Time to get some touristy action going on - the Univeral Studios Tour! VIP of course. (btw, if this blog is not as witty/interesting/innane as usual it is because I accidentally deleted the witty/interesting/innane blog i had written and so, might not be as witty/inte......uh, i digress. ) Time for more innane ramblings methinks.
VIP = Very Important Pretentiousness!
The VIP tour is expensive, but definitely worth paying for. You get a buffet all you can eat lunch, have a private tour guide, don't have to line up for any rides or shows and you get to get off the tram at certain stops to look around. A much better deal that the usual plebs who, for example, have to line up for 55 minutes to ride the Simpsons ride while we lined up for 5.5 minutes. SUCKERS!
After having an introduction by our tour guide ('Aurora') and free fruit salad and small-lidded water (smaller sized bottle lid to help save the environment - so LA), we moved on to our first adventure. The Haunted House!!!!
Much like it's name, the Haunted House is a walk-thru experience where they have horror scenes, but they have live actors dressed in costumes that jump out at you when you least expect it. A little p*ssweak, that is until a certain little Frankenstein Red herring'ed me and i left my own little tip of three copper pennies. At least, I hope they were copper.... ** 1/2 stars. An extra half star for all the small children who balled their eyes out and had to be ejected from the walk thru! :)
Time for a quick water refreshment before we move on, now, where did I put those pennies.....
OK, enough about that, let's, move on to the main attraction. The Studio Tour.
Us outside what was the Clock Tower from Back to the Future - great scott!
The tour basically consists of being loaded on to a tram and driven around the backlot of Universal Studios where they tour the actual studios where they film TV shows (such as Parenthood, Desperate Housewives, Weeds etc). You also get to visit the scenes of various famous movies (some scenes used for a number of different movies, they just change the colour of the building and the signs etc).
Our photo siting of King Kong! Blurred for authenticity of course!
The King Kong ride in 3D was brilliant! **** stars from me. You're driven into a dark tunnel and the entire wall on the left and on the right of the tunnel are movie screens where King Kong battles out dinousaurs and your tram accidentally gets involved! King Kong jumps around the cart and you're picked up and dropped off cliffs etc. It's in 3D which makes it extra realistic and they also spray water at you at various times which is very cool.
The Jaws Amity Island section was awesome, complete with shark attack, bloody water and Bruce himself (name of the mechanical shark in the movie) coming up close to say hello. Iconic! ****
Screek! Screek! Screek!
Great to visit the actual Psycho house and Bates Motel from the famous Hitchock classic. Nice touch to have Norman come out and chase after the cart with a giant knife!
ET throne home ... ?
Another stop and this time to view the prop warehouse at the studio. A massive 2 level warehouse with literally millions of props used in Universal movies. Each prop has an individual barcode on it which links to a database for registering and searching - amazing! We saw some cool props from different movies, such as the some of the dinosaur eggs and dinosaur prints from Jurrasic Park, armour and crowns used in Robin Hood, the guitar from Scott Pilgrim VS the World, arsenal from Battle Star Galactica, thrones from Gladiator and so much more.
The tour moves on and we to drive down Wisteria Lane without a bizarre plot twist in sight! Must be off season. Interesting that they've used the same neighbourhood for decades - the houses were used in Tom Hank's awful movie The Burbs, then repainted for Desperate Housewives. Similarly in the city that was used for Spartacus, Pirates of the Carribean and other movies, the buildings were recently repainted and facades updated for the upcoming Captain America movie.
From here we're taken to the crash scene which Steven Spielburg designed from War of the Worlds, costing million of dollars and which has an actual plane that was destroyed just for the movie. All on the aptly named Steven Spielburg Drive of course.
Next stop a scene from the movie Earthquake in an underground subway station. Earthquake hits, roof caves in, oil tanker from the road crashes through and the set explodes in fire. Subway train comes through and crashes into your tram, more explosions and electricity strikes and then out of nowhere a flood comes down the stairs and makes it up to your tram before disappearing. Just another day at Wynyard Station! Was pretty darn cool.
We the hopped off the tram and visited the foley studios which is the OFFICIAL sound stage where they make the sounds which they add to TV shows and movies. Because they film without recording sound, then add the sound effects later, such as people walking, whistling or uncomfortably scratching their ass. Did you know that walking UP stairs has a different sound to walking DOWN stairs?!?!?! Who knew?!
