3. SMALL PICTURE: Maturity within parks

CASE STUDY: The growth of Disneyland

Arriving now at the "microcosm" of the problem, we offer a unique case study in the "maturity" of individual parks: the two theme parks of the Disneyland Resort.

Disneyland and Disney California Adventure have a collective 80 years of development between them. Disneyland, for its part, feels quite "mature" in the sense that the park has plenty to do. For being the smallest "castle" park on Earth by acreage, Disneyland contains more rides and more E-Tickets than any other Disney Park on Earth... by far! And while evolution will always be a part of Disneyland's DNA ("...as long as there's imagination left in the world," etc etc), the park is bursting at the seams with attractions, nostalgia, memories, and those wonderful sorts of "hidden gems" that Universal Parks tend to lack...

If you've been around Theme Park Tourist long enough, you may have read our epic dive into the history of Disney's California Adventure. Suffice it to say, the park's gone through extensive redevelopment in its relatively short life, resulting – in 2012 – in a park that seemed to be heading "in the right direction," filled with classic Californian lands recreating a 1900s Victorian boardwalk, 1920s Los Angeles, 1940s Hollywood, a 1950s National Park, and more. Was California Adventure perfect? Of course not. But its path to maturity looked to be laid out...

No one would fault Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge or the blockbuster Avengers Campus lands as being ineffective. Quite the opposite, Disney took two of its recent tier-1 IP acquisitions and created substantial themed lands for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, respectively! But any longtime Disneyland visitors will tell you, neither really feels... right.

In the case of Star Wars, Galaxy's Edge doesn't fit in Disneyland, literally. Requiring extensive rearranging of the park's backstage facilities, the rerouting of the Rivers of America and the Railroad, and major changes to Frontierland, squeezing Star Wars into Galaxy's Edge was a logistical challenge. But even more, fans quickly pointed out how strange it felt to have a gargantuan, sprawling, ultra-immersive, mountain-cradled impoverished alien planet placed alongside dainty, diminuitive Fantasyland or Adventureland – the idealized, romanticized, and (frankly) bite-sized lands the park opened with. While Galaxy's Edge makes great sense at Hollywood Studios, it falls well outside of the narrative of Disneyland, not to mention its intentional arrangement of Americana genres of adventure, fantasy, frontier, and futurism...

Avengers Campus is being similarly squeezed into California Adventure, but even if its relegated to real estate too small to fit the highest-grossing film series of all time, the bad fit there is more conceptual – yet another chip away at the Californian focus Disney spent a billion dollars to restore just a decade ago. It's all perfectly evidenced by this California-themed park being reigned over not by the Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror and its iconic Southwestern art deco facade recalling the legends and architecture of old Hollywood, but by the "space warehouse prison power-plant" "based on the beauty of an oil rig" that is Guardians of the Galaxy - Mission: BREAKOUT!

And here's what we can learn from this case study: Disney took two parks that were variously approaching full maturity in terms of space, attendence, and creativity, and crammed more in anyway. It makes fans wonder why Disney didn't just activate on a much-needed and inevitable third park in Anaheim where – again, following that Islands of Adventure model – they could've built an entire park of IPs where Galaxy's Edge, Avengers Campus, Monstropolis, Arendelle, and Pandora could've been "islands" encircling a lagoon. Because now, when that third park inevitably does happen, it can't have Galaxy's Edge or Avengers Campus – they've already been crammed into Disneyland and California where they don't belong! A short-term gain, but a long-term loss.

What does any of this have to do with Universal's Epic Universe?

"Park" Problem 1: Creative and complete?

Disney didn't build a third park when they probably should've; now, for those exact reasons, we argue that Universal is building a third park when they shouldn't. And since we've already questioned Universal's space and attendance (offering they have a "neutral" and "we'll-take-your-word-for-it-positive" effect on plans for the new park, respectively), we have to face that last one; the one Universal is so often derided for: creativity. 

Listen: we love Universal Orlando, and not just in a "side trip from Disney" way. In fact, Universal Orlando's parks are among the strongest contenders on the planet! But if you think either of Universal's parks is completely matured, built-out, and ready to coast into the sunset along its current path, you're kidding yourself. In fact, attentive industry fans often report that – outside the hallowed acres of the Wizarding World – Universal's parks can look and feel quite neglected next to the usually high-standards of Disney.

