Optimus Prime Coming to Universal Studios Orlando
posted Sunday Nov 4, 2012 by Scott Ertz
Until this week, Universal Studios Orlando was the oddball of the family, being the only park to not have a Transformers ride with the ride already installed in Hollywood and Singapore. There was a lot of speculation when the park closed Jaws that it was in preparation to install the ride in its place. As it turns out, that was close, but not exactly correct. In fact, Orlando will soon be getting a Transformers: The Ride 3D installed, opening for Summer 2013, but it will not live in the former home of Jaws. Instead, it will live at the other end of the lagoon, very close to where Terminator 2 currently resides. President of Universal Creative, Mark Woodbury, said about the positioning,
You put a lot of thought into those things. This is a big, iconographic attraction, so we wanted to give it a big, iconographic position, so that's why you see it right, smack in the middle of the park, facing out onto the lagoon - so it really has a prominent spot. And then we have Optimus guarding the entrance of the attraction, so that'll be a really stunning image when you see it.
That sounds like a pretty formidable entrance to a ride - certainly more than that of a Christopher Walken cutout standing at the entrance of Disaster!. One of the things that has shocked a lot of people is the sheer speed at which they plan to implement the new ride. In fact, it will be Universal's quickest installation of a new ride in the company's history. When asked, Woodbury, said,
It has already become a global phenomenon. People are just wild about the ride - the reaction has been over the top. So it was rush, rush and let's get it to Orlando in a hurry and that's what you're seeing happen out there today...
It is really fast. This is the fastest we've ever built a project as complex as this. This is a really, really complicated piece of work. From building the building, to the ride technology, to the film technology, it's very, very complicated to put together. And our motivation is it's wildly popular! So we wanted to bring it to market as fast as we possibly could. It's great for our business, great for our guests. And that's what motivates us...
I would say days after opening in Hollywood, we saw the response and we said, 'Let's go to Orlando!
That could either be read as, "People love it so we don't want to disappoint," or, "We want to cash-in in Florida before the ride's hype dispels." Either way, it is nice to see the ride, which has gotten a lot of positive reviews worldwide, will finally be coming to the Orlando campus as well.
