Living legacy
They say that good ideas never die at Disney, and our Possibilityland series proves that true time and time again. Even though Discovery Bay never made it into Disneyland Park, the DNA of Discovery Bay fractured and spread across the globe, sewn into projects at various Disney Parks and Resorts around the world. Here are just a few elements that made it.
1. Big Thunder Mountain (Disneyland, 1979)
The single element of Discovery Bay to survive was Big Thunder Mountain, which was selected to become the signature ride of Frontierland and the replacement for the Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland. It opened in 1979 – about when Discovery Bay including Big Thunder was meant to be completed. The ride works effortlessly in the existing 1860s dusty frontier town narrative of Frontierland, but placed in the context of Discovery Bay (as it was supposed to be), it feels much more multi-faceted.
Plus, Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain even retains the more “fantastical” hoodoo formations and forest setting meant to tie the ride to the more fantasy-oriented Discovery Bay when compared to the expansive, desert-surrounded Monument Valley grandeur of every other Thunder Mountain Disney has created. It’s an interesting little hint at what was intended for the ride and the larger role it’s meant to play as a shared headliner between Frontierland and Discovery Bay’s narrative.
2. The Glass Towers and Professor Marvel (Epcot, 1982 / 83)
Shortly after he finished work on Discovery Bay and Big Thunder Mountain, Tony was put to work designing The Land pavilion for Epcot. His original plans for The Land set the pavilion inside of a giant tower made of seven glass crystals, just like Discovery Bay’s Botanical Gardens. Most interestingly, Baxter’s plan for The Land’s headlining attraction was a dark ride through the various habitats of the world suspended from the ceiling in hot air balloons – a ride that would’ve made equal sense in California.
Epcot visitors will recognize that that’s not what the Land pavilion looks like, and it has no such attraction. That’s because, just as Baxter finished his designs, the pavilion’s sponsor – a logging company – dropped out and was replaced by Kraft Foods. Given their new sponsorship, Kraft requested that the pavilion be reworked to de-emphasize habitats and instead focus on food, nutrition, and farming (which are a far more appropriate fit for Kraft’s sponsorship). So Baxter was sent next door, which brings us to…
The kindly, jovial Professor Marvel would’ve led guests on a tour of his Gallery of Wonders with the help of a playful dragon perched on his shoulder. Sound familiar? If not, maybe you just need one little spark to remind you. Yep, when Baxter was moved off of The Land pavilion, he was instead assigned the pavilion next door where sponsor Kodak requested “something imaginative.”
So just a few years after they would’ve appeared in Discovery Bay, the thoughtful professor and his dragon were recast as Dreamfinder and Figment, leading guests on a tour of their creativity in one of the most masterful dark rides ever created, which has since been closed itself. You can check out the must-read in-depth exploration of the ride’s development in its own Lost Legends: Journey into Imagination entry.
3. Retrofuturelands
Discoveryland (Disneyland Paris, 1992)
In the early 1990s, something wonderful happened. Tony Baxter was asked to be the “executive producer” of Disneyland Paris, given creative control over the design of the park. Tony’s team went above and beyond, developing entirely new versions of classic Disney rides and infusing thoughtful European details to develop what is easily the most beautiful, detailed, and romantic Disney Park on Earth.
One of their bravest choices was to eliminate “Tomorrowland” altogether. Instead, Disneyland Paris contains an equivalent land called Discoveryland, overseen by Imagineer Tim Delaney. Instead of Space Age architecture and white, silver, and blue color patterns, Discoveryland is meant to be a fantasy version of the future as it was envisioned by European thinkers and visionaries like Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci.
The result is a (you guessed it) steampunk version of Tomorrowland recast in bronze and copper with churning lagoons, fantasy allusions, organic rockwork jutting from the ground, and even – most impressively – the Airship Hyperion docked and floating above guests.
