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New shows, new themes and new tech at Universal Studios Hollywood

By Robert Niles
Published: June 25, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Got an e-mail yesterday from a Universal Studios Hollywood insider, reporting some nifty tech upgrades at the park:
Just wanted to give you a heads-up -- next time you're at USH, stop by the Shrek 4D attraction -- We've just upgraded the projection system and the new projectors are a vast improvement ofer the originals. The old projectors were a quartet of Barco ELM R12 behemoths. Each eye consisted of two projectors and each projector covered half of the screen. The two images were blended down the center. The original projectors were only 12,000 lumens. The new projectors are state of the art Christie HD+30K units.

Burning your retinas at 30,000 lumens each, they provide a marked improvement in image quality. Much brighter, better color saturation, better color consistency (the old side by side pairs suffered from mismatches in color temperature), and MUCH better contrast (really becomes obvious in the cemetary scene). These are, incidentally, the exact same projectors that are going into the new King King attraction (16 of them) as well as the upcoming Transformers (24 of them).

USH also released some detail about this year's Halloween Horror Nights:

Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights will present an all-new "live" attraction based on the most profitable horror franchise to date, SAW, per an agreement among Universal Studios Theme Parks, Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures.

The new SAW experiences, to be presented at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights event, will mark the first time that SAW characters and stories will be developed as "live" attractions in a U.S. theme park. At Universal Studios Hollywood, characters, themes and live action recreations of the infamous "traps" from the entire SAW horror franchise will be featured in a "maze" experience, in multiple "scare zones" and aboard the parks signature "Terror Tram," where guests will be subjected to a deadly "game" that will echo a story element instantly recognizable to SAW’s legion of fans. The team designing the live SAW experiences includes the Universal Studios Hollywood creative department as well as Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures.

A SAW attraction will also be included in the Halloween Horror Nights event at Universal Orlando.

Finally, wrapping up the USH news, I will be attending the debut of the park's new live show, The Creature From The Black Lagoon: The Musical, next Tuesday, reporting with a review later that day here on Theme Park Insider.

Readers' Opinions

From Joshua Counsil on June 26, 2009 at 7:34 AM
I love when parks release engineering specs. Thanks a lot for this, Robert.

For the record, 30000 lumens is about 30x the "power" of a standard incandescent lightbulb.

From Joshua Counsil on June 26, 2009 at 7:36 AM
Oh, and this new Saw attraction sounds horrible. The movies left such a bad taste in my mouth that, unless Universal instills some humor into the franchise (good luck), this attraction will probably be even worse.
From Manny Barron on June 26, 2009 at 11:48 AM
That is great that they are improving existing attractions like Shrek 4-D. I can't wait for the new Kink Kong attraction to open and the new Transformers ride. I really hope Creature from the Black Lagoon is good and becomes a hit. It's such a strange story and theme but hopefully they know what they are doing.
From Dan Rosenberg on June 27, 2009 at 7:39 AM
Early reviews say that 'Creature' is the worst thing Universal Hollywood ever came up with. Screamscape has some of these reviews posted. Check them out.
I am really disappointed that 'Creature' got such terrible reviews. I had high hopes for it.
From Brandon Mendoza on June 27, 2009 at 11:58 AM
I too have no desire to take part of anything involving "Saw". I somewhat enjoyed the first movie as it wasn't just all about "how messed up can we get with torture?" But since then, it's all downhill.

As for Creature, it might be bad like Spider-Man Rocks or whatever it was called. I say they should just bring back something like Conan... what happened to all the stunt shows other than Waterworld??? Part of the great experience of USH was always the stunt shows... I think Disney Hollywood Studios has it beat with their stunt show.

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