Islands of Adventure : The Jurassic Park Jeep Safari Ride That Never Was

When Islands of Adventure opened some rides envisioned for the Jurassic Park land were unfortunately cancelled. One of them was the Jeep Safari ride which would have been great as you will see on the renderings below from artist and former WDI Imagineer Scott Scherman.

The first artwork above shows a concept for the jeep vehicle of the ride. The next one below shows the jeeps entering a Jurassic Park camp before they move inside the land where the AA dinosaurs are.



On the next artwork things are becoming serious as the jeeps would have gone right under a giant Brontosaur. These artworks are unfortunately in low-res but if you enlarge them you can see that others animals would have appear like a long Apatosaur neck, from the lagoon. Before moving under the Brontosaur the jeep would have enter the land through the famous Jurassic Park gates and moving under a kind of giant net where probably others effects or animals would have awaited the guests.



On this last artwork - which was not the last part of the ride - you can see clearly a jeep being attacked by what seems to be Velociraptors. The arrows on the drawing indicate for sure other kind of effects and i wish i could tell which one, if i only knew... What i know is that others renderings exist and that in another scene a T-Rex would have "stepped on" the guests jeep and spin it in a way similar to the scene in the movie!



Apparently this ride was planned for the area behind Thunder Falls and was scrapped for its similarity to the River Adventure raft ride. Universal obviously favored the water based ride but who knows, may be they will build it one day - let's hope so!

Artwork by Scott Scherman : copyright Universal Studios

Leaked Jurassic World Visitors Guide Prop !

In the next Jurassic Park movie "Jurassic World" - happening 20 or 30 years after the first one - it's a real Jurassic theme park which is supposed to now exist at Isla Nublar. And like all theme parks this one will have a visitors guide. They did a real/fake visitors guide for the shooting which was handed out to several extras on the set of the film... and it happened what had to happen: one of them decided to take pictures of it and uploaded the pics on the web! This guide provides lots of interesting new details about Jurassic World , including what kind of dinos we can expect to see in the movie, which means that some of them can be spoilers! So, read it at your own risk!

Among the fun infos revealed is that Jimmy Fallon, host of the Tonight Show, will have a cameo in the film. Visitors will be greeted with an instructional video hosted by the comedian when they go through the Gyrosphere, which is an on-site instructional video. You'll find also a few other details on the types of attractions that visitors will find at Jurassic World theme park - in the movie, not in real.
Last but not least, the visitors will have a "bracelet scanband" - a reminiscence of Disney's Magic Band idea?

 

 

 

Pictures: copyright Universal

Jurassic World Visitors Center Gorgeous Concept-Art Unveiled

Thanks to conceptual artist Nathan Schroeder - who has also worked on other films like Star Trek and The Avengers - we have the first official concept art for Jurassic World, the new Jurassic Park movie directed by Colin Trevorrow,  to be released in June 2015. 

These two gorgeous concept-arts reveal a futuristic new visitor center on the island of Isla Nublar. The story will take place 22 years after the events of the first Jurassic Park movie, and so far the cast includes Nick Robinson, Ty Simpkins, Josh Brolin, Bryce Dallas Howard, BD Wong, and maybe Jason Schwartzman. 

Now, get a closer look to both of the artwork as you will see that the "visitor center" is not exactly the same on both. As you can see, in Jurassic World, things have changed since 20 years ago,  the visitors center has a more futuristic tone and we can see as well a fully functioning resort... meaning more food for the Dinosaurs once they will break free.

Pictures: copyright Nathan Schroeder

Two new major attractions coming to Universal Islands of Adventure in 2015 ?

According to the always well informed and reliable Screamcape web site not less than TWO major attractions will open at Universal Islands of Adventures in 2015! One of the two would be a long awaited new Jurassic Park ride. As Lance says "There have been too many JP themed ride rumors lately to say for sure what this one will be..." ...but we still can hope that the JP Jeep ride envisioned a long time ago could make its come back, although i wouldn't bet a lot on it... but we can dream, can't we?

The other ride to open in 2015 will be an unexpected one to be built at IOA Dr Seuss Landing. Always according to Lance some project called Project 301 "was just given the green light, with an aggressive plan to get it up and open in time for the Christmas 2015 holiday season. All I know so far is that this will be a new 3D ride experience themed to The Lorax, and that they will build a new large structure behind One Fish, Two Fish for it". 

