Harry Potter & The Battle at the Ministry - Reviews, Photos & Media

[Skipper Justin]

I’m glad that people were blown away by the ride. I don’t know why I feel underwhelmed. I think it just reminded me too much of the other Harry Potter rides and I’ve done those a ton. It is a good ride though! I did remember hearing so long ago that there was going to be a part like in Jurassic World where a creature follows you. Was that always going to be a screen?

 

[simon]

I’m glad that people were blown away by the ride. I don’t know why I feel underwhelmed. I think it just reminded me too much of the other Harry Potter rides and I’ve done those a ton. It is a good ride though! I did remember hearing so long ago that there was going to be a part like in Jurassic World where a creature follows you. Was that always going to be a screen?

I heard that too, def got a budget cut for sure.

 

[HHN Maddux]

Alright, now that I'm home and can type out my full thoughts:

• Like I said in my initial, brief review: Holy cow. This ride is truly something else, and much like Rise, on a technical level and scale-wise, the most impressive ride in the park and probably the most impressive I've ever seen period.
  
  
• The screen at the beginning as we see other elevators is pretty iffy, it looked blurry and even kind of doubled, like it's meant to be seen with 3D glasses. Thankfully it was the only one with this problem.
  
  
• The segments with the elevator in front of you and the screens (sets..?) to the sides were very effective at making you feel like you really were traveling at quick speeds.
  
  
• The archive with the Death Eaters... This was Universal's response to the AT-AT scene in Rise, and it delivers. The sheer scale of this entire set piece, not being able to tell what was set and screen, and that animatronic that MOVED WITH THE VEHICLE??? Not only just insanely impressive, but the first time since I was a little kid that I was fooled for a moment into thinking an animatronic was an actual human. Insanely fluid and marvelous animatronic.
  
  
• ...that being said, is something supposed to happen with the second Death Eater animatronic? He wasn't still but about halfway through the scene just kind of stands there awkwardly.
  
  
• I do wish we got an actual chase scene with the rhino JWA-style, but the screen segment into seeing the animatronic was still impressive. The transitions here are done very well.
  
  
• I knew about the practical pendulum effect, which unfortunately wasn't working yesterday, but the time travel scene, while screen-heavy, is still marvelous with the scale of it all and blending of practical sets.
  
  
• Umbridge animatronic is a lil iffy. Not bad, but not fantastic either like all the others.
  
  
• I think there should be a large flash, Poseidon's Fury-style, to better help transition between the time sky and the courtroom. As it stands, it's pretty obviously just you moving from a screen to a set, but a large flash to blind you in the darkness for a moment would much better sell the effect of you suddenly being in the courtroom.
  
  
• The ending is rather weird, I'll admit. Why are the Death Eaters now casually standing with Hermione in the elevator? If you're unloaded on a certain side, why can we very openly see the final scene resetting and another car coming through? Only moment that felt like bad staging.

Overall though, truly EPIC (pun slightly intended) ride. Have to ponder on if I like it more than Rise, but it's leaning towards yes, and I'm not even an HP fan at all.

 

[Skold]

This and MU might just be my two new favorites.

The queue is very interesting. We breezed through it, but they let us soak in the atrium and all of the detail that was put into the offices. You also can just hang out in the atrium on the way out!

As for the queue after the atrium: a bunch of hallways and stairs. I guess the tiles are nice?

Then room with animatronic - always love this!

Then more stairs and tiles.

We spent 15 minutes in this supposedly hours-long queue so I am quite sure I missed a lot.

But don't want to spend three, or even two, hours in it.

Besides that stuff and the locker room, what did I miss?

 

[simon]

Alright, now that I'm home and can type out my full thoughts:

• Like I said in my initial, brief review: Holy cow. This ride is truly something else, and much like Rise, on a technical level and scale-wise, the most impressive ride in the park and probably the most impressive I've ever seen period.
  
  
• The screen at the beginning as we see other elevators is pretty iffy, it looked blurry and even kind of doubled, like it's meant to be seen with 3D glasses. Thankfully it was the only one with this problem.
  
  
• The segments with the elevator in front of you and the screens (sets..?) to the sides were very effective at making you feel like you really were traveling at quick speeds.
  
