Always funny when Disney tries to use forced perspective to make structures appear SMALLER.
Seeing the 3D render with the tower in front like that, it seems like the water tower's intention is to help make the former mountain feel smaller by comparison. The opposite of how it was originally designed, and looking at the video, it works...
But wasn't the point of Splash Mountain to make it look like a big scary drop at the top of a mountain? This feels counter to that now at the expense of realism. Oh well. I do think the minor aesthetic changes are doing a good job of making it feel very different without actually changing much, so they're succeeding at least.