Universal Studios Day 1: Afternoon

JAWS

JAWS… the cheesy, campy ride that everyone immediately thinks of when Universal Studios is mentioned in casual conversation.  People have proposed to their loved ones on this thing, for God’s sake.  So how is it?  Getting on the ride, it actually advertises itself as the Amity Boat Tour.  There was no mention of Jaws other than on the warning sign posted at the entrance.  We began by boarding a Jungle Cruise-esque boat with our nonchalant tour guide pretending to steer the boat as it glided along a track.  The tour was basically structured as a tour of the town of Amity, describing it as the town that suffered the horrible attack of Jaws that the famous movie was based on.  Pretty soon, not surprisingly, the tour comes across another tour boat sinking, having just recently been attacked by Jaws.  Our boat was called in to help just a little too late.  Oh well.  Anyway, the animatronic wonder makes his first appearance with a quick splash and an explosion of a gas station before our guide lobs a grenade at him by using a portable launcher.   

We then head into a boathouse to take cover.  Jaws starts ramming the walls of the boathouse, so we flee only to have him pop out of the water right next to us as the tour guide attempts to lead us to a boat dock.  This boat dock happens to be located right next to a power cable, which Jaws stupidly bites into, frying him dead.  Everyone cheers and we head back to the beginning.  I happened to be sitting on the left side of the boat, which is where you want to be if you want to be splashed or right next to Jaws when he’s at his most “menacing”.  Susan and I both had a campy good time on this ride and it should be held as some sort of rite of passage for theme park enthusiasts.

After Jaws, Susan wanted to go see the Animal Actors on Location show since it was closer to starting time.  I wanted to ride the Men in Black Alien Attack ride so we decided to split up and meet when I was done. 

Men In Black: Alien Attack

A quick note on this one: If you want to get ahead of the line quickly.  Getting in the single rider line is definitely the way to go.  By this time of day, the lines had started getting a little longer but I was able to get almost straight on anyway. 

So MIB: AA as far as I could tell didn’t have much of a storyline to it.  Basically it serves as a recruitment training program for the MIB agents.  The ride itself is on a track similar to a lot of dark house-style rides with the car spinning quickly back and forth a good bit as you spin around firing at aliens.  The firing part is the unique gimmick of this ride as it acts as a sort of shooting gallery with your car being equipped with a gun that you fire at alien targets as the ride progresses.  It basically proceeds in this fashion until you come across a giant alien at the end that apparently involves setting explosives in its mouth that are detonated by driving your car in and spinning around a lot.  This was a fun ride that was worth taking a little time to try out.  For those who get sick on spinning rides like my wife, you might want to stay clear.  Since I was able to get through the line so quickly, I decided to head over to Animal Actors on Location to watch it with Susan since it hadn’t started yet.

Animal Actors On Location

This was most likely Susan’s favorite attraction at the park, only trumped by a squirrel that came up to her foot and looked at her outside the E.T. ride.  It was basically comprised of some animal trainers showing off some movie animals and how they are trained.  It was a pretty interesting show, featuring a bird from Evan Almighty and the lab from Marley and Me, among others.  At one point, a volunteer in the audience sitting right next to me had a bird fly up and snatch a dollar out of his hand.  It was pretty neat to have something like that as close as it was.

After this I was able to convince Susan to ride the E.T. Adventure as I had mentioned earlier and she seemed to enjoy it, partially because the fake E.T. that sat in a basket in front of the bikes was attached to the bike she was on.  After this we attempted to go to the Disaster! Ride but it was having issues, as it had been all day.  Instead we decided to go to Shrek 4D.

Shrek 4D

The interesting thing about the fact that we went to Shrek 4D is that neither of us are big Shrek fans.  We were mostly doing it to kill time until the next showing of Terminator 3D.  The premise of Shrek 4D is that it picks up where the first movie ended.  Basically Prince Farquaad has come back as a ghost and kidnapped Fiona.  Of course, Shrek & Donkey hop in a carriage to give chase and save the day.  So first off, the movie is in 3D, which was very impressive in places.  It gives the 3D you would see in a local Cineplex a run for its money.  The 4D aspect of it involves the seats they’ve put you in.  The seats are positioned in a familiar theater-based setup but each seat has been rigged with some small hydraulics to simulate things like bumpy roads.  The show will also spray you with air to simulate bugs crawling around your legs and spritz you with water to simulate donkey sneezing.  Overall, it was pretty entertaining and air conditioned but the bumpiness of the seat motion I found a little annoying.