  
• The archive with the Death Eaters... This was Universal's response to the AT-AT scene in Rise, and it delivers. The sheer scale of this entire set piece, not being able to tell what was set and screen, and that animatronic that MOVED WITH THE VEHICLE??? Not only just insanely impressive, but the first time since I was a little kid that I was fooled for a moment into thinking an animatronic was an actual human. Insanely fluid and marvelous animatronic.
  
  
• ...that being said, is something supposed to happen with the second Death Eater animatronic? He wasn't still but about halfway through the scene just kind of stands there awkwardly.
  
  
• I do wish we got an actual chase scene with the rhino JWA-style, but the screen segment into seeing the animatronic was still impressive. The transitions here are done very well.
  
  
• I knew about the practical pendulum effect, which unfortunately wasn't working yesterday, but the time travel scene, while screen-heavy, is still marvelous with the scale of it all and blending of practical sets.
  
  
• Umbridge animatronic is a lil iffy. Not bad, but not fantastic either like all the others.
  
  
• I think there should be a large flash, Poseidon's Fury-style, to better help transition between the time sky and the courtroom. As it stands, it's pretty obviously just you moving from a screen to a set, but a large flash to blind you in the darkness for a moment would much better sell the effect of you suddenly being in the courtroom.
  
  
• The ending is rather weird, I'll admit. Why are the Death Eaters now casually standing with Hermione in the elevator? If you're unloaded on a certain side, why can we very openly see the final scene resetting and another car coming through? Only moment that felt like bad staging.

Overall though, truly EPIC (pun slightly intended) ride. Have to ponder on if I like it more than Rise, but it's leaning towards yes, and I'm not even an HP fan at all.

Btw screen scenes at first 1 min of the ride, side corners utilize projection while robo arm elevator uses oled screen. Maybe thats why it looked quite blurry to you.

 

[OrlandoGuy]

This and MU might just be my two new favorites.

The queue is very interesting. We breezed through it, but they let us soak in the atrium and all of the detail that was put into the offices. You also can just hang out in the atrium on the way out!

As for the queue after the atrium: a bunch of hallways and stairs. I guess the tiles are nice?

Then room with animatronic - always love this!

Then more stairs and tiles.

We spent 15 minutes in this supposedly hours-long queue so I am quite sure I missed a lot.

But don't want to spend three, or even two, hours in it.

Besides that stuff and the locker room, what did I miss?

Did you see the magic vacuum cleaner?? I think other than that you hit everything.

As cool as the atrium is, I think this is my least favorite queue of the Potter dark rides (though still better than Hagrid’s/Express/Hippogriff). It’s well done, but Forbidden Journey is still the gold standard; it may not have a huge “wow” room but it’s the most engaging on repeat visits.

Honestly, that’s kind of how I feel about this ride as a whole. It’s masterfully done, no doubt, but I can’t help but feel a couple months later that this will be the ride that ages worst at Epic. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table (especially if the drop has been removed) besides very, very impressive screen technology. But let’s be honest, the screen quality will probably be surpassed (likely by Universal themselves) within a few years. When that point comes, we’ll have a very immersive dark ride that lacks the iconography of Forbidden Journey or the engaging storyline of Monsters.

On the other hand, I felt the same about Rise of the Resistance because of its loyalty to the sequels over the originals, and that ride still holds up very well (IMO) so we’ll see.

 

[simon]

Did you see the magic vacuum cleaner?? I think other than that you hit everything.

As cool as the atrium is, I think this is my least favorite queue of the Potter dark rides (though still better than Hagrid’s/Express/Hippogriff). It’s well done, but Forbidden Journey is still the gold standard; it may not have a huge “wow” room but it’s the most engaging on repeat visits.

Honestly, that’s kind of how I feel about this ride as a whole. It’s masterfully done, no doubt, but I can’t help but feel a couple months later that this will be the ride that ages worst at Epic. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table (especially if the drop has been removed) besides very, very impressive screen technology. But let’s be honest, the screen quality will probably be surpassed (likely by Universal themselves) within a few years. When that point comes, we’ll have a very immersive dark ride that lacks the iconography of Forbidden Journey or the engaging storyline of Monsters.

On the other hand, I felt the same about Rise of the Resistance because of its loyalty to the sequels over the originals, and that ride still holds up very well (IMO) so we’ll see.

