Universal Beijing - Reimagined

   Universal Studios hasn't built an actual studios park since 1990 in Orlando.  Their newer parks have a nominal Hollywood theme, typically in the Boulevard entrance and a movie-making show or feature, but are generally IP parks.   This template is what we can expect to see from Disney & Universal for the foreseeable future.

   With similar Hollywood areas already existing in Osaka & Singapore, I've opted to do something different with this re-imagining.   And with no Production & no Hollywood, I've dropped the Studios from name.  The park here is called "Universal Beijing," and is a closer cousin to Islands of Adventure than to 1990s Universal Studios Florida.  

 

UNIVERSAL GRAND HOTEL

  While the hotel is part of the jettisoned Hollywood theme, I've kept it in this Buildout because it's a solid overall design (especially compared to all the recent, abysmal-looking "themed hotels" by Disney & Universal, e.g. Riviera, Sapphire Falls, Fantasy Springs, etc.). 

  One aspect I would fix, not visible in this plan, is its window treatment.  These latest hotels that are supposed to invoke traditional themes/styles (in this case Spanish Colonial Revival) typically use very modern, pane-less windows with no sashes and no muntins (which separate panes), as you might find at a suburban office park.  This subverts the overall intent of the design (Classic Hollywood; historic) and lessens the beauty/interest/authenticity of the building:

 

PORT OF ENTRY

   Disney has successfully built a few variations on the Main Street concept across its castle parks, and here I've opted for Universal Beijing to have its own unique variant on a Universal's best-park-opener, IoA's Port of Entry.  

  The "town square" equivalent here would have some Spanish/Caribbean influence as a transition from the Grand Hotel and an "Adventure Globe" fountain at its center.  Typical things like Guest Services & the park's Emporium are in this area.  

While Disney & Universal have a lamentable tendency to copy & paste their big-budget "Immersive lands", dropping them into different parks with few if any alterations (Star Wars, Potter, Nintendo, etc.).   In this park, rather than directly clone lands from other parks, I explore the possibilities of taking the same theme and doing new & original things with it.   Everything in this Port of Entry is unique from Orlando and customized for this park, though the idea is the same.  

A signature restaurant sits on the central lagoon, as does the stepped Fountain of Wonders and boat dock.  

 

 
KUNG FU PANDA - LAND OF AWESOMENESS

 In this concept plan, I've relocated the entire indoor Panda land to the seven o'clock position, giving it frontage on what you will find is a much larger central lagoon.   The dramatic change to the land takes place before one goes indoors: what was/is a pretty visible warehouse (see below) is now completely disguised behind layers of mountain rockwork, waterfalls, trees and an undulating river valley dotted with Chinese architecture. 

   I imagine the new outdoor coaster to have Chinese dragon (KungFu Panda 2) themed trains and be similar in scope to DLP's Casey Jr..   It is a terrain following track, mostly below main path level and has no lifthills (self-powered) to obstruct the mountain vista.    

TRANSFORMERS METROBASE

  Both Pandaland and Metrobase are first-of-their-kind areas in a Universal park and are therefore the least altered in my idealized re-imagining.   If the former is a cousin of TDS' Mermaid Lagoon, the latter is a proxy for Tomorrowland.

   The major change I've illustrated is taking the well-done and intriguing rockwork at the existing entry area and making it the dominant visual feature and connecting thread throughout the land and its structures.   This would make the visitor feel more like they are in an environment on the planet Cybertron or one of its colonial outposts.   I would also have the boilerplate Transformers scoop ride individualized for this park, maybe reflecting that it is no longer Earth-based.  

  

JURASSIC WORLD

 Across the wide lagoon, the park's landmark volcano rises above the park - a much larger edifice than the existing mountain, larger than TDS' Mount Prometheus.  And like Prometheus, hidden within it are several rides on multiple levels as well as guest passageway connecting to two sides of the land: west & east.  My goal here was to remove the big-lightly-themed-box factor that pervades the extant land (and park), but to keep some of its original features.  You still have the land's thrill ride, Jurassic World Adventure, entered through the Visitor Center, but here the showbuilding is invisible behind the mountain.  Like magic, a key to great theme parks is to keep the eye/mind in the dark about the Where & the How.

The Masosaur lagoon is like Aninal Kingdom's river otter habitat on steroids: shadows projected on the water surface hint at the presence of the leviathan as you walk down the ramp into a cavern with subsurface glass "windows" to view the giant sea dino as it appears in & out of the murky lagoon.   

The extant park has a small, indoor play area, but here Camp Jurassic is taken out of the Aviary and given a much larger, leafier exploration area, similar to IOA, at the base of the volcano, featuring things like treehouses, rope bridges & amber caverns.  

Inside the glass-domed Aviary one can view dino exhibits, grab a bite or queue for Pteradon Tours, which is a Soarin' like experience over the island's farthest reaches.   

 Another headline ride is the Gyrosphere Dino Safari that, like the movie, puts guests into glass vehicles for a screen-less tour of Jurassic World from the volcano's heights (switchback queue up the mountainside to the loading building) to the lagoon home of giant brachiosaurs - a zippy, closeup experience of life-like dinosaurs in their natural habitats.