We missed the next showing of Terminator since Shrek took so long, so we went back over to Disaster to see if it was operational yet. 

Disaster!

Susan and I both enjoyed this one.  The fact that it featured Christopher Walken pretty much made it awesome for me, regardless of the entertainment of the ride portion.  So this takes a while to go through.  You begin in an initial room where the assistant director of Disaster Studios needs to select a few actors to appear in their next movie.  He selects some random volunteers from the audience and everyone goes to the next room.  The next room is the director’s office where Christopher Walken makes his grand appearance.  The hologram they use to make Christopher Walken appear to be present is so lifelike and seamlessly integrated with the environment that at first I thought it was an actor they hired that just looked and acted exactly like Walken.  After the director discusses his next picture, Mutha Nature, and his vision for Disaster Studios, everyone is then lead into the next room which appears to be a movie set with several scenes set up.  The actors selected at the beginning are then placed in their appropriate spots and several scenes are then filmed within a brief 6-minute time period.  It’s done in a pretty humorous fashion with the scenes coming into play later in the ride.  We were then lead into the next room where are herded on board a subway train to aid the director in filming the last section of the movie.  For those familiar with the history of Universal Studios, this section of the ride will be familiar as it is essentially the classic Earthquake! Ride that they have re-imagined into a movie shoot.  The subway train heads into the next room where an earthquake strikes causing the street above to come crashing down with a semi sliding into the train, water to come pouring into the station and another train to fly off the tracks into the train.  The whole time the First Unit Director (or somebody like that) is encouraging everyone to react in terror at the ridiculousness going on around them.   

After everything is complete, the subway train backs into the previous room to let everyone out.  As the train is backing out, we get to watch a trailer for our newly completed film that includes scenes the actors were in earlier as well as clips of everyone in the subway car.  We particularly enjoyed a scene of a grandmother getting struck by lightning and exploding while gardening.  Overall, this one is definitely recommended and takes a good 20 minutes total to get through.  As a result, you really get your money’s worth regardless of the wait time.

After this we finally decided to make our way over to Terminator 3D since the next showing was coming up.

Terminator 3D

We are shown a pre-show video featuring Cyberdyne technologies and how they are improving the world through their innovations.  I found this video delightfully cheesy and outdated, featuring such communications innovations as the ability to tuck a child into bed from hundreds of miles away using bulky robot arms attached to the bedframe.  After the video gets interrupted by Sarah & John Connor, era T2, the cheerfully annoying Cyberdyne Director of Human Relations ushers everyone into the theater.  At this point, she introduces the latest Cyberdyne technology, a robotic fighting force.  Several Terminator robots then are revealed via raised platforms across the sides of the auditorium.  At this point, the proceedings are interrupted again by the Connors propelling in from the ceiling.  Everything up to this point has been all live action.  A three large screens act as the backdrop of the auditorium.  While firing their weapons and threatening the human relations lady, John & Sarah are interrupted by a T1000 that first appears on the screen, oozing out in a very cool 3D effect.  He then walks through a portal and appears on the stage, giving chase to the revolutionaries and killing the annoying Cyberdyne lady.  Arnie then ride a motorcycle from out of the screen, firing a shotgun at the T1000 and spewing cheesy one-liners like there’s no tomorrow.  He then grabs John and drives through a time portal into the future.  The next section of the show is primarily on screen and Arnie & John are pursued in the future by all manner of evil robot as they seek to destroy the Skynet complex.  Through a series of action sequences involving lots more one-liners, they arrive at the center of Skynet where a giant liquid robot mantis thing proceeds to attack them.  When John asks Arnie what it is, he replies that it’s the T1000000.  Really? 

Anyway, at this point the actors are back out on the stage with the bug attacking them via awesome 3D effects across all three screens.  This section I felt was very cool and one of the most interesting examples of 3D I had ever seen.  Given the age of the ride (mid-90’s), I was very impressed.  I can only assume that they’ve probably updated the technology since it first opened.  Anyway, they freeze the robot using liquid nitrogen or something and destroy it.  Then they blow up Skynet and everybody celebrates.  Susan and I both really liked this one, despite the cheesiness of it in places.  I definitely recommend it to anyone visiting.

After Terminator 3D we made our way out of the park and ate dinner at Pastamore, a decent Italian place on the Universal Citywalk outside the park.

