The Real Genius of Tower of Terror

[The Empress Lilly]

I’ll be a real contrarian and state that the Hollywood Tower Hotel doesn’t really work all that well up close. It’s great at a distance where it gives the impression of a hotel, but it doesn’t sell the illusion of a hotel. There’s good reason it’s obscured by the sharp angle and landscaping in the queue.

Oh, but isn't that too much of an architect's eye? Cinderella castle can't function like a real castle either, when you look at it with a rational eye. Hollywood Boulrvard can't function as a main city road. You've already entered the zone of suspension of disbelief.

At the start of Sunset boulevard, you should ask an eleven year old: 'that big building over there, is that a school, a police station, or a hotel?'. If they correctly understand it to be a hotel then the design works.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Oh, but isn't that too much of an architect's eye? Cinderella castle can't function like a real castle either, when you look at it with a rational eye. Hollywood Boulrvard can't function as a main city road. You've already entered the zone of suspension of disbelief.

At the start of Sunset boulevard, you should ask an eleven year old: 'that big building over there, is that a school, a police station, or a hotel?'. If they correctly understand it to be a hotel then the design works.

Hollywood Blvd is great model for real city streets. Human-scaled and pedestrian-oriented with public facing uses. Cinderella Castle doesn’t work as a military fortification, but it is part of a whole long history of the image of the castle as a sort romantic folly. You don’t need to know much about buildings to see the sign was somehow inside the building.

A good scenic flat would pass the eleven year old at a distance. Good design works at multiple levels. Getting closer shouldn’t work based on ignoring part of what drew you in.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I’ll be a real contrarian and state that the Hollywood Tower Hotel doesn’t really work all that well up close. It’s great at a distance where it gives the impression of a hotel, but it doesn’t sell the illusion of a hotel. There’s good reason it’s obscured by the sharp angle and landscaping in the queue.

Tokyo's version of the ride looks the most like a real building, inside and out.

 

[SplashJacket]

It does not make any sense to see any part of the Rise show building, and the fact that they hid it completely shows how Disney is still number one in the sightlines game.

I don't even think it's that they completely hid it, they completely obfuscated where a show building could be, rather than just hiding the show building

 

[TalkToEthan]

But we also got DAK and TDS from Eisner's second decade.

Not so fast….

Animal Kingdom absolutely—— Eisner pushed heavy with that one but Disney Sea, yes it opened under his reign, is a different ownership/culture. At best Eisner would have been present for a ribbon cutting and that’s it.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Not so fast….

Animal Kingdom absolutely—— Eisner pushed heavy with that one but Disney Sea, yes it opened under his reign, is a different ownership/culture. At best Eisner would have been present for a ribbon cutting and that’s it.

Unlike the international parks that would follow, the license for Tokyo Disneyland did not include any provisions for a second park. Wells oversaw a long negotiation process that resulted in a new contract that allowed for Tokyo Disneyland to expand into the Tokyo Disney Resort.

 

[Rodj]

I will say that I believe that Eisner was better at plussing rides like Tower of Terror and making sure that the show effects were maintained. Tower got new drop sequences every few years, while under Bob Iger, we only had the 2010 Summer Nightastic update that was temporary, and the show effects haven’t been maintained well.