The Simpsons Ride(5/14/2008

NOW OFFICIALLY OPEN!!!

Universal Orlando Resort has added animated fun and excitment as the long-running hit series The Simpsons becomes the inspiration for the world's most highly anticipated new theme park ride. Experience a side of Springfield previously unexplored as you join Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, careening and crashing your way through Krustyland in the wild and hilarious new The Simpsons Ride, now open at Universal Studios!

Park News - (5/5/08) For you Mardi Gras fans, Orlando Rocks has posted a series of photos showing off the removal of the temporary Mardi Gras stage since they wont be bringing it back in quite the same way next year with the new Hollywood Rockit coming into the area.

(4/16/08) Okay… one more update on the whole Soundstage 54 business. We’ve now been informed that the Time Train from Back To The Future 3 and one of the Delorean picture cars have now been placed outside the building. Perhaps the area will become the official Meet & Greet area for Doc Brown.

(4/16/08) From what our sources tell us, the interior of the old Soundstage 54 building (Herc/Xena) had been fairly trashed over the last few years, especially following it's stint as a haunt in 2004. These days however, those with a reason to venture inside are seeing the place being cleaned up with newly added lighting and sheet-rock in place. I’m going to guess that the building is being fixed up as new office space for one of the various departments and we’ll leave it at that.

(4/15/08) We’ve got an update about the Herc / Xena building (Soundstage 54) situation and it seems something is indeed going on, though the building itself may not be taken down. Apparently there has been quite a bit of work going on inside the old building and our sources tell us management types have been seen going in and out frequently of late. Meanwhile apparently some fairly new speakers (for park music I assume) have been installed to the outside of the building, which is also a good sign that the building will be staying for the time being. For years the building has mainly been used only by crew member for a number of roles after the shortly lived Herc / Xena attraction closed down. I believe that the last time guests were actually invited into the building was for one of the haunts during Halloween Horror Nights 14 (2004).

(4/14/08) A Screamscape source tells us that they believe the park may be getting ready to demolish the old Herc / Xena building (formerly used for the Murder She Wrote attraction) in the near future. Could this be to make room for the new coaster or perhaps for something else entirely?

(1/30/08) Today we’ve got a little more information about the Jaws rehab taking place. For the most part they are sprucing up the ride… repainting the boats, cleaning the lagoon, fixing up the tracks and sensors and fixing many of the effects that have broken down over the last year such as the “Chum Barrel” that dumps into the boat in the boathouse. Oh yes… it’s time for the sharks to get a little love as well. It’s not easy being shot at and blown up all day long, 365 days a year… so many of them will be fixed up (some motors, some new skins) and put back into fighting shape. As for some of those flame effects that went missing over the last year… those may actually stay out. From what we’ve been told… it’s not that they’re broken, it’s that the effect may just be too costly to run given the rising costs of various fuels lately. Plus Universal has started numerous new “green” initiatives, so some of those fire effects may just stay gone. Seems one of the only times when they do choose to use them are the times when the attraction is open after dark since it helps with the lighting. As for the new ending rumor… no one seems to know anything about it so it may be a bogus lead after all. We did come across one interesting fact however. Anyone who’s ridden the ride in past years may recall a certain “stink” effect at the end of the ride that has apparently gone missing as well in the past year. The effect didn’t break… it seems the company who supplied that particular scent effect apparently went out of businesses, so they’ve been unable to find a suitable replacement. How sad, that stink was so effective… and pungent.

(1/29/08) Keeping in mind that you can’t just trust just anything you find on Wikipedia, a reader has pointed out an entry on the Universal Studios Florida page under Future Attractions, “Terminator 4-D: The Future Begins, a new version of the park’s original Terminator attraction, with updated themes and new water effects, will open in 2009.” I’m not sure how that got there, but I’m not buying into that at all myself and I think the writer may have gotten confused with the production of the actual Terminator 4 feature film called Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins which is also due in 2009. As for the reliability of Wikipedia edits, on the same page under the T2/3D headline it also claims the attraction is “one of the very few Universal rides that Universal itself has said shall stay to test the test of time and voyage on throughout the years until the park is closed.” Yeah… I don’t think that’s one is going to stick either. While I’m sure we’ll see T2/3D disappear someday, I’m not buying into the T-4D concept as a replacement.

