The Mission Breakout movie...that isn't a Marvel film

 Since my last post here was about Tower of Terror (1997), and a response to that post by @shaydystheshadowqueen led to the subject of this one, I figured I’d take the time to editorialize a bit more about movies here.  Surprisingly, it may be actually relevant to the Tower of Terror rides--well, at least one of them.  You can judge for yourself by the end.

Picture if you will, a new crop of filmmakers having to tackle the same challenge Tower of Terror (1997)’s filmmakers did: make a film about an IP ride, but it cannot use the IP in question.

And, make it a Mission Breakout movie.

Now, obviously, such a situation would never really exist.  A main drive of the Mission Breakout changeover was for the lucrative Guardians of the Galaxy IP, after all.  But let’s continue this thought experiment for a moment.  What are you left with?

An ominous figure who obsessively collects things, including monstrous sentient beings.

The collector is intent on adding at least one of the heroes to his collection. 

Both those monstrous beings and our heroes need to break out of their containment.

Extremely distinct celestial industrial futurist fantasy art deco (?) architecture.  And I mean REALLY distinct architecture.  I have no idea if this actually describes a real style of it, but you know it if you see it.  And I’ve seen it in two places now.

Because this theoretical movie?  It actually kind of exists.

Note: All screencaps are from movie-screencaps.com

Thir13en Ghosts (2001) (henceforth Thirteen Ghosts so grammar check stops underlining everything) obviously pre-dates Mission Breakout by many, many years.  It even pre-dates California Adventure’s Tower of Terror, which opened in 2004!  Somehow, though, it has one of the most bizarre, unique, and stunning examples of a haunted house ever put to cinema, and that house manages to have the architecture of Mission Breakout.  

 

The glass monster cages look especially familiar:

 

This distinct design language even carries over into the DVD menus if you buy a physical copy!

In fact, watching this film for the first time, I finally understood what the Mission Breakout designers were attempting to do.  The house in the film is genuinely stunning; if not classically beautiful, then at least extremely visually interesting.  You really don’t see other haunted mansions like it, and as a result it’s one of my favorite haunted building designs.  This might seem surprising, given how often I rag on Mission Breakout’s ugliness.  The difference here is clearly budget (or at least the ability to purpose-build the structure you want) and kinetic energy.  Mission Breakout, being a quick and cheap overlay, doesn’t have the benefit of being custom made to showcase this style, and therefore looks like the Temu knockoff of it.  Breakout generally lacks visual kinetic energy, with lots of parts feeling "pasted on."  The Thirteen Ghosts house is constantly in motion—gears are turning, glass walls are shifting, metal rings spin, and panels on the walls shift around to open and close.  Really, you should go watch the movie to see it, because screencaps aren’t doing it justice, and some examples I could post would be spoilers.  

 

This massive central machine that powers the house feels especially MCU.

I think Breakout’s designers actually intended a more visually kinetic appearance, based on an early press release—which I distinctly remember, but frustratingly can no longer find archived online—that promised projections constantly animating the façade.  Sadly, I presume the budget absolutely hobbled the vision and limited the projections to only Monsters After Dark.

And yes, the plot of Thirteen Ghosts involves a morally questionable collector who keeps his collection of twelve (so far…) monstrous ghosts locked in ever-shifting glass boxes custom-made to keep them contained.  Of course, they escape containment.  Our human protagonists are also locked in the haunted mansion and must escape, with the collector intent on adding at least one of them to the collection instead.  It’s Monsters After Dark and Mission Breakout rolled into one!  Well, okay, there’s much less classic rock going on, and far fewer attempts at comedy.  I won’t spoil the plot because I found this a really enjoyable watch, and the movie is fairly accessible (here it is on Tubi for free, or the DVD is $5 on Amazon).   I think it’s a really underrated haunted mansion movie.  I blame the fact that the poster/DVD cover art doesn’t even indicate it’s a haunted house film for its lack of ability to find an audience these days.

 

This feels so generic.  I probably wouldn't have watched it if I hadn't been recommended it and told it was a haunted mansion movie.  I'm not even sure which of the characters the screaming face is supposed to be.

