Jaws The Ride: Universal's Best Ever Attraction
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- Опубликовано: 18 май 2024
- Jaws The Ride was Universal Studio's greatest ever ride. And since its closing in 2012 still has a large number of fans who love it for its underwater shark animatronics, its action, its theming, and its excitement. It totally also has a submechanophobia vibe too. So let's take a look at the history of Jaws The Ride, and the looming Shark animatronics that came with it, and why I think it still stands as Universal's best ever attraction.
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I loved Jaws and I miss it a lot. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, both the Forbidden Journey and Hogwarts, and Diagon Alley, are great, but I'll always miss Amity Island. So I thought it would be fun to go over the full story, in depth, of the history of the ride, and why I think it's so great. And I guess more widely too, what makes a great attraction. Universal and Disney have so many great, large scale attractions now, but this was truly one of a kind way back when.
The background music for this video comes from Epidemic Sound (referral link): share.epidemicsound.com/imrsqv
CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
0:57 Jaws at Universal Studios Hollywood
4:50 The Original, Terrible Jaws Ride
10:52 The New, Amazing Jaws Ride
14:36 Why Was Jaws So Great?
18:52 The Final Voyage 
Развлечения
It's amazing how one of the greatest theme park failures of all time became one of the best theme park rides of all time! The fact the first shark animatronic for the attraction had legitimate shark teeth is absolutely wild. Whatever they were on when they thought of that idea....I want it. They really thought, "Let's add these real shark teeth to make it even more realistic, surely nothing will go wrong when it tries to bite the boat, right?"....incredible. Kudos to the skippers that did this attraction! Imagine how many times the skippers have to reenact over and over during their shifts, daily, weekly, monthly, and yet remained so passionate for this iconic attraction. Props to these performers and BRUCE!
Well said, Kim Jong Un
Even as a very young child I remember the Jaws ride vividly and I was not impressed.
But the Indiana Jones Tunnel, and the flood freaked me the HELL out. I was seconds from jumping out of the damn car / boat.
can’t believe harry potter murdered jaws in cold blood and got away with it
I went on this ride as a little girl. I remember me and my brother would fight over seating, and we both fought to sit at the edge of the boat. This time my brother won, due to our mom letting him have the seat. I was mad, and had the "aisle" seat. However, during the part where the giant shark face comes out of the water, it popped up literally right where my brother was sitting. Even better, he was already leaning over the edge to look at the other fake sharks underneath the water. He jumped straight into the air and screeched, and of course all the adults laughed like crazy. I felt very satisfied after that lol
i can't believe it's been eleven years since this ride closed. i never got to ride it, since I was so young, but now that I'm older and appreciate the Jaws movies, I wish i could go back in time and ride this. i love learning about theme park history too, so this video is definitely a treat! great work!
Last time I rode that ride was in 2000 I’ve ridden it hundreds of times from its reopening till 2000 I lived 4 hrs from the park so we’d go atleast once a month
You are so ignorant. You don't need a time machine to go ride this, you can hop on a plane to Osaka if you really want to experience this.
I rode this in Japan in 2014. As far as I'm aware, it's still at Japan's universal studio. Despite the skipper speaking Japanese, which I had a very limited vocab in at the time, I still felt fully emersed in the ride.
I went when I was a kid. It’s awesome. I remember the queue is a little island shack on amity.
Traveling to Florida where the ride is located they did a great job making it feel like Amity because of the weather being similar. So it was a really well done ride if it can immerse you like that.
One of my worst fears I’d spend a lot of time thinking about is what it would be like if you accidentally fell in. I know they aren’t real sharks, and literally only move on queue, but still absolutely terrifying to me
this is so off topic but i love your lego wicket pfp 😭 my pfp on tiktok is that same picture lmao
Universal really has a golden opportunity coming up. With Epic Universe, they are going to have plenty of real estate to develop new attractions in each of their Florida parks. Doing a throwback land dedicated to some of these classic rides with newer technology would be amazing.
The idea of bringing back classic attractions for an audience that never experienced them is an amazing concept and opportunity which hasn't really been tried in the industry yet. Shame really.
