Universal's Epic Universe Construction Thread

[Jake S]

not reading every post in every thread is an option, too. unless you’re a moderator. then brian makes you read every post out loud in front of the mirror before you get paid.

 

[Clive]

not reading every post in every thread is an option, too. unless you’re a moderator. then brian makes you read every post out loud in front of the mirror before you get paid.

You get paid?

 

[Jake S]

You get paid?

n….no! haha nope! no sir!

 

[Rhian]

*sigh* Pendantic nitpicky rant incoming and I'm disappointed with myself, especially since me of all people believes in waiting to pass judgement.

I really hope the doors are integrated well and they slide into the wall rather than fold, because that could really ruin the clean look of this portal. For immersion's sake, it should look like a seamless transition as opposed to something that's meant to occasionally be closed. It's like the Warp Pipes entering in Super Nintendo World; they just wouldn't look right with a door in the front.

You can see that white break in the area might be where the door is supposed to fold back, and I'm not sure that will look good in practice. If they have a mouth to the portal, then a small gap, and then the magic that transports you, it's a little meh to me in terms of themeing. I very much prefer the transitions of Galaxy's Edge, Pandora, and Diagon Alley which happen pretty naturally. I'm in no way opposed to doors, especially because I know it requires extra staff to simply use ropes, and if the business model is different here where Celestial Park is open after hours, the massive potential cost savings are massive, but that little touch will be important.

I might have some good news! At first it looked like the construction team was spending the day only installing half doors on multiple portals for…some reason. None of these photos were giving any hints about how they may actually close, but I did think there was enough room on each side to have the doors slide in, not back.





I went back and saw Bio had taken a shot of HP's portal from another angle and you can see the right door is slotted into the portal frame and what appears to be grooves in the floor, meaning the portal doors slide out to close the portal and don't swing in!



Your fears about the portal tunnel magic being diminished by the doors being present, fear not! I was actually quite happy to find out about this too! lol

The one other thing I'll say is I think we're forgetting how egregious some of the sight lines are in Walt Disney World, too. I'd never been on Slinky Dog Dash before a quick visit in December, and uh, you can see a whole lot of backstage from the entirety of that ride without looking hard at all. Sometimes you just can't cover everything.

I mean you could, but that goes to the whole topic about resource management.

I do want to acknowledge Universal is doing well at managing the sight lines where it matters most closer to guests than with the birds. The amount of effort being put in this corner of Wing Glider's which you'll only be passing for a second or two is phenomenal. You're unlikely to see Stardust building in this section, and they could've certainly just left it less covered than they are now.

I’m just waiting for the inevitable complaints about sight lines from the upper floors of Helios.

Bio's photos have shown just how unthemed the park is from the sky. Uni totally dropped the ball on immersion there!

Nobody should be automatically assuming the park will be filled with terrible sightlines.

I don't think anyone's saying as much in that direction either.

Overall it's actually wonderful that there do seem to be so few areas in this park so far that come across as potential "issues" and it's likely we'll see some of those even addressed before opening day. The real tell about sight lines and how much they interfere with the immersion will be once the expansions start coming in and how much of the beige buildings (for example) affect the final product. But we're way too far out from talking about that!

 

[12th Man]

This has actually been such a constructive, healthy discussion. Appreciate you all and I apologize for diving into the minutia of it all.

And one last thing to add… not sure if anyone noticed this, but this is the kind of stuff I love to see.

 

[Frank Drackman]

But then, by that logic, aren't the back of buildings likely to be at a theme park?

that's very fare, but I still think it comes down to how tastefully (if at all) the attempt is to move your eyes elsewhere.

from when I first heard of this 'portal' concept, I guess I expect each portal to be self contained, I should be in Nintendo and Nintendo alone, Pairs/Ministry should be its own themed area -- if one (or all) of the portals have a building that can be seen within, I think I would find that less troublesome than seeing Paris from Nintendo or something silly like that.

Just hard for me to read how critical folks are ready to be when they visit Epic.