Heck, the shelves upon shelves of various collectibles and antiques in the mansion even seem to exist in parallel in Thirteen Ghosts and the Collector’s office in Mission Breakout!  It's never officially stated, but it's clear through design details that our mansion owner collects all things, and not just ghosts.

 

Yes, Tony Shaloub is in this.

Matthew Lillard is in it too.

After all the screencaps I’ve posted, here’s some photos of Mission Breakout for comparison: 

 

Note: I took these Mission Breakout photos during Monsters After Dark 2024, and thus they reflect the lighting and set dressing in that version of the ride.

 

Once again, much like watching the movie conveys more than screenshots, actually going on the ride gives a way better sense of the it than this sampling of photos.

You may have noticed that I refer to Thirteen Ghosts as a haunted mansion movie, rather than just a haunted house movie.  That's because it is a Haunted Mansion movie, as in THE Haunted Mansion.  Thirteen Ghosts is officially (in legal terms) but also only sort-of (in plot terms) a remake of the 1960 movie 13 Ghosts.  

 

Back when Walt Disney was brainstorming ideas for a haunted house for Disneyland, he actually took Imagineers to a screening of a specific ghost movie for inspiration.  That movie?  Yeah, it’s 13 Ghosts, cheesy gimmick B-movie extraordinaire.  Apparently Rolly Crump even stated that this movie, and not The Haunting (1963) was the Walt-approved inspiration for the ride.  (He did not rule out that other Imagineers were inspired by The Haunting, just that Walt did not officially direct them to watch it.)

Mansion fans will recognize a lot in 13 Ghosts, but especially the cheesy horror-comedy tone, the wide variety of vaguely comedic spirits, the séance, and the numerically ordered ghosts with “room for one more.”

Anyone else get Mystic Manor vibes from this version of the mansion exterior?

 

I feel like the lion and lion tamer ghosts are iconic to fans familiar with classic Haunted Mansion concept art.  Also note the red-blue "Illusion-O" color tinting.

The seance

 

The family maid/psychic medium is played by Margaret Hamilton!  Yes, the Wicked Witch of the West!

This movie is a very different experience from its "remake" and also worth at least one watch. 13 Ghosts seems to currently be in a bit of a home media limbo, with official physical copies out of print, but there are a few digital copies floating around on streaming.  Plex has the black and white 4x3 VHS version, Tubi has the black and white widescreen (dvd?) version, and Internet Archive has a version that preserves the red/blue tinted Illusion-O effects, so you can experience the original intent at home if you have your own red/blue 3D glasses.

So, if 13 Ghosts has an official Disney ride connection, what of Thirteen Ghosts?  As soon as the movie was over, I was searching up the art and visual development departments in the credits to see if any of them had any Disney or Marvel connection.

I started by IMDB-searching names from the credits, and found a striking number of them went on to work on Disney’s Tomorrowland (2015), of all things. Okay, that was a Disney Parks connection, but a really tenuous one that didn't provide many answers.   Plus, Tomorrowland doesn't look much like Mission Breakout or Thirteen Ghosts.  

Likewise, I looked back at The Collector’s Fortress as depicted in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) for more clues, only to have more questions.  Those glass cages look the same but otherwise the architecture is strikingly un-Breakout.  So, that left the initial Marvel end a mystery as well.

 

Those glass cages are the same, but the Collector's base in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) is much more open and warehouse-like.

 But then, I found a lead in an unlikely place.  I usually don't put stock in random "list-icle" sites but this Ranker post had a potential bombshell: the production designer for Thirteen Ghosts had gone on to work on MCU films, and James Gunn had worked, albeit uncredited, on Thirteen Ghosts.

Thus, I went about verifying those claims.  Sure enough, based on his IMDB page, Sean Hargreaves served as production designer on Thirteen Ghosts, and then went on to be a senior concept designer on multiple MCU films.  Most importantly for this post, he worked on Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 and Thor Ragnarok: the two films that canonically connect to Mission Breakout.

James Gunn, of course, is the writer and director of the Guardians of the Galaxy portion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  He also worked on Mission Breakout, directing the screen-based portions. The claim about him working on Thirteen Ghosts was a bit harder to verify, as the tweet where he confirmed it had been deleted.  I did, however, find an archive of it thanks to the magic of the Wayback Machine:

 

Both he and the person he replied to seemed to have a rather negative view of the film.  Indeed this film has a seemingly disproportionate negative reputation that I can't explain.  Also he uses the title of the original film when obviously he would've worked on the remake instead.

