You want more concept art for Tomorrowland? Well readers...here it is, beginning with an “overhead shot” of what Tomorrowland was supposed to look like on day one. The ornate water fountain at the entrance was scrapped in the rush to just get this land open on time.
In image #2, looks like the PeopleMover and the Monorail spliced together in one groovy hanging vehicular transportation system:
As was pointed out yesterday, it appears that the Moonliner was originally to be on a platform, similar to what the Rocket Jets became during the “New Tomorrowland” renovation of 1967. See...if you just hold onto an idea long enough there’s a good chance it may come to fruition.
And finally, the interior of the Rocket to the Moon attraction; pretty durn close to the final concept, as can be seen by the photo comparison posted here:
And although there are some inaccuracies, just for the heck of it, I will give you three shots of the Opening Day Model that resided inside of the Opera House for a number of years:
See more Disneyland Tomorrowland photos at my website.
It is interesting to see the influence of the 'Victorian' Nautilus on the RTTM attraction.
ReplyDeleteSeeing the model of the old "Rocket to the Moon" ride reminds me to ask, were there two rocket theaters inside the building to increase capacity?
ReplyDelete(I didn't clue into the "dual" system until in the early 70's when I noticed that sometimes the Haunted Mansion stretching room was right ahead, and sometimes to the left.)
Hey Dave, I am curious as to what inaccuracies were to be found on that model! Are they major flubs, or minor details?
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I'm glad that Tomorrowland was not built to look like that second example, it's just odd!
PS, Katella Gate, yes there were two theaters for the Rocket to the Moon ride.
Major - Personally, I think the model is one of the coolest things I've seen. The only thing that stood out to me was the Adventureland entrance; it is missing the arch with the words "Adventureland" on it. Other than that...it is damn detailed! However, the nitpickers have published a list that you can view here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mouseplanet.com/7609/Golden_Goofs
PS: Katella - I do not know if there were theaters for RTTM. Anyone?
ReplyDeleteWell, take it from one who was there (and visited the back room of the RTTM ride too). There were two theaters. And, as I recall, there were two different names for the rockets in the ride. If you look at the arial view, you can see two domes with kind of a fin on the top. This was not just decoration, but a channel for the projection system. The projectors were actually in the center of the buildings and the images were shot onto mirrors in both the top and the bottom. There were four projectors in all. We used to go down below and watch the show from the underside of the bottom screen. The film was flipped so that it was flipped again when bounced off the mirrors and onto back side of the screens. The vibrations were created by out-of-balance air driven motors. The shows would be staggered to avoid massive crowd jamming.
ReplyDeleteCoxPilot: Many thanks for the eye-witness info on the RTTM theaters. I had assumed that the two domes were the rocket stages, but I would have been hard pressed to guess what the "Rocketeer" fins on the top of the building were. Now that you mention it was an optical path for the upper screen projection, I feel pretty dumb.
ReplyDeleteDave: My sympathies for the errors in the Disneyland Model actually go to the model builders. I am in the process of drafting complete deck plans for the Titanic (the originals are long gone)... and no matter how careful I am, I always seem to leave a trail of error crumbs for little birds to peck at.
http://rmstitanicplans.com/resources/cabins1.jpg
Cox - again, thanks for the great info. The two "rockets" were originally called the Luna & The Diana. Katella - no good deed goes unpunished, right? ha! I have checked out your Titanic stuff a few times in the past. Amazing stuff!
ReplyDeleteThanks for that link Dave, it's amazing how many small details were left out. Some of them do seem nitpicky, but others (no Indian Village??) seem strange... why leave something like that out?
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