One of major complain about galaxy’s edge was lack of original character and location, story though. I don’t think the reason of that ride still holds up well is the ride being based on new sequels.

Actually they missed huge opportunity to visualize what people actually love to see or feel nostalgic. That was what harry potter land about. Seeing your favorite film location in real life. But in galaxy’s edge, it’s out of nowhere and the location didn’t appealed to the audience much beside seeing millennium falcon.

To use an analogy. Instead of building hogwart castle from harry potter ip for the first expansion, they build out of nowhere location that book or movie never mentioned before.

 

[MrRoamer]

Wow this ride was something else! I was worried about motion sickness but for whatever reason I was fine while others in my group were not thrilled (also there were two seats in the middle that were "broken" I assume not a coincidence).

It was incredibly impressive from queue to ride. My only nit would be I have no idea what was going on because there was just so much to try to take in. Definitely will need to ride a few more times.

 

[HHN Maddux]

Not sure if this effect has just never worked in any of the POV videos or if it's new, but in my rides on Tuesday, when Umbridge first gets out of the elevator, there was a blast of pink air on top of the lift before the projection of it zooms to the left, and it really helped sell her escaping.

Also, it feels like there should be a wind blowing effect in the final time sequence.

 

[Clive]

I remain convinced (and I have reason to believe) this was supposed to be a Fantastic Beasts ride featuring the Core Four from that franchise, with Grindelwald instead of Umbridge. Plans probably got revised when they considered building it at the Studios as a Fear Factor replacement, and then they stuck with the adjusted Potter/Umbridge-driven story when it pivoted back to Epic due to the failure of the new franchise.

 

[fryoj]

I remain convinced (and I have reason to believe) this was supposed to be a Fantastic Beasts ride featuring the Core Four from that franchise, with Grindelwald instead of Umbridge. Plans probably got revised when they considered building it at the Studios as a Fear Factor replacement, and then they stuck with the adjusted Potter/Umbridge-driven story when it pivoted back to Epic due to the failure of the new franchise.

I'd assume, if they were going to go with French ministry, it would have been a ride involving the moving bookcases. The british ministry/elevator ride really would make no sense in a FB context. But the death of that Franchise certainly pulled the British ministry out of USF.

 

[Clive]

I'd assume, if they were going to go with French ministry, it would have been a ride involving the moving bookcases. The british ministry/elevator ride really would make no sense in a FB context. But the death of that Franchise certainly pulled the British ministry out of USF.

Well, that's the thing. There were plans for the French Ministry to be depicted, too. I'm guessing they pivoted to the British Ministry because it's undeniably more iconic, and it's still featured in the Fantastic Beasts films despite the first and second taking largely in New York and Paris, respectively.

 

[simon]

Not sure if this effect has just never worked in any of the POV videos or if it's new, but in my rides on Tuesday, when Umbridge first gets out of the elevator, there was a blast of pink air on top of the lift before the projection of it zooms to the left, and it really helped sell her escaping.

Also, it feels like there should be a wind blowing effect in the final time sequence.

You mean like a pink mist blast? An employee once said that only 70% of effects are working in the ministry though.

 

[Rhian]

Has the reliability of the ride gotten notably better?

You mean like a pink mist blast? An employee once said that only 70% of effects are working in the ministry though.

That makes sense and is plausible. Monsters went through something similar where it was barebones at the start of previews and then begin to feel like a truly complete ride by opening as the additional special effects came in.

With how much of this ride is screen-based it's good they're adding more practical effects.

I remain convinced (and I have reason to believe) this was supposed to be a Fantastic Beasts ride featuring the Core Four from that franchise, with Grindelwald instead of Umbridge. Plans probably got revised when they considered building it at the Studios as a Fear Factor replacement, and then they stuck with the adjusted Potter/Umbridge-driven story when it pivoted back to Epic due to the failure of the new franchise.

Is there even space for all that or would have ended up within a short ride/queue? I would've liked to have Fear Factor replaced with this and then have a ride following Newt Scamander on a creature hunt at Epic without the shoehorned Grindlewald portion.

I also wonder if some of the effects being added are late additions or if they were always planned. As in, they're still building the ride in a sense rather than polishing it off like Monsters.

When you take a step back this ride doesn't feel like it fits with the Paris setup. Narratively it feels ham fisted and completely disconnected from the land which makes the pivot more obvious.