Universal Studios, Florida – 4-Apr-1998

I’m back again with another one of those long essays, this time about my experiences at the Universal Studios, Florida. My essays must surely provoke the readers to question the pressures & demands of my work, but the fact remains plain and clear – I’m grossly underemployed here…a boring environment to reckon with, so early in one’s career. But such a job also makes some people green with envy, as they are compelled to toil beyond work hours, while we bask in delight every evening and weekends. So much for Nature’s balance !!!

We decided to visit the much acclaimed Universal Studios accompanied by my uncle’s family, a couple of weeks ago. For the first time ever, we managed to adhere to our plan and started at 8.45am and reached the park at 9.30am. There was a long walk from the parking lot to the park entrance. The early birds had thronged the studios and we had to wait at the ticket counter for a good half an hour before we were ushered in. Universal Studios offered a ‘second day free’ scheme, which enabled us to schedule the park visit comfortably over two weekends. (though they had to be consecutive ones) The ticketing formalities to avail of this scheme, put the clock ahead by another half an hour. The ticketing procedures here seemed to be less organized than at Disney World. When we were finally ready to begin our tour, it was almost noon.

We first visited a small attraction that displayed various exhibits dedicated to the legendary Lucy, of ‘I love Lucy’ fame. There were several magazine clippings, a Lucy quiz, important family photographs and other possessions of her husband, which were carefully preserved and displayed. A continuous screening of the ‘I love Lucy’ TV series reminded one of the eternal presence of the comedy queen in the minds of the people.

We then proceeded on to one of the much advertised shows in the park – Terminator 2 – 3D. Soon after we were asked to fasten our belts and sit tight in our seats wearing the 3D goggles, we were shown a 3D film of the pursuit of Arnold Swarzenegger (I’m not too sure I spelt it right) and his friend, by intelligent machines seeking to destroy them. The film depicted the deadly chase amidst blazing infernos accompanied by noisy bullets and laser guns firing on all sides. Flying debris and shrapnel seemed to target our eyes as gigantic buildings were systematically destroyed by the robots. Finally, Arnold succeeds in ‘terminating’ the evil machines and the climax was particularly very effective. The final explosion rocked us in our chair and created a feeling of being thrown off and getting engulfed in the smoke accompanying the blast. All this was achieved through fine visuals and physical effects. (eg., raising and dropping our chairs suddenly, artificial smoke pumped into the theatre during the climax etc)

The Hercules and Xena show was next. There was a 20 minutes wait. We were then taken through a series of theatres, where each stage demonstrated how various effects were being created during the shooting of the epic serial ‘Hercules and Xena’. Digital techniques and sound effects were demonstrated by using some volunteers from the group of visitors. In summary, this show was a sort of live drama, but not much to talk about.

After a brief lunch, we started off to the Kongfrontation. The path to the show was designed to resemble the New York subway train system, as the film was based on the gigantic ape’s reign of terror over the hapless New York citizens. We boarded the ‘ill-fated’ New York train and within a few minutes, we confronted the giant ape ‘King Kong’, as it tossed and turned our train in it’s mighty arms. A TV news report shown on the train created the tension of being thrown to doom by the ape. The ape looked furious as it played with our train with disdain. Finally, we were relieved to be out of the clutches of the ape as our ride came to a halt.

Next to the ‘Kongfrontation’ was the Earthquake. We were first shown a small film providing insight into the shooting of earthquake scenes in the Hollywood movies. This ride promised quite some thrill as we were informed that the ride would give us the feeling of being involved in an Earthquake measuring 8.5 on the Ritcher scale. The ride was suitably designed as a BART train journey in San Francisco, California. (Refer to my earlier mails in California for the description of the BART train system) The ride very closely resembled the BART setup in San Francisco and brought back nostalgic memories about my early days in the US. As the train left the Civic Centre station and arrived at Embarcadero station, we felt a slight tremor as our train started jarring. Despite reassurances by the train operator over the public address system that it was only a slight tremor, we began to have an uneasy feeling of despair. Slowly, the intensity of the tremor began to increase as the train rocked up and down, the station walls gave way and there was chaos everywhere. The ticket machines at the station and everything else fell apart as the earthquake started to take its’ toll. As the roof caved in, a large petroleum truck parked above, slid down towards the train and burst into flames a few feet away. Another BART train crashed to doom on our opposite track. The catastrophe assumed colossal dimensions when the station wall facing the Pacific Ocean yielded to the earthquake and huge sheets of water thundered into the station. It was an excellent depiction of the terrible fate experienced by people in a real earthquake. I was glad this was only a ride.

Next on our way was the Jaws ride. Predictably, we were taken in a boat on a pleasure trip. But our joy was short-lived when the boat guide explained that a monster white shark was lurking in the water. As the guide carefully maneuvered the boat away from the shark, we were relieved but not for long. The huge white shark suddenly popped up close to our boat and threatened to sink the boat, while our guide frantically tried to destroy the giant fish with gunfire. The gunfire finally got the better of the shark but not before an oil machinery on the water caught fire and burst into a towering conflagration.

