Finally got to experience the Nighttime Studio Tour on Saturday evening, as well as F&F.
Firstly, I was hoping for a bit more with the new tour. While the lighting was impressive and the upgrades to many of the animations/sets were desperately needed, there just wasn't enough to warrant advertisement as a new attraction (I use the word "attraction" loosely). I love that they added a few more live actors into the mix, namely Marilyn and Frankenstein, but the driver just whizzed right past them. Something I noticed was that the tram actually activates the lights on Wisteria Lane, which was made clear to me by a piece of paper taped to a blue traffic cone on the side of the tram's path letting the driver know how fast to drive in order to turn them on.
As for F&F, it really wasn't as bad as I thought. My only issues with this addition were the cheesy acting and the abrupt ending, but besides that, I'd say it's a pretty solid addition to the Studio Tour animation lineup. I noticed that the controversial clip of Roman referring to a woman on the tram had been edited, which I thought was sorta nice to see. I really loved the Musion effects, and the fact that the main showroom was projecting the animation in front of the tram as well. Sitting in Car 1, I could see other vehicles driving down the freeway ahead of us during the attraction. Also, I didn't find the CGI itself to be as lackluster as some others made it out to be. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention since there was so much happening on both sides, but I never really got that video game vibe others were mentioning. Something I must commend them for is the fact that they blast air on guests the whole time the tram is in motion, which I found great. King Kong and Transformers both attempt to make the simulation more believable by hitting us with air, but I don't think they quite pulled it off as well as F&F.
All in all, the Nighttime Studio Tour is alright. Nothing too notable to differentiate it from the regular tour, but the lighting really did do a justice. As for F&F, I genuinely enjoyed it (and I haven't watched any of the films yet). I think lowering my expectations and watching a few ride-thrus helped me get in the right mindset before experiencing it. In my opinion, Universal really only dropped the ball with Supercharged in terms of the massively misleading advertisements. I can sort of understand why they did it, but they really messed themselves up with that one.
Firstly, I was hoping for a bit more with the new tour. While the lighting was impressive and the upgrades to many of the animations/sets were desperately needed, there just wasn't enough to warrant advertisement as a new attraction (I use the word "attraction" loosely). I love that they added a few more live actors into the mix, namely Marilyn and Frankenstein, but the driver just whizzed right past them. Something I noticed was that the tram actually activates the lights on Wisteria Lane, which was made clear to me by a piece of paper taped to a blue traffic cone on the side of the tram's path letting the driver know how fast to drive in order to turn them on.
As for F&F, it really wasn't as bad as I thought. My only issues with this addition were the cheesy acting and the abrupt ending, but besides that, I'd say it's a pretty solid addition to the Studio Tour animation lineup. I noticed that the controversial clip of Roman referring to a woman on the tram had been edited, which I thought was sorta nice to see. I really loved the Musion effects, and the fact that the main showroom was projecting the animation in front of the tram as well. Sitting in Car 1, I could see other vehicles driving down the freeway ahead of us during the attraction. Also, I didn't find the CGI itself to be as lackluster as some others made it out to be. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention since there was so much happening on both sides, but I never really got that video game vibe others were mentioning. Something I must commend them for is the fact that they blast air on guests the whole time the tram is in motion, which I found great. King Kong and Transformers both attempt to make the simulation more believable by hitting us with air, but I don't think they quite pulled it off as well as F&F.
All in all, the Nighttime Studio Tour is alright. Nothing too notable to differentiate it from the regular tour, but the lighting really did do a justice. As for F&F, I genuinely enjoyed it (and I haven't watched any of the films yet). I think lowering my expectations and watching a few ride-thrus helped me get in the right mindset before experiencing it. In my opinion, Universal really only dropped the ball with Supercharged in terms of the massively misleading advertisements. I can sort of understand why they did it, but they really messed themselves up with that one.
