TowerOfTerror.org
Design
Design
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One problem - how can this fit into the Disney-MGM Studios? No volcanoes or Jules Verne in 1940, no western geysers.... it needs to be a TV or movie theme to tie in with the park. How about a hollywood hotel? A ghost train? Haunted House? The Twilight Zone? Aha! As the ideas started to come together, the plot revolved around a studio wrap party in a modern day hotel, where the owner started to kill the guests. Management knocked this back straight away due to the murder storyline. Next up was a narrated by Vincent Price (who had just recorded the original Disneyland Paris Phantom Manor narration.) with a part walk through, part ride about a group of movie stars staying in a hotel and who disappeared during a storm. As the walk through progressed, clues would tell the story bit by bit, until you enter | ||
| an elevator and what happened becomes all to obvious - and its too late to get out. | |||
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Eisner liked this story, but wanted the guests to be more involved. And so the Twilight Zone theme was worked in, with guests starring in their own `lost` episode (afterall, this is a movie park.) The ride through portion of the attraction became the queue area - hence its great theming and little clues all around - and the boiler room holding area. Twilight Zone themes were worked into the attraction, but it became apparent the original freefall ride vehicle would have to do a lot more. Disney initially involved Otis elevators, who balked at the idea of a freefall car - they had spent 140 years making elevators feel like they were stationary. Disney now knew they would have to start from scratch! |
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| Design for the area was quite intense. In front of the Tower today looms two rather imunous stone structures. Their practical function is to house restrooms, but they are almost exact replicas of the monuments that act as gates at the end of Hollywood's Beachwood Drive.
In California, the mountains directly above these gates are home to the famed Hollywood sign, originally built to advertise a real-estate development called Hollywoodland. The gates mark the entrance to this hillside collection of homes and cottages. Ametal sign on the smaller, left hand gate proclaims, "Hollywoodland, Est. 1923." Disney-MGM Studios designers copied this L.A. landmark down to the last detail - almost. At the Studios, the metal sign reads, "Hollywood Hills Estates," a fictional housing development. |
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The Fifth Dimension idea played a strong part of the story from the beginning - and it became the ideal transition from Ride shaft to drop shaft (early plans called for the 5th Dimension floor to be in the basement, having descended from the corridor scene, and then to rise to the top of the building and move into the drop shaft without a show scene.) To maximise capacity without duplicating everything it was decided to have 4 ride shafts but only 2 drop shafts. This, and the 5th Dimension transition, called for a new type of ride vehicle. Imagineering had to have an elevator car, but one that could also move horizontally. The answer? The AGV, or Autonomous Guided Vehicle. A self controlling self contained ride vehicle, that could move without track. Although the 5th Dimension floor has guideways for traction, the vehicle itself runs on its own wheels along the floor. Such a vehicle needed to have onboard power, with fast charging. Inductive power coupling was designed for EPCOT Centers Universe of Energy travelling theatre cars by Inductran Corp, and can recharge onboard batteries without a physical connection. This technology was refined for Tower of Terror, and also used later in Tokyo Disneyland`s Poohs Honey Hunt. Onboard computers follow a pre programmed ride path, and `talk` to the RCS (Ride Control System) via RF (a wireless frequency). A secondary tracking system follows a wire embedded in the floor to keep track of the AGV`s location (again, like the Universe of Enegy`s original tracking system), and these can easily trigger a 101 (ride shutdown) if a carelessly discarded park map comes between it and the underside of the AGV. |
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| But how can a machine like the AGV fall faster than terminal velocity? Have a second ride vehicle! As the AGV guides itself into the ride shaft to ascend to the boiler room (load) level, it slots into a larger `elevator` - the VVC, or Vertical Vehicle Conveyance. This is an elevator car in the true sense, complete with cables and wheels, albeit with wire mesh for walls. It is this that lifts the AGV up through the corridor scene, and to the 5th Dimension level. As the AGV transfers horizontally, the VVC returns to the basement level to receive the next AGV that is unloading its guests. For the drop shaft, a beefed up VVC is employed - enough to take the rigours |
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of accelerated freefall, and with a pulley system not just on its roof to lift it like a conventional elevator, but a complete loop of cable that also pulls the entire carriage downwards as well as up - hence faster than gravity.
| Early Development |
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