|
Rating:
Not Yet Rated
Type:
Simulator thrill ride
Time: Unknown
Kelly says: Woo hoo! (in anticipation)
Coming in Spring of 2008 (which usually means about Memorial Day), this new attraction steps into the Krusty the Clown-sized shoes of Back To The Future... The Ride, which put Universal Studios Florida on the map and set the standard for motion simulator attractions when it opened in 1991.
It is based, of course, on the immensely successful cartoon series which is seemingly destined to run forever and which has already spawned one blockbuster movie. Details were hard to come by at press time, but Universal has announced that the stars of the show will “ride along with” guests as they embark on a slam-bang, thrill-(and laugh)-a-minute tour of Krusty Land, a new amusement park dreamed up by the demented mind of Krusty.
Less official sources report that the new ride will use essentially the same technology as the old ride. If those reports are accurate, look forward to a ride vehicle that is an open-air cousin to the high-tech simulators used to train airline pilots. Like a box on stilts, it will hover a few feet off the ground, but for all you know or care you might as well be hundreds of feet up.
The vehicles face a mammoth, curved movie screen that completely fills your line of vision and represents the true genius of this ride concept. Other simulator-based rides (like the Jimmy Neutron ride here at Universal) use a movie screen that serves as a window to the outside of your spaceship or other vehicle. With this concept, however, you are outside and the environment wraps around you. The illusion is startling, not to mention sometimes terrifying.
In reality, the movement of the simulator’s stilts is surprisingly modest. You never actually move more than two feet in any direction. But try telling that to your brain. The kinetic signals sent by your body combine with the visual signals received from the screen to convince you that you are zooming along at supersonic speeds, making white-knuckle turns at dizzying angles.
Of course, all this will only be true if those early reports prove accurate. Perhaps the designers will surprise us. At a minimum, let’s hope they juice up the technology with the accumulated technical wizardry of the last 15 or so years.
Back
to Chapter Contents
Didn't find what you were looking for? Try a Google search.
|
