And you thought there would never be a post here again. I apologize for the long absence, but the years since grad school have been both fortunately and unfortunately extremely occupied with work.
So let’s cut right to the chase, I recently had the opportunity to visit Universal’s newest park, Epic Universe, and boy howdy hey – in short, it lives up to its name.
Experiencing Epic was a fascinating new experience in the modern age – never before have I gotten to experience a brand new park that also I’d been able to observe the construction of on an almost daily basis. A very surreal combo of knowing exactly what to expect, but also not knowing much of anything. But despite having that intimate familiarity, the park proved to be constantly full of surprises and dramatically different than where my expectations had been set.
Epic is a new kind of park for Universal, and if there’s one thought I kept having the entire time I was there, it was that it didn’t feel like a Universal park at all (in the best possible way). Or rather, perhaps this is the first time in Universal’s history since the original park debut, that they’ve really been allowed to stretch to their full creative potential, not limited by the various uninterested parent companies that have controlled the purse strings over the decades and/or a pre-existing legacy of expectations for what a Universal park must be. Everything, from the scenic design, the audio, the logistics, the food, the narrative itself, is at such a higher level of fit, finish, and quality. What a treat!
The various elaborate environments of the park are the biggest stars of the show, each land, including the central hub of Celestial Park is beautiful, over the top, massive in scale, and rich with detail. So much of the park is just a pleasant place to be, which should always be a top priority in theme park design (and one which is often forgotten). Tons of water and relatively mature foliage (for a brand new park), plenty of places to sit, to eat, watch, stroll, listen to the amazing background music that permeates every location- you could easily spend quite a few hours never riding a thing and still be plenty entertained. I suspect this will become THE park for locals to hang out in, taking on a similar role to Epcot. The park is also magical at night, and I certainly hope Universal will take advantage of that and keep late operating hours, which they have historically not been keen to.
However the attractions are what most people come to theme parks to experience, and while I was not quite able to experience all of them, I did get to do the vast majority and they range from good to fabulous. These are not like the Universal attractions that permeated most of the 2000’s and 2010s – screens are only used as part of an overall design and never as the sole content. The result is impressive, fully realized environments that transport and wow you.
I’ll take a self-indulgent detour here as someone that works in immersive media – I really love how media is handled in this park AS scenic element. It’s exactly what I’ve been dying to see themed attractions do for a really long time and up until now has only been seen in small doses (such as the fabulous Navi River Journey). The park makes EXTENSIVE use of LED to merge media with scenery in both subtle and extravagant ways. Whether it’s the interior of a portal, electricity bouncing around in windows, dynamic backgrounds inside dark rides, the use of LED panels allows physical sets to come alive in ways that projection mapping always promised but seldom delivered (and for the first time in broad daylight). And these new screens are always used in ways that extend physical scenery, bring it alive, add an additional layer to an environment, it really is finally realizing what the potential for media in immersive entertainment can be – rather than just using it as the physical equivalent of superfluous CGI. There’s also some really nice uses of 3d TVs, transparent OLEDs, and other more fringe media technologies that don’t show up in immersive entertainment very often and which I’ve been wanting to see. I will say these later uses do sometimes seem more proof of concept and less integrated and polished than the others – there’s work to be done on things like matching color and lighting, but still major props for daring to go there.
I guess that’s a natural segue to the criticisms. No park can be perfect, compromises are always made and there are some things that did stand out to me in less favorable ways. Sightlines are for sure the #1 compromise this park has made. It’s very clear that if given the choice between putting money into the direct show or making a more immersive environment, the former choice was made in almost all the cases. This occurs on both relatively minor scales (bits of other lands sticking out into others, vistas of I-Drive landmarks popping through gaps in buildings) to more egregious cases (perfectly framed show buildings that fill the entire field of view, with little to nothing to distract you from them, sitting in otherwise elaborately themed lands). And look if that’s the choice designers were faced with, making a better show inside the box or outside, then absolutely the inside is the better call, but I do wish that was a choice that didn’t have to be made, especially in such an otherwise elaborate and beautiful park. Similarly, we all know I’m not a huge fan of “exposed steel’ roller coasters in beautiful immersive environments. Brilliantly, the biggest and baddest offender (and also singled-handedly the most intense and thrilling coaster I’ve ever experienced) is located in Celestial Park, where it fits much more naturally in it’s relatively generic pleasure garden setting, largely out of the way. The coaster in Berk, also manages to be inoffensive – mostly well masked in the rickety construction of the rest of the land. If you’re going to do coasters like this, this is the way to do them. Unfortunately the coaster in Dark Universe is a pretty sore thumb, not only a bunch of track directly opposite one of the best modern weenies ever build, but also filled to the brim with safety netting that towers over it and everything else. From a programming perspective it’s a great addition, but environmentally I think it’s a miss, except at night when it completely disappears.
