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Back to the Future: The Ride

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Today was the 6th anniversary of Back To The Future The Ride's last day. To this day, I miss it dearly and feel lucky to have been one of the official last riders as part of the bttf.com group. I can't wait to post all of my pics and videos of the ride. Feel free to post your thoughts and stories about "the greatest ride of all time."


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A Great iconic Ride Ever. We all wish it can be brought back one day.. I'm really glad there is BTTF presence in the park. Simpsons Ride, Doc Brown's Cameo.  :p
 
It's been 6 long years since we last saw BTTF. BTTF stood strong for 16 years.

I'd be stoked if they brought it back for like a week or so.
 
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My friend and I headed to USH to ride BTTF back in 07 (still mad I missed out on riding it when I visited USF the year prior), and I was blown away that, while the projection was withering and the ride system admittedly clunky, the entire thing left me in a huge sense of awe.

As for the possibilities of returning it even temporarily, the best part of the ride was stepping into a DeLorean... and I don't think they'd be able to pull that one off.

Wake me up when someone hands me free tickets to USJ.
 
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The ride just felt...realistic. The combination of it being an actual film and traveling through super detailed miniature sets, and with it having dark backgrounds, it felt so...real. In The Simpsons, you're in an animated world. Right off the bat, it's not as realistic...

Gosh I miss it haha...

And in general, I'm a huge BTTF geek so this was such a wonderful experience for me...
 
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Steve said:
While it's no grand return, still some great news for us BTTF:TR fans!

https://www.facebook.com/timemachinerestoration/posts/534260426646615
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To their credit, that's still something.

Even if they were to bring back the ride on a temporary basis in the Simpsons building, they'd have to retrofit the original footage so that it's compatible with the four digital projectors currently in place.

Japan is our only option at this point. Too bad their video quality isn't that great.
 
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I think my biggest beef with Simpsons is that it's literally Back to the Future: The Ride but without Back to the Future. The theming, paint job, queue, pre-show, and such were just cheaply changed to Simpsons.

I understand BTTF was old, and I get that Universal's marketing really wanted Simpsons but this is not how you replace an attraction. It's just lazy and it REALLY shows. You're supposed to be in a theme park and it does not feel like that at all. You can't just slap cutouts and paint the building and call it a day. They could have at the very least tried to put tent props over the building so it looks at least something like a carnival/theme park. 

The footage is just horrible in every way. Unlike Back to the Future, in The Simpsons Ride you "just so happen" to be behind the family the entire time. No matter how many times there are explosions and such and you're knocked away from the family you always "just so happen" to catch up. In reality once you fell off the coaster that would be it. At least in BTTF we were chasing Biff and were involved in a first person adventure. As soon as you stepped into the IFT you were part of the ride. The Simpsons doesn't do this at ALL. The ride building itself actually looks like a working building from the outside. As I mentioned, the carnival/theme park theming isn't there. It's lazy. The screen is also incredibly dark. Like REALLY dark. If you're going to have a simulator you have to simulate. Our world is a bright and colorful one. The Simpsons ride is dark and dull. It's not easy to get immersed in the ride at all. 

The Simpsons is (in my opinion anyway) a bad attraction. BTTF bias aside I really expected the closure of such an iconic and popular attraction to at least have a good reason but it's not. It's cheap and obviously was made purely to sell merch.

Yes I understand that "it's spilt milk" and it never will come back but this ride alone is why I side more with Disney these days. Yes we shouldn't be stuck in the past but to forget your history is just as bad. It's a generational thing. When someone goes to Disneyland they can ride the same ride their parents/grandparents rode but at the same time they can ride brand new attractions. Look at Star Tours. Granted SW is immensely more popular than BTTF, but at least they took the original attraction and made it brand new.

I'm not attacking anyone who enjoys the ride or anything and in fact I'm glad you do, but from a riders, artist, filmmaker and fan perspective, it's lame and it's painful to know we're probably going to be stuck with it for another 10 years.

EDIT: To add to this really quick I just want to clarify these are just my thoughts and I don't mean to sound rude and such.
 
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Steve said:
I think my biggest beef with Simpsons is that it's literally Back to the Future: The Ride but without Back to the Future. The theming, paint job, queue, pre-show, and such were just cheaply changed to Simpsons.

I understand BTTF was old, and I get that Universal's marketing really wanted Simpsons but this is not how you replace an attraction. It's just lazy and it REALLY shows. You're supposed to be in a theme park and it does not feel like that at all. You can't just slap cutouts and paint the building and call it a day. They could have at the very least tried to put tent props over the building so it looks at least something like a carnival/theme park.
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Ride footage aside (and I agree, it doesn't make sense - but I still find it fun regardless), this is probably my biggest sore point with the Simpsons. It's literally 20 years worth of material that they could have worked with, and they came out with this. Monitors in the queue and a few posters. That's it.

I'm not sure about you, but if I was a writer, I'd almost have a wet dream just thinking of what I could do with the Simpsons backcatalog. It's one thing to rehash a ride system, but it's another to do so on the cheap and with a franchise like the Simpsons. It's only been five years, and I don't think the ride has aged gracefully at all. The queue alone is just sad to look at.

But in the end, I've been down this path before and I've come to realize that my opinion is probably in the minority. Guests love the ride and that's what ultimately matters. We can only hope that Krustyland will spruce the whole area up.

Steve, I definitely see your point but I just follow the notion that there's just nothing we can do.
 
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Steve said:
I think my biggest beef with Simpsons is that it's literally Back to the Future: The Ride but without Back to the Future. The theming, paint job, queue, pre-show, and such were just cheaply changed to Simpsons.

