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Skull Island: Reign of Kong - General Discussion

I can only speak for myself, but based on my interpretation of the rumors (which I followed basically from the very beginning of this whole process), I was heavily under the impression that - aside from the 360 tunnel - this was going to be a mostly practical/physical sort of ride experience, or at least more than, say, Gringotts ended up being. Phrases like "best of both worlds" and "good balance of techniques" were liberally thrown around by numerous people in-the-know. I'm not blaming anyone but myself for reaching that conclusion and letting it heighten my expectations.

I do sort of get the sense that the content of the ride's various scenes may not have changed much from the early rumors, but the approach used to bring those scenes to life may have been altered to play to Universal's screen-strength, instead of what may have initially been an intention to do more stuff "for real," so to speak. I might be way off base, but it's just a hunch.

And I'm still looking forward to the ride! As long as it delivers the King in a decent finale scene, I will likely be satisfied.
:agree:
I couldn't agree more. I will write a lengthy review for this ride when I finally get to take the adventure (hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday). If it is a majority of screens it would be a major disappointed for me and wont be a very postive review.
 
:agree::agree:

With the both of you....I learned my lesson after Gringotts which IMHO was waaayyyy over sold. After one ride I have not desire to go again. But DA as a whole is a winner. So now Im just hoping that ride is just as good/better than the queue and atmosphere
 
I learned my lesson after Gringotts which IMHO was waaayyyy over sold. After one ride I have not desire to go again.

Take the single rider line for Gringotts and try to be in the front row of the first car. It's much more immersive from that view, I think. I was a little underwhelmed the first time I rode it sitting in the second car, but it was like a completely different ride sitting in the very front.

That was my biggest problem with Gringotts. I felt like I got a very different experience in every row I was in. I never felt that way about Spiderman or Transformers, for example. Even The Mummy, which is probably the closest analog to Gringotts, was equally cool no matter where you sat.

I also thought Gringotts could have been another 30 seconds longer and finished the story a little less abruptly.

/offtopic Sorry about that.
 
Partial explanation of what we're getting and why, which just clicked for me...

TEA's SATE Orlando conference on Experience Design: Mike West, Universal Creative

He's audio heavy. It's a brush he prefers to paint with or at least is comfortable with when storytelling.

It explains the queue and the way exposition is presented.. And some (ok major portions of entire scenes) within the ride.
Is there anyway you could summarize some of the big points he made about RoK? For some reason it doesn't want to work on mobile.
Different topic..has any audio surfaced of Mr Kong roaring? I know a while back several people said they were able to hear it but never could find any audio.
 
Take the single rider line for Gringotts and try to be in the front row of the first car. It's much more immersive from that view, I think. I was a little underwhelmed the first time I rode it sitting in the second car, but it was like a completely different ride sitting in the very front.

That was my biggest problem with Gringotts. I felt like I got a very different experience in every row I was in. I never felt that way about Spiderman or Transformers, for example. Even The Mummy, which is probably the closest analog to Gringotts, was equally cool no matter where you sat.

I also thought Gringotts could have been another 30 seconds longer and finished the story a little less abruptly.

/offtopic Sorry about that.
Gringotts was one of the most underwhelming attractions I've ever been on. The queue is impressive enough but wow was that an overhyped mess. It's an average attraction but hype alone was its downfall. Hoping that the same doesn't ring true with Kong.
 
Gringotts was one of the most underwhelming attractions I've ever been on. The queue is impressive enough but wow was that an overhyped mess. It's an average attraction but hype alone was its downfall. Hoping that the same doesn't ring true with Kong.
For me my hype of Gringotts was kept in check by the fact people were saying it was meant to be more for families than Forbidden Journey was. I wasn't underwhelmed at all.
 
What if the ride was screen intensive, but it was the best use of 'screenz' in the resort? Would that give it a pass, or would it still get panned because it isn't filled with AA's like Pirates of the Caribbean?
 
What if the ride was screen intensive, but it was the best use of 'screenz' in the resort? Would that give it a pass, or would it still get panned because it isn't filled with AA's like Pirates of the Caribbean?
For me the praise I've seen of Shanghai's Pirates shows that 'screenz' are not some terrible problem as long as they're used to make a great attraction.
 
What if the ride was screen intensive, but it was the best use of 'screenz' in the resort? Would that give it a pass, or would it still get panned because it isn't filled with AA's like Pirates of the Caribbean?

It's a question of who you're talking about. I think most average theme park visitors are going to end up quite pleased with Kong, no matter how screen-intensive it is. Would I like to see something packed to the gills with AAs? Of course I would, but I can't claim my taste is representative of anyone other than me. I expect most will be singing Kong's praises once it opens. I hope I can be one of them, too.

However, you can't discount that there is a bias present in why they don't mind Disney having "screenz" mainly beccause it Disney and Disney good, Universal bad.

Some people are that way, but I've seen plenty of underwhelmed reactions coming from Disney fan circles once the ride videos started hitting the net, too. A fair amount of "The second half is all just screens!" sort of stuff.

For me, I think the ride looks fun, and the scale of some of the scenes is incredibly impressive... but yeah, I'd rather some of the screens were replaced with real setpieces and AAs, particularly during the big battle between the two ships; I think if you put AAs in the ships' windows instead of screens, it would instantly move up a couple notches for me.

But again, we're forming judgments based on fairly low quality ride videos. The experience of the real thing might be different than it appears.
 
Gringotts might be my absolute favorite ride in the resort right now. I wasn't underwhelmed by it in the least and I still think it's full of these major wow moments even on re-rides, especially when you experience it from different rows like @fortneja said.

I'll be honest. The newer attraction I've been most disappointed in riding was actually The Little Mermaid. Little Mermaid is my favorite Disney animated film and after the concept ride video was included as a special feature on the 2006 DVD, I even wrote in to Disney pleading for them to consider making the Little Mermaid ride.

Cut to me riding it for the first time at California Adventure and I was like wow... that's a lot of static figures. I've seen more impressive window store displays from them. Having AA's or screens doesn't automatically equate to a ride being more or less impressive to me. Ultimately, it's how all the parts come together in the end.
 
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