The major difference is the dialogue is French and English, the English is narrated by Vincent Price, yes, you heard me! The late Vincent Price recorded dialogue originally intended for the Phantom Manor but French officials wanted the dialogue in mostly French, so they hired the guy who dubbed Vincent Price in his movies in French.
The original backstory, was that there was a very rich settler called Henry Ravenswood who settled in land that was protected by a Thunderbird, He struck gold and became very wealthy. In time, he married and had a daughter Melanie who of course was very beautiful and Thunder Mesa (the name of the town) grew and pretty soon the gold started to run out which caused the miners to dig deeper into the earth.
Melanie grew up from a young girl into a beautiful woman and became engaged to a local train engineer who played to take her away from Thunder Mesa, Henry did all he could to stop and prevent the wedding! However, before the wedding, a earthquake struck the town and killed Henry, his wife Martha, and many of the townspeople causing Thunder Mesa to be damaged. It seemed the stories of the thunderbird were true as local natives claimed the earthquake was inflicted to the town by the legendary thunderbird who was protecting its treasure. Melanie meanwhile continued plans of her wedding.
However, on the day of the wedding, a mysterious phantom snuck into the mansion and led the groom up into the attic where he was hung on the rafters. Melanie did not know this and spent the entire day searching for her groom. Many people gave up the missing groom for loss, but Melanie vowed to never remove her wedding dress and was said to have said someday he will come for me. Today, she roams the mansion looking for her bridegroom, as time passed, the mansion fell into disrepair and Melanie was never seen again. Many believe that the girl's poor soul is trapped in that house to wander for eternality. The phantom of course invited his undead friends who reside in the house. Thunder Mesa became a ghost town haunted by all killed in the destructive earthquake.
The new storyline was changed with the part of her fiancee was remove and instead she had many suitors who were murdered by Henry under mysterious circumstances.
When you first walk into Phantom Manor, you see a portrait of the phantom (Henry Ravenswood) and Melanie in her wedding dress and it looks so goth and depressing,
We then go into the stretching portrait room where we see Melanie with each of her four suitors, Captain Rowan D. Falls, Sawyer Bottom, Berry Claude, and Iggy Night. Melanie is dressed in a different outfit with each man. Suddenly the portraits with Melanie vanish and we are shown the grisly unfortunate deaths of each suitor.
It's interesting that each man died under mysterious circumstances, and their names give a reference to how they died, example is Rowan D. Falls, he rowed out into the falls, a waterfall. Berry Claude also had an unbearable death, he was mauled by a bear, Sawyer Bottom got sawed in half, and Iggy Night was blown up to smithereens by dynamite, all work by Henry Ravenswood
I am confused as to how this plays out in the original storyline, is that one fiancee no longer cannon. If Melanie didn't marry any of those guys, why is she still wearing a wedding gown. I recall an imagineer who works for Disneyland Paris said that Melanie went insane due to the loss of her lovers. My head is still scratching.
Over all I'll cut the story to the chase and praise the detail and visuals, the portraits were awesome and I liked how they could change. I also like how Henry Ravenswood is now the phantom which makes sense in a way on being overprotective of his daughter. There are some flaws like the Melanie asking guests to marry her and the storyline is all over the place. 8/10
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