Hmmmm....I have some ideas to reshape the lower lot of USH. Also if anyone from UC is reading this, you have my full blessing to use my ideas. I'm helping you all out lol
Problem: The lower lot is a holdover from a bygone era of USH: a hodge-podge of different themes just mushed together. Cohesion is being squashed for the lazy excuse of "it's a studio with rides lol". Now that the park is clearly trying to have more cohesive theming with Springfield, Nintendo, Illumination, the new entrance, and Potter, I have some ideas that will bring some cohesion to the lower lot! It's literally the last place in the park that feels stuck in the 90's and 2000's with it's hodge-podge lack of cohesion. What I propose is what I would do to fix that:
The only real solution to fixing this issue would be to get rid of the Mummy. The reason why the lower lot feels so disjointed is likely because the Mummy is still there. It takes up too much presence to really fix the lower lot. The Mummy would be the main and only catalyst in fixing the lower lot problem. So here's what I would replace the Mummy with and then get to what In would do with the rest of the area:
I'm convinced part of the reason why they haven't gotten rid of the Mummy is because they can't make up their dang minds of what they want to replace it with! It's a good chunk of valuable space they have to work with, so they can't waste it. Would they replace it with just another indoor coaster? Would it be for a JW-themed dark ride? WOuld it be the space for a new show and Tour plaza? Or should they try to put another thrill coaster in that space? Well, here's my solution: The Mummy would be replaced with, not one, but two E-ticket rides! How the heck would that work? It's a lot of space, but not for two E-tickets! Well, here's what I would do:
The first E-ticket in the Mummy spot as you're coming down the escalator would be for a JW-themed thrill coaster. The entrance and decor would have a very similar feel to VelociCoaster, but the name would be changed to something different....like, I dunno, Raptor Rush or something. Maybe VelociBlast could be better. The station would consist of three floors with the total square footage taking up half or slightly less of the former Mummy footprint. First for queue line, second for more queue and lockers, then the third would be entirely used for loading/unloading and maintenance. The coaster would be another intamin launch coaster that would launch over the handicap access road, giving plenty of clearance as the track would be at least 30/35 ft high, and go through the hill by the escalators. To help with the issue of noise, there would be lot of rock work and trenches built into the hill that would look something like Taron at Phantasialand. I mean, if they're building a Fast and Furious coaster practically right next to where this would be, I can't imagine noise would be a chief issue here. The ride would feature several tight turns, airtime hills, barrel rolls, and maybe a corkscrew or two. It would be fast, fun, and thrilling. This right would unify the area immediately in front of the Starway to create a JW-themed mini land. The Studio Store would be rethemed into a JW store, and a brand new Starbucks would be torn down and rebuilt as a JW-inspired Starbucks. It would be slightly larger to accommodate demand. There would also be a little awning between the JW store and Sbucks to make a cleaner transition to the other part of the lower lot where Transformers is....
The other half of the lower lot would be a New York street. The awning overhead would have a JW inspiration going in, but when you look back, it will look like a subway bridge in New York. So what would the second E-ticket be in this area? Well it's New York, so it's gotta be something for that area. It would be a Ghostbusters shooting dark ride. Remember the old plans for SLoP that would have the queue for the first floor and the dark ride on the second? The plans would be reused here but in the form of a trackless shooting dark ride. Obviously the facade would be the firehouse with the Ghostbusters light up sign. The firehouse facade would be where the Transformers gift shop would be. The ride would be set in the 80's. You enter and walk past the iconic Ghostbusters Ecto-1. We would walk through different rooms of the firehouse that would show details like the coats that the Ghostbusters themselves wore, Egon's collection of spore, molds, and fungi, the reception room where Jenine takes calls, the door to Vekman's office that's spray painted the words "Burn in Hell Vekaman!" (But I would be surprised if they allowed that for daytime ops) the vault where they store the ghosts, the dinner table with some Chinese food and empty diet Coke cans leftover as well as a toaster on the counter (Might even catch Slimer getting a snack from the fridge!), a room with Ecto cannons hanging up. We would "leave" the firehouse into the "outdoor" part of New York kinda like the Toontown in Roger Rabbit at DL. We would pass some storefronts with old TVs playing new reports of an increase in paranormal sightings, 80's commercials, and of course see the Ghostbusters commercial. We walk inside the apartments much like SLoP and go through the halls of the complex. We get to enter Dana's apartment with the kitchen open. The kitchen would have a light and projection show that would go off every minute with a variation of different effects, but every five minutes, the refrigerator would open up giving us a glimpse into the Zuul dimension with one of the Gozer dogs popping up in the screen saying "ZUUUUUUUUULLL!!!" Then close again with the peaceful queue music as if nothing ever happened.
Finally, we would enter a warehouse where we would see videos on what the skinny is with the story of the ride and how to fire the weapons from the vehicles. It would also explain the ride vehicles being a new invention from Egon to help with the demand of the new recruits they need for the increase in paranormal activity. At this point, we would move upstairs to the second floor where the loading/unloading and the entire ride is. We enter the loading area where we would board the vehicles (Which would be the Mini Ectos. Seating six each with rows of two with three in each row) in the warehouse. Not going to break down each scene I had in mind with painstaking detail for the sake of this post getting really long, but basically, a general street scene where the dueling cars would go up to different parts of the room (Like the Heffalump room in Tokyo's Hunny Hunt ride) and we would get to shoot different targets. We would either end up in the Museum form the PS3 video game (Where we would also see Vigo the Carpathian), or the Hotel from the first movie. The cars would reconvene in a construction sight where there would be an effect (Like MIB but improved) where we would face our opposing car, but the people in that car become possessed by ghosts. We would shoot at each other and our car would spin to the next scene after we have "un-possesed" our opponents. Here we encounter Zuul in front of the gates and her dogs. She warns us that our destructor has been chosen. As we transition to the next scene, a kuka arm of the Stay Puft Marshmellow men comes down from the ceiling of a building under construction to try to grab us. The next scene we see Stay Puft in the flesh in AA form. After we "defeat" Stay Puft, some fog blasts, and we spin our way back into the warehouse where we were with marshmallow splatter everywhere. We get our final score with the Ghostbusters theme playing and we get to see mini stay pufts from Afterlife fool around. We hear Vekman address the mini Stay Pufts with the line "Eh, don't worry about them. We'll have lots of s'more tonight. We exit, head downstairs, down a long hallway to the gift shop which would be Ray's Occult from the second movie. Here we can get our GB merch. The storefront would be right next to the firehouse facade.
Whew that was long! Okay, now I will detail how I would fix the remaining part of the lower lot in the next post.