Studio Tour

[KreepyKarpy]

Soooo while on the Studio Tour this past Wednesday... well.. I FINALLY got to experience the "not-so-drained" Parting of the Red Sea (will never stop calling it that, Kong set be damned. Bring back the Sweet Charity Bridge!)... but yea.. THIS!

Yeah, I experienced that as well but it was way worst: the water spilled onto the tram floor from the front to the back. It was hilarious seeing my friends' reactions (all as shocked as I was because we've all been to Universal a million times throughout our lives and have never experienced this before) picking up their backpacks and having one of them yelling out "WHAT THE F*** UNIVERSAL!!!" (Even funnier was the fact that there were children sitting in front of us. Yeah we're blissfully ruining lives and going somewhere deeper than hell itself). I swear next thing you know the tram is going to drive directly into the lake after the water parts only half a millimeter.

 

[William]

Yeah, I've had the water hit the tram floor for me too. I'm always anxious going through that part of the tour now.

 

[Ryan]

I was there Wednesday and the tour guide warned about it as always. Totally scoffed when the guy next to me picked up his backpack when I suddenly jolted at the sensation of half my legs being briefly submerged in water! Totally took me by surprise haha, and it was hilarious hearing it reach everybody else in the back cars as well.


Did Supercharged for the first time. I liked the musion elements but needless to say all of the prior elements are awkward. The dialogue was awful, the setups cheesy and the main showroom has ambition but ultimately fails. I was in the middle of the tram yet nothing envelopes you like Kong. The screen at the front is novel but unnecessary. Awful CG used which really does make this look bizarrely fake. It's not the uncanny valley, this is just Fast and Furious in Toontown. Even worse were the blasts of CO2 that constantly overwhelmed everything going on and bewildering bursts of water and air. The simulation was good I guess? I don't know. Just a total mess. Kong got a huge round of applause; F&F got a collective shrug. Yeesh.


Also there was a parked tram with a driver in the old F&F cars-on-sticks area. That was odd. 

 

[Wesker69]

Hah! Were you in one of the first two tram cars then? That'd be kinda hilarious if we rode the same tour lol... Thankfully the water didn't make it to the actual tram floor, but it was pretty damn close. I was in the 3rd car.


Yea the old F&F attraction had its doors wide open last month & this past Wednesday. It makes me wonder if they're going to attempt to convert it into a NEW attraction of some kind.


Yea I hate Supercharged. And I noticed the CO2 blasts were very random & made no sense whatsoever. Because yes, for some reason, my brain was trying to apply logic to this wretched attraction.

 

[Ryan]

I was in car 2, this was about 10 AM. Really freaked me out seeing all that water rushing into the tram.

 

[Dylan Beck]

So I was taking a look at Universal Studios Hollywood's website, when I decided to click on Studio tour. It took me to the attraction page, and I noticed there was a new video to watch on the website. Now I'm pretty sure that video has never been there before. Once I played it, I found out the video was uploaded through their YouTube channel.


Whats interesting is: They chose to mark the video as "Unlisted". This means that only people with the link to the video are allowed to watch it. So who knows how many Unlisted videos they upload on YouTube that we can't see on their channel.


I was able to get the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3fPgfR8YBkA?feature=oembed


...Do you recognize it?

 

[12th Man]

Yeah, that definitely looks new. It actually seems "brand new." I have a feeling it was shot in New York using a green screen.

 

[Jonathan]

And Fallon is just as insufferable in that video as he is on the tram. At least he's consistent.

 

[Ryan]

Interesting that F&F wasn't mentioned. It was probably old but unused.

 

[Wesker69]

Oh the 1:43mark.... Hai "JAWS RIDE" JAWS... nice cameo..

 

[Lori]

So this weekend we skipped the red sea area completely. ..... interesting.... also the Fast and Furious was broken and skipped as well!

 

[k_peek_2000]

So this weekend we skipped the red sea area completely. ..... interesting.... also the Fast and Furious was broken and skipped as well!

Not unusual for Red Sea to get skipped. There was a good period where it was just gone completely. No clue why Fast would be down, maybe maintenance. 

 

[BruceTheShark]

Steven Spielberg's Private Studio Tour with EW. Very cool interview! Lots of good insight. 


http://www.ew.com/article/2016/06/24/steven-spielberg-video-tour-universal-backlot


The best part: While looking over the Jaws lake, he says he's going to ask them to rebuild the ORCA! I would love to see that happen. 

 

[Ryan]

Also I'm not sure if this has ever been posted, but this is the 44 min Bob Gurr documentary about the old Kong animation and is absolutely fascinating:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/vjFlBntp9po?feature=oembed

 

[TechDir]

Yesterday as we drove by the old Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift, the doors were closed, but once past, I looked back and they had a complete tram sitting inside the turnaround with the gates up.  Not sure what was up...but was definitely interesting to see something going on.

 

[markb]

Yesterday as we drove by the old Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift, the doors were closed, but once past, I looked back and they had a complete tram sitting inside the turnaround with the gates up.  Not sure what was up...but was definitely interesting to see something going on.

There was a tram parked there when I took the tour in May. I didn't see anything happening. I figured it was just a convenient place to store a tram, but maybe there's more to it.

 

[Neon]

There was a tram parked there when I took the tour in May. I didn't see anything happening. I figured it was just a convenient place to store a tram, but maybe there's more to it.

I'm surprised they haven't slapped some paint on this thing with maybe some new set decorations and re-branded it to "JASON BOURNE THE RIDE" at least as a temporary addition for the summer. 

 

[Alexshow.]

I'm surprised they haven't slapped some paint on this thing with maybe some new set decorations and re-branded it to "JASON BOURNE THE RIDE" at least as a temporary addition for the summer. 

I'd imagine that when they we're in the process of closing F&F Encounter; they removed the Kuka arms, made the area within it barren and decided to have it as a storage facility for things for such time to pass.


While I think something will come within the vicinity eventually (that, or we see the maintenance bay moved to where the original tram pitstop was) or we'll just see it demolished. It's basically wasted space, and I'm shocked that they didn't tear it down and made it an expanded Car prop car ara for guests on the tour to see (think, going in a continuous circle seeing new cars..) but that's just me.

 

[Jon Fu]

Anyone know what's filming at Falls Lake?


DSC06755 by InsideUniversal.net, on Flickr

 

[Dylan Beck]

@Jon  ...I think it's something that has to do with a boat.


I could be wrong