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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this web log are the personal opinions of Ian D Smith, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff or members of the Official Lord of the Rings fan club. Move the mouse over a picture for a description, or click on a picture to see a larger version Universal Studios |
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Back in March I'd thoroughly enjoyed my "VIP ticket" to Universal Studios and, reading my reports, other Ringers
decided to make up a fellowship of 9 to do the tour. I decided to join them as the Tolkien events for the weekend were
effectively over, with many catching planes back to their home cities across the USA.
We ended up with a party of seven in total: myself, Amy (Primula), Brett (Baron of Bar Ereg), Val, Pixie, Jo and Nikki Took. Nikki is not someone I'd really had a chance to talk to before so it was good to get the chance to get to know a familiar name on the boards a little better. Alas, the slickness of the tour is not reflected in the slickness of their booking department. Total confusion reigned when individual members tried to pay for their booking, or to get the studio to recognise our group confirmation number. Credit card payment in advance seemed to involve a ridiculously complex process of faxing permission forms to our hotel to be signed. The signs were not good that things would be OK on our arrival for the 11am tour - and sure enough they weren't. Bookings were lost and there wasn't enough room for all of us on the 11am tour. Despite Brett (Baron of Bar Ereg) having a written confirmation of payment they had no record of his booking! After a lot of faffing around and arguments (go Prim!) we eventually all got booked on the 12.30 tour, and were told to use our passes for priveleged seating in "The Mummy Returns" maze or the new "Spider-Man Rocks" show. I opted, together with most of our party, for the Spider-Man show, since this hadn't been running when I visited in March. The show was a pretty silly mix of recap of the movie story and a musical of favourite rock songs. The odd thing is that in many ways the show was geared towards children, and yet Mary Jane was made out to be very sluttish, singing "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir" for no obviously apparent reason. The pyrotechnics were fun and the rock classics were all sing-a-long favourites, but this wasn't exactly a "must see" show in the way other shows on the tour like "Waterworld" are. Our tour guide, Yvette, was an interesting character - very much from the "ham it up as much as you can" school of acting. She was helpful and courteous and did a great job of keeping us, and the other six people in our group, happy with different requests and requirements, but I lost count of the number of times I cringed at some cheesy, sentimental delivery of a "jokey" or "customer service" line that, to me, oozed insincerity. We were promised the world but somehow it never got delivered. I lost count of the number of times we were told "I haven't forgotten your question - I'm going to get an answer for you" in response to two questions our group had asked, only to be told right at the end of the day that "You'll have to come back another day to find out the answer". The tour was pretty much the same as the last one and the highlights again were the very wet Jurassic Park ride, and the Terminator 2 show. This time round I got to see the Backdraft show that had been cancelled the last time I was here. It was something of a disappointment - once you've seen one big flame you've seen them all really! Unfortunately with the late start we really ran out of time, thanks mainly to spending far too much time on the rather dreary Western set on the studio's back lot. I had arranged to meet Nan (Rosie) and Jason (Icarus) for dinner outside the studio at 7pm (not realising that on Sundays the lot stayed open a lot longer than weekdays) and so had to reluctantly leave the others to keep to my commitment. Alas, wires got crossed and after half an hour hanging around I realised they were not going to show and had to try and get a taxi back to the hotel. Thankfully my luck changed a little at this point when a Holiday Inn free shuttle bus showed up at the taxi point just as I showed up. Click here for August12th Web Log - Warner Brothers Studio Tour |
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