“Good ideas never die at Imagineering.” That may be true… but it doesn’t mean some aren’t buried deep in the archives… But as movies and television shows unleash a multiverse of alternate realities and unusual potentialities into the mainstream, it’s worth asking those two words Imagineers love: “What if?”
Today, we’re taking a whirlwind tour of 9 Disney “classics” that almost looked a whole lot different from the rides we know and love today. These nine attractions started out their development in a whole different form before evolving for the better… or sometimes, worse. Take a look through these archived alternatives and try to imagine how they might have changed the parks forever if they had come to be…
1. A Haunted Mansion… walkthrough?
In 1963, a stately white plantation house appeared on the banks of Disneyland’s Rivers of America, in what would soon become New Orleans Square. But what was inside the house? No one knew… including Walt Disney! At the time, concepts for the Mansion mostly revolved around a guided, walkthrough experience where groups of guests would be toured from room to room by a grim butler or maid.
During their visit, guests would learn the somber and spooky “history” of the home and its hauntings. Many legendary Disney designers offered up potential plots for the home, like a family cursed with bad luck, a piratical sea captain with a dark secret, or a “Museum of the Weird” containing otherworldly objects and paranormal relics. Each room would unravel the story further, culminating in a special effect or surprise, scaring guests onward to the next chamber.
But the 1964 – 65 New York World’s Fair and 1967’s New Tomorrowland moved the Haunted Mansion to Imagineering’s back-burner. When Walt Disney died in December 1966, he still hadn’t firmly decided what should go into the big, empty house. Ultimately, the marvelous Omnimover ride system designed for Tomorrowland’s Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space provided a high-capacity solution that a walkthrough couldn’t, but in an alternate universe, guests still touring the Haunted Mansion room-by-room as otherworldly special effects unfurl around them…
2. Tower of Terror… with a serial killer?
The road to the Tower of Terror is a long one, and we’re not just talking about Sunset Blvd. Once designers settled on building a drop ride at the Disney-MGM Studios, the very first concepts placed the ride in the ruins of an old Hollywood hotel. Similarities to the ride we know today, though, pretty much end there.
First of all, this ride would’ve used Intamin’s first-generation Freefall ride technology – essentially, carts of four guests would be lifted to the top of a tower, pushed forward to align with rails on the tower’s frame, then released to slide down the tower, curving out at the bottom to end on their backs. Pretty rudimentary by today’s standards. But even weirder, the ride’s first storyline saw guests terrorized by a serial killer who’d set up camp in the abandoned hotel!
Seriously… the original concept allegedly revolved around a silent film director who’d gone mad when the advent of sound pictures made his artform obsolete. Evidence of the killer stalking guests through the queue would culminate when – at the top of the tower – lightning flashes would reveal the killer atop the elevator shaft, scissors in hand. With a maniacal laugh, the madman would snip the cable, sending guests plummeting. Ultimately, The Twilight Zone served as the perfect homage to American television and to the eerie sci-fi horror genre, but in some alternate universe, this rickey ole’ Tower is leaving guests screaming just the same.
3. A Pirates… wax museum?
Just like its fellow New Orleans Square project, the Haunted Mansion, Disneyland’s Pirates attraction went through quite a few design iterations. The most well-documented, though, is its time in production as a wax museum.
The “basements” of New Orleans Square were initially dug out to house that version of the attraction, which would’ve allowed guests to freely tour through an indoor Caribbean village and docked pirate vessel under permanent night skies. Disney Legend Marc Davis was asked to take a look at the concept, reforming it into a more structured, interactive walkthrough so that guests would pass through six staged scenes telling a historic story.
Why didn’t it happen? Like with Haunted Mansion, Walt and company were called away to the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair, where capacity was key. Playing with “company money” thanks to deep-pocketed sponsors, WED used the fair to develop three of Disney’s highest capacity ride systems, including the extremely efficient flume system powering “it’s a small world.” The Pirates of the Caribbean ride we know today benefits from that innovation, and since it was the last ride overseen by Walt (he died just three months before its debut), we can be sure that the boat ride is exactly as he wanted it.
4. A Little Mermaid… suspended dark ride?
Have you ever noticed that even though the 1990s’ Disney Renaissance remains the most celebrated period in the company’s animation history, very few of its generation-defining hit films have become rides? After the runaway success of 1989’s The Little Mermaid, plans began to take shape for how the ride could come to Disney Parks.
The ride Imagineers created was a suspended dark ride (like Peter Park’s Flight). But rather than taking to the skies, the ride system would be reused to take the seas. The conch shell vehicles would appear to float when departing the station, but then dive beneath the “water” to begin an Under the Sea singalong. We know exactly what this ride would’ve entailed because a full-length computer rendering of it was created for Platinum Edition DVD of The Little Mermaid released in 2006 (below)!