(1/28/08) While I don’t have anything to back this up yet, I’ve been hearing a strange rumor going around for the past month or so claiming that Terminator 2: 3-D may be the next attraction at Universal Studios to be updated into something new. Of course Universal may have their hands full for the next couple of years, so I don’t think T2 is going anywhere just yet, so consider this just a warning. Personally, I like T2/3D and I’d rather see Twister get the extreme makeover first, but that’s just me.

2008 - The Simpsons Ride - (5/13/08)

More pictures from The Simpsons Ride has been posted to Theme Park Review. I’ve also been told that the park is looking for park guests to be part of a studio audience early Thursday morning around 5:45am or so to be part of Al Roker’s segment. If your interested you can contact Universal here with your name and the number of people in your group for consideration.

(5/13/08) Just a reminder that The Simpsons Ride will hold it’s grand opening ceremony this Thursday, May 15th at 10am. While close up access will be reserved for the various media, apparently everyone in the park is invited over to see the ceremony event and the ride will be up and running until around 5:30pm.

(5/5/08) According to a Screamscape source, The Simpsons Ride apparently has started running both domes over the weekend, doubling the ride’s capacity. You can also view an official preview video for the new ride below that contains a bit of Krusty’s intro video as well as a brief video clip of an early portion of the ride. take place on May 9-11 between 8am and 9am. For anyone interested you can find another review of the ride that is fairly spoiler free. Universal has also released a couple of new images showing off a couple of frames of the ride experience. (4/25/08) If you’ve tried the links we posted yesterday to the various Simpsons Ride footage on YouTube, you’ve probably noticed that the videos aren’t there anymore. Universal is taking an aggressive approach to protecting their newest asset and is apparently frequently searching YouTube and other sites like it for footage of the new ride and having them removed, so I guess you’re just going to have to go to the park and ride it yourself in person. Oh… and according to one source the new ride-film is approximately six minutes long. (4/24/08) The construction walls around The Simpsons Ride were gone yesterday morning as predicted and despite employees telling guests standing around outside that they would not be opening the ride to guests, they did open at last at 11:30am. For those of you looking for a complete rundown with pictures and spoilers then make the jump to OrlandoUnited, but you’ve been warned. You can see some non-spoiler photos here of course as well as over at Orlando Rocks. Without spoiling anything I will tell you that you might want to take a couple of trips through to see the different floors which are each designed a little differently and some may feature more than others. The ride experience can easily be compared to Back To The Future of course though so far no one has claimed to like either better than the other, only that both are good. If anything, Simpsons is said to be more like the BTTF experience you remember back when it first opened. No one has come up with an exact running time on the new ride-film either, though it’s been said that the new Simpsons film “feels” like an appropriate length, possibly feeling even longer than BTTF was. If anyone knows the approximate running times of Simpsons vs BTTF, please do let me know. Like BTTF however, you’ll want to rush for that front row seat. Riders in the back row have commented that the front edge of the car was a bit “high” and cutting off their point of view of the lower half of the screen when sitting in the back row. So if your on the third floor, then you really don’t want the back row. And for those looking to spoil the entire ride experience… make the jump to YouTube to see the Krustyland safety warning pre-ride video as well as a video of the actual ride experience itself. Go on… you know you want to see it. (4/23/08) According to a Screamscape reader who was at the park yesterday, Simpsons Ride employees were apparently standing outside the ride telling people that the construction walls are coming down and that they expect to soft-open the ride to the public sometime TODAY, so call in sick and get to the park. Meanwhile a couple of our sources actually got to take a test rides and gave it a thumbs up. The queue videos are said to be funny with plenty of BTTF references as well. And while I wont give away any spoilers, apparently they spoof on Disney, SeaWorld and even Universal throughout the experience. Even better… it seems that the humor has not really been toned down at all with one reviewer going so far as to give it a PG-13 rating. Woo-Hoo! So far the only disappointment we’ve been sent was from one rider who was expecting the ride-film to be animated more like the show and not CGI animated. Universal is now promoting new “green” aspects of The Simpsons Ride in time to go along with Earth