Teaser Poster
The King Kong 360 3-D ride is a current attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood. It was opened in 2010, and is still currently in service today. The attraction takes place during the world famous Studio Tour. It was built by Peter Jackson, and uses some of the best 3-D technology of it's time. This is the story of the ride.
The Ride[]
Queue
As the Studio Tour Tram drives up a slope, it enters a small set of Skull Island where it passes a crushed tram car. After a video introduction by Peter Jackson, the tram approaches a cave separating the Real World to Skull Island. The cave is located in front of the former Collapsing Bridge on the Studio Tour. When the tram enters the cave, the tram is transported into the world of King Kong as guests wear 3D glasses.
The tram arrives in the jungles of Skull Island where a pack of Venatosaurus raptors is on the hunt. The raptors see the tram and then begins to chase the tram. The driver speeds the tram away and tries to escape from the raptors, but it ends up crashing. It falls off the road, and it drives near a cliff. The tram stops, and the raptors catch up. Just as they are about to eat the tram, a trio of three V-Rexes appear who eats a few of the pack while the rest of the pack flee in fear.
The V-Rexes turn their attention to the tram and they start to attack the tram by hitting it in process. But before the tram could be badly damaged, suddenly Kong jumps out of the trees to rescue the tram and save the guests!
Kong and the V-Rexes start to fight each other as the tram slowly slides down a cliff when accidentally getting hit by Kong or a V-Rex. The V-Rexes try to attack the tram from both sides, while Kong jumps to each side to defeat them, as air and water effects are blown onto guests to further the illusion. During the fight, he throws a V-Rex off the cliff. He grabs another V-Rex then grabs its mouth and snapping its jaws apart in the process.
Near the end of the experience, the last V-Rex eventually ends up pulling the last car, full of passengers (which is part of the filming segment) from the tram, dragging the tram into a pit off the cliff as the ground collapses by the V-Rex due the weaken walkway surrounding it.
Unfortunately, the V-Rex, and all the tram cars fall into the spider pit. The tram gets caught by the vines as the V-Rex disconnects the last car from the tram during the fall and manages to not get caught by the vines due to it lands on top of the last car. The last car also gets caught by the vines. The V-Rex attempts to eat the rest of the passengers from the other tram cars by biting down multiple times as the tram swings on the vines between the V-Rex and some Arachno-Claws.
Kong then jumps into the pit, where he faces the last V-Rex. Just as the V-Rex was about to bite down again, Kong jumps onto the last car. Kong defeats the V-Rex by slamming it into a canyon wall multiple times, snapping the V-Rex’s neck in process.
However, the weight of the animals on top of the last tram car causes the vines to snap around it as Kong throws the V-Rex to its death. Kong then rescues the last tram car, allowing the passengers in it to survive the fall.
The rest of the tram plummets into the bottom of the pit, but Kong rescues it as well. Kong is glad everyone is alright, and roars in triumph. He leaps away from the tram, ending the experience. The simulation ends, and the tram exits the 3D simulator back to the studio in the Real World and everybody escapes without a scratch.
History[]
Attack Of the Dinosaurs
Before King Kong: 360 3-D was built, The Collapsing Bridge was in it's place. Also, another King Kong attraction named King Kong Encounter opened on June 14th, 1986 which was located in the New York Street sets. It lasted for 22 years until it was destroyed by a massive fire, that consumed the set, and destroyed everything on June 1st, 2008. When Universal Studios announced they would not rebuild the ride, this caused outrage among fans. For two years, Kong wasn't at Universal Studios, and everyone started to miss him.
Suddenly, things lit up in 2009, when the creator of the 2005 King Kong, Peter Jackson, decided to rebuild Kong. After hearing about the problems with the King Kong Encounter fire, he made an announcement at the Comic Con festival, that over the next year, he would completely rebuild the attraction, but this time, with 21st century technology.
Construction on the King Kong 360 3-D began near the end of 2009. They built a giant building, similar to the King Kong Encounter, but instead of having the giant set, they would have a 360 screen that would play a 3D moving picture for the visitors. To make the simulation seem as real as possible, the crew added special features to move the tour bus up and down. A giant platform on the ground moves the bus up and down so it seems like it is being hit by
The Ride, when it's turned off.
dinosaurs. Also, to make it seem like the van was fleeing the dinosaurs, a massive fan on the ceilling would blow air on the tram to make it seem like it is moving. Also, water would spray up to give the effect like the tram is landing in water. The final touch, was the 3D glasses. They allowed passengers to make the simulation as real as possible.
King Kong 360 3-D opened on July 1st, 2010 and replaced The Collapsing Bridge which was used as a decoration for the Skull Island set. It was a major success, more popular than King Kong Encounter and The Collapsing Bridge.