Veknoid_Outcast said:
Just wanted to say I love your taste in rides! Disney has definitely upped its game in the past six years. Flight of Passage and Rise of the Resistance are stellar. In fact, I’d argue Rise of the Resistance is the best ride/attraction/experience in central Florida. It continues to blow me away. As a fellow lover of Nintendo and Universal, I can’t wait to see what Epic Universe has to offer :) |
Well, to be fair, these are generally regarded as the best rides, so I'm not exactly going against the grain. Personally my favorite ride is still the Amazing Adventures of Spider-man, but I'm a huge Spidey fan, so it's hard to be objective. In terms of Rise of the Resistance, it's hard to compare it to other rides, because, when exactly does the ride start? If you count from when you enter the ride vehicle, I think Flight of Passage is better, and maybe a couple of others, but the way they start the experience while you're still in the (very long) adds a lot to the experience. I definitely think this was a response to Universal. It's similar to what they do in Escape from Gringotts, but they definitely one upped them in that regard.
CaptainExplosion said:
Then maybe use AR for the scary Metroid maze I mentioned earlier for the monster effects, assuming they don't go with animatronics. Although, animatronic Ridley might be even scarier because then he'd look more alive. Think back to the T-Rex in parts of Jurassic Park, the puppet still looks better than a lot of CGI creatures in today's movies. |
I hate to be a wet blanket, but I can't see a maze attraction at Universal. It would undoubtedly be awesome, but the park just has too many people and a maze would just have limited capacity. That being said, the whole Nintendo area has a lot of little interactive games throughout, so maybe they'll have a mini little metroid hunt. They could also have something similar to Men in Black Alien attack, which would be awesome.
I don't know how much they'll expand this. As much as I'd love to see every franchise represented, even Harry Potter and Star Wars only have 2-3 rides each in their respective parks. I think the next we'll be likely to see is probably a Legend of Zelda area in Universal Islands of Adventure. When Islands of Adventure opened, it had an area called The Lost Continent, which was based on Greek Mythology featuring a two tracked roller coaster, The Dueling Dragons, and a walk through attraction called Poseidon's Adventure.
The land was probably the least popular of the "Islands" in Islands of Adventure, but it actually helped Universal in the long run. Disney and Universal both wanted the rights to Harry Potter for their theme park. Universal figured that instead of building a whole new area, they could probably repurpose the Lost Continent. Because of this, they were able to save a lot of money on construction, and make a better offer than Disney could. So, they rethemed the Dueling Dragons roller coaster to a Harry Potter theme (later it would be torn down for Hagrid's Motorbike) and then they expanded the area around there to add Hogwarts castle, and rethemed part of the area to be Hogsmeade Village.
But what does this have to do with Zelda? Well, the Lost Continent still survived the Harry Potter secession. It lost its main ride, and kind of served no purpose, but it still had the Poseidon Adventure and a stunt show. Neither of those were great, but, you know, you need something to do when the big rides are full, and the Poseidon's thingy had a really need water tunnel at least. But, since then both of those attractions are gone. The Lost Continent now just has a restaurant and a few food stands/souvineer shops. It kind of lacks any real reason to exist.
What can it be replaced with? Well, the land's style could easily be used as a template for Zelda, the same way the other half was modified for Harry Potter. That is indeed a rumor of what Universal intends to do with the space. Obviously nobody knows for sure, but it seems to be a reasonable guess of how they can use that space without completely tearing it down to start anew.
Aside from that, I would think Pokemon is most likely for the next expansion. A Pokemon Snap ride with a functional camera would be absolutely amazing. I think a Kirby expansion is also sort of likely. Universal generally likes to have at least a few kid friendly attractions. Universal Japan has a Yoshi ride that sort of serves that purpose, but I think Kirby would do that better, and would also probably be a big merch mover because Kirby is adorable.