So, just one year after what will be a major opening with Wizarding World of Harry Potter part two Universal will open two new attractions this time at IOA. At WDW,  after the 2014 opening of Seven Dwarfs Mine Train guests will have to wait until 2016 with the new Soarin' over the World movie - and 2017 with Avatar Land at Animal Kingdom - and obviously Universal is decided to use as much as they can their "momentum" and their ability to built new rides extremely quickly. Recently it was announced that Comcast - who owns Universal Studios - will add $500M more to build new rides, and now we know where they will be spent!

In the meantime don't forget to check regularly Screamscape updates for more news coming soon about these two projects!

Pictures: copyright Universal Studios

Universal Studios Singapore Launches Hollywood Dreams Parade - Full Video

On new Year's Eve, Universal Studios Singapore has launched its brand new Hollywood Dreams Parade, and i've found for you a full video of it, filmed by tabihito7. It's a great parade with animated floats and almost each float refers to Universal Studio Singapore attractions.



Among others themes there is floats dedicated to Shreck, Madagascar, the Mummy and Jurassic Park. And you better don't miss the Jurassic Park floats as they succeed to have on one of them an Audio-Animatronic T-Rex as big a sthe one which is in the ride. With the opening of the Transformers ride on Dec 3 this is the second major addition to Universal Singapore and the park now really worth a visit. However you might want to wait until next february when the Jurassic Park rafts ride will re-open after some months of refurbishment, then the park will be fully operational.



The pictures in this article are coming from Dejiki web site who posted last sunday a long pictorial update about the new parade.




Pictures: copyright Dejiki

Video: copyright tabihito7

Jurassic Park : The Raptors Racer That Never Was

Let's begin the week with something you've never seen or even heard about before. This is a coaster concept which was envisioned for Jurassic Park ten years ago after Islands of Adventure opening. Jean Marc Toussaint, a good friend of mine who was at that time working for IAA/The Coaster Works, a company who designed the Dania Beach Hurricane in Florida. Jean-Marc is the one who designed this Jurassic Park coaster concept and kindly send me these concept-arts.

Here is how it would have been: the coaster structure itself would have been in wood - a wooden coaster, so - and the shape of the structure would have looked like the one of a dinosaur skeleton, which was indeed an interesting idea. The coaster track was partly inspired by the one of the famous Cyclone Racer in Long Beach and the train wagons themselves were inspired by the look of the jurassic Park jeeps.

The ride would have had a "velociraptor theme" and after a high-speed race to escape the raptors the end of the ride was a kind of mini dark ride in which the train was shaken thanks to a moving/vibrating portion of the track. And when the train was arriving at the station, thanks to a special painting which react to U.V the look of the train wagons would have changed and reveal claws hits from the raptors! You can see on the pictures above and below the before/after effect.

The concept was unfortunately not approved and later the same concept - but not with a Jurassic Park theme - was proposed to Paramount Parks, with a theme inspired by The Italian Job movie (but Paramount finally choose a coaster from Premier Rides) and also for Six Flags with a Road Runner theme (they finally did a junior coaster with Vekoma).

Anyway, this "Jurassic Park wooden racer that never was" was a brilliant idea!



Pictures: copyright Jean Marc Toussaint


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Islands of Adventure : The Jurassic Park Jeep Safari Ride That Never Was

When Islands of Adventure opened twelve years ago some rides envisioned for the Jurassic Park Island were unfortunately cancelled. One of them was the Jeep Safari ride which would have been great as you will see on the renderings below from artist and former WDI Imagineer Scott Scherman.

The first artwork above shows a concept for the jeep vehicle of the ride. The next one below shows the jeeps entering a Jurassic Park camp before they move inside the land where the AA dinosaurs are.



On the next artwork things are becoming serious as the jeeps would have gone right under a giant Brontosaur. These artworks are unfortunately in low-res but if you enlarge them you can see that others animals would have appear like a long Apatosaur neck, from the lagoon. Before moving under the Brontosaur the jeep would have enter the land through the famous Jurassic Park gates and moving under a kind of giant net where probably others effects or animals would have await the guests.



On this last artwork - which was not the last part of the ride - you can see clearly a jeep being attacked by what seems to be Velociraptors. The arrows on the drawing indicate for sure other kind of effects and i wish i could tell which one, if i only knew... What i know is that others renderings exist and that in another scene a T-Rex would have "stepped on" the guests jeep and spun it in a way similar to the scene in the movie!



Apparently this ride was planned for the area behind Thunder Falls and was scrapped for its similarity to the River Adventure raft ride. Universal obviously favored the water based ride but who knows, may be they will build it one day - let's hope so!

Artwork by Scott Scherman : copyright Universal Studios

Universal Studios Singapore Original Artwork

I have a great artwork update for you today with most of the Universal Studios Singapore original artwork! As you know, the park will open very soon and as you will see most of the attractions will be "USS exclusive" which means that a lot of them don't exist in others Universal Studios theme parks.