Most of Discovery Bay made it into Discoveryland stylistically, even if none of the attractions did. A gleaming, golden retro-future, the land’s Victorian-era, slightly-steampunk styling looked directly out of a Jules Verne novel, and initially, its attraction lineup followed suit. The land originally opted for original fantasy attractions including the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea walkthrough developed for Discovery Bay, the time-traveling Lost Legend: Le Visionarium featuring Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune, based on Jules Verne’s 19th century fantasy novel.
To this day, an expansion plot in Discoveryland is still available, originally set aside for the golden towers of the Spark Gap family roller coaster!
New Tomorrowland (Disneyland, 1998)
Ironically, if Discovery Bay’s DNA influenced Paris’ Discoveryland, then that genetic code eventually did make it back to California. After Disneyland Paris’ debut, it was decided that the original Disneyland was in need an update to its own Tomorrowland (which was stylistically still clinging to the out-of-date Space Age facelift it had gotten in the ’60s). When the Possibilityland: Tomorrowland 2055 proved far too ambitious in a budget-crunched era post-Paris, Tony Baxter was put in charge and a very different New Tomorrowland.
It was decided that Disneyland’s Tomorrowland could inexpensively borrow from the research and design of Discoveryland. So California’s Tomorrowland became… a gold and bronze land of 19th century Jules Verne style complete with burst-up rocks, greenery, the golden Astro Orbitor, and allusions to fantasy retro-futures rather than sci-fi ones. Unfortunately, for quite a few reasons, the look fell flat and was largely undone within a decade.
Port Discovery (Tokyo DisneySea, 2001)
In the same vein is Tokyo DisneySea’s own nautical take on Tomorrowland, Port Discovery, which omits explicit Jules Verne references (having saved those for the park’s Mysterious Island and the Modern Marvel: Journey to the Center of the Earth) but maintains the golden retro-future seaside setting and an eclectic collection of submarines, airplanes, and otherwise eccentric oddities you’d expect in Discovery Bay.
Imagining
Discovery Bay ranks among the most beloved never-built projects in Disney Imagineering’s portfolio. For Tony Baxter, it’s “the one that got away;” it’s the epic land of lighthouses, submarines, time machines, inventors, music, Victorian greenhouses, sailing ships, fireworks, zephyrs, and hot air balloons; the missing piece of the Rivers of America and its story of Westward expansion.
And while, from our lofty perspective in 2020, it’s easy to see that this retro-future lacks the scale and scope of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, it would’ve felt just as integral to Disneyland’s identity today as New Orleans Square. In fact, the highest praise we can give to Discovery Bay is that if it were built today, it would still feel like a great fit.
And it’s fun to imagine that… if this sensational sci-fi fantasy land were built today, what would it be like? Passed through modern Imagineering standards, you can imagine this port and the otherworldly West Coast mountain range that would envelope it; the ‘in-universe’ food and drink offered by an eclectic steampunk retro-future…
And just daydream with us about what a modern Discovery Bay may have as a headlining dark ride… perhaps it would be anchored by a version of DisneySea’s Modern Marvel: Journey to the Center of the Earth or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; a U.S. home for the Modern Marvel: Mystic Manor (already set in the right time period) relocated from the jungles of Papau New Guinea to an aristocratic and eccentric San Francisco manor…
The point is, if fans still clamor for the land almost 40 years after its initial announcement, it must be pretty near timeless, and that’s how a land at Disneyland should be.
We also have to wonder aloud if this fantastical 1860s steampunk San Francisco might be the perfect fit next door at Disney California Adventure. What a brilliant way to infuse a little technological fantasy into the park while retaining its Californian narrative… It could be California Adventure’s Tomorrowland. “The San Francisco That Never Was And Always Will Be.”
You know our opinion, but tell us – what do you think of Discovery Bay? Is this lost land the masterpiece that many Disney Parks fans wax poetic about? Could its attractions have become classics under the guidance of Tony Baxter and his team?
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Or are we wrong? Would Discovery Bay have been a bust, and aged poorly unto today? Does this concept deserve an entire, permanent land in the original Disneyland, or is it best suited for a second gate with more thematic leeway? We can’t wait to hear your thoughts and ideas. After all, anything’s possible in Possibilityland.