Tag Archives: Back to the Future

Jun 23 2024

Sci-Fi Properties That Should Be In Theme Parks

Many of us will head to the theme parks this summer to enjoy abundant thrill rides and attractions that are based on beloved sci-fi properties like Star Wars, Tron, Avatar and Jurassic Park. While it seems like many sci-fi films and TV shows have been adapted into popular rides and attractions, there are actually a gold mine’s worth of material that either haven’t been done yet, are no longer available or are only available in the less visited theme parks throughout the world. Let’s explore some sci-fi properties that should be featured in more popular theme parks.

Alien/Predator

Both sci-fi/horror properties have been featured as haunted house attractions in Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights, while Alien was part of the sorely missed attraction The Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Although both properties don’t gel well with the standard Disney family friendly image and their current parks, they are popular IP owned by Disney and should be considered for some kind of dark ride that is geared for adults.

Back to the Future

The old Back to the Future: The Ride simulator attraction closed years ago in the Universal Studios theme parks to make way for The Simpsons. The original ride is still remembered fondly by fans of the film trilogy and ride enthusiasts. With the rumor going around that Universal may get rid of The Simpsons since that property is now owned by Disney, why not remake the original ride, but with better special effects to rival Avatar: Flight of Passage?

Battlestar Galactica

There is a roller coaster based on Battlestar Galactica in Universal Studios Singapore, but much more can be done with this property. A trackless simulator ride would work where a random ride operator accompanying the riders could be revealed to be a Cylon. Or go for a high-tech simulator ride that takes you on an epic space battle as you defend the Galactica from Cylon raiders like with Star Tours.

Doctor Who

This is what you do with a Doctor Who ride, have guests line up to enter a blue police box/phone booth which turns out to be the TARDIS! After exploring the time ship and guided by an actor playing the Doctor, guests can choose which door to go through that leads them into some kind of dark ride or walk-through attraction. The choices can lead to an adventure featuring the Daleks, the Cybermen or even the Weeping Angels. Voila!

Godzilla

At one point, the Japan pavilion in Epcot was supposedly going to have a ride based on Godzilla, but of course that never happened and is why that area is usually skipped by visitors looking for an attraction. A ride featuring the world’s most famous kaiju could be in the form of a simulator/trackless ride like Skull Island: Reign of Kong, or be more like the old Kongfrontation ride in Universal Studios with jaw-dropping giant animatronics of Godzilla himself that we can see up close.

Mad Max

This is soooo easy. Put out a motorized stunt show on a recreated barren, desert wasteland. Throw in lots of jury-rigged vehicles, including a V8 Interceptor and a War Rig, plenty of stunt driving and performers, and there you go: a Mad Max themed stunt show. Other options can be explored for a Mad Max-themed attraction. Just don’t do anything like that Fast and Furious abomination at Universal Studios.

The Matrix

Think of the awesome attraction The Bourne Stuntacular at Universal Studios Orlando or the closed Terminator 2- 3D: Battle Across Time show. One featuring the Matrix could be a similar theater attraction could be where patrons are released from the Matrix itself and witness an epic, live-action stunt show with dazzling effects where our rescuers battle deadly Agents in a theater setting.

Planet of the Apes

Genting Skyworlds in Malaysia has a trackless ride called Invasion of the Planet of the Apes that looks pretty interesting. Some kind of deal should be made to bring the attraction to the Disney parks since Disney owns the property. Disney’s Animal Kingdom would be good spot for Invasion of the Planet of the Apes or any other ride/attraction based on the other great sci-fi franchise from the ’70s that is still popular today. After the ride, guests can go visit the gorilla exhibit at the park.

Star Trek

Those of us fortunate enough to have visited Star Trek: The Experience still have fond memories of it. Based in the Las Vegas Hilton, Star Trek: The Experience was how Galaxy’s Edge was supposed to be for Star Wars, a fully immersive mini-park/themed area that celebrated all aspects of Star Trek. The mini-land featured two attractions, one was a simulator ride that took place on a faithfully recreated Enterprise D set, while the other was a 4D movie featuring the Borg and characters from Star Trek: Voyager. Both attractions would work today with some minor upgrades or there are many options that could be utilized for Star Trek. There is so much material ranging from the original TV show through today’s Trek offerings that an entire park can be built that is solely focused on Star Trek. If only!

WALL-E

This sci-fi property based on the classic Pixar film is a no-brainer for Epcot with its environmental themes and the cute robot. WALL-E is practically tailor made for Epcot. Yet for all the IP flooding the park these days, it is a mystery as to why WALL-E isn’t included aside from a minor playground for young children. A trackless simulator ride with animatronics taking place onboard the Axiom with WALL-E trying to protect the plant he found on Earth would be more than suitable.

