May 30, 2014

Walt Disney World's Lost Mountain: The Infamous Fire Mountain

Never give up. 

I've been looking for a piece of Imagineering concept art for years. The piece above is for the infamous never-built Fire Mountain for Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. I found it on the Neverland Files site and did a few quick fixes to highlight the details.

Set to be an extension of the castle park's Adventureland, this incredible idea would have also sat across the Seven Seas Lagoon from the Polynesian Village Resort. Not a bad thing to be looking at while you're on the beach waiting for fireworks! It would certainly bring a new look and feel to an old and tired part of the park as well as opening up the options for new stories.

If you look closely at the art (and as always, click on it for the largest size), you'll see the project also went by the name Volcania.   
What is that front and center? Well, your eyes are not deceiving you. That is, in fact, the Nautilus submarine. Would that be a nod to 20K Leagues Under the Sea or a full-blown attraction? If you're thinking as I am that the suits at Disney would try to pass this onto the Oriental Land Company for Tokyo DisneySea, my guess is we are right.

Rumors of old attraction being reborn come and go (think Western River Expedition), but sometimes it really does happen. It's rare- and in this case, I'd say we chalk up a great idea to the history books.

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

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