In summary, I really enjoyed this theme park for several reasons.  First of all, the rides were consistently of a high quality and most were pretty lengthy.  There’s nothing that aggravates me more than having to wait 40 or more minutes in line for a ride only to have it last a minute and be less than amazing.  A second positive point to the park was that it had more shaded areas than many I’ve been to owing to the fact that it was designed like a movie studio with a lot of closely grouped together buildings.  A third positive aspect was that many of the rides were indoors, offering a nice break from the heat. 

Universal Studios Day 1: Morning

Having just gotten back from our honeymoon, I thought I would write down our experience at Universal Studios to any curious.  I'll be breaking it up into sections, so keep a look out for future blogs on it as well.

We got up first thing in the morning to make sure we arrived at the park before the patrons began flooding the streets with gibbering nonsense and long lines.  Deciding to go in a roughly clockwise pattern around the park, primarily to hit some of the more popular rides first, Susan and I began our sojourn into theme park territory with the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster.

Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit

The line for this coaster was mercifully short, owing to our excellent of strategy of getting to the park early.  The coaster features a stadium-seating style arrangement with each seat having its own set of speakers and a small touch console in front of you.  The console features six different styles of music to select from.  I initially selected the Rock & Metal, hoping for something awesome.  Unfortunately Universal deems nonsense such as Limp Bizkit roller coaster-ready.  So I backed out and went to the Electronica section where I immediately set my eyes on and jammed my finger at the awesomeness of Daft Punk’s “Harder Better Faster Stronger”.  So if you’re wondering what the music selection is for, in case you haven’t already guessed (and God help you if you haven’t…),  the roller coaster blasts your music selection into your brain and it’s twisting you about and plunging you through several loops and twists.  I enjoyed this one quite a bit.  Unfortunately, due to a heavy breakfast and a few too many inverted 540 helixes, the Rockit left Susan feeling nauseous and uneasy for most of the morning.  In an attempt to help her calm her stomach, we decided to proceed to an attraction that’s more of a show than an actual ride, Twister: Ride It Out.

Twister: Ride It Out

While waiting on the ride to start in a queuing area, we were treated to not one but two extended trailers for the movie Twister.  As much as I enjoy watching Bill Paxton discuss how harrowing his movie-making experience in central Oklahoma was (“right in the middle of TORNADO ALLEY!”…that Jean De Bont is so dangerous…), I was anxious to get the thing started.  The attraction is basically presented as a tornado simulator.   We were led to three rows of platforms under what appeared to be a shed with standing room only.   The set where the tornado was to occur looked not unlike Belk, Alabama, with some rusty pickup trucks sitting by an old gas station.  Then the sky gets cloudy; tornado weather is at hand.  This is actually one of the neater effects of making an indoor area look like a stormy sky through the use of special effects.  Then the winds began picking up greatly with the tornado materializing in the middle of the set.  A truck began spinning its wheels as it’s pulled backwards toward the funnel and a very cheesy cow on strings is pulled across the set.  Somehow on the opposite side of the stage from where we were standing, a fire was started by an power pole falling onto a gas pump igniting the whole thing as the fire got pulled into the tornado.  The fire was real.  I could feel the heat, and it was a gratifying climax.  As far as a recommendation, it was kind of neat and I could see it being a good break from the heat in the afternoon since the whole thing was air conditioned.  Susan was still feeling sick after this one, so I decided to go it alone for the next ride, Revenge of the Mummy.

Revenge of the Mummy

Revenge of the Mummy is a sort of mixture of haunted house and indoor roller coaster.  The queue for the ride (which I waited on next to no time at all like most of the rides in the park) features Brendan Frasier hamming it up in an interview, as he often does.  Once on the ride, it features an animatronic mummy telling you to join him and he’ll reward you with gold… or be punished… You know, that sort of thing.  The ride seems to assume you do not want to join him as it then sends you into another room with the mummy’s booming voice proclaiming ominous threats of doom as bugs crawl out of the walls.  This effect was done using giant projection screens.  The card then flies backward out of the bug-filled room and more crazy stuff happens which culminates in you climbing a big hill that leads straight into the mummy’s mouth.  The mummy has apparently eaten a lot of spinning scarabs of varying colors since that is mostly what you see as the ride then whips around lots of tight twists and turns in mostly darkness.  After a minute or so, you go into what appears to be the exit area with a theme park operator on a video screen thanking you for riding and hoping you had a great experience.  At this point, the operator then bursts into flames as the mummy’s voice comes back in yelling more threats at you.  The ceiling then catches on fire, real fire, before the ride shoots you back into the darkness of the roller coaster section once again.  After more rotating beetles and coaster fun, you then head to the real exit with Brendan Frasier hamming it up again as you leave.  Overall, this was possibly my favorite ride in the Universal Studios part of the park and was a great experience that I highly recommend to visitors.  After this, Susan was feeling a little better so we made our way over to her most anticipated ride, The Simpsons Ride.

