Phantom Manor
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| Phantom Manor | |
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| Disneyland Park (Paris) | |
| Land | Frontierland |
| Opening date | April 12, 1992 |
| Vehicle type | Omnimover |
Phantom Manor is an attraction at the Disneyland Park at Disneyland Resort Paris. Based on the Haunted Mansion attractions at Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland, it opened with the park on April 12, 1992. The attraction combines a walk-through portion with Omnimover vehicles called Doom Buggies and features special effects and Audio-Animatronics.
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[edit] History
Whilst planning Euro Disneyland (the current Disneyland Park), Tony Baxter, executive designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, decided that certain staple Disney attractions would have to be modified for the new park. The Haunted Mansion was amongst these attractions. Jeff Burke was assigned the role of executive producer for the construction of the park's version of Frontierland and with help from Imagineer Bob Baranick and show writer Craig Thierault, it was decided that the story related to Phantom Manor would have to be congruent with that of Frontierland's fictional town of Thunder Mesa.
A major influence for the story of the ride was Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical The Phantom of the Opera, which was altered to be set in a Western setting. Like the other Haunted Mansion rides, only the first scene takes place in the mansion structure itself — the remainder of the ride takes place in a building hidden from the view of park guests.
[edit] Story
Phantom Manor follows a backstory devised by Walt Disney Imagineering:
After the original Thunder Mesa town was abandoned, the new Thunder Mesa was built, along with a manor. This manor was owned by Henry Ravenswood, an industrial baron who owned the Big Thunder Mountain gold mines. He had a daughter named Melanie, who had a beautiful singing voice. One day, an earthquake shook the town of Thunder Mesa causing many of the residents to leave. It is often said that the earthquake was caused due to restless spirits in the Big Thunder Mountain Mine, which was in truth a sacred Indian burial ground. With hardly any money left, Henry was left in near poverty.
The day came when Melanie had to choose a groom; she chose an engineer, who was planning to leave town and take Melanie with him. Henry wouldn't have it, determined to stop the wedding at all costs. At this point, a mysterious cloaked figure appeared and hung the suitor by the rafters in the attic.
Melanie then waited for her dead groom, refusing to take off her bridal gown in case he appeared. She aged, then perished in the wine cellar. Meanwhile, 999 other ghosts and ghouls moved to the manor, and Ravenswood Manor gained the title of "Phantom Manor".
[edit] The attraction
[edit] Queue
The Haunted Mansions in other Disney parks were designed to look clean and aesthetically pleasing. Phantom Manor however was designed to look clearly derelict. The manor's ground are untended, overgrown with weeds and scattered with dead vegetation. Upon entering the grounds, guests see a bat guardbox and a plaque on the wall which reads "Phantom Manor - Non Omnis Moriar" (Latin: "I will not die completely"). A derelict gazebo stands on the lawn with an out-of-tune music box playing within.
Guests walk along the porch and queue outside the house. The doors open by themselves and a Cast Member dressed as a macabre servant appears and invites them into the foyer. The foyer is a small room with a chandelier and two mirrors. Then a cold, resonant voice - that of the 'Ghost Host' - sounds across the room, politely welcoming us. (The Ghost Host was originally voiced by American actor Vincent Price, but French visitors objected to the English narration, so a French actor, Gérard Chevalier, was substituted. However, one small piece of Price's recording remains in use: the Phantom's evil laughter). The face of the bride appears in the highest mirror as the voice continues.
[edit] Stretching room
Guests then file into an octagonal room with four portraits of a young woman. In one, she picks flowers; in the second, she holds a parasol; in the third, she steps through a stream; and in the final portrait, she is having a picnic with her fiancé. The Ghost Host explains that the tour has begun, and asks if we have noticed that the walls are stretching. The room actually appears to stretch, and the portraits grow taller — revealing some haunting situations the young girl is in. The lights go out, lightning and thunder effects fill the space and a glimpse of the corpse of the "Ghost Host" is shown dangling by a noose from the ceiling rafters above.
At the attraction in Disneyland Paris, the room is a lift with no ceiling that is being lowered slowly to give the illusion that the room itself is stretching; this brings the guests down to where the ride begins, below ground level. The ceiling above is a piece of fabric called a scrim, which conceals the hanging body until it is lit from above.
The stretching room suddenly lights up and a door opens, revealing a hallway lined with portraits.
[edit] Hallway & loading area
As the guests walk down this hallway, they see that one portrait is that of a knight and his horse on a cliff. There is another of a young woman in a temple; a third of a ship sailing across the sea; and a fourth of a woman reclining on a sofa. The portraits morph into more macabre versions: The knight become a ghost; the woman in the temple became the horrible Medusa; the ship becomes a ghost ship sailing through a storm; and the reclining woman becomes a were-panther. At the end of the corridor is a large portrait of the character Melanie Ravenswood, wearing a bridal gown.
