I disagree with you about Transforms. It may use some of the same basic ride system, but Transformers was a big enough deal that Tony Baxter (one of Disneylands head imagineers) made a special visit to USH to ride the ride during the soft openings. I realize that theme parks always send their people to check out their competition, but normally not someone of his stature. Why go check out a rehash of something from 1999 with just a different name. Transformers is probably the best and most impressive rides on the west coast. Including a very well designed queue(on par with something Disney would do).
Don't get me wrong, the ride experience is great. There's no denying that, but it didn't bring a new guest experience to the theme park industry. Sure, it's a great ride, but where did all the innovation lie from 1999 till now? Like Chris mentioned, most of the innovation was done behind-the-scenes - probably to limit costs.
While the theme park industry may appreciate the use and development of the technology behind-the-scenes, the average guest probably won't notice the difference between this and Spiderman.
...and I disagree with your assessment about the queue. True, it's probably the best queue Universal Studios Hollywood has ever seen, but I don't think it's the best of what Universal (let alone Disney) is capable of. To be frank, the queue doesn't make sense from many perspectives.
Again, that's not to say it's bad by any means. It's just that the current queue isn't the best representation of what Universal is capable of.
Since the mid 90's to the early 2000's USH did little to nothing to the park. But to say that Kong, Transformers, plus the coming WWOHP is not a change in direction????
King Kong and Transformers were big leaps - there's no denying that. But both (with a much larger emphasis on Transformers) were the product of severe budget restraints that could have perhaps hurt the guest experience. Transformer's facade is perhaps the greatest testament to that belief that compromises had to be made.
I'm not saying every attraction needs to have an unlimited budget, but I am stressing the point that it's obvious where the funds ran out. You're also missing the fact that Terminator was introduced in 1999 - another big attraction with severe compromises.
Even if Despicable Me is a BTTF redo...To be honest...who cares!!!! They are spending money. Most theme parks will do this type of turn-a-round. I don't blame them for taking an attraction that was seriously showing its age and adding something that they have never had before, which is a ride for the entire family. Something that kids, teens, and adults can all relate to.
There's a difference between spending money for the sake of getting a higher turnstile count for a few months, and spending money for the long term future of a park. Simpsons may have increased the guest count for a year, but it's readily apparent that it didn't do much in the long term.
Transformers and King Kong appear to break that trend, but again, it's something to keep in mind.
I hope this doesn't come across as me being angry or overly defensive, thats not my intention.
Slowly but surely they are re-doing the park. Over the next decade the whole upper lot is going to look quite different. I have complete faith in Mark Woodbury and Thierry Coupe.
No, it's fine. Healthy debate is good. Shows that we're both passionate about the park.
But the point I'm trying to stress is this: wait until Harry Potter comes along. Wait until Despicable Me opens. By then, you'll see some traces of Comcast. I really think it's too early to make declarative statements proclaiming Comcast as the save-all for the park when none of their influence has been shown.
Sure, we're in construction phase, but I want to see an actual product. It's easy to make announcements, and announcements change, but it's difficult to produce. Let's wait till we can see the product of NBCUniversal/Comcast before we jump to any conclusions.