I watched the show that just released a few days ago, and it is an interesting documentary, if not all over the place. It showed, like most true and non-propaganda theme park building documentaries, how incredibly challenging and stressful it is to create a brand-new theme park. The strange thing though, is that it released to basically radio silence and had to re-schedule its release date 2 or 3 times. Much similar to how there were nearly no ads to epic universe, and none that actually showed the parks, for some unexplainable reason they are keeping it quiet. It seemed obvious that it was a hassle to make, but you think they would do something bigger for such an investment of comcasts time and money. I think it's strange, but do you guys have an explanation for why they might do this?
Where did you watch the documentary? It doesn’t come out on peacock till the 17th.
What I find really strange is that Universal is currently running a nationwide ad campaign for Universal Orlando that shows all of the parks, but for all the shots of Epic, they're still using CGI-created concept imagery and not actual footage from inside the actual park, which they're using for everywhere else in the resort. You'd think after 6 months Universal would have some live b-reel footage inside of Epic that they could use to advertise the park.
JonathanK: it costs 6 dollars on YouTube. It was honestly luck that I stumbled on it, but I'm glad. It's actually a good watch, if you have time.
Russel: That's half of the reason why I started this thread. That's actually one of the best things about the park, the amazing architecture and theming, and one of the biggest reasons why you would go there, and there not even showing it! My only guess is to wait until the park is fully ironed out before they really start the ad business, so they don't get any more people coming in and giving bad reviews. It still feels kind of strange though...
One of the greatest aspects of the park is its incredible architecture and theming, making it a major attraction, yet it isn't being showcased at all!
I watched this yesterday, and there were a couple of interesting takeaways for me...
1. A few of the high profile issues with Epic were detailed. The first was how the park scrambled to address problems when it rains heavily, but most of those scenes were geared towards how they handle and divert water - they show the roof of the Constellation Carousel dripping right onto the ride's control panel. However, they don't really talk about the park's overall weather resilience and the limited attractions that can actually operate in adverse conditions. The second was the flying dragon drones, which they go into pretty deep detail, but you never see an executive or other decision maker cancelling the project. You really get a sense for how challenging features are to execute (the dragon wingspan is 10', which is dramatically impacted by even light winds, and the drone itself is very loud, which means it cannot fly very close to guests without breaking the immersion). It was cool to see the design and development process of these features, but the program lacks to follow through to definitively provide an outcome, not even a "we're still working on this". I thought it was interesting to see them clearly reveal why Circus Arcanus was delayed, and it makes perfect sense why the show wasn't running during the first week of soft opening, which made MoM a complete waste of time for guests since BotM was still in testing.
2. It was blatantly obvious how much Universal wanted to reinforce their commitment to safety when highlighting Stardust Racers. Every scene involving that coaster included a staff person saying the word "safety" and almost always involved some type of testing of the systems. It was cool to see so much behind the scenes of this attraction, including the ride vehicles, but for as much "behind the curtain" stuff you see here, there's not a lick of insight into BotM - you never even see a person riding or even an empty ride vehicle in the load/unload stations.
3. I was shocked to see them show the ride ops performing an e-stop and manual evacuation of Monsters Unchained. This is something you would NEVER see Disney reveal, though it's possible that Universal was using this segment to show their commitment to safety.
4. I found it very interesting at the executives' approach to the HP IP, and how the original Hogsmeade shocked them in the guest behavior in the land. You can see that Universal's approach to Diagon Alley and the entirety of Epic has been influenced by this by putting more and more emphasis on retail, dining, and ancillary experiences beyond the core attractions (rides and shows). It's kind of funny, because while they note the expectation was for guests to tour the parks ticking off all of the rides, but Hogsmeade saw longer lines for Honeydukes and Butterbeer than for FJ, Hippogriff, and Dragon Challenge. However, when they designed MoM, it seems that they have gone too far in the other direction by only having 1 ride and 1 show with the expectation that guests would spend just as much time walking around, shopping, and dining, which is why they've quickly filed a permit to build another large-scale attraction in the land.
5. While they talk a little bit about the portal system, they don't ever talk about the rumors that they would control access to individual portals. Were all these rumors just that, or was the operations team seriously looking at managing guest flow in this new park. When Epic was originally announced, Universal was very clear that this would be a very different approach to a theme park, which is why many anticipated limiting portal access or other ways of managing guest flow through the park, which included selling tickets that would grant guests access to different areas of the park.
This was supposed to debut on Peacock right after the incident on Stardust Racers. After that, Universal postponed the show, which is why it just came out.