| �You unlock this door with the key of
imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A
dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both
shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into…
The Twilight Zone. �Hollywood, 1939. Amid the glitz and the glitter
of a bustling, young movie town at the height of its golden age, The
Hollywood Tower Hotel was a star in its own right… a beacon for the
show-business elite. Now, something is about to happen that will change all
that…� The episode shows images of a group of hotel
guests boarding the elevator. As they do, a huge lighting bolt hits the
tower and their elevator drops into another dimension. Electrical pulses
flicker through their bodies and in an instant they�re gone. The camera
quickly pans around to Rod Serling… �The time is now on an evening very much like
the one we have just witnessed. Tonight’s story on The Twilight Zone is
somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you
may recognise, is a maintenance service elevator. Still in operation, and
waiting for you. We invite you, if you dare, to step aboard, because in
tonight’s episode, you are the star. And this elevator travels directly
to… The Twilight Zone.� Leaving the Library via a hidden exit, you step
into the dark and grimy service corridors of the hotel. You continue through
the dimly-lit Boiler Rooms to your service elevator. All around, items from
the past maintenance workers are still in place, giving clues to what you
might experience above. It seems the sudden events of October 31st 1939
didn�t leave time to collect anything. As the level indicator on the
elevator rises and falls mysteriously, it soon settles back down to �1�, and
the doors ping open for you to climb aboard… As your bellhop wishes you a pleasant stay, the
elevator vehicle moves horizontally, backwards, towards the elevator shaft,
with eerie lights and sounds all around. A starfield glistens around the
walls of the service shaft. �You are the passengers on a most uncommon
elevator, about to take the strangest journey of your lives. Your
destination… unknown. But this much is clear: a reservation has been made
in your name for an extended stay� After moving some distance up the tower, the
doors open with the usual �ping�, on a wide hallway mirror. Electricity
buzzes all around. �Wave goodbye to the real world. You have just
entered… The Twilight Zone� Well go on… wave goodbye! The whole cast wave
to themselves in the mirror, before suddenly a surge of electricity causes
the lights to dim and the reflection to crystallize, turn to a holographic
blue colour and gradually flicker up and down in waves of electricity. In an
instant, it�s gone. Your reflection no longer exists, and you�re left
looking at an empty elevator vehicle. The elevator shakes and shudders, with
the sound of grinding metal piercing your ears. The doors close, and you
ascend further into the darkness of the tower. Next stop � a hotel corridor,
floor 13, destroyed by the lightning blast of 1939. �What happened here to dim the lights of
Hollywood�s brightest hotel is about to happen again� The wall lights along the corridor flicker, the
blue light hazes. Out of nowhere, the group of guests first seen in the
Library video appear as ghosts, wailing and crying to leave their abandoned
Twilight Zone prison. �One stormy night long ago, five people stepped
through the door of an elevator and into a nightmare. That door is opening
once again, but this time, it�s opening for you� Another bolt of electricity flickers through the
corridor and the ghosts vanish into the glow of the wall lights. The
elevator shakes and shudders again, more and more violently. As all the
lights dim, the door of the destroyed elevator glows in the distance. As the
Twilight Zone opens once again, it DROPS. And so do you. The electrical forces of the Twilight Zone pull
your elevator further and further � you aren�t dropping, you�re being pulled
into another dimension. As you near the bottom of the shaft, you�re
propelled upwards again, at lightning speed. And then right back to the
bottom, before bouncing back up, right to the top. At the very highest point
of the tower, the doors open and you�re given a final glimpse of the real
world. Then, for a final time, you�re plunged back into the darkness of the
tower and driven all the way down into the deepest depths of the basement,
where the forces propel you upwards once again. Soon, your nightmare is
over, and the elevator is moving back to the Boiler Room as familiar images
from The Twilight Zone float all around. �The next time you check into a deserted hotel
on the dark side of Hollywood, make sure you know just what kind of vacancy
you�re filling, or you could find yourself a permanent resident… of The
Twilight Zone� The doors finally open and your bellhop greets
you with a pleasant smile. After being ushered out of the elevator, you
leave through a labyrinth of deserted corridors that lead you back to the
glamorous fa�ade of the bustling hotel. Past the video screens showing
souvenir photos from your time in The Twilight Zone, you enter the luxurious
hotel gift shop to pick up some souvenirs from your unforgettable Hollywood
holiday. Outside the hotel, the sun is still shining and
the palm trees swaying, as Vera Lynn�s �We�ll meet again� echoes around from
a ghostly ballroom high up in the tower… Production Footnotes The attraction features three drop shafts, each used by two elevators.
