Spider-Man doesn't work in my view because of the SCOOP "news gathering vehicles." Like, I'm sorry... it just doesn't make a lot of logical sense. The build-up is solid and the post-show great, but the justification for the ride itself feels like a plot device.
Forbidden Journey I won't even address. It's fun, I really enjoy the ride, the tech behind it is incredible, but story-wise it's an incoherent mess that involves so many lapses in basic logic within the well-established/known Harry Potter universe that it can't achieve the "execution" we're discussing here. Someone wrote a great, hilarious article on why the story made no sense a while back, maybe someone can link it?
THANK YOU. These are some points I've always been trying to make. The whole story behind Spidey just comes off as too forced. What they should of done is just drop the whole "SCOOP" vehicle thing and have the ride vehicles just be themed as generic automobiles, and then the guests could just use their imaginations for what their role in the ride is, similar to how POTC and Haunted Mansion work. I also feel the whole levitation ray thing is forced, as it was just a plot device to get us up into the air, but I'm not sure what else they could do for that.
Totally agree on Forbidden Journey as well. One particular thing I think they really dropped the ball on was having the role of the riders be that they were Muggles being given a tour of Hogwarts. What the story SHOULD have been is that we should have been wizards being brought into Hogwarts for the first time. In other words, we would have been following in Harry's footsteps - his journey is now ours.
Following in the footsteps of the characters is what I think really gave Universal a lot of its emotional connection. For example:
In Back to the Future, we are now walking in Marty's footsteps; getting into the DeLorean and being blasted off onto a time-travel adventure to who knows where.
In JAWS and Kongfrontation, we are now the ones being threatened by these legendary movie monsters.
In Men in Black, we are now in Agent J's footsteps; training to be the next MIB agents to save the universe.
In E.T. Adventure, the powerful connection between E.T. and Elliot is now our connection as well.
Even in Transformers, we are now in the role of Sam, teaming up with these massive robots to defend the planet from evil.
Perhaps in some ways I'm polishing nostalgia, but this is just one aspect of Universal I've always loved. We truly are "riding the movies". Forbidden Journey would have been so much more enjoyable and magical had it been done like this.