Guests then turn a corner and enter a large room with a grand staircase leading to the floor above. Old furniture lines the walls. Sitting on a shelf is a bust of a stern-looking woman whose eyes shift back and forth.
An unbroken train of black Omnimover vehicles known as Doom Buggies moves through the room. Guests board the Doom Buggies, each buggy accommodating two persons, and the carriages move into a dark space. An audio-animatronic of young Melanie bows to passing guests.
A moving suit of armor then appears. Beside the armor is a seemingly endless hallway. Peering into its depths, guests see Melanie appearing and disappearing. On the left side of the corridor a stately piano appears. At first glance it seems to be playing by itself, but a projection of a shadow of a phantom pianist falls across the carpet. A large, red-eyed raven sits next to the piano and squawks angrily. The Doom Buggies then pass through a corridor lined with doors. As guests pass each door, they hear pounding, knocking, or shouting behind it. When the last door is reached, guests see two skeletal hands wrenched at the top. The vehicles pass a small hall containing a demonic grandfather clock. A large "13" is on its face and its hands spin backward.
[edit] Seance & ballroom scenes
The buggies enter a round space where a crystal ball sits on a central table. In it, wrapped in a mist, is the disembodied head of Madame Leota. As we watch, she summons ghosts and dark creatures to a mysterious ball.
Guests leave the seance room and move along a balcony, looking down into a ballroom, where a ghostly wedding party takes place. Melanie stands on a staircase, singing. The Phantom stands in an open window, laughing menacingly. Ghostly guests sit around the dining table, where a moldy wedding cake sits. A pile of unopened wedding presents sit in the background. A drunken ghost swings precariously from the chandelier, his cane wrapped around one of its branches. Elegantly-dressed pairs of ghostly dancers twirl around the ballroom. A spirit organist sits at a massive organ, playing a haunting waltz on it as wraiths fly out of its pipes.
The vehicles enter the Bride's Boudoir. Melanie, now an elderly lady, sits in front of a mirror filled with the shape of an enormous skull looking forlorn.
[edit] Graveyard & ghost town scenes
The Doom Buggies fly out of the upstairs window and swoop down into a vast graveyard, past the Phantom, an animated skeleton standing before an open grave. Beside him growls an undead dog. The Doom Buggies then travel underground, into some catacombs, and see a series of coffins being opened by their skeletal residents. Four white marble busts then come into view, bearing the expressive faces of four phantoms singing Grim Grinning Ghosts.
Through a hole, the buggies then enter Phantom Canyon, which is a twisted, supernatural version of Thunder Mesa. Rifts in the earth surrounding the buggies suggest that there is an earthquake happening, which reenacts Thunder Mesa's turning point from a prosperous community to a ghost town. to a An eerie-looking figure stands before a ramshackle train station, offering to sell tickets. Guests see a ruined town hall where a mayor figure stands, inviting guests to be the manor's 1000th ghost. As he tips his hat, his head comes with it. A gun battle scene follows between a bandit, fleeing a bank on a mule, and a cowardly sheriff with Big Thunder Mountain in the background. Guests see a drug store where a green-faced pharmacist figure drinks deadly-looking potions, followed by a saloon whose front wall has caved in. Inside it there are a dancing showgirl, a bartender, and a man playing a honky-tonk piano. Four invisible gambler figures play poker nearby.
Another figure of the Phantom leads guests into an open grave. As they see the silhouette of the Manor ahead, they enter a dark passage and see Melanie's corpse pointing to the way out. The vehicles enter a subterranean chamber lined with large, gilt-framed mirrors in which a ghostly image of the Phantom can be seen above the Doom Buggies along with a reflection of the guests themselves. Guests travel through a wine cellar where Cast Members await to help them disembark their Doom Buggies, and they walk toward the exit. As guests travel up toward ground level, a tiny animated figure of Melanie stands to the side of the passageway behind bars, telling guests to "hurry back" and to "bring their death certificates". Finally, guests exit into Boot Hill, a cemetery filled with humorous gravestones.
[edit] Trivia
- The dancing skeletons featured in the attraction were loosely based on the 1929 Disney animated short The Skeleton Dance.
- The character of Melanie Ravenswood was based on Miss Havisham, the aged bride awaiting her groom in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.
- Much of the attraction's storyline was inspired by the Western River Expedition, a cancelled attraction that was to have been built at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in the mid-1970s.
[edit] See Also
[edit] Links
http://www.happy-haunts.com 3D Phantom Manor & Haunted Mansion
