Jurassic Park: The Ride - Animatronic Comparison 1997 vs 2016 - General

[hd]https://youtu.be/u0HvWhFjwX4[/hd] Funfact: The ride was in development 3 years before the movie came out. Universal frequently 'refurbishes' the ride but instead of fixing or replacing the animatronics they just repaint the dinosaurs. In the process the animatronics lost a lot of movement, sometimes looking hilariously bad compared to the original 1997 running.

Why are they so brightly painted? They look awful.

Wow, it's kinda like when you have old game systems that don't work the way they used to and you wonder if they were always that bad. It's a goddamn shame because the spectacle is really taken away when some of the dinosaurs are just downright sluggish and a lot less lifelike because of the lack of proper care to the animatronics. I mean the footage from 1997 looks so impressive even now considering how difficult it is to properly maintain all that shit when dealing with water. The one that really got me was the one that was supposed to shoot out of the water - the original would've made me shit myself but now it just pokes it's head out of the water.

It was a pretty damn good water ride. Shame I haven't been there in a decade, but it looks like the place is falling apart so I suppose I'm not missing much.

I just don't understand why they didn't do a huge overhaul when Jurassic World came out. I mean you don't have to add the hybrid dinosaur from the movie, but you can at least update it to your current animatronic abilities. Maybe with the fallen kingdom coming out they will do it.

Damn, I came into this thread expecting them to have upgraded the animatronics massively over time, this is just sad.

Holy shit, the original was so damn lifelike The car didn't even drop in the 2016 one :cry:

Wow, this is like super depressing. That 1997 version looked great compared to the newer version.

that trex at the end always scared the shit out of me as a kid

When I rode this thing about 15 years ago the boat got stuck at the top of that drop 3 mins in to the video, with a T-Rex staring into our souls. We were there for a good 10 minutes or so until the boat suddenly flew over the drop without warning scaring the shit out of all of us. Good times.

One of my friends is a theme park fanatic, and he's shown me how changes to rides like these make park enthusiasts the saltiest fan group on the planet. Actually fixing these kind of issues is incredibly hard. Some things can't be fixed effectively without redoing major sections of the entire ride's infrastructure and parts for animatronics circa 1997 aren't easy to come by. So the solution to difficult fixes and ridiculous costs has been to make things look "nicer" while waiting for parts of the ride to die. (Like the jeep, which doesn't fall anymore because it kept getting stuck.) One of the worst examples is the "disco yeti" on Disney's Expedition Everest. The thing has been broken for years, so they added a bunch of strobe lights hoping nobody notices. A lot of the famous rides are on borrowed time now. If you want to go on the old animatronic rides like Dinosaur, do it quick. That thing breaks three times a day.

honestly remaking the whole ride from scratch to be jurrassic world would be better than these poor "please euthanize me" anamatronics being kept in

The reason the ride has fallen into such bad condition is because the company that made the animatronics went out of business thus Universal just uses their in house team to "fix" it. There's a rumor that they are replacing all of the animatronics soon while keeping the original Park title instead of Jurassic World.

1:15 was surprising. Extremely different

Wow... the 1997 is sooooo much better than the 2016 comparison like.. how the fuck does that happen?

Please tell me Disney does better job at maintaining their rides.

Oh hey, the jeep still works. Kind of. It doesn't really fall though, it descends gently. [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me3xc4hGxRo[/media]

Oh dear lord, the car part is just pathetic. At least the T-rex still looks pretty cool, even if it barely moves.

Funny how you usually have "nostalgia goggles" and [I]think[/I] things were better in the past than they actually were, but this ride actually [B]was[/B] better before. What a shame

As a kid this was I think the only ride which scared me, specifically the part you are going upwards and the T-Rex comes out, followed by the drop. My dad got really mad that I did not enjoy it and had me go on it twice more to get over my fear which I never did. I was thinking maybe in a year going back and riding it again now that i'm way older but fuck... seeing it in this poor state is just sad.

[QUOTE=Super Muffin;52554487]One of the worst examples is the "disco yeti" on Disney's Expedition Everest. The thing has been broken for years, so they added a bunch of strobe lights hoping nobody notices.[/QUOTE] Actually, this isn't entirely true, the reason is more depressing than the animatronic just having issues. They calculated stress tests wrong in their simulations when building the ride, and discovered that the animatronic shifting it's weight was causing stress to the [i]foundation of the entire ride at that area[/i], so to avoid the large amount of expenses needed to completely rebuild the structure the yeti stands on, they instead made it static with the flickering lights. It's not entirely impossible, but would require the ride being down for months on end. On a similar note though, they removed the rocks from one of the hills on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (the part where there is supposed to be an earthquake and the rocks shift as if you are about to be crushed before the drop), which disappointed me as that is one of my favorites there.

[QUOTE=Nomad;52556023]As a kid this was I think the only ride which scared me, specifically the part you are going upwards and the T-Rex comes out, followed by the drop. My dad got really mad that I did not enjoy it and had me go on it twice more to get over my fear which I never did. I was thinking maybe in a year going back and riding it again now that i'm way older but fuck... seeing it in this poor state is just sad.[/QUOTE] Damn I swear I could actually feel that moment in the ride reading this. It's a pretty cool part.

I've only been to Universal once and this ride was closed on the day we were there :(