I also have concerns about the capacity of the park. On the day I attended, there was relatively light attendance for an Orlando theme park, but despite that lines were very long all day – most attractions in the 75-120 minute range, often peaking closer to 150. Several attractions have very low THRC, such as the Donkey Kong coaster. While some of this was due to the two star attractions being closed most of the day, it has me worried for what the guest experience will be after grand opening and the next year or two. While a new park opening with as many attractions as Epic is actually quite impressive in the modern era, nevertheless I think it’s probably not going to be enough for comfort. Thankfully, I assume this will be a problem that goes away with time, Comcast has shown every intention of wanting to expand all their parks at a rapid pace.
I would be remiss to not note while writing this an elephant in the room. One of the four IP lands is yet another installment of Potter and with what looks to be the star attraction of the entire park inside it. While Wizarding Paris is perhaps the most immersive of all the lands, and I do not want to discredit the show-stopping work the Universal Creative crew poured into it – it’s much more their product than anyone else’s – it’s a shame that a property associated with such a vile, harmful personality as JK Rowling, and one that directly profits her ended up in the lineup. While I did not pay for this visit, if I had, knowing that some of that money is going to fund further discrimination, harm, elimination of healthcare and rights of trans people, and queer gender-nonconforming people as a whole would make it difficult to enjoy what is otherwise beautiful art. I know Universal’s hand was somewhat forced in this, the extent of Rowling’s hollow-headed bigotry wasn’t well known until concrete was being poured, but one would like to imagine a world where someone would have said stop.
If there’s one other criticism I have it would be that while I think the park has made great strides in its dark ride storytelling, it still can’t fully resist leaning into the Universal dark ride trope – namely throwing as many things as possible at you as fast as possible in a quick succession of character moments that makes the actual plot difficult to follow and leaves you feeling bewildered at the end. It’s not as pronounced as say in Transformers, but moments to breathe or feel more varied emotions are still limited.
But enough of that, to be quite honest despite these criticisms I do not think they actually detract that much from the overall normal guest experience. More than any park I’ve visited, Epic manages to consistently hold the line on its identity to keep the level of immersiveness consistent, which is really important when doing something that isn’t perfectly literal. And whenever the park chooses to do something, it does it just about as well as it can be done, which makes any flaws stand out a lot less.
Gosh there’s so much more to talk about, we’re just skimming the surface. The food at the park is phenomenal, matching and sometimes exceeding the best theme park fair I’ve experienced, especially as quick service, and there are a wide array of quick service options, very little locked behind reservations and expense. The food ordering experience is also brilliant, hybridizing table service, quick service, and mobile ordering into an experience that means you get to sit at your table rather than wait in line and precariously carry items around trying to find a spot. All served on actual dishes, which is a great mark for sustainability as well as convenience and comfort. There’s even a dedicated person who will be magically summoned to your table for any allergy concerns.
Double-sided, face authenticated lockers are in use everywhere, dramatically increasing efficiency and eliminating the need to remember where you stored your things. The park has two massive interactive experiences (Nintendo Power Up Bands, and Wands) that could easily take up hours of your day with those activities alone. The audio throughout the park is cohesive and even and sounds fantastic everywhere. And at least from my own personal experience, and anecdotal experience I’ve heard from others, they seem to have made great strides in size and other forms of accessibility throughout the attraction lineup. I personally did not encounter any issues, which is normally not the case at Universal. It’s hard to tell if that experience is unique to me or will apply in general, but it was a very nice thing to experience, especially on something like Stardust Racers, a very intense coaster of the kind that typically wouldn’t allow anyone near my size to approach. I did see one person around my size disembarking from that coaster in what looked to be a case of inaccessibility, but that would be me making several assumptions – it could have also been a case of a person with sense enough not to ride such a wild death-defying attraction.
Overall Epic is a slam dunk, and I have every confidence it will be an instant success in every way that IOA wasn’t. It’s very clear that Universal has taken every lesson they’ve learned, especially since the Comcast acquisition, and committed itself to reinventing what a Universal park could be. It stands in a league of its own in the Universal lineup. If I had to find a way to sum it up I’d say it takes the best of what European and American theme parks know how to offer and merges the two together in a delicious hybrid. It’s a genuine breath of fresh air for the industry and I know I am super excited to return and see how it grows over time. It’s going to be something special and, well, Epic.
