Interesting question. I mean, it’s a great park but I can’t lie and say I didn’t feel slightly underwhelmed (and betrayed by my own expectations tbh) that it wasn’t “perfect.”
In terms of concrete ideas, I think it’s pretty clear the park needs more capacity in the form of more meaningfully important rides. Less off-the-shelf rides, more things in the vein of Monsters and Mario Kart.
But in a more conceptual sense, what I think Epic Universe is lacking is thoughtfulness. Everything looks amazing which is undoubtedly a function of the time and money thrown at it. But there’s no cleverness to match.
Mario Kart—goes to (what I imagine are) great lengths to develop this AR tech. But it’s just used to project little ghosts floating in undefined space in front of you.
Monsters—takes animatronic usage to the next level but positions them all in large warehouse rooms or little vignettes without much of a connective tissue between everything.
Werewolf—an admittedly fun roller coaster, but how does spinning complement the idea of a werewolf forest?
Helios—great-looking pool area with no regard given to its orientation toward a massive black warehouse.
Wizarding World Paris—incredible scale, scope, and attention to detail…all serving a lot of empty facades, a confusing and undercooked concept, and not much to tie into the overall Potter universe.
To me, it seems like all of the money and time afforded to the park robbed it of some ingenuity that more resource-constrained projects are forced to come up with. Look at Forbidden Journey, arguably the best of the Potter attractions while also the cheapest to build—it started with wanting to replicate a lot of the Potter iconography in a meaningful way and all the tech and tricks developed around that. Meanwhile, you’ve got Battle for the Ministry as this weird mix of ideas that don’t really mesh at all, but just kind of exist because they could. We’ve got these big boxy elevator vehicles that offer nothing new in terms of ride experience, but hey it’s technically new so we’re supposed to be impressed by it, right?
In other words, there’s a lot of “look what we can do!” vs. “look at this story we want to tell.”
I’d love for the next expansions to Epic focus more on how to creatively deliver new experiences instead of trying to show off how much more “Diagon Alley-ness” Universal is capable of.