That’s a great idea. Making throwback attractions with modern day technology. That would make the rides even better.I’m down for that.
@@ciscoduncan1490 although Universal might make the argument that a lot of people nowadays may not have seen the movies those rides are based on given how old they are. Again it’s a business Universal Studios and theme parks evolve and movies move on. But least Jaws still exists in Japan and there’s a new King Kong ride.
@@huntercoleman460true. But they’re making a classic monsters section in their new park which consists of ips that are decades older than the original Jaws.
If they see a 💵 opportunity in it then they would. Let’s hope they do
God give me BTTF and Jaws I'm begging
In Knockturn Alley, one of the songs the shrunken heads sing is Show Me the Way to Go Home which was sung by Brody, Quint, and Hooper on board the Orca. Besides the skippers and of course the effects, what really pulled it all together was the musical magic of John Williams. During the filming of the movie, contrary to Steven's suggestion to have a sweeping, more-romantic score, John decided to play a two-note theme at the piano. "Ha, you've got it," Steven laughed. He thought it was a joke. John quickly explained it wasn't. The most powerful thing, John said, was the simplest idea. The two notes, which could be played in many ways by the orchestra, represented the danger even when the film wouldn't show the shark.
Instead of Steven's suggestion of something tuneful to smooth out the edits in the film, John's score was primal and heightened, or even created, the tension. John said, "When we do see the shark, we won't score him, so the audience doesn't see it coming"....and the rest is history. It was the first film for which Williams would win the Academy Award for Best Original Score. Everything he touches turns into gold, John is the embodiment of the word epic. My favorite piece of his remains the Olympic Fanfare. Giving the Olympics its own special fanfare for the 1984 Summer Olympics in LA to outdo the Soviets and their Moscow 1980 opening was the perfect opportunity that changed Olympic broadcasting forever.
John Williams was and always shall be, in my humble opinion, a certified genius of musical talent.😊
The theme of the shark is based on hhe score of Disney's Pinocchio. When the whale sneezes one can hear hhis bumbambumbambumbam
Man, 90s USF with the 1993 version of Jaws, Kongfrontation and Nickelodeon Studios was the place to be! For Kongfrontation, as a New Yorker, I really love the use of the Roosevelt Island Tramway as like a ride vehicle for the attraction. Not to mention the complexity of the Kong animatronics. Imagineer Bob Gurr designed the original King Kong Encounter animatronic for Hollywood. In Florida, the one used for the street sequence weighed approximately 13,000 pounds, while the bridge sequence animatronic weighed 8,000 pounds! Both Kongs were built on both analog and digital platforms, which resulted in the ability to perform 62 separate function. And of course like Hollywood, banana-scented breath was added.
Fun fact: The Jaws movie was filmed in Martha's Vineyard, however the novel itself doesn't take place in New England. In the novel, Amity Island is meant to be part of New York, located off the south shore of Long Island in the Hamptons. And the novel was inspired by 1916 shark attacks that happened on the Jersey Shore! Martha's Vineyard was chosen instead of eastern Long Island because they wanted a vacation area that was lower middle class enough so that an appearance of a shark would destroy the tourist business, and Martha's Vineyard's surrounding shore had a sandy bottom that never dropped below 35 feet for 12 miles out from shore, which allowed the mechanical sharks to operate while also beyond sight of land.
Kongfrontation sounded so cool, it's a shame I was never able to ride it
@GeorgesSpace Kongfrontation jaws ghostbusters beetle juices graveyard back to the future and earthquake even the Alfred Hitchcock 3d show were great 93 and 94 usf was great
I’ll never forget riding jaws for the first time! My first ever trip to universal at 8 years old and this ride scared me so badly. I miss the classic universal rides
i think something that would be really cool for universal to do is add some sort of "classic universe" land and have majority of opening day classics
Great video, loved that ride! Really wish Universal would bring it back in some capacity, even if it’s just a Jaws animatronic popping out of the waterfront in San Francisco area.
Regarding the Spielberg anecdote, it allegedly wasn’t the closure of Jaws but the replacement of the ET Adventure with the Mummy ride over at Universal Hollywood that had Spielberg make his threat about cutting his ties with the studio if they ever did the same with the Orlando version.