Yeah, Gunn seems to have just done some uncredited rewrites... but he DID work on it.  And, honestly, it feels like it has his signature "vibe" even beyond it looking like a ride he would eventually make.  I think you'll get it if you watch the film.

 

So, it's a tenuous connection... but it IS a connection.  It's not exactly proof that Mission Breakout was inspired by the architecture of Thirteen Ghosts, but it's at least interesting that creatives involved with the latter would go on to create the former.

 

Or, I wondered, could both Breakout and the film be drawing from some even earlier source? 

Some of the architecture in Thor Ragnarok (2017) has this same style, and of course that movie is also canonically part of Mission Breakout, particularly for Monsters After Dark.

 

 

Thor Ragnarok's design was based on the art of Jack Kirby.  Given the numerous comics references that show up in Thirteen Ghosts too, I wonder if that could be the missing link or the inspiration behind it all.

So, there you have it folks.  There's a Mission Breakout movie that's not Marvel or Disney affiliated, and debuted 15 years before the ride.  I can't definitively prove a link, or the origin of this very unique architectural style, but they aren't entirely unrelated.  It'd be especially amusing if there was a connection, because Disney definitely already created an unofficial 13 Ghosts ride with The Haunted Mansion.  I never expected to be diving into Breakout's origins the way I usually do Tower's, but here we are!

Also, in case it wasn't clear already, I recommend you go watch Thirteen Ghosts and 13 Ghosts.  Let me know if you spot any other similarities!

It’s Perfectly… Whelming: An Overdue Review of Tower of Terror (1997)

 

Two prized pieces of my Tower of Terror collection...I do hope to find the standalone DVD someday.

It may or may not seem weird that I’m almost 10 years into this blog and I haven’t done a review, or even talked much about, Tower of Terror (1997).  I have seen it multiple times now, and I own it on both VHS and DVD (the only ways it was ever released on home media; it's not even on Disney+).  However, I haven’t written about it, despite numerous requests, because, well, I actually don’t have much to say about it.

It’s not a bad movie.  It’s not a great movie, either.  I think it suffers from being the first Disney ride-to-movie adaptation, and from being a TV movie.  Budget and forced kid-friendliness (both likely due to being TV not theatrical) rob it of the action or scares that greatly benefit later efforts like the Pirates of the Caribbean films and even the Haunted Mansion films.  It’s solidly aimed at a young audience, with barely any spooks, and it probably couldn’t afford any even if it were allowed.  I’m glad that it was successful enough to lead to those later films, since Curse of the Black Pearl is one of my all-time favorites and I still unabashedly enjoy Eddie Murphy’s Haunted Mansion.  Tower of Terror is something I could see myself liking if I’d gotten to see it when I was younger, but I didn’t get to actually view this one until I was an adult and had already seen more complex/higher-budget/more mature films revolving around similar themes and settings.

The Elevator Five are the best part of the movie, and the actors that play them do their best with limited material; I like this iteration much better than the “elite Herman family” that the Society of Explorers and Adventurers continuity seems to use instead.  Of course, these characters get a whole film while the Herman family gets some newspaper clippings, but still.  I wouldn't mind seeing more of this version of the characters, in some kind of mini-series spinoff or something.  The fact that the protagonist, played by Steve Guttenberg, is named “Buzzy” is also quite hilarious in hindsight, due to the mysterious saga of that animatronic.  I also find it amusing that Buzzy is a writer, given that, for some reason, whenever an ominous hotel shows up, a writer tends to be the one having a bad time with it (see also: The Shining (1980), Barton Fink (1991), and 1408 (2007)).  The film also does a good job of incorporating the importance of both the main elevator and the maintenance elevator, something all incarnations of the ride leave somewhat ambiguous (why are the maintenance elevators also cursed when it was the lobby elevator/Hightower’s private elevator that was struck by the cursed lightning?).