We then approached the best ride of the park – Back to the Future. There was a long winding queue with a wait of about 30 minutes. Signboards all along the way warned the visitors of impending sharp turns and drops in the ride. I was however unmoved, as I was equipped with the prior knowledge that this ride was not one of those dreaded roller-coasters. Half an hour later, we were seated in a not-so comfortable car, which was designed to resemble the car shown in the film. Soon after we were seated, the room became dark and we were asked to sit tight and enjoy the ride to the past. The car was jolted back and forth synchronizing with the events on the screen. The ride became rough as we rammed into a clock atop the townhall, sped backwards into the past, into the icy interiors of an asteroid in space and flew dangerously over an active volcano. We experienced the ultimate thrill, when a giant dinosaur grasped our car with its’ jaws and tossed us around furiously for some time. The car came to a screeching halt back in the laboratory, soon after we escaped from the clutches of the dinosaur. This was definitely a ride worth visiting again, and we mentally made a note of this fact for the trip next weekend.

After a brief stopover for an ice-cream, we entered the Animal Actors show. The show started with a beautiful parrot flying from the hands of its’ trainer with unerring precision to pick up a dollar note held aloft by someone in the audience. The parrot received a huge round of applause when it returned the dollar note to the right person. A well-bred horse next performed some acrobatics and concluded with a salute, with 2 legs in the air. A flock of pigeons flew all across the open air theatre and then returned in order into a small hole, following instructions from the trainer. Next on the show was a giant hairy dog, exhibiting tremendous courage in rescuing a young boy (picked from the audience) from an alligator (a huge dummy floating in the water nearby). The boy and the dog exchanged licks and kisses, and the dog obediently retreated into its’ kennel after being commanded by its’ master. A cute little pig disappointed the crowd by arrogantly walking across the stage without doing anything. Last on the show was a tiny monkey, which displayed excellent gymnastic skills and concluded with a 360 degrees vault on a hoop.

Soon after this event, we made it to the Wild Wild Wild West Stunt Show. This show does not warrant much mention, except for a good stunt where a stuntman jumped from a 10 feet height and a few good sound effects. The story and the language were far from impressive.

With definite intentions of visiting the park the next weekend, we decided to wind up the day with this show, and came out of the park at 6.30pm. We spared a few shows for the next visit, along with the much-publicized Mardi Gras event.

Our plan for the subsequent weekend materialized yet again, and we went knocking at the gates of Universal Studios once more, but this time much later in the afternoon. We were spared of the ticketing procedure and we headed straight to the show titled – Alfred Hitchcock, The art of making movies.

We were informed that we would be shown a few scenes from the film ‘The Birds’, which never saw the light of the day as a 3D film, due to production problems half a century ago. On seeing the film with 3D goggles, we were impressed by the genius of Alfred Hitchcock who had the foresight of using 3D techniques decades back. The next part of the show reconstructed the famous ‘Shower Scene’ from one of Hitchcock’s famous movies (Ooomph, I cannot recollect the name !!! Ah, yes…’Psycho’) This was not very impressive, and we were unable to appreciate the techniques used by Hitchcock in the shower scene. Outside the theatre, a few more brilliant shots from his movies were reconstructed. This included the fall from the Statue of Liberty and the Carousel scene. All these however failed to kindle our interest, possibly because of our increased exposure to the computer-based techniques adopted in the film industry today. Rather than showing appreciation, we instead regretted wasting so much time over this show.

The Hanna Barbera ride was next to the Hitchcock theatre. This ride was in many ways similar to the ‘Back to the future’ ride, but less violent. Here, we again rode a vehicle that jumped over paddy fields, just escaped being hit by a roller-coaster at a fair and bumped into mountains. This show however, mainly centered around the cartoon characters.

We then visited the Barney cartoon show. Barney is a dinosaur-like cartoon character, very popular with the American children. We could see the excitement in the children gathered all round the center stage where the Barney character was scheduled to appear. Soon after Barney appeared out of the dark, the children and their parents alike started singing the Barney song in chorus.

The ‘Back to the Future’ ride still being lucid in memory, we ventured into the ride yet again. The fact that we had already seen this ride earlier was no deterrent however, as this ride offered the same thrills we experienced on our first visit.

The sun was beginning to disappear beyond the horizon, by the time we came out of the ‘Back to the Future’ ride. The much publicized Mardi Gras was scheduled to start at 7pm. We decided not to miss the Mardi Gras on this visit. The Mardi Gras event started promptly at 7pm. It was a colorful parade of strange characters accompanied by shrill music. Every time a character passed by, the people on top of the parade vehicle threw strings of colorful beads on the crowd below. We could never comprehend the significance of this event but we nevertheless, joined the frenzy of the crowd in grabbing the strings thrown at us. At the end of the parade which lasted for about 30 minutes, we were staring at about a dozen bead strings hanging around each of our necks, looking like kids. Since the entire crowd presented the same appearance, we did not feel foolish. We also posed for a few photographs to capture this strange appearance. At about 8.15pm, we wound our way slowly out of the park.

Thus, we concluded our visit to yet another theme park in Orlando.