Something that didn’t help with Spielberg was that after ET closed at Hollywood, Universal allegedly promised him that both the Florida and Japan versions would remain open, but then broke that promise when they closed the Japan version, which allegedly made Spielberg even more furious.
Last time I was at Diagon Alley, my friend told me that if you go into the bathrooms, you hear the Jaws theme. I actually stood in there for a few minutes trying to hear it, so I don't know if he was messing with me, but his family (who knows an unnatural amount about this theme park's history) all believed it as well.
The day Jaws is back at Universal, is the day I'll be back as well
I was never able to experience Jaws unfortunately, so this take might be invalid for the sake of argument, but I think Jurassic Park River Adventure is the best attraction Universal has ever made. The theming, high quality animatronics, and thrilling finale make it such a perfect ride for a perfect movie.
I love Jurassic Park River Adventure too! That's definitely up there for me for a lot of similar reasons, theming being a big one. But there was something about Jaws that was just so great.
I would also agree, however I think the sad state that Universal has allowed it to operate in as of recently is just inexcusable. The wear on the ride just kind of proves to me that corporate is counting the days until they can overlay the world IP onto it as a "Refurbishment"
I'm so sad they closed this ride. I'm from the UK and when I was younger I always wanted to go to Universal and go on this ride 😭
You really capture what made this ride so special! I love how this ride really delivers on that classic Universal idea of "riding the movies". It doesn't just make a ride inspired by the movie, but takes the core idea of the film and translates it so well into something that you can experience for yourself.
Thanks for the great video I'll never forget being about 7 scared as shit sitting on the outside because my dad told me to. After the ride I looked at him and said wow those sharks are really well trained... He laughed and said yes they are. One of if not my favorite ride I've ever been on.
I went on ( still the best ) vacation of my life when I was a kid to Universal Orlando and Jaws + Jurassic Park were the only rides I went on twice. I got off and got right back in line to go again. The fact that these were the only times I ever got to ride it still stings. HP will never live up to it and I'll miss it. Jaws the movie and ride are so iconic.
i went through a phase when i was like 12 or 13 were i probably watched every single jaws ride pov video on youtube, i was so obsessed with it despite living in australia and never having been to universal florida. i was lucky enough to go to universal japan at the beginning of this year and got to ride it and it was basically everything i wanted out of a jaws ride experience despite not being able to understand the narration lmao. i pretty much had all the story beats subconsciously memorised so it wasn't a huge barrier. they even had the whole amityville area with the hanging shark and little shop fronts!! it was so cool to compare my experience with that to the original through this video, thank you for collating all this information and footage!!
jaws was one of my favorite rides of all time. i remember going on it countless times throughout my childhood and loving it every single time. i miss it so much, and i don’t think there’s any other ride that gives me quite the same feeling.
I remember riding this when I was a kid, I'm not sure what year but perhaps between 2005 and 2008. Since I was so young, I remember that I was terrified of this ride and think I only rode it once or twice. Seeing that boathouse made me remember crying inconsolably because I was so scared of the shark and the atmosphere... I guess that shows you how good it was, lol.
The memories that I had it is that when I was two years old, I went to that ride and I saw pictures and videos that my mom sent me and then I was pretty surprised. I was happy but I believe.
I had the pleasure of going to Universal Studios Japan the other month and riding Jaws!! It's as good as I remember!!!
I remember on one our Disney trips in the early '90s, my parents decided to try a day at Universal. We had sunburns from one of the Disney parks and it was a very hot summer day. Those fire effects amplified our sun burns to something very awful. I was so terrified by the end of the ride, but enjoyed the whole thing. Between this ride and the movies, being in any body of water scared me. I'm not lying when I say taking baths as a kid had me worried that "Jaws" was going to eat me.
i rode this ride when i was little, specifically the new one in Orlando, Florida, in the early 2000s. i was scared sh*tless lol! i've always adored Jaws, even more so now as a grown adult. i really wish it were still around, i'd go to Universal just to ride it again.
Wake up babe, the GOAT just posted again
I really missed out on the cool old rides! I wish I could’ve saw Jaws and Kongfrontation!
Another great video!