I understand BTTF was old, and I get that Universal's marketing really wanted Simpsons but this is not how you replace an attraction. It's just lazy and it REALLY shows. You're supposed to be in a theme park and it does not feel like that at all. You can't just slap cutouts and paint the building and call it a day. They could have at the very least tried to put tent props over the building so it looks at least something like a carnival/theme park.

The footage is just horrible in every way. Unlike Back to the Future, in The Simpsons Ride you "just so happen" to be behind the family the entire time. No matter how many times there are explosions and such and you're knocked away from the family you always "just so happen" to catch up. In reality once you fell off the coaster that would be it. At least in BTTF we were chasing Biff and were involved in a first person adventure. As soon as you stepped into the IFT you were part of the ride. The Simpsons doesn't do this at ALL. The ride building itself actually looks like a working building from the outside. As I mentioned, the carnival/theme park theming isn't there. It's lazy. The screen is also incredibly dark. Like REALLY dark. If you're going to have a simulator you have to simulate. Our world is a bright and colorful one. The Simpsons ride is dark and dull. It's not easy to get immersed in the ride at all.

The Simpsons is (in my opinion anyway) a bad attraction. BTTF bias aside I really expected the closure of such an iconic and popular attraction to at least have a good reason but it's not. It's cheap and obviously was made purely to sell merch.

Yes I understand that "it's spilt milk" and it never will come back but this ride alone is why I side more with Disney these days. Yes we shouldn't be stuck in the past but to forget your history is just as bad. It's a generational thing. When someone goes to Disneyland they can ride the same ride their parents/grandparents rode but at the same time they can ride brand new attractions. Look at Star Tours. Granted SW is immensely more popular than BTTF, but at least they took the original attraction and made it brand new.

I'm not attacking anyone who enjoys the ride or anything and in fact I'm glad you do, but from a riders, artist, filmmaker and fan perspective, it's lame and it's painful to know we're probably going to be stuck with it for another 10 years.

EDIT: To add to this really quick I just want to clarify these are just my thoughts and I don't mean to sound rude and such.
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I 10000% agree with you on every point and opinion, to the dot. The ride feels like a cheap overlay for a promotion that was extended indefinitely. Haunted Mansion Holiday and Space Mountain Ghost Galaxy, and Its A Small World Holiday, which are all temporary, feel morw complete and high quality. It simply lacks the heart and innovation of BTTF. I would've maybe liked The Simpsons ride if it wasn't such an obviously cheap overlay. I don't think even fans of the Simpsons ride can deny that the ride feels cheap. Especially the queue and building....
 
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Jon said:
Ride footage aside (and I agree, it doesn't make sense - but I still find it fun regardless), this is probably my biggest sore point with the Simpsons. It's literally 20 years worth of material that they could have worked with, and they came out with this. Monitors in the queue and a few posters. That's it.
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Blame Harry Shearer.

Seriously! Before Krustyland was ever conceived, the original pitch was that the building would be rethemed to the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, with the twin Omnimax towers obviously themed to looking like cooling towers. The queue would've been enclosed, and themed to sector 7G where you'd wind thru "accompanying" Bart and his classmates on a field trip. Oh, and Marge and Maggie are chaperoning. Mr. Burns and Smithers supply humorous banter as they try to mask the many glaring safety issues in the plant. In one of the pre-show rooms, of course Homer causes a nuclear meltdown, and some radiation poisoning enlarges Maggie. Bart sees your group and wants to help you evacuate, calling in Otto to get the school bus... oh crud the meltdown and radiation is wrecking havoc on Springfield, and some really weird stuff is going on... Otto's missing! Not to mention that Mr. Burns really wants to keep your lid shut. So Bart grabs the keys (of course they were in the ignition!) and you take off for a spin around a mutated Springfield while being chased by Burns and Smithers in their limo.

It would've not only featured all the characters, but cleverly tie in a Treehouse of Horror theme, and even some Universal theme park references here and there. Unfortunately, Harry Shearer backed out of the ride since aside from the show and the three films he's contracted for, he has very little interest in the franchise anymore. So the writers quickly rewrote everything (since Shearer voices Burns/Smithers) to instead include the Dan Castellenta-heavy Krustyland concept.

Of course, I'm not sure if the old version of The Simpsons Ride would've worked either. While the experience (the one that exists) is great fun for the first couple of go-arounds, it has some serious pacing and theme issues that just ruin future visits.
 
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^ Fascinating peak into the original Simpsons ride concept! I remember hearing peeps of that years ago.

Maybe it's because I'm not a Simpsons fan, but basing a ride on the theme of two nuclear reactors gone haywire in this day and age doesn't seem like the most fun or smart thing, but I know it makes sense for the show.

Even with it's current theme, my biggest issue is that I NEVER feel that I'm really at Krustyland. Even 1%. It's still IFT with pain and cutouts slapped on. That's it. If they really embraced the theme and made it seem like we're visiting Krustyland, I would've been more impressed. But seeing the Omnimax domes staring down at us, and the queue being the same old industrial feeling queue, it doesn't work AT ALL. I think the ride is a mess :/
 
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I don't think it's the screen used T-rex as they say it is. Because it looks a little off, and in the description it says this:

"This foam-filled Tyrannosaurus was created for paint reference during the ride's early production and measures roughly 37" tall, 30" deep, 14" wide."

So it looks like this is a paint reference model, not the original :/ still cool though!
 
Hey guys so I work at Legoland in Carlsbad California and surprise surprise we sell legos I was on my break and saw them unloading some new merchandise and I happend to see that we now are seeling Lego Delorean sets and I really wanted to share this info with you guys!!! I did buy one myself and I told coworkers and like 4 of them have bought them Apperntly there really popular with adults not so much with kids haha.
 
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