The Simpsons Ride

The queue for this one was in typical Simpsons form, pretty entertaining.  It definitely made the wait more bearable, which didn’t matter too much anyway since we only waited a few minutes.  The whole ride has a very carnival-esque feel to it with fake ads for different booths and various supporting characters running booths in the queuing line, for instance Groundskeeper Willie running the booth that involves hitting bottles with a baseball.  After being ushering into a second queuing area with just the group that will be in the car with us, we were treated to an original Simpsons short that lays out the premise of the ride, that being that Krusty has opened a new theme park called Krustyland but that Sideshow Bob has connived his way into getting the Simpsons into the first pilot group with a plot to kill them.  Meanwhile Maggie is left in charge of Grandpa, who promptly falls asleep allowing Maggie to wander into a nuclear radiation-infested room.  We, along with the Simpsons, were then ushered onto the ride where Bob proceeds to change the ride’s setting from Thrilling to Killing, setting off a whole sequence of ridiculously rough-and-tumble events, culminating in a giant, radioactive Maggie saving the day.  The ride is motion simulator-based where we were basically seated in an eight-person car that shakes, spins and tilts around using a series of hydraulics while the action is projected on a massive 80-foot high IMAX screen.  I thought it was pretty neat but ultimately nausea-inducing.  It was pretty much the only ride in the park that made me queasy and it certainly did nothing to make Susan feel any better. 

After this we made our way over to the Animal Actors on Location show which unfortunately had not started yet.  So while Susan was recovering I decided to wander into the E.T. Adventure ride.

E.T. Adventure

E.T. Adventure is a very tame dark house-style ride in which a group is seated on these bicycle-looking contraptions that hang from a rialto facilitate the illusion of a flying bicycle.  It was fairly primitive but got the job done.  Before boarding the ride I was issued a passport to E.T.’s home planet, or some such nonsense, where I gave them my first name and they gave me a bar-coded card to give to the ride operator.  The reasons for this become apparent later.  I was also treated to a video explaining the plot by Spielberg.  So I boarded the ride, and the first part involved E.T. fleeing from the nefarious F.B.I.  After escaping and doing the whole “flying across the moon” deal, you know what I’m talking about, I then arrived on E.T.’s home planet, where I was treated to a semi-grotesque menagerie of E.T.’s friends celebrating his return.  I want to point out that the set design on this portion of the ride was very impressive with lots of vibrant details from E.T.’s home planet that children should really enjoy.  At the very end of the ride, I was treated to E.T. then thanking myself and the other guys on the ride by first name (Aha! You see what they did there!).  I thought it was ok and a pleasant diversion.  I have a sort of soft spot for these old rides like this and the Monster Plantation at Six Flags over Georgia.  As a side note, I came back with Susan and rode this one again because I thought she might like it, and I was correct.   She thought the little mini-E.T. creatures that I found kind of creepy were cute.

Susan was still feeling kind of crappy, so we decided to watch a show to let her relax a little in some air conditioning.  So we made our way over to the Horror Make Up Show.

Horror Make Up Show

This one is basically intended to demonstrate how the make up in horror films were done.  The make-up specialist they brought in was way, way too hammy and got on my nerves almost immediately.  He did demonstrate a couple of interesting special effects on an elderly Philippine woman with a heart condition that they kept picking on in the audience.  It had a fairly cheesy ending involving a guy in a monster suit chasing the effects guy around.  If anything, the show didn’t feature enough behind-the-scenes special effects looks.  Overall it was an ok distraction, but nothing I’d recommend wholeheartedly unless you wanted to get out of the heat.

We then made our way over to Finnegan’s Bar & Grill for lunch, which featured traditional Irish food.  I thought my Bangers and Mash was actually very good but Susan seemed to be disappointed with her veggie burger.  After lunch, Susan was feeling better so we headed over to the notorious Jaws.