My biggest annoyance isn’t with the film itself, but instead with a common fandom misconception.  This film was NOT “filmed at the actual ride,” at least not in the way many people seem to take that.  Yes, there are some exterior shots of the real ride, but the vast majority of other footage in the hotel and its grounds are not at the actual Florida Tower of Terror.  Some of this is obvious, featuring gardens and kitchen rooms that obviously do not exist at the ride, and featuring a boiler room/elevator maintenance room that looks different from Florida’s loading area.

Less obvious but still noticeable is that the lobby is NOT the one from the ride either.  It’s a very close replica, but sharp-eyed viewers will spot different furniture (Florida’s lobby furniture has not changed since 1994, I checked old footage) and possibly a slightly larger scale of room.  The actual ride lobby is quite tiny; you’ll especially notice this if you ever get to walk into the actual show scene, or even go through the Mission Breakout queue which includes the former DCA lobby space.  Given how bulky professional camera equipment can be, especially back in the 90s, it would’ve been tough to film in there!  So, of course, it’s filmed on a replica soundstage set.  I wonder if it’s the same set the pre-show video was filmed on—we know from behind-the-scenes documentary material that the pre-show was filmed on a set before the real lobby was built, and the imagineers even used it to beta-test the lobby’s look in advance.  Whether or not that pre-show set would’ve still existed by 1997, I’m not sure.  Both the movie and pre-show’s lobby sets feature the ability for the lobby elevator doors to open and show the elevator inside, which cannot happen with the version in the ride.

My other gripe with this film is that its rendition of the Tower of Terror story removes the mysterious cosmic horror element.  To me, this is one of the core parts of original-Tower’s horror, more so than any Twilight Zone reference or specific character.  In the ride, we don’t know exactly why the Twilight Zone brewed up that storm that destroyed the hotel, made everyone disappear, left five specific people in limbo, and now is repeating history with every random person that wanders in.  And that’s terrifying!  There’s this giant building, it might be alive, and we have no idea why it does what it does! 

This is the same flaw I feel that the 1999 version of The Haunting has compared to the 1963 original—over-explaining why the weird building is that way takes away some of the mystery and suspense and fundamentally changes what type of horror story it is.  In The Shining (1980), we don’t know why (or even necessarily if!) the hotel drives its caretakers to murder and keeps their souls after.  The mystery is key to it being cosmic or psychological horror.  Meanwhile, in the 1997 Tower of Terror, the horror is… a jealous tween casting a spell.  Which, yeah, I guess that could be genuinely scary, given the right treatment (i.e. a proper theatrical horror and not a kid friendly TV budget), but it’s not the SAME scary that would match the spirit of the ride it’s specifically adapting.  It’s like when the more recent imagineers go out of the way to try and tack on a story to “explain” the Haunted Mansion ride in newer updates—it’s missing the point of what makes this type of story tick. (As an aside, yes this does mean that the Harrison Hightower version of Tower of Terror is a slightly different genre of horror to the others.)

I still would’ve preferred a conversion to this version of the story—or to the Harrison Hightower story, I guess—rather than Mission Breakout.  On that front, I’m relieved that this exists, since it does provide an option for a less-destructive, quicker and easier re-theme should Disney decide to drop the Twilight Zone license for Florida or Paris.

So there it is.  Tower of Terror (1997) is a perfectly okay movie that provides potential insurance against worse possible re-themes.  It’s worth a watch if you’re a Tower fan interested in all the different incarnations of the lore (and want names/identities to give to the otherwise unnamed characters), or if you have young family members that you want to introduce to the horror genre.  Otherwise, to me, it just sort of exists.

 

As for my personal film recommendations for Tower of Terror fans (in addition to the obligatory watch of Tower of Terror (1997), because come on, you still need to watch at least once if you’re a fan), here they are in order of release date:

 

The Haunting (1963)(G)—Horror—Most famous for being a major influence on Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, you’ll recognize a lot of the “evil sentient building” horror here too.  Obviously, since Tower took many cues from Mansion, this is sort of Tower’s “grandparent.”  This iteration of Hill House might look like the Haunted Mansion, but it acts a lot more malevolently like Tower.  Also note that this was from the era before “G” ratings meant “kid’s movie” so younger viewers might be either bored or scared if you pick this based on rating alone.