Why didn’t it happen? Suffice it to say that this Little Mermaid ride was planned to make its worldwide debut at… Disneyland Paris. Trouble is, when the French park opened in 1992, it was a financial failure, obliterating plans to expand the park – and in fact, dooming a decade worth of would-be projects across the entire Parks division. In 2011, a Little Mermaid dark ride finally debuted at Disney California Adventure (set in a turn-of-the-century aquarium on the park’s Paradise Bay). It’s got a lot in common with the ‘90s concept, but uses the grounded Omnimover ride system.
5. STAR TOURS… the roller coaster?
In the 1980s, Michael Eisner stepped in as CEO of Walt Disney Productions with a heavy-handed mission: to make Disney Parks relevant. As part of that goal, Eisner was willing to reach beyond Disney’s catalogue of characters – whatever it took to stock the park with the stories people cared about! The “Ride the Movies” era of Disney Parks history is an epic one, including the stories of what almost got built.
Connecting with filmmaker George Lucas, Imagineers were encouraged to think big about how the generation-defining Star Wars universe could fit into Disney Parks. One concept saw Disneyland’s Tomorrowland entirely reimagined as a departure point for “LucasPort,” a glass and steel complex filled with sci-fi adventures. The land’s anchor attraction allegedly would’ve been an enclosed dark ride / roller coaster where – at key points during the attraction – the ride would pause to view a scene, giving guests an in-vehicle choice between a “light side” and “dark side” response. The train’s vote would then shift a track section, altering the course forward. This “choose-your-own-adventure” roller coaster would’ve been one-of-a-kind… it also would’ve been absolutely gigantic, requiring incredible space to house branching coaster tracks.
Michael Eisner reportedly loved the idea… but was allegedly aghast to discover that such a massive concept would require years of concepting, engineering, demolition, and construction. Given how determined he was to start Disney Parks’ transformation, he tasked designers with coming up with something that would take up much less space and be able to come online in much less time. The result? The Lost Legend: STAR TOURS (which, in a roundabout way, finally got its own multiple paths in 2011.
6. Kali River Rapids… with animals?
Early on in Disney’s Animal Kingdom development, designers had a pretty straightforward goal: that each of the park’s “lands” would have its own “safari” – a ride-through opportunity to see real animals in naturalistic habitats and thematic contexts. Naturally, Africa’s would be the Kilimanjaro Safaris we know today. Asia’s would be the Tiger River Run. On board white water-ready rafts, guests would pass through the reclaimed hunting grounds of a Maharajah turned into a nature preserve, filled with gibbons, antelope, rhinos, elephants, and tigers. The end of the ride would see the rafts enter “white water rapids” for a thrilling conclusion.
The boat-based safari concept has a few drawbacks. For one, the rafts wouldn’t be able to slow down or stop near animal habitats, and there would be no on-ride guide to explain what guests were seeing. Second, they’d ride low in the water by necessity rather than giving guests the raised view of a safari truck. Opportunities to take photos would be unlikely given the ride’s thrilling (and wet) finale, and height and rider safety requirements would mean many guests simply couldn’t board, thereby missing many of Asia’s key animals.
Ultimately, the thrilling water ride and Asia’s animal experiences were split into two, yielding the Maharajah Jungle Trek and the animal-free Kali River Rapids. It makes sense that Disney would divide the concept, but it’s interesting to imagine Animal Kingdom having a “Jungle Cruise” style ride past real animals that becomes a surprise thrill at its finale.
7. Cars Land… without “Cars”?
If you can believe it, the idea of an automotive expansion at Disney California Adventure actually predates the idea to use the Cars film as its basis! Seriously! You have to remember that when Disney’s California Adventure opened in 2001, the park was a pretty big “miss,” failing to meet even a portion of its expected attendance. Negative word of mouth had signaled that the park just wasn’t very “Disney,” serving as a comic book style spoof of California rather than a “love letter” to the state’s history.
The first five years of the park served as a period of “piecemeal” improvements – one-off additions and attractions meant to just add things that would draw people in. The idea of “Car Land” was no doubt one of them. Celebrating Route 66, “Car Land” would’ve continued the park’s “postcard” motif by inviting guests into a desert town plucked from the ‘50s, complete with diners, drive-ins, and tourist traps. The land’s main attraction was planned to be an Autopia-style ride through the desert, around Route 66 roadside landmarks, and into town (including a “car wash”). In other words, “Car Land” was still a spoofish, comical concept.
By 2006, California Adventure’s shifting identity and its urgent need for more anchoring attractions saw the land’s puttering family ride replaced with a high-speed Corvette race through the desert using the technology of the Lost Legend: TEST TRACK. When the Disney-Pixar film Cars debuted in 2006, Imagineers drew up plans for a mini-Autopia themed to the film to be located in “Car Land,” but that was it. After all, it’s not like you could build an entire land themed to a single intellectual property! … Right?
After the 2007 announcement of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Disney made one of their own: as part of an unprecedented, all-at-once, $1.2 billion, foundational reimagining of Disney California Adventure, the park would drop its “MTV attitude” and comic book styling and introduce its own “Living Land” – the Modern Marvel: CARS LAND. Obviously, the brick-for-brick recreation of the desert town of Radiator Springs does everything “Car Land” would’ve… and ironically, it looks a whole lot less cartoonish doing it!
