIC: That's the most great experience.

When the kids come back,

they give you a hug and give you the gift

that you're not supposed to deserve

because you just do your job.

I could cry for that.

We don't think enough about how important

these projects are to people

as an Imagineer.

JOE: It's a chance for you

to make something come together

and mean something

and maybe bring meaning to the world.

NARRATOR: Maybe.

However, there is one other theory

about why people like it so much.

Be it The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

or the Guardians

of the Galaxy, Mission: Breakout!

this attraction is really

(screaming)

really, really, really quite fun!

And thanks for choosing

the Hollywood Tower Hotel

for your next vacations.

(people screaming)

(lively music)