This is part one of the first of an occasional series of stories
that I’ll call “Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda,” in which I look
at Disney attractions that were designed but never built.
For our series debut, we look at the Imagineering process behind the
intriguing and fabled Dragon Tower attraction, originally slated for Disney’s
Animal Kingdom’s planned Beastlie Kingdomme land. My thanks go to the
generosity of former Imagineer Paul Torrigino (Art Director for Dragon
Tower) in our special question-and-answer session. – Mark
Getting involved in Beastlie Kingdomme
I’d known Joe Rohde, Animal Kingdom’s Executive Designer, since the early
1980s; we both worked in the Tujunga production facility in California.
He worked in props and I was in figure finishing. We all had such a good
time back then. Then all the projects finished and most everyone there
got laid off, but Joe and I stayed on. He went to the model shop and I
stayed in figure finishing at that point.
Later we both ended up in the model shop. It was kind of a talent pool
back then and each of us would work on any project that needed us; there
was John Horny, Chris Tietz, John Stone, Kent Elofson, Julie Swenson,
I think Davey Feiten just started. Lots more. Old Jack Fergus was still
there, as was Harriet Burns. People like Sam McKim, Claude Coats, Ken
Anderson and others since long gone were still around.
Anyway, Joe did some concept sketches for the new Epcot Norway pavilion
and I designed the ride, so we worked together at that point.
In the late 1980s to early 1990s I was on the Euro Disneyland project
in France, and when I came back to California Joe picked me up to work
on his Animal Kingdom project—it was 1992. The project was a whole
new concept with Joe at the center of it all. I thought he was a genius
to get the whole thing going.
While I’m thinking of it, I think they spelled the land “Beastlie
Kingdomme.” Writer Kevin Brown came up with the spelling and I remember
he insisted on the two Ms. He’s an expert on medieval lore.
The day I started on the project, I remember Tom Sze handed me a pencil
scale sketch on tracing paper showing a layout with a dragon figure in
a huge room, and a plan of the same room with some rough dimensions and
said something like “Here’s all we’ve got for the Dragon ride—talk
to Joe.” So there wasn’t much to go on, except for a concept Joe
had in his head. I think there were a couple of rough color storyboard
illustrations also that Joe did.
Also they had some rough conceptual calculations of potential THRC (Theoretical
Hourly Ride Capacity) numbers and some square footage calculations thrown
out there, but not really based on anything, just like a placeholder in
the overall park plan. Most of the park was at that early concept stage.
The other main players on Beastlie Kingdomme were Ann Malmlund (overall
land producer), Kevin Brown, (writer), Steve Tatum (writer), Maggie Parr
(Unicorn Maze designer), and Kent Elofson (Fantasia Gardens designer).
Developing the attraction
The process was, I’d talk to Joe and get his ideas on what he wanted
for various aspects of the attraction and then go away for a few days
and come back with lots of sketches and ideas, we weeded out the ones
he liked best, and then I’d take those and develop them further. Writer
Kevin Brown was also involved in this process. I’d make storyboards, and
color illustrations and then periodically we’d present to Marty Sklar,
the head of Walt Disney Imagineering, and then Michael Eisner, and we’d
keep what they liked best or get rid of elements they didn’t like.
This process went on for two years. The end result was pretty fabulous
I think. I did hundreds of layouts, character designs, vehicle designs
and architectural illustrations. I think the biggest challenge of the
whole process was getting something just the way Joe wanted it, he had
something to say about everything, no detail escaped him. It was
great work; I loved that early design concept stage because you could
try out all kinds of crazy wonderful ideas. I think it was the best time
I had in all my years working there, a real dream project.
The story of the attraction
The basic story of the attraction was that there was a great evil fairy
tale dragon that ravaged this medieval castle long ago and he still lived
deep inside the castle, in the huge treasure chamber, guarding the treasure.
There was a band of bats that also were in the castle, and they wanted
to get the treasure from the dragon, so they armed themselves with all
kinds of old weaponry and other things they found there and went on a
mission to attack the dragon.
I remember working quite a lot on the story at theÊtime (what little
there was of it) and all kinds of logic and analytical questions would
come up in meetings like “What would the bats need the treasure for
anyway?” ButÊI liked to keep it rather simple and not try to make
too much sense out of the whole thing, or over explain too much of it,
itÊwas all just for fun anyway. I thought the visuals were the most important
partÊthe experience. In retrospect, I think so many of the attractions
we produced over the years could have used a lot less of an elaborate
story explanation and more plain old theatrics and spectacle.
My favorite part
I liked the whole thing. Everything was designed in a heavy stylized
way, with lots of angled walls and dramatic spaces. The bats were very
Marc Davis kind of funny creatures, and we had all kinds of gags for them,
they were really cute and they were going to be traditional animatronics.