José Soto

Jul 5 2020

A Look Back At Back To The Future: The Ride

The current rides and attractions at theme parks based on popular IP are quite popular, but there are many extinct rides that are sorely missed. One of the most beloved is Back to the Future: The Ride which was at Universal Studios Orlando, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Japan.

Back to the Future: The Ride opened first at Universal Studios Orlando in May 1991 and later at the Hollywood location in June 1993 and finally at the Japan park in March 2001. For anyone who does not know the attraction was a POV simulator ride that used dome-shaped IMAX screens. It served as a mini-sequel of sorts to Back to the Future, Part III, although whether or not it should be considered canon is up for debate.

The premise was that Emmett “Doc” Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd, reprising his role from the films) founded the Institute of Future Technology, and opened the scientific institution for tours of his facility and inventions. Doc Brown’s prized invention is a fleet of modified DeLorean cars which can fit eight passengers, plus the driver, and travel through time. The actual building where the Institute of Future Technology is located houses the 70-foot OMNIMAX dome screen and 24 ride vehicles.

At some point, Biff Tannen (reprised by Thomas F. Wilson) from 1955 stows away in one of the DeLoreans and arrives in the present. At the institute, Biff steals one of the DeLoreans and takes off into the timestream while trapping Doc in his office at the institute. Unable to escape, Doc implores you, as one of the tourists, to take a modified DeLorean that he will remote control, and catch up to Biff. Riders see this entire short film on overhead monitors as they wait in the queue.

From there, riders enter a small room that featured many props from the Back to the Future films such as newspaper clips, photos and the pink hoverboard. Doc Brown comes on a screen and provides instructions; when they find Biff’s car the riders are to accelerate their car to 88 miles per hour and bump their own car into Biff’s. Doing so creates a temporal vortex which brings both vehicles back to the present.

The modified DeLorean was a stunning replica of the car featured in the films only larger. Even the front panels looked just as it appeared in film with the flux capacitor and a dashboard display that showed current time, destination time and previous time.

After the gull-wing doors closed the vehicles “lifted” off since they had the hover technology and accelerated to 88 miles per hour. The first destination was Hill Valley in 2015, which was the same fantastic future showcased in Back to the Future, Part II with a chaotic traffic of hover cars and floating signs. Biff can be spotted in his DeLorean as he taunts the riders (he also pops up in small monitors in the riders’ car, as well as Doc). Biff escapes in time after a chase and the riders wind up in the ice age barely keeping up with Biff. The final destination is the Cretaceous period where both cars run into an angry tyrannosaurus rex. After literally escaping from the dinosaur’s maw, the riders rescue Biff, whose car is damaged and trapped in a lava flow, by bumping his car and sending both vehicles back to the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz7AKLuBGt8

Back at the institute, Biff is captured by Doc’s workers and all is well. This sequence was actually cut short as it originally ended with Biff being showered with manure as was his fate in the films. However, Doc Brown warns riders from the PA speakers to quickly exit the ride or else they would run into other versions of themselves and risked disrupting the time continuum! Unlike most rides today, this one did not exit directly into a gift shop, although one was located nearby the main building, which sold nifty souvenirs. These included replicas of the DeLorean (see picture) of various sizes, license plates with OUTATIME, and T-shirts.

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Jun 28 2020

Back To The Future: How It Can Return

It has been 35 years since Back to the Future premiered in theaters and 30 years since the final film Back to the Future: Part III last graced fans as Doc Brown’s flying, time-traveling locomotive blasted its way through the screens. In the time since fans of the classic time travel film trilogy have always asked, will there be more? A Back to the Future, Part IV? Sadly, time and time again (no pun intended), the answer from the films’ creators has always been no.

The director of the trilogy, Robert Zemeckis, and writer/producer Bob Gale are quite adamant about not continuing the further adventures of Marty McFly and Emmett “Doc” Brown. As far as they are concerned, the trilogy was perfect, ended on a great note (which it did) and there was not a need to revisit the time traveling duo. The feeling was, what else could Marty and Emmett do?

With a time traveling DeLorean, there are plenty of stories left! Alas, the DeLorean was destroyed at the end of Back to the Future, Part III, but wait! Doc Brown, thought to have been stranded in Hill Valley in 1885, was able to build a time machine out of a locomotive. Back to the Future: The Animated Series, which aired for two seasons after the trilogy concluded gave fans a glimpse of more time traveling hijinks with Marty and Doc. The DeLorean was rebuilt and used, as well as the time locomotive, to travel to different time periods, where they often wound up encountering some kind of Biff Tannen ancestor. So, we had that nugget. Plus, Christopher Lloyed reprised his role of Doc Brown in the show’s live-action segments, and Thomas F. Wilson and Mary Steenburgen returned to play Biff Tannen (or his ancestor) and Clara Brown. respectively.

