Rumors…
In early 2016, a very strange rumor began to spread. Sources began to report that Guardians of the Galaxy, a surprise hit Marvel superhero movie from 2014, would take up residence inside the Towers of Terror in the United States.
To be clear, the rumor was instantly derided as insanity, and many fans (this writer included) wrote it off as a prank. So outrageously stupid did it sound that a futuristic sci-fi superhero movie would take over a 1920s art-deco hotel reigning over a newly-redesigned Golden Age California park, many in the Disney Parks fan community literally, sincerely imagined that the rumor was cooked up just to see how much fury and chaos such an obviously fake rumor could provoke.
A decade ago, maybe! Back then, Disney’s California Adventure was a creative mess, and it would’ve made sense for Disney to throw anything at the wall just to see if it would stick. They could’ve renamed the park Disney California Studios and pushed Frozen and Star Wars and Marvel into big beige soundstages that would’ve lent themselves to such a strategy.
But California Adventure was fixed! It was saved! No more irreverent jokes, no more modern music… It had a new lease on life with a refreshed, reverent, historic California story. Guardians of the Galaxy taking over the California-set Twilight Zone Tower of Terror? Decimating the careful continuity and storytelling Disney just spent over a billion dollars to craft? A sci-fi superhero ride looming over a 1920s Los Angeles? A 1950s High Sierras national park? Pushing Marvel super heroes into California Adventure when next-door, Disneyland’s Tomorrowland is as creatively desolate and in need of new stories as California Adventure used to be?
It sounded unthinkable.
Condemned
At the 2016 San Diego Comic Con, Joe Rohde (the Imagineering figurehead behind Disney’s Animal Kingdom and its Pandora – The World of Avatar) was on hand to announce that Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! would replace the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure in 2017. The detailed lobby, library, and boiler room would be gutted and redesigned as an industrial futuristic prison owned by the enigmatic Collector from the 2014 film. Of course, the drop ride within would be retained and reprogrammed, but everything around it would be completely redesigned and not an ounce of Tower of Terror would remain in the brand new attraction…
…Unless you count the exterior clearly being a 1920s art deco hotel affixed with pipes and satellite dishes, reskinning it to capture “the beauty of an oil rig.”
Rohde explained that the hotel would become an interdimensional “warehouse fortress power plant” (his words, not ours) with the queue and ride rebuilt entirely to incorporate the “irreverent” superhero team from the movie and feature its 1970s and ’80s musical soundtrack… Yes, in a park that just spent a billion dollars to get rid of irreverence and modern pop music.
As it is, it seems deeply odd that Rohde – an otherwise revered Imagineer known for his inexhaustible taste for detail, storytelling, and authenticity – would buy into the idea of scrapping the 1940s Hollywood area of a California-themed park to replace it with a superhero prison… and yet…
In a most astounding and unthinkable move, Disney began to literally disassemble the attraction while it was still operating, pulling down the neon “THE HOLLYWOOD TOWER HOTEL” sign and the ride’s rusted blue domes in September 2016, and covering the entire hotel in tarps by October.
All the while, they initiated a “Late Check-Out” promotion wherein the ride itself took place in pitch-black darkness after dusk each night, with the Silver Lake Sisters of Buena Vista Street fame performing live in the lobby, earning multi-hour waits for the starring attraction. As frequent readers of our Lost Legends know, it didn’t make a difference. The transformation continued. On January 2nd, 2017, the last of the Hollywood Tower Hotel’s guests ascended into the Twilight Zone.
Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!
Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! opened May 25th, 2017 at Disney California Adventure – less than six months after Tower of Terror’s closure. That sci-fi space warehouse based on the beauty of an oil rig now reigns over Disney California Adventure, visible from Buena Vista Street, Grizzy Peak, Pacific Wharf, Pixar Pier…
Inside the fortress, guests are toured through the Tivan Collection of interdimensional artifacts (from across the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a few nods to Disney Parks history) gaining security clearance to access the Collector’s newest and most prized addition: the Guardians of the Galaxy themselves. But Rocket – ever the escape artist – has a plan, and it involves you.
