I know it's been brought up the scale of the park is going to be huge but hearing it in terms that the tallest building in Diagon is the shortest in Paris really helps get that across. Walking into the atrium is going to hit different.
Man those designers must've had a great time being allowed to build something full size. Not too many times you'd get that chance in a theme park I think.
I can’t imagine they’d be able to use AI to recreate the performance / voice of any of the union actors, without their or the unions sole permission.
If they asked any of the actors to film new content for this, or lend their voices, it would likely be a union set still, or the union itself would have to give a special exemption for the talent to work on a non-union project, which may be unlikely.
Of course maybe theme parks get an exemption? But I’d assume it would be a union set if they were to use the big names.
They may already have some permission to do this because of the previous rides? Sort of how Uni can use comic Marvel content but none of the new stuff because they don't have permission for that.
I'm sure they use from what's in the movies, add some cgi elements in there and call it a day. I don't expect to see or hear them all the time but sparsely while obscured in smoke or something.
I don't know how final this footage is on the ride but I think this is the kind of thing you're talking about.
To me it looks like there's more details in the faces of the house-elf and the guy standing behind Hermione than the trio.
I'm actually kind of shocked at the online reactions (here and other places) to this announcement. I kind of felt like "Potter is over" for so many people between the generation who grew up with Harry being older now and just aging out, and the whole JKR backlash of the past few years, but there seems to be a lot of genuine excitement over this.
I'll admit this was my least anticipated announce since I felt like "yeah, more Potter. I'm sure it will be good, but I just don't care that much anymore", but I was impressed by the "life" in those Paris streets which is not as obvious when you look at the grey/white buildings. They managed to make it feel as alive and interesting as Hogsmeade and Diagon.
The original story of HP will be the cultural story that sticks around long after FB fades out (obviously already there). It's clear there are nods and integrations of the newer movies so they're not ignoring it but the meat of this still falls back to the original series. Not saying that's a bad thing at all but I think when you talk about HP, that's what most people refer to anyway. In a manner of speaking it's remembered fondly because it's the least "tainted".
This expansion hits like a fine wine on a refined palate. We know the general feel and experience of a HP land by Universal, now it's all about the details of the rides and shows themselves.
I mean, Alica has a large audience but the theme park community is a big community. Plenty of people aren't going to know about (or may even be interested) in rumors.
Depends on where your focus is too. If you're Disney-centric you're far less likely to know what's going on in Universal's orbit or other parks. As much as I try to keep up with things I still end up with a small backlog of podcasts episodes to catch up on every few months. Not everyone is current on what's out there, especially if a big story breaks and it overshadows older things.
I think this land might have a similar effect to Diagon, where it appears a lot nicer at night than in the day with all the lights on.
I love the view of the London facade at night. I'd like a similar feel with more magical elements like projection mapping at night, maybe special interactive ones that only activate at night? That would be neat.