8. Superstar Limo… the E-Ticket?
When the first guests stepped into Disney’s California Adventure, one particular attraction caught their attention… and not in a good way. The Declassified Disaster: Superstar Limo is often recalled as the worst Disney dark ride ever. On board cartoonish limos, guests would descend into a blacklight, comic book world recreating famous Los Angeles neighborhoods populated by caricatured robotic figures of C-List stars of the ‘90s. Superstar Limo was so bad, it closed less than a year after the park’s debut. Think about that: California Adventure was stronger with no dark ride at all than with Superstar Limo.
Of course, it wasn’t supposed to be that way. As the story goes, the ride began developed as a fast-paced attraction (somewhere between Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and a Wild Mouse coaster) wherein guests would race through Hollywood streets along banked turns, dodging and weaving through traffic to escape paparazzi. (For Gen Z readers: the early 2000s were a time when tabloids, gossip sites, reality stars, and paparazzi were what pop culture was all about. Hence why California Adventure’s “Hollywood Pictures Backlot” was decked out in modern references, zebra print awnings, and reality TV attitude.)
In 1997 – smack dab in the middle of the park’s development – the internationally beloved Princess Diana of Wales was killed in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel outside Paris. At the time, it was believed that the paparazzi’s mad pursuit of the tabloid-exploited Princess had contributed to the accident, and suddenly, Disney’s high-speed race to escape camera flashes didn’t seem so funny anymore.
Allegedly, Imagineers were sent back to the drawing board, proposing copies of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, The Great Movie Ride, or Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster (Starring No Doubt) take up the ride’s real estate, but all were far too expensive for the budget-minded park. Frankly, even if Superstar Limo had been built as described, it probably wouldn’t have survived the park’s 2007 – 2012 five year plan. Today, a ride based on reality television and gossip magazines and escaping the paparazzi wouldn’t feel very relevant.
9. Star Wars land… with Darth Vader?
After Disney’s $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012, there was no question that Disney would make Star Wars a major component of its theme parks… Instead, the questions were how, where, and when? Before there was Batuu, Imagineers had begun development on a very different kind of Star Wars land… As the story goes, both Disneyland and Walt Disney World had plans to transform areas of their parks around the existing STAR TOURS installations into formal Star Wars lands, bringing Luke, Leia, Darth Vader, and Yoda to the parks.
So in Disneyland, Tomorrowland would inevitably be re-wrapped. Allegedly, the “Season of the Force” limited-time promo was a dry run: Space Mountain switched to the projection-filled Hyperspace Mountain; STAR TOURS was upgraded; Innoventions became Star Wars Launch Bay; the 3D theater housed the Star Wars: Path of the Jedi clip show, and the Tomorrowland Terrace restaurant turned into the Galactic Grill. Swap out Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and place the Millennium Falcon on the old Rocket Jets platform and you’ve got a Star Wars land!
At Walt Disney World, the supposed plan was that the Echo Lake area of Disney’s Hollywood Studios would be redressed as the planet of Tatooine, repurposing STAR TOURS as the planet’s starport and adding a dueling Speeder Bike coaster through the vast Tatooine desert and marketplace. We dug into the “What If” attractions that almost populated this version of Star Wars land (and the cancelled concepts from the final version) in a recent Theme Park Tourist feature.
Rather than lightly wrapping existing areas in Star Wars aesthetic and attractions themed to the original trilogy, Disney and Lucasfilm executives made a bold decision: first, that the property offered Disney’s equivalent to Universal’s Harry Potter – the perfect formula for a truly immersive “Living Land” – and that squandering Star Wars on a redecoration of Tomorrowland would be a major regret. Second, that the future of Star Wars was a richer opportunity than the past. The Batuu we know today is rigidly set in the timeline of Disney’s sequel trilogy, meaning neither Han Solo nor Darth Vader can appear. But it’s interesting to imagine what an immersive land themed to A New Hope could look like…
Possibilities Abound
It’s often said that “good ideas never die at Walt Disney Imagineering,” and there’s no doubt that some of these “almost-attractions” have been or will be used somewhere, someday. What’s most fascinating about these “unbuilt” versions of the rides we know and love is the reminder that one change – one “yes” instead of a “no” or vice versa – can literally reshape the parks we love. Would a Pirates wax museum still be around? Would a murder mystery Tower of Terror be one of the most beloved attractions on Earth? Would a Star Wars land set in the original trilogy’s timeline be better or worse than the land we know?
If those are the kinds of questions you ask yourself, we’ve got just the place for you: make the jump to our Possibilityland series, filled with full walkthroughs of the “alternate reality” versions of theme parks, lands, and rides. What if the Muppets opened their own production facility at Disney’s Hollywood Studios? What if Fire Mountain rose over Adventureland? What if EPCOT’s Mission: SPACE had used the Soarin’ ride system? Join us in Possibilityland to find out…
