I just got to ride it tonight - twice! And I have to say, I think it's getting a bad rap so far (putting on my flame-retardent suit). The ascent was great - I love how the re-did the caveman scene on the screen and it seemed like ALL the AAs had work done. The movement is amazing; to me it looks on par with the Jack Sparrow AAs on PotC. While I miss the old Greek scene, I like what they did with it and feel it ties into the narrative (I'll get to what I think of the overall narrative in a mo). And is it just me, or do the Venetian merchant's boats move waaaaay more realistically now?
Everything up to the 180 is amazing; from there it goes down - literally and figuratively. I understand that our attention should be on the touch screen during the descent, but they could have done a couple of scenes to fill up the space. Not even full blown AA scenes, but something would have been nice. I'm terribly sad that the miniSSE is gone
but I do like the touch screen thing. I think it's a cool way to make you feel a part of the ride - and a part of the future, which is really what the ride is about: not just history, but how we've used history to make our future.
Now, about the narrative. I was slightly disappointed by some of Judi Dench's inflections, but overall I thought it was quite well done, just without some of the drama of Jeremy Irons. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. She sounds more approachable, more like someone I'd sit and have a chat with, where Irons sounded like he might have been a teacher about to send me to detention somtimes. I do like the new script: I like how it talks about language, how it developed, and how we started sharing it and are sharing it today. Somehow, I feel like I've learned something when I get off this version of the ride. I never really felt that previously.
I'd like to see something done with the descent,
but even without it, I think the ride is amazing and am not let down at all.
Let the flaming begin.