The Shining (1980) (R)—Horror—THE famous evil hotel story, although I’d argue it’s more of a drama about familial issues with the hotel stuff as symbolic in the film version.  Anyways, the hotel’s interiors were heavily modeled on the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park.  This hotel also served as reference for The Grand Californian Hotel at Disney’s California Adventure, and thus likely DCA Tower as well given the development time frame.  The Imagineers have also confirmed this film’s thematic influence for the original Florida Tower, though the design similarities are less pronounced.

Barton Fink (1991)(R)—Comedy/Drama/Horror/Good Luck Explaining the Genre of This One—An aspiring screenwriter develops writer’s block, meets an array of strange people, and becomes disillusioned with Hollywood while staying at a strange and ominous art deco hotel that may or may not reflect the mental state of its residents. Has a surreal atmosphere that lands it in "honorary Twilight Zone episode" status for me.  Steve Buscemi appears as a quirky bellhop.

1408 (2007)(PG-13)—Horror—A skeptic writer investigates a paranormal hotel room, despite Samuel L. Jackson trying to warn him away from it.  It’s an Evil.  Fucking.  Room.

 

If you’re willing to stray a bit farther from it being an evil hotel specifically, I’d also recommend:

 

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)(R)—Horror—The lines of fiction and reality blur as a search for a missing horror writer leads the investigator to find that the books might not be so fictional.  I consider this to be part of a thematic trilogy with Barton Fink (1991) and 1408 (2007) specifically.

Event Horizon (1997)(R)—Horror—A missing spaceship suddenly reappears… and it’s come back wrong.  Despite the spaceship setting, this one oddly strays closest to some of the ride-Tower’s backstory, with early press releases describing the hotel as disappearing due to the storm and then reappearing years later in the theme park, hungry for guests…

The Glasses Return AGAIN! Another mini update

 In the previous post, I mentioned that the glasses from "Time Enough at Last" had returned to the library.  Turns out, that was only in one of the libraries, and now they've also returned to the other!

The glasses by the Dante's Inferno Beatrice statue are apparently in the right side library.  These new ones are in the left side!  They are below the TV, on the grated shelf, thoroughly hidden by some Egyptian artifacts.  As with all of these recent Tower updates, photos and info are from @chunkecheeks.

A close-up of the glasses. @chunkecheeks, 2026

 

A wider photo showing JUST HOW HIDDEN they are! @chunkecheeks, 2026

To see this iteration of the glasses, it seems you have to get VERY close to the TV, and purposefully be looking for them!

 Furthermore, @chunkecheeks reported that the intentional signature scent also seems to be in the lobby now.  She said it's similar to, and possibly the same scent as the one used at the Sid Cauhuenga's shop at Hollywood Studios.  That location also apparently has an intentionally musty scent.  I don't think I've ever been in Sid's, despite visiting the park multiple times over the years, so I can't personally comment on that.

Once again, I'm glad to see references popping up, and Tower being looked after in general.  I wonder if any more Easter Eggs will once again reappear in this dimension...

ANOTHER DCA Easter Egg Rises again! And even more awesome references and mysteries appear...

Shocking as it might be (I know I was surprised!), it’s time for another Tower of Terror update—with yet ANOTHER returning California Adventure Easter Egg, and two more mysteries!

Once again, news of these updates comes from @chunkecheeks.  The first round of updates was as of January 29^th, 2026, just after the first ones I posted about this year.

First of all, there is a new/updated display on the extended bit of desk behind the photo purchase counter.  It’s the far right side of the desk, in the corner that you first see when you walk out of the photo viewing area in the exit.  A display has shown up with a new Halloween sign and a bunch of luggage marked 10/20/39.  There is also a 1020 key, next to some glasses in this same area.  

 

The 1020 key.  You can see one side of the glasses at the right. Photo by @chunkecheeks, 2026

The 10/20 luggage, with the labeled Most Unusual Camera above it.  Photo by @chunkecheeks, 2026

And yes, as you can see, on top of the luggage is another prominent returning DCA Easter Egg: The Most Unusual Camera, from the episode "A Most Unusual Camera."  It's even labeled on its tag!

The date seems intentional and significant, given its prominent placement and repetition, but as of yet neither @chunkecheeks nor I has any idea what it means.  The original air date of the first Twilight Zone episode was 10/02/59, so I do wonder if 02 got typo’d to 20… but that would have been easy to catch and fix.  Indeed that date is referenced elsewhere, with a 1002 key atop some envelopes on one of the library desks.