Last October Universal Studios Singapore did a press conference where they've shown all of this artwork and the conference was filmed by Asia Travel Tips who had the good idea to put the video on line on Youtube. So, i did screen captures and enhanced the pictures to make sure they look as good as possible. However, because they are screen captures the pictures are not as high-res as usual but they're not bad either.

No artwork was shown for the entrance or the Hollywood set as well as for the New York area. However guests will find an attraction in the New York part called "Lights, Camera, Action" hosted by Steven Spielberh himself. This will be a "special effect" attraction and after the usual pre-show guests will enter an empty sound stage which will become the setting for a major hurricane about to hit New York City! It's a USS exclusive attraction.



Right next door guests will find Sci-Fi City with two attractions. The third one - a big "E-Ticket" will be the Transformers attraction, using the same technology than the IOA acclaimed Spiderman ride and will open in 2011. This first artwork below is supposed to show Sci-Fi City, but we will be lucky if it looks like that in real.



In Sci-Fi City guests will find a great dueling coaster "BattleStar Galactica", another USS exclusive attraction. There is two coasters, one is a "normal" one and the other is an inverted coaster as you can see on the picture below.



This next artwork is showing BattleStar Galactica's entrance.



During the press conference a short video was shown with all the queue decor and pre-show sketches. I put all of them on one picture, so click on the picture below to see them in details.



Always in Sci-Fi City a smaller attraction called "Accelerator", basically the same than the "Storm Force Accelatron" at Islands of Adventure...



...where guests will board some whirling "pods". Don't get too excited, though, as basically it's a kind of Sci-Fi version of the Mad Hatter Tea Cups!



The next land is Ancien Egypt and this one have a great theming. The designers did a great job recreating Ancient Egyptian temples and, although the Mummy attraction is not a "USS exclusive", everything else in the land is. This first artwork show the whole land.



The artwork below show, of course, the Mummy coaster attraction.



Another attraction of Ancient Egypt is called Treasure Hunters. Guests will explore the excavation site driving a vintage motor car, and lot of surprises awaits them! This attraction is a USS exclusive.



Next destination: The Lost World! This is the Jurassic Park land and a new version of the famous ride was designed for Universal Studios Singapore as it's no longer a flume ride but a raft ride. This first artwork show the whole land which also include the Waterworld stunt show.



The next picture show the different parts of the "Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure". A Universal creative explain this in details in the press conference video that you will find at the end of this article.



Another Lost World attraction is "Canopy Flyer" which look like "Pteranodon Flyers" at Islands of Adventure without the "wings" attached on the top. Guests, though, will have a great bird-eye view of the land.



And there is a reason why it's not called "Pteranodon Flyers" as another small attraction of The Lost World is also based on Pteranodon theming. At "Dino Soarin" children will pilot their own Pteranodon, a USS exclusive.



Another new little attraction should delight young kids. Called "Amber Rock Climb" kids will climb the walls of Jurassic Park to explore precious stones and fossilised insects. And a treasure awaits the one who will climb to the top!



The next land is Far Far Away, the land of Schrek, and guests will find there several attractions. I repost here the high-res picture showing the whole land and on the left the Madagascar land.



This next artwork show the entrance of Far Far Away castle when you come from The Lost World.



Inside the castle guests will find, of course, the Shrek 3D attraction...



...the great Fairy Godmother's Potion shop with not only merchandise but also games inspired by the world of Shrek, including a small Ferris wheel, "Magic Potion Spin"...



...and also a show called "Donkey Live!" where Donkey will entertain guests in an all-new interactive show.



Outside the castle, another USS exclusive ride called Enchanted Airways, a gentle junior roller coaster for a flight above Far Far Away and beyond.



The next and last land is Madagascar, another land exclusive to Universal Singapore and here is a first artwork showing the whole area.



Below, a new one showing the entrance with the giant tree and the ship.



A highly awaited - and unique - attraction will be the "Madagascar, A Crate Adventure" flume ride. Thanks to audio-animatronics figures, digital projection and moving show action effects the ride will be a totally immersive experience. And yes, there is a splash at the end!



The attraction of the land is "King Julien's Beach Party Go-Round", a carousel for young children with Madagascar characters.



We will end with this last artwork showing the carousel at night.




If you have the time, i strongly recommand you to watch the press conference on the three videos below. Universal creatives give more details on each attraction!











Thanks to leave a comment or discuss this article on D&M english forum on Mice Chat

Artwork and video : copyright Universal Studios Singapore