Fat-G

This is great news and hopefully it means The Great Movie Ride will be around for a long time. For a movie buff like myself I am excited to see what TCM does with their love for movies.

Starting a new project as a tribute.

Yes, but I still am uncertain if I like it or not, here is a picture of its current state from Micechat.

You are right except for two things. 1. during construction Paramount opted to use a different form of braking than what Huss recommended in order to save money, thus during the ride cycle when the gondola was supposed to stop in a certain position, the cheaper breaks would slip causing the ride computer to E-stop, leading to loads of downtime, so the ride was "doomed" from the beginning. Also Paramount never invested to keep up the theming so as such many of the theme elements were broken when the park was sold. 2. the ride did flip upside down twice in its last years, the cycle went like this: 1 complete non inverting rotation backwards followed by one backward slow flip, the gondola would them stop and repeate that in the opposite direction.

You don't necessarily have to aggressively expand, just keep the parks and hotels well maintained and looking beautiful, with nice, respectable employees and you will create a pleasant experience that people will want to come back to.

The upcoming Big Hero 6 is half Japanese, and I doubt Universal holds the rights to those characters. Or the planned but cancelled bullet train attraction would be cool... maybe with a tie in with Godzilla?

I don't think you are missing anything, people choose to get nostalgic over different things. I am a huge movie buff, and almost finished with college with a degree in film production and studies. I myself was more upset over the closure of the Backlot Tour more than Maelstrom even though Backlot Tour was a dead husk of itself. Why? because I identified with the ride because it is what I am interested in. The ability to see how movies are made is something that I am all about experiencing and the tour was an opportunity to show people that movies today still do stuff practically instead of all in a computer. It was unfortunate that the star attraction of Disney MGM Studios was basically mutilated and treated like California's Great America during the Kinzel Era, but it still was the theme of the park. I think alot of people are being stubborn that a attraction based on a "actual location" is being replaced by a fantasy location, although the inclusion of trolls in that ride makes me question this... Saying all that I am excited to see the expansion and rebirth of DHS that we all know is coming, and I am looking forward to Frozen because I know Disney will make it a great attraction. End Rant

I think for now they need to focus on getting the parks and resorts back up to par with Disney's maintenance standards, which they do seem to be doing. Once that finishes then they should focus on WDS.

At least they are actually doing something with the space instead of just letting the ride sit there and rot like they did with the subs many moons ago...

Everyone except Kinzel era Cedar Fair.

I'm hoping they can fix up a lot of those props and move them to other areas of the park, kinda like what they did with the tank from The last Crusade. It was originally on the Tram Tour but they moved it next to the Indy Stunt Show. Also Walt Disney's plane would be great to see in another area. There is a lot of history in those props and I would just hate to see them scrap them.

Thanks for posting these Robb, its always nice to have recordings of past attractions to remember them by, or just to see how a park changes over time.

Well considering that the Studio Tram Tour is right next to Pixar Place...

Well Just off the top of my head; Pixar: Walle, Up, Incredibles are three great IP's that have not been used as major attractions. LucasFilm: Obviously Star Wars and there can always be more done with Indy. Live Action: Tron is a big property that can be used. I personally wouldn't used Marvel in DHS (of course they cant use them until Universal gives them up). I would save the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a 5th gate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrwNfOcl0fM

They've got a lot of work to bring this resort back up to par...

^ Thats what I'm excited for, there really is no clear direction of what they are going to do to the park. I think the echo lake area will become Star Wars land, although I would hate to see Indy go, give the show some new scenes and effects and it will have lasting value. I'm really looking forward to how this pans out.

I think they will keep the Streets of America section for now as it has the Lights, Motors, Action show, once what ever they do with the Studio Tour is complete then I think they will turn their attention to Streets of America. Also the Wardrobe Department building that the tram drove through might stay since it handles costumes for the entire resort. ^ I was just thinking to my self that they could reroute that entrance road along the waterway...

I think the main problem with the park is that they built it too small to begin with, and basically land locked with with roads. The studio itself was to small to be any use and the theme park area was extremely cramped during the first couple of years, that's why they opened up areas of the studio tour to guest, creating the shift from themed areas to sound stage backlot.

What else do you think is on it's way out?

That building is already a permanent haunt with Urgent Scare.

While it's sad to see any opening day attraction close this tour was really a sad shell of its former self and should have been taken out years ago when the theme of the park shifted from working film studio to movie based attraction park. Hopefully this is building up to a huge expansion of the park.

^ No, the contract with BMW to have the cars resemble Mini Coopers lasted till about 2011/2012 when the contract expired and Cedar Fair chose not to renew the contract, as such most of the features of the cars were removed such as the broken headlights and ,except for Kings Island, the broken speakers (Kings Island's still has the speakers in the car but the mechanism to charge them underneath the car was removed). Also that was when the color combo was changed from 3 trains with blue, red, and white cars to 3 solid color trains, and contrary to what some people think the cars were simple repainted and not moved to match color.

^ Would love to see a ride based on the film Troll Hunters, that would be epic!