It's allot of hanging blue LED lights that look like a high tech grid. It's a great effect. (at least we have one!)
:wave:Not much of a review as much as it's a compilation of changes to the classic scenes that I got from videos (actual riders should have much more)!
Posted this in another thread but hear you go anyway.
1) Cave men
*Leader moves wonderfully
*Cave drawings move? Yes they do, its pretty cool, one of the positive points
(are all the cave dwellers there or are we missing one?)
2) Egyptians
*Papyrus maker now has a cap
*Pharaoh and co have new costumes and caps (advisor's Leopard coat is gone but he finally has a cap to cover his bald head)
3) Phoenicians
*Boats and characters move great
(hows the area adjacent to them with the matte painting of a boat?) Nothing but black now
4) Greeks
*Two actors are replaced with a philosopher (Socrates?) and three listeners
5) Rome
*Movements look better and predicting the projection will too
6) Islamics
*Down to three from four Arabs and they have new costumes (one with a huge turban)
*Jewish guy is squatting instead of standing
*All have great movement
7) Cathedral Abbey
*Writing Monk has realistic wrist action
8) Germans
*Gutenberg and co now have realistic movement
9) Italians
*The two Berries and Cream guys have been replaced with a grey eybrowed Sam Elliott from Ghost Rider
*The male musician is older and now has a mustache
*Both musician now have stands that they read their music off of
*They now have great movement
*Statue now politically correct
*Michelangelo now has realistic arm movement
10) The Age of Invention
*Newspapers now read Civil War Over (paper boy now shouts this)
The paper boy has been moved toward the back of the scene and is facing backwards
*You can now hear what is being prepared for the Telegraph (new movement)
*Radio show actor has new costume and now has a hat (new movement)
*Female radio actor is gone
The radio call letters on the microphone have been changed from WED to WDI
*Movie montage (Snow White, 20,000 Leagues, Harold Lloyd) is now a theater showing undetermined film/s
*Television montage (Wonderful World of Color, Ozzie and Harriet, NFL Championship Game) has become a detailed living room with the little girl moved off a stool and onto a chair to her right and a new figure on the ground, all watching man's first steps on the moon
11) Computers
*Computer room replaces the picture talk and uses two new adult animatronics in place of the two kids
*Garage Scene replaces the same area with the invention of the personal computer and adds another animatronic
*Electronic babble neon lights replaced with matrix effect
Money well spent :sohappy:Add more as you find it!
Skippy
Can you explain more about the "blue grid", I'm very interested!!
Think of a 3D grid, making boxes, but without the lines. At each corner of a box, there's a blue light. So, grid minus the lines made of blue dots floating in space. It stretches out seemingly endlessly in all directions.
Its where the classroom was, so you sort of twist down into it at angle, for a very disorienting effect.
It's allot of hanging blue LED lights that look like a high tech grid. It's a great effect. (at least we have one!)
There is a nice blue 3D grid (cube) of lights just after the descent begins. Your vehicle passes through it, and it does give a disorientating feeling. However, the horrors of the video finale then begin, and the whole descent turns very very dull.
There's a practical reason for the "loading period" and quiz: timing. The computer doesn't know how long it will take for guests to answer the pre-video questions. However, it does know how long the video will be (it's likely that all of them are the same length), and also when it has to start playing the video so it doesn't get cut off by the closing narration. Thus, the Imagineers were left with two options: start the video as soon as all of the choices are made, thus risking dead silence between the end of the video and the closing narration, or put dead space in prior to the video starting, so that the end of the video flows directly into the closing narration. The Imagineers chose the latter. Thus, the "loading time" isn't a loading time at all, but a time buffer. The quiz is just something to look at during this "dead" time.Lastly, the videoscreen. While the look of it, in the visual design, is great. However, two issues plague it: One, is how the program loads your selected 'future' in. It should be immediate, or at least just about 10-15 seconds, no more. That took WAY too long. Plus, the facts are REALLY unnecessary. We don't need to be quizzed on what we saw before.
It's been announced that this will be an option in the semi-near future. As far as the picture goes, some have been speculating that the riders' faces will be superimposed onto the characters in the video at the end. The locations of the guests from Spaceship Earth will be mapped on the globe in the post-show, courtesy of the "where do you live" question. These and more are outlined in an Orlando Sentinel article from two days ago: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/busi...1200607,0,3844957.story?coll=orl_tab01_layout (you'll have to scroll down just a bit to see the article)Another thought I had while riding the ride is that now with the touch screens it is clear that there is an on-board computer with the ability to play two different audio tracks in a car for the passengers in the front row and the back row. Now a days with so much focus on Diversity (especially in Epcot with World Showcase) and the fact that WDW brings in so many foreign guest why isn't there the option to pick what language the narration is in? It just seems like a no brainer to me.
Now I realize that the ride is not finished but at the start of the ride they took my picture. I was told this would be important for later but at no time did it ever come up again. Is this for the post show?
I didn't get to ride it for real, but this is what I think, judging by the video that I just saw.
PROS
1. AAs have improved. I am a sucker for the brand new AAs and love that they added those!
2. I like the new design on the outside (i.e the signs and queue)
3. Judi Dench is a very good narrator, but not as good as Jeremy Irons.
4. Costumes are nice for CMs.
5. Computer scene is pretty cool as well.
Cons
1. The decent down is just dumb! All your attention is focused on the touch screens which brings me to my next point.
2. The whole ending is just too kiddy!!!!! I thought it was going to be like Horizons where you are in the future, instead of having a cartoon version of you in the animation based on your questions.
3. Judi Dench is lovely, but her voice is all over the place. Either they had problems or they increased the volume significantly!!! When I was watching this, I barely could hear what she was saying, because of all the Judi Denchs' you were hearing.
4. The track is WAY TOO NOISY. I thought the other reason this went under refurb was to fix the track!
I give the new SSE a 3/10 for NOW (hopefully). This rating could go up if they do something better to the descent down! If not, then I will only ride this in April and pay attention to the descent up, but not down!
Is the "cartoonish future" animation similar to the animations projected on the globe in the new postshow. Hopefully not....:hurl:
*Statue now politically correct
Concerning narration, I think it needs to be a bold and dynamic statement on humanity. Emotional and intellectual, one that makes you think, wonder, hope and, dream, much like Irons did. It did for me anyway. The music, well should do the same.
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