To that end, we can't truly analyze Epic Universe without using that Disneyland example. Disneyland and Disney California Adventure didn't really need Galaxy's Edge and Avengers Campus; they could've (and arguably, should've) been held off as anchors in a third park. Looking at Epic Universe, we kind of feel... well... exactly the opposite. Here's what we mean....

"Park" Problem 1A: Stalled Studios

EPIC EFFECT: Negative (–)

Taking stock of Universal Studios Florida, we see a park that's in the very midst of a much-needed transition. We have explored at length how beige, backlot, soundstage-saddled "studio" parks like Universal Studios Florida looked pretty dim and dingy by the end of the '90s, with their mis-matched flavor-of-the-week intellectual properties and reliance on pop culture and box office to stay relevant. In the early 2000s, that was mostly about squashing the park's opening day Lost Legends: Kongfrontation, Back to the Future, and Earthquake to rush in hipper, trendier films in what could've been the start of never-ending, soulless "upgrades."

Luckily, the arrival of the other half of the Wizarding World – Diagon Alley – indicated that Universal was up for the challenge of making even its studio park evergreen by turning it into a place where "real" worlds (New York, Hollywood, London, San Francisco) serve as gateways to step into the movies (see also, Disney's Hollywood Studios), following it up with a Simpsons-themed Springfield, U.S.A. land taking shape around the existing Simpsons Ride – another step in the right direction!

But after Diagon Alley and Springfield, Universal just... stopped... A series of attractions ranging from blah to bad have opened in the last few years alone seemingly falling back on the old "flavor-of-the-week" trend and resulting in rides themed to The Tonight Show, Fast & Furious, and The Bourne Identity that felt tired even before opening. In spite of those unfortunate attempts to stay cool, Universal Studios Florida is a park marked by stagnation. It's not just the tired Shrek 4D still playing in the dated Production Central right inside the front gate, the opening day remnants of the Animal Actors stage show or the charming-but-dated E.T. Adventure...

It's that you can imagine so much more. The vacant Fear Factor Live stadium adjacent to Diagon Alley was once considered certain to be replaced with a Ministry of Magic dark ride accessible from within the land... a project that's almost certainly evolved into the new Wizarding World at Epic Universe, leaving that stadium sitting, dark, next to the biggest attraction in the park.

Universal Studios Florida has often been regarded as the least "kid-friendly" park in Orlando. (One of the reasons Islands of Adventure exists at all was to compensate.) Given that Universal recently acquired both DreamWorks and Illumination – two of the biggest animation studios on Earth – and has built immersive lands themed to Shrek (in Singapore), Despicable Me (in Hollywood), and Kung-Fu Panda (in Beijing), you'd probably expect that Universal Creative would be developing a similarly epic area for Florida. And they are! But not for the Universal Studios park. 

Epic Universe is getting an immersive How To Train Your Dragon mega-land while Universal Studios Florida will keep its current, tepid Kidzone, themed in messy parts to (and this is real:) Woody Woodpecker, Fieval, Curious George, and Barney (characters with approximately zero relevance to kids today between them) and anchored by the charming-but-dated E.T. Adventure (which every other Universal resort has removed in the name of progress). Wouldn't a Dragon land fit perfectly there?

Put simply, it feels a little silly if not stupid for Universal to pump attractions into Epic Universe when they're needed back at Universal Studios Florida... and in that double-edged sword scenario, the massive expense of putting them in Epic Universe makes it even less likely that the Studios park will get the care it needs going forward, as now resources will be split three ways.

"Park" Problem 1B: Idle Islands

EPIC EFFECT: Negative (–)

We have to start by saying, yes, we celebrated Islands of Adventure in the opening of this editorial and its own Park-of-the-Month feature as an era-defining, bold, brash, and often-imitated-but-never-duplicated reinvention of theme parks. In many ways, Islands of Adventure created the "IP Park" formula that Epic Universe is merely innovating upon. But cleverly, Universal had the foresight with Islands to forget going "behind the scenes," to drop the "backlot" motif, and in fact to forget "movies" altogether, creating a park that was based on super hero comics, novels, picture books, comic strips, mythology, and legends instead. Their hope was to create a park far more evergreen that than Studios, inherently whipped from blockbuster to blockbuster.

It worked!

