Universal revamps tour

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. – Fast cars dancing to hip-hop, King Kong’s Skull Island and the littered suburban scene after a 747 jet crash from “War of the Worlds” are all part of the newly revamped Backlot Tour here at Universal Studios Hollywood.

The biggest overhaul of the tour since it began in 1964 adds assorted new attractions to the leaping dinosaurs from “Jurassic Park” and other stalwart features.

The new tour, in the works for about a year, officially opens Monday. It lasts about 45 minutes – the same as the old tour – and is packed with lots of information on (and promotion for) the movies made on this working studio lot.

That information is delivered by two sources. One is Whoopi Goldberg in an ongoing commentary shown on TV monitors in each of the trams that transport visitors on the tour. The second comes from the very well-trained and movie-savvy guides who ride along on every journey.

The new tour opens with a bang. The trams pull into a semi-circular drive that is quickly converted into a stage for a pyrotechnic show based on themes from Universal’s “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”

Using Kuka Robotic Technology, cars styled after those in the film race, dance and ultimately hurtle toward the trams at about 45 mph, stopping within inches of visitors in their trams.

The cars explode in a flurry of fire and smoke that envelops the 10,000-square-foot enclosure. (The cars weigh about 500 pounds each, scaled back from the 3,300-pound originals.)

As Thierry Coup, producer of the revamped tour, notes: “You get an extreme close-up … and a lot of noise.”

Then the trams head for “dinosaur lane,” where props and cars from the “Jurassic Park” movies litter the sides of the road as spitting robotic dinosaurs leap from behind bushes and do their thing. Be prepared to get wet.

When the trams arrive at the fog-shrouded cliffs of Skull Island (which has replaced the parting of the Red Sea on the old tour), they pass at eye level through the parted waters for a view of a scale-model, exact replica of the S.S. Venture that took the explorers there in the recent version of “King Kong.”

The 18-foot-long ship, built with the help of the Oscar-winning artisans from New Zealand’s Weta Workshop Ltd., is referred to as a “bigature.”

As the tram passes by, a computer-controlled system produces a thick layer of fog that wraps around the cliffs of the island’s coast.

Later the tour passes through the destruction wrought by Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds.”

A 747 jet – they bought one and tore it apart for the film – has just plowed into a suburban neighborhood.

Twisted cars and partly destroyed houses surround the wreckage. Sparks are everywhere from downed power lines, and smoldering cars hiss ominously.

Visitors are constantly reminded that the 415-acre Universal lots are a working studio. Wisteria Lane (which you don’t see) from TV’s “Desperate Housewives” is not far away, as is the snow-blanketed movie set from Dr. Seuss’ “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” and the Bates Motel and house from “Psycho” (all of which you do see).

The tour also visits the sets of TV’s “Crossing Jordan” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

So far, Universal estimates 125 million visitors have taken the tour at its three theme parks (Hollywood, Orlando and Japan).

If you are one of them, you might remember the Flash Flood attraction. On the new tour here, it has been re-engineered to make the flood more dramatic.

“It is the same amount of water,” says producer Coup, “but the enhancement makes it look like twice as much.”