Past projects: Tower of Terror

Sometimes I get really big ideas. Big ideas that need multiple drawings and longer brainstorms in order for me to convey them effectively.
These projects tend to be few and far between, as it is rare I have the time to invest into thinking about something for such a length of time.

More often than not, delays through work and education commitments see these projects massively ignored and eventually burnt out through expired motivations, but occasionally I have something reasonably complete to show for it!

This little project came about around the time when Disneyland Resort Paris announced it would be receiving its own version of the Tower of Terror. Watching the building take shape on forums and blogs was exciting enough to kick-start me into designing my own version.

In my version (as with the one in Tokyo) the Twilight Zone story overlay is dropped for a less specific ghost story. The tower hotel in this case was built upon a buried catacomb somewhere in France. Though not disturbed during the construction process, it was weakened and unstable.

The opening ceremony was a grand occasion. Ballroom, dining, the lot! The event was massively attended and the elevators were put into heavy use for the first time. As the catacombs gave way, the tower split down the middle. The spirits that had been entombed for generations were released and the party guests were trapped.

As a rider, you would enter the crumbling building and work your way around the ground floor lobby. After a quick line in the dining courtyard, you head inside and up to the second floor to board one of three elevators.

The ride would first visit a ballroom scene where the scene story is told. The elevator would then lower a few floors past foundations (an elevator than goes below foundations?!) and stop in front of the burial chamber. A few more lines of story dialogue and then the show room ceiling would cave in dramatically to re-enact the fateful night. The elevator would erupt up from the smoky mess abruptly and peak somewhere near the top floor suites... only to plummet in time with the hotels final collapse.

How would the problem of having a building with a huge split down the centre in rain have been solved? Who knows! But I’m not here to be realistic, I’m here to dream =)

All credits for actually thinking up the original hotel and tower drop concept go to Disney Imagineers of course. I’m just playing with their main idea.