Boarding takes place across two floors, with elevators moving horizontally
into and out of the drop shaft from their boarding point. Whilst one
elevator is boarding, the other is ascending into The Twilight Zone. In the
elevator, guests are seated in rows of three or four, with 21 guests per
vehicle. The elevator cars use seatbelts for restraints, but are infact not
elevators in the common sense of the word. Classed as �Verticle Conveyance
Vehicles�, they are able to drop guests faster than the speed of gravity. The tower reaches a height of 183ft, with a 40ft basement, but the elevators
do not travel right to the top of the tower, since a large amount of the
space is used by the winch mechanisms which drive the drop shaft cabin. The
attraction is by far the tallest building at Disneyland Resort Paris. The mirror scene uses digital projection on a plate of thermal glass to
achieve the effect of guests disappearing. As the doors open, a
high-definition video camera captures guests and projects this onto the
electronically-activated �mirror�. A computer separates the guests from the
normal, generic elevator background and allows their silhouette to come
loose and shimmer in wavy form before the �mirror� projection screen is
de-activated and guests are simply looking straight through to a dummy ride
vehicle. The corridor scene uses the same glass
projection screen technique to create the effects of ghosts, with the
corridor using a steep forced perspective to allow the effect to work. It
only extends around 10ft in front of your elevator, with a height of just
4ft. The Twilight Zone television series
originally ran for five years on CBS, from 1959 to 1964. Rod Serling, its
creator and host, a six-time Emmy winner, wrote 92 of the original 156
episodes. The Parisian/Californian attraction
uses a style known as �Pueblo Deco�. Pueblo Deco, popular when the hotel was
fictionally built in the 1920’s, is characterized by the clean, geometric
shapes common to the Art Deco style. However, from southwestern Native
American art, it borrows elements such as radial sunbursts, arrowhead
shapes, and simplified thunderbird motifs. A prime southern California
landmark in the Pueblo Deco style is the L.A. City Hall Building. The episode from which Rod Serling’s appearance was taken for the �lost
episode� guests see in the Library is entitled ” It’s A Good Life ,” written
by Rod Serling. This episode tells the story of a little boy who can read
minds and control people. His new lines here (and throughout the attraction)
was provided by Mark Silverman, chosen from hundreds who auditioned for the
role by Rod Serling�s widow. The Lobby features
an extensive array of period props and furniture that creates a bygone era
of Hollywood splendor. Magazines and newspapers from 1939 are casually
placed just where the guests left them. At the front desk, a set of luggage
remains where a guest was about to register. On a table, a deck of cards, a
cribbage board, two wine glasses�all carefully placed to indicate that the
people in this lobby left in a hurry without a thought of taking anything
with them – and never came back. The Boiler Room is especially rich in prop
and set details that suggest an actual working facility, from the time clock
to the maintenance man’s desk filled with photos and personal effects.
Throughout these areas, hidden details and props were carefully chosen to
pay homage to certain famous Twilight Zone episodes, such as a gold thimble
in a glass case to reference the episode �The After Hours�, or a broken
stopwatch to reference �A Kind of Stopwatch�. (Exact props not guaranteed to
be present in the finished Paris attraction) History Construction
began May 2005, with foundations laid and, eventually, a huge reinforced pit
dug for the attraction�s 40ft basement. The attraction is due to open
sometime in the resort�s 2008 season, which begins October 2007. From
September 2006 onwards, however, it became clear an opening in Early 2008
would be more attractive for the resort, to avoid the opening clashing with
the popular Halloween and Christmas seasonal events. The attraction will be almost identical to the
version already in operation at Disney�s California Adventure. Unlike this
version, however, the Paris edition has been constructed using formed
concrete rather than a steel skeleton, following French construction
standards. The finished product will, though, be eerily familiar. Infact, this version of the Tower was
originally designed for Walt Disney Studios Park during the park�s
construction, with the �La Terrasse� area built in preparation for this. It
was due to open in 2004/2005, but was quickly postponed as the park
experienced a poor opening season and the resort�s operating company
underwent another major financial restructuring. At the same time, Disney�s
California Adventure park at Disneyland Resort had attendance troubles of
its own. In need of a quick-fix E-Ticket to save the park, the Imagineers
pulled out the plans for the Paris tower and hastily affixed them to the
Californian park�s �Hollywood Pictures Backlot� zone, with the attraction
officially opening 5th May 2004. Disneyland Resort Paris finally got its
long-planned Tower confirmed on 11th January 2005, as Euro Disney SCA, the
resort�s operating company, announced the fruits of their financial
restructuring � �230m for major new attractions, of which around �110m will
have likely been budgeted immediately for the Tower. The original version of The Twilight Zone
Tower of Terror opened at Disney-MGM Studios on 22nd July 1994 as part of
the massive �Sunset Boulevard� expansion of the park. Unlike the Paris,
California and Tokyo Towers (which all share the same basic ride design),
this version features two pairs of drop shafts, separate load and unload
points and a unique horizontal movement between the �up� shaft and the
�down� shaft, known as the �Fifth Dimension Room�. In designing the
Paris/California Tower, the Imagineers were pushed to create a Tower with
higher throughput (and more affordable budget), and so removed this element
as they believed it was never as successful as they had originally hoped. In 1997, Disney produced a made-for-TV movie
based on the story of The Hollywood Tower Hotel. More information can be
found at the
Internet Movie DataBase. | 
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