More than anyone else, Lloyd has kept the torch burning for Back to the Future with his reprisals in the following years. Not only did he play Doc Brown in the animated series, but he was a prominent character in the simulator attraction Back to the Future: The Ride at the Universal Studios theme parks. Wilson even returned as Biff Tannen in the attraction as the villain you had to chase in your own modified DeLorean. It seriously is a crime that Universal Studios closed the attraction and has not tried to build a new ride since that film has stood the test of time and is still popular.

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Apr 6 2018

Top Ten Ready Player One Easter Eggs & References

To try to list all the Easter eggs and references in Steven Spielberg’s latest classic Ready Player One is an impossible task. No matter what other websites and videos claim no one has discovered all the minute and obscure references in Ready Player One. Until the film comes out on Blu-ray and digital streaming/download we’re going to settle for the top 10 Ready Player One Easter eggs and references. Oh yeah, spoilers down below!

10. Superhero Cameos: Being this is a Warner Bros. film, it was a given that the noticeable superheros and villains that are seen are from DC. These include several versions of Batman, the Joker, Harley Quinn, and Deathstroke. Others such as Spawn and Marvel superheroes are mentioned, though some have pointed out that Marvel heroes make blink-and-you-miss-it appearances.

Overwatch Tracer and Chun Li

9. Video Game Cameos: Nearly every shot in the film was stuffed to the brim with video game characters, whether they’re famous or obscure. Most were just quick cameo appearances and the standouts includes Tracer from Overwatch, Lara Croft, Blanka, Sonic the Hedgehog, Chun-Li, Ryu, Goro, the Spartans from Halo, Goro and we’ll be here all day trying to go on!

serenity

8. Classic Spaceships: Ready Player One has many brief appearances from iconic spaceships from film and cinema. The standout was the Serenity from Firefly, others include rad ships from Battlestar Galactica, the Enterprise, the Valley Forge from Silent Running, and somewhere in the film there is allegedly an X-Wing fighter. The greatest film spaceship the Millennium Falcon is mentioned and the roar of a TIE fighter can be heard in one scene. Anyone else who spotted anything else please drop a comment.

7. Gundam vs MechaGodzilla: A big highlight in Ready Player One’s epic final battle was the throwdown between the bad guy MechaGodzilla avatar and good guy Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam. MechaGodzilla tore the scene up as he should have, while Gundam was the robotic cavalry that helped save the day. Seeing the behemoths tearing into each other was a terrific tip of the hat to the great kaiju and giant robot battles in Japanese kaiju films that we geeks love!

6. Rexie and King Kong As Racing Obstacles: Director Steven Spielberg went out of his way not to include references to his own great works. However, his film works are so vast and influential that it would have been a crime if there wasn’t any kind of shoutout. The choice of including Rexie, the Tyrannosaurus Rex from the Jurassic Park films was inspired as the dinosaur ripped apart the racing cars. The now-famous opening car race in Ready Player One featured unique racing obstacles like Rexie and one of the greatest movie monsters of all time: the mighty King Kong.

zemeckis cube

5. The Zemeckis Cube: There are so many droolworthy gadgets and weapons scattered and used in Ready Player One. Some of them were critical and saved the hides of Parzival and friends like the Madball. The best one of these gadgets, however, was the Zemeckis Cube, which was clearly inspired by director Bob Zemeckis and his masterpiece Back to the Future and the real-life Rubik’s Cube. The gadget certainly came in handy as it allowed the film’s heroes to turn back time by sixty seconds and escape the IOI evil thugs. Are there any other gadgets or weapons that you think are worth mentioning? Leave a comment!

4. Chucky: The killer doll from the Child’s Play films could be considered a gadget or a weapon with the way he is used. He is used by Parzival and Art3mis as a deadly distraction for the IOI soldiers trying to prevent them from reaching the final challenge. The way the doll just cuts through the soldiers like a mad cartoon character is hysterical! “It’s f#@**ing Chucky!” is one of the immortal lines from this film and quite funny, too.

the shining revisited

3. Revisiting The Shining: The second challenge in the virtual quest in Ready Player One was a visit to the terrifying Overlook Hotel as seen in Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining. Sure, novelist Stephen King hates this film adaptation but The Shining is one of the greatest horror films and it is well used in Ready Player One. It is amazing how Steven Spielberg was able to recreate the look and feel of The Shining and integrate it with his own film as Parzival and his allies confront the ghostly horrors in the hotel.