This photo was also in the last post.  We now know the meaning of the key number, but it's unclear if the dates/places on the envelopes have any meaning. @chunkecheeks, 2026

 

There was exactly ONE original Twilight Zone episode aired on an October 20^th, episode 71 “The Mirror,” but it doesn’t seem to have any connection to the luggage display.  Likewise, it doesn’t seem to be any of the Tower of Terror rides’ opening dates, or Rod Serling’s birthday, or any other obvious date to make a prominent display about.  Does anyone have any ideas?

From what @chunkecheeks and I can tell looking back on photos from different years, this whole display is very new, being at OLDEST from 2024.

Also in this area, above the photo counter, is a small monkey statue that is apparently an official nod to Mystic Manor the Society of Explorers and Adventurers (SEA) multi-park mega-theme.  This furthers my pet theory that both the Hollywood Tower Hotel and Hotel Hightower exist in the same continuity.  Let’s face it, Hightower’s downfall would go PERFECTLY in a Twilight Zone episode.  I can practically hear the Rod Serling narration.

Mystic Manor monkey, above the photo purchase counter. @chunkecheeks, 2026

 There are also two new references to the episode “Eye of the Beholder” in the gift shop, in the form of faux-advertisements for a fictional beauty product line.  These are apparently behind the gift shop counter.

@chunkecheeks, 2026

@chunkecheeks, 2026

 On the ride itself, the lightning flashes in the drop shaft have been completely repaired, and are now working properly.

An even more shocking (heh) update to the drop shaft, though, is a major update to the “mannequin scene.”  No longer appearing as the obscured mannequins with billowing cloth I remembered, the ghosts now clearly light up with lightning effects and are more recognizable as the characters.  Futhermore, there is an entirely new effect—or, at least, one that I have not seen nor heard of functioning since I first rode the ride in 2002—where the riders are BLASTED WITH SCENTED AIR during this scene!  Finally, Tower has (or once again has?) an official scent!  According to @chunkecheeks, the scent is sharp, musky, and tinged with mahogany and dust.  I’m rather amused by this, since on multiple occasions I’ve noted that “Tower of Terror” scented candles never smelled like the actual ride to me (the ride always just smelled like the air in the environment…hot humid for Florida, hot dry for California, icy sea for Tokyo…), and now it has one that does indeed match the marketing of those scented candles.

As I added in an edit to the previous post, but feel I should mention again here, @laffiteslanding solved the mystery of the “porcelains of Europe” note in the right-side library—per a backstage tour, it was an in-joke among imagineers about props arriving broken.  However, there is still no explanation for the desk display in the OTHER library, which has a similarly deliberate note on a different subject.

@chunkecheeks, 2026

 In case you can't read it clearly in the photo above, it says, "Warm climate of California should accept introduction of many subtropical plants unknown in this area.  Most varieties should eventually naturalize with proper soil amendments and irrigation."

The note isn't the only plant reference around; the whole desk scene is plant themed.  The opened book is a botany book with plant illustrations.  Even the desk itself has a face on it that apparently resembles a “green man” nature spirit character. 

 

The book is in pretty poor shape, but you can just about tell it has illustrations of plants. @chunkecheeks, 2026

Wider view of the left-side library's desk, with the plant book and plant spirit desk carving.  You can also see some mail, which also may or may not include a reference. @chunkecheeks, 2026

@laffiteslanding’s tour did not mention anything about plants or explain this display the way it did the porcelain one.  Anyone have any ideas about what this references?  Is there a prominent botanist character in a Twilight Zone episode that I just can’t recall?   

Given that the other library desk was a real-world reference to Tower's development, explaining cracked props, I wonder if this is also a real-world reference.  It mentions subtropical plants adapting to California.  Florida has a subtropical climate, thus necessitating the park being landscaped with plants from there, despite the story of Tower of Terror taking place in California.  I wonder if this is to over-explain the landscaping (as if most people would even notice the difference in plants...) the same way the other note over-explains the cracked porcelain (why WOULDN'T porcelain be cracked in a building that had half of it blasted off by magic lightning?).

What do you think?  Development gag, or show reference I haven't gotten yet? 