Day. For starters the ride will use a combination of new electric motors and software systems to save power during the actual ride itself. The entire attraction also features the largest installation of LED lamps in theme park ride history, using 2,582 LED lights that will use only 27,675 watts per hour compared to the 82,909 watts per hour that would be used with standard incandescent lighting. (4/18/08) Screamscape sources tell me that Team Member previews of The Simpsons Ride have been set to take place on Monday (4/21/08) night after the park closes and again on Tuesday both before and after park hours. If you get a ride in, feel free to send us your reviews. (4/17/08) Bob’s Photo Albums decided to sneak a peek over the construction wall to check out all the new Simpsons decorations in detail, showing off the whole midway games look to the queue area. (4/15/08) Universal Studios Florida has now set May 15-16th as the grand opening dates for The Simpsons Ride. I’ve also heard that those second set of rumored dates for passholder previews have also been scrapped as the rush to finish everything is on. No word yet on if they will try to plan another set of dates or if the ride will still soft-open to the public. (4/11/08) I don’t know how true this really is, but according to a Screamscape reader there is a reason why certain Simpsons characters have not been listed as appearing in the ride… and they all seem to have one thing in common… Harry Shearer. According to our reader, you’ll notice that none of the characters voiced by Harry Shearer are included on the list of characters the LA Times posted. Shearer provides the voices for Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Smithers, Dr. Hibbert, Rev. Lovejoy, Lenny, Otto, Principal Skinner and Kent Brockman. Now… he is also credited with being the voice of Scratchy (the cat) and Kang (the alien) who ARE listed as being in the ride, but Scratchy never really talks and half the time Kang just laughs along with Kodos, the other alien. According to our reader, Shearer apparently declined any offers to do voice work for the ride and by opting out, apparently he’s taken most of the characters he does along with him. Readers will remember the many early rumors claiming that the Simpsons ride was delayed for quite some time due to troublesome negotiations with the cast members. You may also remember an early rumor claiming that the ride’s story would deal with Mr. Burn’s nuclear power plant, possibly with the plan to re-theme the BTTF ride building to look like a pair of nuclear cooling towers. (Obviously this look would have been much easier with the Hollywood building than the Orlando one.) Of course this leads us back to why it may have been called Project FISH in the first place, named after Blinky the 3-Eyed Fish that came from the toxic waste. So if you connect all the dots here correctly, our source believes that the ride’s entire delay and original storyline revolving around Mr. Burns as the villain was likely due to Harry Shearer opting out of the project. (4/9/08) New pictures showing off the Simpsons Ride area have been posted to Orlando Rocks. What may be more interesting is that they parked next to one of the park music speakers next to the ride and recorded about 21 minutes of the new Simpsons music for everyone to enjoy. (4/2/08) You can see new construction pictures showing off the outside of The Simpsons Ride at IOA Central, including a short video showing off Krusty’s new spinning eyes. As for that rumored passholder preview this week… looks like it was pushed back two weeks now. The new rumored dates are April 17 – 20 from 8am to 9am. (4/1/08) New Simpson’s pictures have been posted to OrlandoUnited this week showing off new details behind the wall as well as what the various decorations look like at night. On another important note, has anyone received any kind of confirmation if the passholder preview was still happening later this week or have they been forced to delay it? (3/27/08) A new website has launched to promote The Simpsons Ride here. In addition to what looks like the official animated ad for the ride (“Are we there yet?”) the About the Ride section mentions that you’ll enter through Krustyland’s carnival midway, past games being run by Apu, Groundskeeper Willy, Patty and Selma. The FAQ section confirms that the seating layout will be exactly the same as Back To The Future with the cars featuring two rows of four, with a height limit of 40 inches. (3/26/08) A bunch more crazy circus themeing has been added to The Simpsons Ride building in this latest update posted to OrlandoUnited. The newest additions seem to be giant attraction posters, flags and some wooden coaster shaped lattice. (4/24/07) To quote Charlton Heston, “You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!“ Oh wait... that was Homer Simpson. 