Universal's Epic Universe General News & Discussion | Page 110 | Inside Universal Forums
Toggle sidebar

Universal's Epic Universe General News & Discussion

  • Signing up for a Premium Membership is a donation to help Inside Universal maintain costs and offers an ad-free experience on the forum. Learn more about it here.
Tobias said:
When it comes to IOA's misfire of an opening, I think it's been pretty well documented how bad the whole Universal Studios Escape was. The general public legit didn't know a second theme park opened. When the GP is asking TM's in the Studios "How do we get there?" and are pointing to Dueling Dragons in the distance, and then getting irked to find out the thing they want to go to is a separate park with separate admission...that is a spectacular failure in marketing.

Its stumbling launch wasn't due to not having an IP people wanted to book vacations for. That wasn't a main focus, not until the game changed. When did the game change? When Potter came along, of course. For better or for worse, that's become the status quo. That's what folks are judging Epic Universe's IP's on, but today's standard didn't apply to IOA's opening as it didn't exist yet.
Click to expand...

I know it happened but I never quite understood how.

Unless you were buying a single park ticket in advance, I don't get how you couldn't know that there were two parks on arrival. It was relatively well sign posted, if you were arriving by any kind of ground transport, you saw IOA on arrival straight ahead of you.

I assume that most Brits were buying the flex ticket that included IOA and USF.

I can understand how guests not physically there could be unaware.

jarmor said:
I remember being in high school reading Thrillrides.com (dating myself) and thing that stood out to me back then (and now) was that IOA was dubbed as "the worlds most technologically advance park" with the rave being about spiderman and those S.C.O.O.P. ride vehicles. we cant look at IOA by todays standards because that isn't fair. I see you guys saying they had no IP's people wanted but 30 years ago the IP's they picked were relevant. Marvel was in productions with their Xmen movies and spiderman movies, the second Jurassic park movie had came out, Dr Seuss was arguably timeless and classic even more back then and loved by all so they did have relatable content compared to what was out. But, back to the attractions lol. This was an Era where S&S space shots and turbo drops were extremely popular and sought after. A lot of people had never seen freefall towers and honestly, tower of terror still felt more like an elevator than thrill ride and no one wants to spend 140mil on that concept alone.

The way toon lagoon was described made it seemed like nothing ever experienced with it's large water attractions. looking at the rendering of that huge drop going what seemed to be underwater then popping out in a roller coaster hill was never seen by the average guest and never on that scale. The same could be say about popeyes as well.Then you had dueling dragons. The description of this ride pretty much sealed the deal for me! I think, back then they were highlighting a 12 inch threshold for the near misses and it was phenomenal seeing such a coaster outside of a traditional amusement park. THEN the preview video came out, I was floored and I said I had to get to this park lol.

Anyway, I feel that IOA was perfection in theory but with the lack of family friendly attractions (in a park with family friendly themes) hurt the park and it felt as of universal left the park to rot after 5 years or so operating. I feel the same level of conceptual design and development happening at EU. They are going for tech advance rides, classic and timeless IP's, however they are incorporating more family style attractions and the imersions they learned a result of potter. I now wonder how people will feel about EU in 30 years. . .
Click to expand...

I remember that tagline being repeated on every ad for the park but I've never been able to find one since.

IOA was an over correction to the complaints about USF. It had outdoor rides, more intense rides and water rides.

Every land at EU seems to be getting built to the highest level set by Potter. IMO, Potter is the weak link at EU but even then, every Potter ride has knocked it out the park as far as I'm concerned and I don't even like the IP.

Nintendo is what it is, HTTYD is going to have a spectacular entrance reveal mixed with fun rides and Monsters is going to be a deeply themed land that enthusiasts have been clamoring for forever.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RFRees, nether235, Nico and 4 others
While Marvel as a company was struggling in the 90s, Spider-Man was already evergreen (with Hulk not far behind), and X-Men was as popular with its comics, animated series and movies in 1999 as it ever would be. Maybe not on the level of Batman, but certainly not B-list compared to any other DC heroes or most other IPs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Parkscope Joe, Mad Dog, Clive and 2 others
jarmor said:
I remember being in high school reading Thrillrides.com (dating myself) and thing that stood out to me back then (and now) was that IOA was dubbed as "the worlds most technologically advance park" with the rave being about spiderman and those S.C.O.O.P. ride vehicles. we cant look at IOA by todays standards because that isn't fair. I see you guys saying they had no IP's people wanted but 30 years ago the IP's they picked were relevant. Marvel was in productions with their Xmen movies and spiderman movies, the second Jurassic park movie had came out, Dr Seuss was arguably timeless and classic even more back then and loved by all so they did have relatable content compared to what was out. But, back to the attractions lol. This was an Era where S&S space shots and turbo drops were extremely popular and sought after. A lot of people had never seen freefall towers and honestly, tower of terror still felt more like an elevator than thrill ride and no one wants to spend 140mil on that concept alone.

The way toon lagoon was described made it seemed like nothing ever experienced with it's large water attractions. looking at the rendering of that huge drop going what seemed to be underwater then popping out in a roller coaster hill was never seen by the average guest and never on that scale. The same could be say about popeyes as well.Then you had dueling dragons. The description of this ride pretty much sealed the deal for me! I think, back then they were highlighting a 12 inch threshold for the near misses and it was phenomenal seeing such a coaster outside of a traditional amusement park. THEN the preview video came out, I was floored and I said I had to get to this park lol.

Anyway, I feel that IOA was perfection in theory but with the lack of family friendly attractions (in a park with family friendly themes) hurt the park and it felt as of universal left the park to rot after 5 years or so operating. I feel the same level of conceptual design and development happening at EU. They are going for tech advance rides, classic and timeless IP's, however they are incorporating more family style attractions and the imersions they learned a result of potter. I now wonder how people will feel about EU in 30 years. . .
Click to expand...

I was reading Thrillride and this site's original incarnation which made me decide to visit IOA in 1999. I camped at Fort Wilderness in a tent and was blown away by IOA. Since it was September, the park had a very low crowd attendance. My only gripe then was that Lost Continent felt like it was a ride short. I loved Dueling Dragons (both sides) and just felt that Poseidon's Adventure should have been a ride after such an awesome building facade. I knew that it wasn't going in but just felt like it should have been. The Hulk was awesome and Spiderman was so much more than I could even have conceived. I loved walking into the park with the everything to see and hear. Heck, I even really enjoyed Suess Landing and rode Cat in the Hat multiple times.

If Epic can continue or even improve upon that feeling, I may have to move to Orlando just to go to Epic Universe every week/day. Might need some lottery help with that decision. So far, the park looks incredible with so much potential.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tielo, DodgsonHere and Mad Dog
UniversalRBLX said:
The next step is to renovate the entire Universal portion of I Drive
Click to expand...
When it switches from Orange County to City of Orlando there is a stark difference. Hopefully with Universal's investments along I-Drive with the new hotels it gets some sprucing up. That might even be part of the new "district" created by Universal to build and run the train station.
 
  • Like
Reactions: OrlLover, HHN Maddux, UniversalRBLX and 1 other person
I wonder how the new W Hotel and Concert venue that's going to be built on the outskirts of EU affects the park either negatively or positively. If they will form a partnership or try to distance their brand from Marriott all together.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Book with our Travel Partners

MEI Travel

Latest posts

Share this page

Top Bottom
Back