There are also some further details on this desk where we are unsure if they have deeper meaning.  The first is this key, which I think is for room 908 (upside down in the picture), but may also be 806 (if the picture has the key oriented correctly).  Obviously neither could be an episode of the 5-season original run, so perhaps it is a date?

@chunkecheeks, 2026

 

There is also another pair of mailed letters, one stacked atop the other. 

@chunkecheeks, 2026

 The bottom letter is from Irwin, Pennsylvania and dated June 11, 1939, with the address obscured by the letter above it.  The top letter is from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and dated May 14, 1939.  It is addressed to:

Frank J. Resch, M.D.

3750 S. Spaulding Ave.

Chicago, Ill., USA

I don't personally recall a Dr. Frank Resch from The Twilight Zone and a quick search of the name + the show doesn't seem to turn up anything relevant... is this random?  The name/hometown of an imagineer? 

@chunkecheeks also transcribed the ALL OF THE bulletin boards from the exit, but that DEFINITELY deserves its whole own post!

So, that was already a lot, but then as of February 8, 2026, THERE’S EVEN MORE!!

At long last, the broken glasses from “Time Enough at Last” have returned to the library, albeit in a new spot next to a statue of Beatrice from Dante’s Inferno instead of on a stack of books.  According to @chunkecheeks, the glasses were initially removed for safety concerns, as they were real broken glass that guests could potentially reach.  They were resin-stabilized by a Tower cast member who was a dedicated fan, and thus finally able to return to their rightful place in the ride.  Apparently, a lot of these restored Easter Eggs are a result of the efforts of CMs who are dedicated fans, taking it upon themselves to keep the ride in shape!  While the new placement might not be as spot-on to the episode as the old placement atop the books, I can’t help but feel it’s still thematically appropriate.  A character from Dante’s Inferno makes a lot of sense for an episode where the main character ends up in his own personal hell.

The Beatrice statue; you can see the broken glasses behind her. @chunkecheeks, 2026

 

A better look at the glasses themselves. @chunkecheeks, 2026

An even stranger Easter Egg, or perhaps a previously unknown aspect of an Easter Egg, has also appeared in the library.  The Rod Serling and Victoria West envelopes now have something hanging out of them.  To me it looks like reel-to-reel audio recording tape, although it’s possibly some other kind of film.  Once again, according to @chunkecheeks this tape/film was in the envelopes all along, just tucked inside never shown to guests.  This is an insane detail to me, as it never occurred to me that the envelopes would be anything but empty props.  If it is audio tape, that’s a nice reference to Rod Serling’s voice (well, an impression of his voice) being used as the voice of the Tower.  

UPDATE: Having re-watched the episode these envelopes reference, "A World of His Own," that is almost certainly audio tape.  The plot of the episode is that an author can bring characters to life by describing them on audio tape, and keep them alive so long as he has the tape reel section stored in a safe in his house.  So that solves what's hanging out of the envelopes!  Although I do wonder if it was in there for 30 years, or recently added to strengthen the reference to the episode. 

The Rod Serling envelope with the tape/film hanging out of it. @chunkecheeks, 2026

 

On less exciting and concrete grounds, in part of my recent Twilight Zone rewatch I may have found some inspiration for certain scenes in Tower.

In S1E20 “Elegy,” the main characters come across a frozen-in-time party scene, with the camera initially focusing prominently on a champagne bottle in a bucket next to a table, as seen here:

Screenshot from S1E20 "Elegy"

 I think this may be the inspiration behind the similar lobby scene.   

Here's an up-close look at the scene from when I got to boundary-break and explore the lobby in June 2023!

 The fact that (SPOILER ALERT) all the people in the episode's party scene are dead and it’s part of an elaborate cemetery may or may not hint at a grim fate for the hotel guests that weren’t in the elevator during the fateful lightning storm.

The very next episode, S1E21 “Mirror Image,” likewise opens with some really familiar-sounding lightning and rain effects.  It’s possible they’re drawn from a basic stock library, but given the obsessive levels of detail Tower’s designers sometimes displayed, I wouldn’t be too surprised if these were the exact same sounds sampled for the ride.

So, barely a month and a half into 2026 and there’s so many great updates and new mysteries already!  Let me know if any of you have any explanations, or have spotted anything else!