In Tivan’s office (a re-themed library), Rocket explains via an amazing Audio Animatronic that he’ll hitch a ride atop the Gantry Lift meant to carry us to the Guardians… and the massive generator that’s keeping all of those locked cages closed. When the time’s right, he’ll cut the power to free his friends.
Strapped into a Gantry Lift, Rocket unplugs the power and plugs in the Walkman, sending the Lifts past two action-packed floors (brought to life through Parallax screens) to the sounds of Pat Benatar, the Jackson 5, or Elvis. Re-rides earn you new songs, new scenes, and new elevator drop profiles in this high-action thrill ride that trades Tower of Terror’s eerieness and subtlety for in-your-face irreverence and yo-yo’ing chaos.
Here’s an official glimpse at what awaits inside Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT!:
Don’t be surprised when the “gantry lift” doors open to reveal the same bird’s eye view of the resort with Rocket now narrating by saying, “Disneyland?! That’s thematically inconsistant!” It’s obviously a nod to (or perhaps an “irreverent, MTV-attitude” jab at) fans and how very silly they are for caring about old-fashioned things like continuity.
Smartly, the ride also uses the Californian ride’s zippy ride system to blur the line between “show” and “drop,” launching immediately into a high-energy and kinetic experience. Its five randomly-selected ride profiles, each accompanied by its own rock song and visuals, also install at last the randomization that Tower of Terror was capable of, but never upgraded to.
Let’s be clear: Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! is a rip-roaring thrill ride adventure that’s stylish, loud, and fun. Far from the dismal failure some fans hoped and predicted, BREAKOUT is an E-Ticket that only Disney could conjure with all the comedy, action, music, and characters you love from Guardians of the Galaxy.
It’s too bad that it looks, feels, and sounds like the wrong place for them all.
Disney’s vague promise was that the unusual, technicolor tower strapped with pipes and satellite dishes would make much more contextual sense when a long-planned Avengers-themed land finally got off the ground. But even when Avengers Campus debuted in June 2021, the “warehouse prison powerplant” from space still looked like a 1920s art deco hotel awash in warning stripes and palm trees with the Red Car Trolley stopping at its door.
Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! is a fun, loud, gleeful, thrilling experience. It’s also neither the first nor the last example of Disney’s newest strategy: packing the parks with current box office hits come hell or high water… even if it means that ride lifetimes are measured in seasons rather than decades. After all, no one really expects Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: BREAKOUT! to still be around in twenty years; fifteen; maybe even ten! By then, the property will either have been rebooted or replaced with something fresher, and the ride will go that way, too.
Lost Legend
The story of Disney California Adventure’s Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is really the story of Disney Imagineering’s last three decades.
From the concept’s origins within an ambitious Discovery Mountain to its eventual, technological, “Ride the Movies” arrival at Disney’s Hollywood Studios; its budget-cut Californian version meant to ride the wrongs of an underbuilt and unloved park, to its place in the re-writing of that park’s story and finally, it’s fall at the hands of a hot blockbuster property. At every step, the life of this ride has been representative of the moment in the industry.
Still, when we look up at the towering art deco prison painted in stripes and silver pipes rising above Disney California Adventure blaring The Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb” though sliding elevator doors, we’ll wonder if this was the best course for Disney’s underdog – the reborn park given a new lease on life, now opting to override it instead.
As always, we invite your thoughts and comments below. We want to know your memories of California Adventure’s Tower of Terror and your thoughts on the new Marvel attraction that’ll take its place. All Twilight Zone stories end with a moral lesson – what will we as fans learn from Disney’s twist ending here?
We’ve done our best here to capture the story behind the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and celebrate its magnificent presence in a park tailor-made for it. But we’d be remiss if we didn’t say goodbye witha friendly word of warning – something you won’t find in any guide book: 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 may find yourself a permanent resident… of the Twilight Zone.
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