2009 - Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit - (5/6/08) Today we’ve got a picture of a Hollywood RockIT survey marker, said to be just behind the Guggenheim facade blocking the view of Twister’s outdoor queue. You can also see a few good photos of the general area where the station and queue will go over at Orlando Rocks. Looks like some of the staff were being given a tour of the site by someone with blueprints in hand. (5/2/08) A permit for Project Rumble Site Demo has been issued this week. Looks like we may see work begin fairly soon. (4/30/08) Orlando Rocks has gone out to the Hollywood Rockit site to look for various survey markers found all over the general area. (4/29/08) From what I’ve been told the yet to be announced concert stage going in under the new coaster will be themed to look like the famous Hollywood Bowl in California. (4/28/08) A Screamscape reader (Thanks to Alexander Gardieff) who attended Grad Bash at Universal noticed that new unreleased artwork promoting Hollywood, Rip, Ride, Rockit was on display in the Chaperone lounge area, likely to promote the schools to attend again next year. In addition to a descriptive flyer they also had a great aerial shot of the coaster showing off virtually the entire run which is true to the original rumors which claimed it would run off into the area behind Twister. The descriptive text mentions three new maneuvers and their official names: Doubletake (The non-inverting loop), Treble Clef (an ascending high G helix into a Hi Hat stall and vertical dive), and the Jump Cut (spiraling negative-G camelback). Other named elements includes the Crowd Surfer (overbanked curve crowd fly-by), Drop Tuning (sideways drop into chasm), Plot Twist (sideways loop) and Chorus (high speed ground maneuvers). What’s interting is just how tightly they are going to squeeze in the ride’s station and queue building into the narrow space between the Blue Man Group theater and Jimmy Neutron. You can also see the current boneyard has been transformed into a new concert area with a covered stage. The giant vertical lift hill will be going up directly behind this stage with the Doubletake element going up right over where people typical queue to get into the soundstage haunts for Horror Nights. From here it’s up into what looks like a mid-course brake before you drop into the Treble Clef that you exit out of and right into a second mid-course brake area before you dive into the Jump Cut and Crowd Surf areas. From here it looks like you’ll hit a short tunnel, the Drop Tuning element into a chasm, the spiraling looking bit known as the Plot Twist before you head back to the station through what I’m guessing is the unlabeled Chorus area. I’ve got to say that I’m much more impressed by this ride design now than I was before and this is already looking to be Maurer Sohne’s most impressive looking coaster design ever. (4/25/08) Orlando Rocks has posted new pictures showing off the huge number of survey markers now in place for the Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit. (4/22/08) Lots of survey markers are said to be showing up in the areas where the new coaster is expected to go over near the Blue Man Group area, but we’ve also been told that markings have also been spotted behind Twister and it its extended queue area which makes us wonder just how big this coaster will really be, or if these are for something else entirely. (3/21/08) Take a look at Maurer Sohne’s website and you’ll see an ad promoting a new “Multimedia X-Seat” option that includes an intergrated sound system and video camera in each seat. This is likely similar to what we will see in the final version of the Hollywood Rockit. During the whole Project Rumble rumor phase, there has been a second rumor floating around that I’ve mostly ignored to focus on the big picture of the story, but now that we’ve heard about the Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit coaster with pretty much no mention of the Boneyard site, it seems clear that the second rumor may also come true as well. If so we can expect to see a large new permanent stage put in on the Backlot site that may also have sections of the coaster passing overhead. While this isn’t the official name, I’ve got a feeling this area may be called the Hollywood Stage or some variant of that since it will be so close to the new coaster and the large giant “Hollywood” letters that it seems will go up around the area. (You can see a few of the letters in the original artwork, including the lift hill serving as one of the giant “L”s.) (3/20/08) Today I can add the official artwork and logo for Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit. Thanks to having access to the high-rez artwork, I can zoom in on that giant loop and as you can see, this is exactly the non-inverting loop that I mentioned yesterday. I’ve also included a photo I took at IAPPA 2003 which is a close up of the unique lap-bar only restraint system they use on the X-Cars as well as a new aerial image of the site. Please note that the red area does not indicate the exact area where the coaster will go, only the general open areas where we think it could go. So far the description only says it will go between Jimmy Neutron and the Blue Man Group theater, and nothing at all has been said about the old empty Boneyard site. p>