2. The DeLorean: The film was bumper-to-bumper with iconic movie cars like the Batmobile, the Mach V from Speed Racer, the Bigfoot muscle car, the Akira motorcycle, and so on. The one car that blows the rest of them away is the DeLorean as seen from Back to the Future. It was pure joy seeing that famous car racing across the silver screen again and brought back many fond memories from Back to the Future. The only drawback is that it did not fly. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

1. The Iron Giant: Of all the many Easter eggs and references featured in Ready Player One, the one that literally stands above them all is the Iron Giant. After The Iron Giant flopped in theaters back in ’99, it seemed as if the gentle metal Goliath would never be seen again. Thankfully, the animated film has become a cult classic and it was only a matter of time before the Iron Giant returned to film. Thankfully it was in Ready Player One that he made his triumphant return. Hopefully his prominence in Ready Player One will draw more attention to The Iron Giant and will lead to more appearances somewhere.

Any of you have your own top 10 Easter eggs and references from Ready Player One? Jot them down below!

Jun 25 2016

Flying Cars Impractical

 Blader Runner car over LA

For anyone stuck in traffic having a flying car is the ultimate dream. It sounds like a good idea and looks so uber cool on film. Imagine zipping around the skies in a flying car like George Jetson or Doc Brown with his DeLorean in Back To The Future. You’re late for work, traffic has come to a halt on I-95 due to construction or some accident. But no problem! Shift your car to flight mode and off you go. Soar by all the rubberneckers and you make it in time to your meeting with minutes to spare.

Transition Production PrototypeThe problem with this concept is that flying cars are not practical, today. Yes, there are inventors fine tuning actual flying cars but they’re bound to be a novelty items at least for the near future. Actually, those so-called flying cars that are being tested now are really just mini-copters or airplanes with automobile features. They’re not hovercraft. Several companies that are testing practical flying cars include Terrafugia, Haynes Aero and Moller International. In fact, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has a multi-million dollar program with Terrafugia to build flying  military vehicles.

Terrafugia car

You would think that with all these recent developments and press releases that flying cars are just around the corner. The truth is that people have been building prototypes going back decades, but the cars built just weren’t practical. And neither are the ones being tested now.

Skyjams

Let’s look at the traffic scenario from above. OK , you’re stuck in traffic and switch your car over to flight mode to escape congestion. That would be fine if you’re the only one with a flying car. More likely, many drivers around you would have flying cars as well and have the same idea as you.  Before you know it, the traffic will be following you into the sky. Then there’s coordinating the air traffic with all the cars suddenly going up into the air. It would be a chaotic, logistical headache and will probably lead to more accidents.

DeLorean in sky traffic

As shown in Back To The Future, Part II, Doc Brown had to deal with traffic in the air when he flew the DeLorean time vehicle. In fact, there’s this one scene where he complains about congestion in the skyway. The film showed that when flying, the cars had to follow a certain path. A driver won’t have free reign and space to just go anywhere. Actually, any pilot will tell you that planes and helicopters have rigid flight paths that they must adhere to; any deviation has to be cleared with air traffic control. Flying cars will also have to follow strict flight paths; in effect a skyway will be created with these paths. So if flying cars were to take off in popularity, the traffic congestion won’t go away. It may turn out to be faster to stay on the ground! Of course, there are some futurists that may scoff at this hurdle with claims that flying cars operate three dimensionally instead of today’s ground vehicles that operate two dimensionally. In theory, they claim that traffic jams would not be a problem for a vehicle operating in a three-dimensional plane but reality will probably dictate otherwise.

Air & Road Compatible

Another issue is that there are many dials and features on a plane that a pilot has to contend with so it’s more complicated to operate than a car. Remember when they showed the dashboard and controls in that flying spinner car in Blade Runner? It looked very complex. Then there is making sure the cars meets both road and air standards.  What about safety features? Convertibles are definitely out, which makes that flying car chase sequence in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones even more ludicrous. It’s one thing to have Obi-Wan Kenobi landing on Anakin Skywalker’s flying car unscathed or Anakin jumping out of it to get to the assassin’s vehicle; it can be explained that they used the Force to control their falls. But Anakin jumped out of a convertible, how safe would that vehicle be or practical without a helmet and mask? Just look at the old biplanes. The pilots in them had to wear helmets, goggles and warm clothing. All that wind up in the sky is cold and brutal, there isn’t any way anyone could operate an open-air flying car.

Star Wars flying car

What if something goes wrong? This won’t be like a normal car situation where the vehicle just stops working and you push it off to the side of the road. No, that thing is coming down. Perhaps an onboard computer will sound off an alarm if something is wrong with the car, forcing an emergency landing. But how trustworthy is that computer?

A look at the current prototypes will tell you that these things can’t easily fit into an average mall parking lot or garage. The flying features, i.e. the wings and propellers, have to be more compact to reduce the vehicles’ profile on the road. But how much can be reduced to operate safely in the air? All of this will add significantly to the price of the cars. Which means even if they came out tomorrow only the wealthy can afford them. Plus, what kind of fuel is to be used and its cost hasn’t been taken into account. Continue reading →