Ridgepole
Platinum Member
- Feb 19, 2018
- 1,038
- 977
Just got back a few hours ago. I'll do a review in a day or two.Anxiously awaiting Mad Dogs reveiw.
Yes, Camp Humor....or like all those 1950's horror flicks.It's funny that the ride is enjoyable on a "so bad it's good" level. Maybe they can make a movie ride for Troll 2 next.
This was a tough attraction to review. Overall, it's not really a good ride, but there were enough decent things that it was somewhat entertaining. The queue seems to be a pretty authentic recreation of the IP. It's not really my cup of tea since, similar to the original Test Track queue, it brings back bad memories of waiting to get car repairs. But Universal did a nice job of it and it was evident that fans of F&F liked it a lot. I can't recall an attraction queue where so many people were taking so many photos. I found the pre shows to be OK. The quality though, depended a lot on the TM. When the pre show had a TM that underplayed the role, I actually enjoyed them. Unfortunately, a few TM's think they have to be a star of the show, greatly overplayed the role, and in those cases the pre shows were somewhat irritating. Universal needs to direct the TM's cast that less is often better than more. I liked the ride vehicles and the boarding queue was cool. Go to the left for best seating, but avoid the first row of the vehicle like the plague. The first row is that bad and will give you a sore neck if you try to see anything on the ride. The first traveling effect is decent and effective. The urban street scene that you come upon is easily the best production value of the ride. The cars revving up was a nice touch and the street scene was very realistic. The musion party scene, as we all kind of knew, is not very good. The bad acting doesn't really bother me since those are basically bad actors in their movies also. But,the scene doesn't make much sense, and is probably more an annoying distraction than anything else. The following traveling effect before you are thrown into the 360 scene is well done. The 360 room is where the ride begins it's downfall. The addition of a forward frontal scene is good & it works nicely. The 360 scene though, is so very amateurish and cartoon like. The contractors that did this scene should be ashamed of their work. And, I just can't understand how Universal management accepted it without sending it back until the company got it right. It's really that bad. I had always thought that this concept of the ride could be saved if they upgraded the film like they did with Reign of Kong. I was wrong. No upgrades could fix this mess. It needed to be burned, destroyed and started anew. The version is so cartoonish that it would have worked better as an animated cartoon, like SpiderMan. There's a lot of smoke/fog in the 360 room. That was good, but they should have had even more to hide the film more. After my first ride, I accepted this scene as a sort of Camp Comedy, and that made repeat rides more enjoyable. So I adapted and found lots of humor in the crude and primitive scene. I laughed at it and then it became fun, to an extent. Since the building is basically the same layout as Reign of Kong, you enter a long curved room after the 360 scene. But unlike Kong, that has the amazing animatronic as a nice ending, the room is empty and wasted. The entry into the unload kind of highlighted the contradictions of this attraction. There actually were a good number of people clapping & cheering, on every ride I was on. So evidently, there is a base of F&F fans that liked the attraction.............Soooo, here's my rating. And I always do a total attraction rating (10 point system) since I believe the TOTALITY OF THE EXPERIENCE, namely facade, queue, pre shows, ride, is most important. I gave the Facade/Queue/Pre Shows a 7 . The Ride a 4 . TOTALITY OF THE ATTRACTION RATING 5 1/2 .That pretty much puts it on the lowest levels of my Universal attraction ratings, though no where near Fear Factor rating level. ...................I found repeat rides better than the first, mainly since I accepted the 360 scene as camp comedy, and that helped make the attraction a "bit" of fun. On future vacations I'll ride this once or twice, but certainly not the usual 10 to 15 times I ride the attractions I really like. The big fail of F&F, besides the ride concept, is that the 360 room is intended as the Meat & Potatoes of the attraction. Instead, the 360 room ends up more like a slice of raw liver, not easily digested. As I've noted before on the other F&F thread, I was on vacation for 10 days, stopped and checked out the line every time I was in that vicinity of USF. And only once was there a Stand By line that was more than 15-30 minutes long. That's kind of amazing for a major new E/D ticket, especially since the park was moderate to moderately/busy all those days. That says a lot.....And, bottom line, as I said a month or so ago, I think it best that the majority of people is turning away, and disappointed, in the attraction, so it will convince UC that, for the future, they better not open an attraction that exhibits so many sub standard qualities.
:thumbsup:This is a well conceived and fair review, one positive I took away
F&F < raw liver
where did the nickname drupercharged come from? asking for a friend..
That doesn't really mean F&F is "better" than Disaster though. I liked Disaster but the long length of the total experience from beginning to end meant that I only rode when I had a lot of time to kill and I'm assuming other regulars had the same issue. Disaster was still a much better experience for first-timers and the general public in my eyes. It also had humor, heart, and a finale with elaborate practical effects. F&F has cringe, cringe, more cringe, a nice alley set that you drive through in seconds, an interminable exposition scene positioned to only one side of the vehicle in which absolutely nothing happens, and then a non-immersive tunnel with bad video game graphics and a ride vehicle that barely moves while an incoherent street race happens around us.After thinking on it some more. I think FF is better than Diaster for me since I avoided that ride while FF I’ll actually attempt to ride when in the park.
That’s why I said for me. It’s decent during the end and I despised Disaster so.That doesn't really mean F&F is "better" than Disaster though. I liked Disaster but the long length of the total experience from beginning to end meant that I only rode when I had a lot of time to kill and I'm assuming other regulars had the same issue. Disaster was still a much better experience for first-timers and the general public in my eyes. It also had humor, heart, and a finale with elaborate practical effects. F&F has cringe, cringe, more cringe, a nice alley set that you drive through in seconds, an interminable exposition scene positioned to only one side of the vehicle in which absolutely nothing happens, and then a non-immersive tunnel with bad video game graphics and a ride vehicle that barely moves while an incoherent street race happens around us.
Easier to say after a stop at Finn's too!Our Senior Editor, Drew. He loves the franchise. Was looking forward to the ride. Drew + Supercharged = Drupercharged.
I heard that this was supposed to be like RnRC at DHS, but the ride was announced after the deadly accident on Verrukt At Schlitterbahn Kansas City. Unfortunately, uneducated angry parents started mailing letters to the C.E.O., claiming ‘they don’t want their kids to get injured’, and it all went downhill from there.
Lesson learned: ignore backlash and do what works best for the park. Universal was/is NEVER mean’t for children anyway, so why bother to go that route.