Gringotts Dragon- animatronic or static statue?

MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I had to ask this, the dragon figure going on top of the front of Gringotts- is it going to be an animatronic or just a still statue. I'm asking because some people on Orlando United are saying it doesn't move. I'd be a bit sad if it didn't move.
 
TalkingHead

TalkingHead

Well-Known Member
MerlinTheGoat said:
I had to ask this, the dragon figure going on top of the front of Gringotts- is it going to be an animatronic or just a still statue. I'm asking because some people on Orlando United are saying it doesn't move. I'd be a bit sad if it didn't move.
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One of the guys on OU has said the dragon will be animated because one of the UNI creative described it as "mechanical." I've always taken that to mean the contraption that produces fire is mechanical.

I believe HTF has said the dragon will be static.

All the promotional materials show it static.

My guess is static, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if it's animated.
 
danpam1024

danpam1024

Well-Known Member
I assumed it would be static as well- I can imaging it's hard enough to keep animatronics in proper working condition when they're not constantly exposed to the brutal FL heat and humidity, driving seasonal rains, etc- plus being mounted on top of a building poses more challenges. I'm surprised the dinosaurs in JP work so well.
 
StageFrenzy

StageFrenzy

Well-Known Member
danpam1024 said:
I assumed it would be static as well- I can imaging it's hard enough to keep animatronics in proper working condition when they're not constantly exposed to the brutal FL heat and humidity, driving seasonal rains, etc- plus being mounted on top of a building poses more challenges. I'm surprised the dinosaurs in JP work so well.
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Everyone says one of the real workhorses is the dragon on FJ. @HTF what is the name of the dragon again?
 
kap91

kap91

Well-Known Member
I was always under the impression it was supposed to be animatronic but now I think of it - Universal isn't terribly great with animatronics. Probably makes more sense to be static or limited motion
 
kap91

kap91

Well-Known Member
StageFrenzy said:
Neither universal or Disney makes animatronics anymore.
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While that's not entirely accurate (Yes I know Garner Holt does a good deal of the work - but for instance Lumiere was an in-house imagineering R&D project), even if it is - there still aren't many examples of decent animatronics at Universal.
 
MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
kap91 said:
While that's not entirely accurate (Yes I know Garner Holt does a good deal of the work - but for instance Lumiere was an in-house imagineering R&D project), even if it is - there still aren't many examples of decent animatronics at Universal.
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It pretty much is accurate now. Disney shut down their in-house animatronics department in 2012 and it was absorbed into Garner Holt I gather. So Disney doesn't make their own AA's anymore, they now outsource to Garner Holt (the Mine Train figures for example I gather are Garner Holt ones).
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/garner-holt-takes-over-disneys-mapo-division.841186/

I believe Universal also uses Garner Holt. If Lumiere was in-house, he was created before they shut the department down. Which makes sense as the attraction he's in was in development for years before that. If he's a Disney-built one, he's probably among the last of his kind.

Universal executives sound like they view AA's as passe from what whylightbulb, WDW1974 and others have said (and their creative people supposedly aren't very happy about their over-reliance on screens from what has been said in the spirited thread). But the same could be argued of Disney as well with rides like Toy Story Mania. Disney still seems to use them more than Universal, though you could argue executives from both companies would like to go separate ways from them (despite protests from creatives).
 
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Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
I remember reading a long time ago that there was going to be a Dragon animatronic in the ride itself (at least that's the impression I got anyway). I'm guessing that was never true, was it?
 
MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Mike S said:
I remember reading a long time ago that there was going to be a Dragon animatronic in the ride itself (at least that's the impression I got anyway). I'm guessing that was never true, was it?
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That had a fair chance of actually being true at least originally. Early on the ride apparently was going to use more physical show scenes and even animatronics than now. I don't know whether there are still any in the current version of the ride (I actually heard people mentioning an "impressive" Voldemort animatronic some while back early in the ride's development), but whylightbulb has stated the ride version they went with is 85% screen based. And that many in Universal Creative aren't happy about the company's overuse of projections instead of physical sets and AA's. I don't know what that remaining 15% entails, whether it's going to just be some physical sets and props or whether we'll be seeing some AA figures in parts. I'm hoping there's a few AA's in the actual ride though...

@HTF or @whylightbulb among other Universal insiders might have a better of what sort of physical elements the actual ride is getting. Particularly AA's.

I don't know how accurate this overview is, but someone a while back (August 2013) posted a list of the show scenes and ride details and mentioned an AA dragon inside the ride at least-
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...y-to-open-in-2014.864788/page-11#post-5656955
 
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Disneyhead'71

Disneyhead'71

Well-Known Member
Sorry about the quality.

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