The dragon itself was loosely based on the old Peter Kermode dragon sculpture
he did for the Tokyo castle walk-through, but this dragon was a lot more
evil, and he wore all kinds of treasure-like jewelry.
Valerie Edwards did the maquette for the dragon, it turned out fabulous;
I’m sure it’s still there in the sculpture shop. The ride was a suspended
coaster, and the vehicle design was a half-melted cauldron hanging from
the feet of a bat character. The castle itself was an immense ruin, topped
off by a crooked tower. There were all kinds of great spaces in the queue,
with animated bat characters, lots of medieval theming and evidence of
past battles between knights and the dragon.
One other thing I’ll mention, one of my favorites—outside at the
side of the castle in another part of the land, we had a restaurant on
a lake and the whole little area was based on mythical sea creatures,
I think it was called Loch Ness Landing, (Karen Armitage did the final
interior restaurant design) and anyway, in the lagoon we were going to
have the Loch Ness monster appear (to the distant sound of bagpipes) from
time to time. First you would hear a strange sound from the water, then
bubbling would start, then you’d see the humps of the back of the creature
surfacing, then finally the giant head would rise up out of the water
and gaze at all the people on shore. What a photo spot!
I made a bunch of conceptual renderings and little sculptures for it
and then Gene Wiskerson sculpted the creature in a bigger scale a couple
of times to get it just the way Joe wanted it. I was really disappointed
we didn’t get to do it; I think it would have been great.
The shelving of the attraction
We were pretty far along with the design when they canned it in 1994.
We had working drawings, the sets were mostly drawn up (Lisa Stein was
the show set person for the tower) and we had scale models of most of
it. I built models of the entire queue line area in 1-inch scale and we
had a model of the dragon chamber and dragon. We had a little model of
the ride vehicle and we also did a full-size study vehicle mock-up with
George McGinnis.
For the exterior, we had a huge scale model of the entire Beastlie Kingdomme
land, with all the rides for it, and it took up the entire shop floor
of the old MAPO (Manufacturing and Production Organization) building.
It was maybe 80 percent finished when they shut the project down. It was
all made on platforms, and you had to crawl on top of it to work on it.
There was some great stuff on it, Fantasia Gardens, the Unicorn Maze,
Mother Goose’s shop, etc. I remember Ann Malmlund doing a terrific job
on the Mother Goose shop, like right out a fairy tale.
Oh, and there was a bridge from the main area going over to the dragon
tower, and we called it “Billy Goat Bridge” and near it we were
going to have three beautiful French goats in a nice little area. We had
all kinds of charming little touches like that all over the land. I remember
after they shelved it, I watched the guys crate up all the pieces, very
sad. They probably still have it all in a warehouse somewhere.
Aside from that, the main overall model of Animal Kingdom was in the
main Imagineering model shop at the time, and Beastlie Kingdomme was represented
on it, very detailed. I remember Gene Wiskerson sculpted the dragon tower
model for that based on my renderings.
I’m not sure who the ride vehicle vendor was, we had a few engineers
on the project who did the vendor interface at that point. They would
work with us on vehicle measurements, clearances, speed, capacity, and
all kinds of other calculations.
On why Beastlie Kingdomme was kept in the WDW 25th anniversary book
“Since the World Began,” published in 1996
Joe had hopes to do Beastlie Kingdomme after the park opened, so that’s
why he made every effort to keep it in everyone’s mind. I don’t know exactly
when they gave up on it or why but I’m sure it had something to do about
the scope of it; it was a huge expensive land, almost a park itself.
[Note: The image of the entire Beastlie Kingdomme land at the bottom
of page 171 of the book is a painting that Paul did giving the layout
of the planned land. – Mark]
Similarities between Dragon Tower and Islands of Adventure’s Dueling
Dragons coaster
I don’t what similarities there are between our Dragon Tower ride and
the Islands of Adventure Dueling Dragons ride because I’ve never seen
it. But I can tell you that there were definitely a few people (I won’t
say who) who worked closely with us who went over to Universal soon after
our project got shelved. Either they were let go, or they left for a better
offer. I have no idea if they used any of our concepts or not.
I remember the whole project was canned in January of 1994. I remember
the date because when Joe told us, the building was still shaking for
a few days right after the big quake of that year.
After that, Joe put Ann and me on the Dinosaur land for AK, I got ‘CTX’
or ‘Dinosaur’ and Ann got the rest of the land.
Thanks, Paul!
What a great story. Next time, we wrap up our story by traveling through
this fabulous attraction, and you can make up your own mind about the
Dragon Tower.