We also got to see the Delorean (the car from Back to the Future - ***** stars out of principle!) and we saw lots of big drunken Homer Simpsons types, going on 19 years of age that DON'T live in New Hampshire. Hang on, that's NEXT week... (we got a photo at the Kwik-e-mart just for you bro!).
From here we're taken to the crash scene which Steven Spielburg designed from War of the Worlds, costing million of dollars and which has an actual plane that was destroyed just for the movie. All on the aptly named Steven Spielburg Drive of course.
Next stop a scene from the movie Earthquake in an underground subway station. Earthquake hits, roof caves in, oil tanker from the road crashes through and the set explodes in fire. Subway train comes through and crashes into your tram, more explosions and electricity strikes and then out of nowhere a flood comes down the stairs and makes it up to your tram before disappearing. Just another day at Wynyard Station! Was pretty darn cool.
We the hopped off the tram and visited the foley studios which is the OFFICIAL sound stage where they make the sounds which they add to TV shows and movies. Because they film without recording sound, then add the sound effects later, such as people walking, whistling or uncomfortably scratching their ass. Did you know that walking UP stairs has a different sound to walking DOWN stairs?!?!?! Who knew?!
We also got to see the Delorean (the car from Back to the Future - ***** stars out of principle!) and we saw lots of big drunken Homer Simpsons types, going on 19 years of age that DON'T live in New Hampshire. Hang on, that's NEXT week... (we got a photo at the Kwik-e-mart just for you bro!).
Next stop, VIP reserved seating at the Waterworld Theme Attraction. Yes, not many other people saw the movie either, but probably why it is still trying to recoup costs (which is actually an underrated movie). It's a show featuring actors in a massive Waterworld set with explosions, lots of guns and fight scenes and a seaplane that crashes right in front of you. Bad acting, but impressive stunts - **** from me.
Next was the BIG shows. Terminator 2 - 3D. Featuring the real cast - Arnie, (The Governator), Edward Furlong, (out of drug mode) and Linda Hamilton (overacting) - it was actually very cool. Filmed a couple of years after T2, its a mixture of a live action show (featuring look-a-like actors that blends with 3D film of the original stars acting out a new plotline after T2). Despite it coming out a while ago, the 3D was awesome and must have been groundbreaking when it was realised. The show was directed by James Cameron and apparently this was what he cut his teeth on for Avatar's 3D. Very cool things include your seat moving at key moments during the show and water spraying at you from the ceiling - which is a bit of a shock. **** stars from us.
The Mummy's Revenge ride - another one we were apprehensive about because the movies were only so so. OARSUM ride, so OARSUM that I had to put it it capital letters. It's a rollercoaster ride that takes you through underground tombs - only thing is that it's dark, you get shunted around violently, drop without being able to see where the fall ends, your direction changes and you ride backwards and corpses and mummy's fly at you from the darkness. Much scarier than what was expected! Many pennies were spent.... ;) ****1/2
One more ride left left for the day! (BTW we arrived at 10am and it was now almost 7pm!! A full day of fun and you are constantly on the go!).
Da da da da da daaa da da dadada..... The Simpsons Ride! 55 minutes waiting time in line for the ride. Not for us Mad Men with VIP access! SUCKERS! Again, being the Simpsons and designed for kids, we thought it would just be cutesy, but being Simpsons fans we had to give it a go. What a brilliant ride it was. It's not a moving rollercoaster, but you're sat in a car and loaded into room that's basically a movie screen all around you. The screen then takes you on a rollercoaster adventure through a very cool Simpsons plot line and the car mechanically moves to what happens on the screen. Given that you're not restricted by a physical track, the movie and the mechanical cart can take you anywhere, from running off the rollercoaster track on screen to flying through the air and into giant Maggie's mouth to be used as a pacifier (complete with baby powder smell in the air!). It was the best ride out of all them and is the future of roller coastering. Gone will be the massive rollercoasters built in theme parks. So much so that Universal are demolishing two of their older rides and building a Transformers ride which is similar to this Simpsons ride, but is the next level combining a moving mechanical cart and on screen film. Brilliant ***** from both Margaret ,,, I mean, Mark and I.
After a very long day and extremely sore feet we decided to chillax on Santa Monica Boulevard with a few more drinks and reflect on what was an awesome day.
JR (& MB)
Those rides sounds amazing I want to go now :(
ReplyDeleteWhen we went to Universal Studios in Japan they had a similar ride set up like you described for the Simpsons but ours was for Back to the Future which was just as cool hehe
Shame you accidentally deleted the original witty/interesting/innane blog... by the looks of it this would have been a pain to re-type!