ILLUMINATION CITY

  Replacing the existing Minions Land with its midway pier containing a spinner & kiddie coaster, this land is re-designed as a cheerful, quirky City environment and themed to all the Illumination properties that smoothly fit within this world.  

  The Secret Life of Pets darkride is lifted from Universal Hollywood, as that one is the currently the only of its kind I don't mind cloning it once.   On the other hand, Minion Mayhem has been built in the majority of Uni parks, so I've opted for an original, screen-less Despicable Me attraction, a shooter darkride in the vein of Monsters Ride & Go Seek.   The exterior is themed to the Villains Lair, based on the reverse pyramid design that is actually used in a Uni Bejing dining venue (see below).   

The large theater could be 3-D or live (or both) and a natural first run would be based on the Sing films.  The Dumbo ride would feature characters from multiple Illumination franchises.   The lagoon-front dining venue is desert-based and themed to a giant gumball machine.    There is also a city park with a bandstand and accessible lawn.

EXPANSION PLOT

As with the actual park, I've left a sizable plot for a future seventh land.   I added a temporary Preview Center in this area, featuring art & models of potential coming attractions.   I always loved these future-is-bright-and-hopeful types of exhibits that one would find at the Blue Sky Cellar, Disney Gallery, Walt Disney Story or Universal Studios (previewing IOA).

THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER 

  One of the disappointing aspects of this current era of theme parks is the direct copy&pasting of some of the popular new lands at Universal & Disney parks around the world, as opposed to taking a unique approach to the same theme (e.g. Adventureland Anaheim vs. Paris).  WW-Hogsmeade has been cloned 4 times, each time failing to address its biggest fault - the massively-visible, unthemed show-building of Forbidden Journey - a problem which was exacerbated in Beijing despite having plenty of real estate.   So here I had fun imagining & drawing a Wizarding World that fixes both of these issues (over-cloned, visible showbuilding), while retaining the style (i.e., Stuart Craig's production design) of the template land.

  The cliff-topping Hogwarts School dominates everything, so we'll start there.   In my version of the land, Hogwarts is much larger, both in scale and completeness.   It needs to be, because "within" the School are not one, but three major features.   The first is the land's E-ticket family ride, which I imagined as an elaborately-themed omnimover in the tradition of the evergreen classic Haunted Mansion.   A narrated, atmospheric tour, with small buggies (2-4 passengers) passing by the various classrooms, chambers & characters of Hogwarts, complete with an array of time-tested and new special effects (e.g. Pepper's Ghost effect for the castle ghosts, AAs for Felch & his cat, etc.), would be the most engaging way to experience this world.   There could be various seasonal overlays as well.  For me, Forbidden Journey was jarring in its screen-to-set transitions and too chaotic to take in, so this would be a refreshing new approach: a ride so filled with details and set decoration that new discoveries would be made on repeated rides.

  The 2nd feature inside the school is the Great Hall, which replicates the famous room from the films as a signature entertainment dining venue (e.g., announcements by professors (actors), broom or owl fly-bys, and other things happening on the dais intermittently.   The 3rd Hogwarts feature is an indoor stunt show similar in scale to the Pirates show at Shanghai Disneyland.   This could center around the Tri-Wizard Tournament as the queue begins in the hedge maze before entering the castle's Grand Auditorium.   Since Waterworld is gone from this park, this stunt show helps fill that category.

   Approaching the land from the south, the vista would be awe-inspiring, with the impressively-massive Hogwarts rising in the distance across the Lagoon and above the village roofs (no visible showbuildings in this plan).  The winding lakeside path would be used for viewing the popular night-time Hogwarts projection shows or relaxing during the day.   One enters Hogsmeade Village, which is in the same style as the others but unique in its layout.   The Hogs Head Tavern and Three Broomsticks are now separate venues on opposite ends of the land.     

  Down a street to the right is the train station, where the Hogwarts Express simulator awaits, inspired by the CircleVision bullet train concept once rumored for the Japan pavilion at EPCOT Center.  Instead of the train windows being screens as in Orlando, here the they are glass and train enters a tunnel to the theater where the action & scenery play out on a seemless360 screen.  If a second gate in Beijing gets Diagon Alley, this area could eventually be converted to the Orlando-style park-to-park attraction.

 

  Replacing the Flight of Hippogriff coaster at the center of the land is a heavily-themed Huss Troika II or Tristar ride:  The Whomping Willow, which strikes me as the perfect system for this type of "Disneyfied" midway ride where disguised  mechanical tree "limbs" fling ride vehicles about.  

  The only major attraction in this land that can be found at any other park (only one other) is the Hagrid's Magical Motorbike Adventure coaster, though this version is a somewhat plussed/lengthened version of it.  The drop building is themed as additional moss-covered abbey ruins, rather than the painted-on trees of Orlando, and there is an added show sequence that enters a Hungarian Horntail's cave.

FINAL THOUGHTS

  I design, plan and experience parks under one principle: The Park is the E-ticket.  For me, the attractions are only half of the appeal of any great theme park.   Soaking in the atmosphere, exploring the side pathways, discovering hidden nooks, enjoying grand & artfully-arranged wide vistas and endless minute details, all the while being inspired, imaginatively and intellectually - that is the other half.  Only a small handful of theme parks have ever achieved greatness and this has been my exercise in bringing the latest Universal park concept into that league.

***

 

THE END