Saw in person tonight. Despite a couple assurances it was only a technical rehearsal, I can't imagine it was missing many--if any-effects. And a few more bursts of pyro not going to keep this trainwreck on track.
Actually the fireworks are the highlight. I know conventional wisdom is they can't do them on Disney level--and these were not Disney level--but you could build a show around the level of pyro in, say, the Trolls segment. Did a decent enough job filling the lower sky. A solid 10 minutes of that over the band shell and RRR would make for a fun end of night show.
Instead we got too much Bellagio fountains, followed by water screens that just don't work. Never seen World of Color in person but it seems far more effective than either copycat show in Orlando. Is there something in the Orlando climate that makes water screens less effective, or do Orlando parks just not spend money like Anaheim? Genuinely curious.
I think How to Train Your Dragon and King Fu Panda would make for fine lands. However, neither is iconic enough in theme music or character voices to really anchor this type of show. (And the visuals are hit or miss with the spotty water screens.) Ditto Sing and Secret Life of Pets, and even F&F in this context. They feel shoehorned in between the iconic Williams scores, like the local act who gets to open for The Rolling Stones.
Nor is there any sense of build to the show. Just a seemingly random line-up of 'member berries ('member Jurassic World? now 'member E.T.?). At least the last version grouped movies by genre. This just pulls scenes out of a hat until the fireworks finale at the end.
And I can't believe they just recycled ride footage for the Transformers segment. Height of laziness.
Speaking of laziness, this cries out for more tiered seating, like DAK. Didn't do enough to terraform Central Park. Not a lot of great seats, even standing room doesn't offer a lot of great views. Needed to do more than the bare minimum.
By itself, this is just a bad show. As a follow-up to Fallon and Volcano Bay and and F&F, this indicates a troubling trend in Universal Creative. They just don't get "it." The undefinable X factor that makes theme park works. Again, a simple fireworks show set to iconic John Williams scores with a couple projections would be fine--it works wonders at DHS. But they overreach and then under-deliver. I've been an AP since 2001, and I don't see myself returning to UOR until September 14. It depresses me to much.