Islands of Adventure doesn't need the kinds of continuous "updates" that the Studios' swappable-soundstages permit. Its rides should be – and are – built to last. But the park has also been famously... well... slow. In its first ten years, it added only two rides: swirling teacups in Marvel Super Hero Island, and a kid's coaster in the Lost Continent. Once more, the Wizarding World was the agreed-upon shift, revolutionizing the park, the resort, and the industry...

But outside of the Wizarding World, Islands of Adventure has added only one ride in the last decade: the lukewarm Reign of Kong, on land annexed from the adjacent Jurassic Park land. Speaking of which, while we don't necessarily think it should be upgraded to Jurassic World (that somewhat betrays the whole "timeless, literary" style of the park and goes in the "flavor-of-the-week" Studio direction), it does need its own new ride... maybe the long-rumored Jurassic Helicop-tours Soarin'-style simulator, or maybe by reclaiming the Kong-themed Skull Island entirely and turning the Reign of Kong ride into the long-requested Jurassic Jeep Adventure.

Then there's Toon Lagoon – a charming, watery land themed to Jay Ward's "Sunday funnies" from Dudley Do-Right to Popeye – which could stand an upgrade. As it is, Toon Lagoon contained a massive amphitheater that's been empty since the park's earliest years, which needs to be home to be reutilized as attraction space. And even as defenders of Islands of Adventure's "timeless, literary" style... well... we can't help but imagine the space becoming a tech-infused Pokemon land – a full city of Pokemon Centers, Shops, and Gyms as well as Wild Zones for guests to catch and collect "real" Pokemon. 

See also, the shambling remains of the epic Lost Legend: The Lost Continent – an entire island of original mythologies and outstanding attractions reduced to just one: the Declassified Disaster: Poseidon's Fury that's been hobbling along for twenty years on a six-week rewrite of its original form. Considering Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda is rumored as an expansion of Epic Universe, one can't help but wonder, why not add it to Islands of Adventure instead? Why not license Tomb Raider or God of War and transform the Lost Continent into an epic adventure land? Instead, it seems that the corpse of the Lost Continent will shamble on...

Then there's Seuss Landing, the why-didn't-we-think-of-that sensational solution for a whimsical children's land that's as evergreen as it is brilliant. But once more, we see that its one substantial ride – a Cat in the Hat dark ride – hasn't been touched in twenty years. It, and the land, need a major sprucing up and at least two new rides. The incomparable S.W. Wilson of Ideal Buildout imagines a Jungle Cruise-style outdoor boat ride through Horton Hears a Who, while we'd be happy with the long-rumored Seven Dwarfs Mine Train-esque Grinch-themed family coaster through Mount Crumpet... or both!

In other words, even Islands of Adventure could benefit from not just the money being spent on Epic Universe, but the concepts planned for it. Altogether, the impossible-to-answer question is, is it better for Universal Orlando to have one very new park and two that are coasting on Harry Potter, or to have two fully built-out, filled-in, mature parks?

Epic Universe, Epic Risk

And that's exactly the point. Universal's Epic Universe is a radical step in Universal's quest to match Disney's dominance in Central Florida. It's also a creative powerhouse that could truly redefine an Orlando vacation... but it might not do so in the way that Universal hopes.

We have sincere worries that Universal thinks Epic Universe will grow their attendence rather than having enough attendence to justify Epic Universe.

We're troubled by the very real possibility that Universal's Epic Universe will be one too many parks for Central Florida, and that guests won't spend more time, they'll visit fewer parks – a "cannibalizing" that we expect would hurt Universal, not Disney.

And for all the reasons we've laid out, it's painful to think that the money and creativity pouring into this potentially-redundant third park could be used to instead build-out Universal's existing parks, which are undeniably in need of continued care. And in that regard alone, Epic Universe may actually lead to the further deterioration of Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.

Look – Epic Universe will live up to its name. It will be a cutting-edge, clever new park incorporating the veritable library of tier-1 IPs Universal has collected over the last two decades. It'll also evolve Islands of Adventure's basic model, presenting yet another blueprint for what Disney probably should be doing for their next park – whenever and wherever that appears. But we can't fool ourselves into thinking a new park will solve all of Universal Orlando's problems, or that it'll be a victory right out of the gate. 

While Nintendo and Dreamworks alone may be enough to draw people to Universal, they may not be enough to convince them to lengthen their stays... at which point one has to wonder why they didn't just add those properties to the parks that already have that need them.