It's always a shame when a great ride closes. All the more reason to do our best to live in the moment and appreciate the time we have left with the people and places we love.
it must have been so fun to be an attractions team member in the 90s, so many rides or experiences where everyday they could truly just entertain guests, its sad there aren't as many experiences like this anymore, both for guests and employees.
They need to bring this back!
another fun easter egg in diagon alley, the shrunken heads in nocturn alley sing “show me the way to go home”, the song they sung on the boat in the movie!
I was lucky to ride Jaws a dozen or more times and loved it!
If Universal Studios Orlando gets more land, someone should make a petition to bring back the JAWS ride. And to be honest, if they are to bring back the ride, they should remake the original JAWS shark animatronic add add better tech to it to keep it from failing. I just hope they bring JAWS: The Ride back.
One of my all time favorite rides at Universal!! They should make another version for Epic Universe.
My grandpa actually painted the shark when it was first opened!
It's criminal that you don't get more views. All of your videos are fantastic
I remember going on the original version in Orlando. We went about a month after the park opened. I was terrified of Jaws!!
i loved jaws so much. of my earliest trips to universal as a kid, jaws is one of the rides i remember very well. the shark was so scary, but i found the ride so fun and entertaining. i completely forgot they showed an electrocuted version of the shark, it's so creepy, but it brings back fond memories. i miss this ride every day, and every time i'm at universal i see the shark and wish the ride was still there. i honestly couldn't care less about diagon alley lmao, i've only ever been on the train to get to IOA.
also thanks for talking about how the animatronics work, i didn't know that! the mechanics behind the shark are incredible. i have a great appreciation for animatronics (especially the kind like these, big and/or underwater, cuz wow!), so i hope at least the fiberglass shark(s) were kept somewhere and not destroyed.
Just found your channel and I just need to say your voice is perfect for narration. Some videos I just can't sit through because the voice isn't right, but yours is great for these kinds of videos.
I just discovered your channel yesterday and have been binge watching your theme park content. Thank you so so much for creating such great videos! Please keep them coming!!! ❤
one of my favorite pictures of me as a kid is in front of the jaws orlando ride in maybe 2007, i miss it so much! i absolutely love the new rides they’ve been putting up but i still miss my childhood favorites :,)
I remember riding this this first time in the mid nineties, it was later in the evening and raining which made it even more intense! Best theme park ride memory ever.
Jaws & King Kong were the best rides before all the “screens” took over 🦈 🦍
Even though ive never rode it ove seen so many ride povs and the skippers are alway so great.
They shouldve kept the jaws ride, it was so cool
I LOVED the Jaws bit of the tram tour at Universal Hollywood and always wanted to experience the Florida ride. I'll always be sad that I never got to experience it. Even sadder is the fact that I helped paint the Hogwarts Express. I will never never get over that sad irony.
I miss the ride so much, so grateful to have ridden it many times
Was always my favorite and I miss it every time I go to universal
Loved this ride! I was very scared but glad I went on it!
I was a pimply, brace faced 6th grader when I got to ride Jaws the Ride in the 90s. Jaws was/is my favorite movie of all time and I was very excited/nervous/anxious to FINALLY ride this. It was amazing! I remember feeling the heat from the pyrotechnics hit me in the face to this day. Wish they never got rid of it so I could experience it with my own family now. Farewell and ado Jaws ride 🫡
It would be great if Epic did an area just classic rides Twister,Jaws,T2, earthquake & Kongfrontation.
This ride was truly scary when I was a child. Definitely one of the most thrilling rides in Universal’s prime time. Hope to visit Japan some day to ride it before they take it out there too!
I got to ride for the first and only time in the Summer of 2011. Such a cool ride
I remember being so excited to ride the jaws ride on our first trip to universal. My mom had ridden it back when the park opened and wanted to experience it after the ride was remodeled. However, when we got to universal, the ride had closed that January, just 6 months before our trip. We had no knowledge of it closing before the trip so we were both devastated when we asked a crew member what happened to the ride. 😭
I was in the same boat when I went on my senior trip just two months after it closed. I'm glad I'd gotten to ride it as a child, but man it was so disheartening to find out after I had searched for the ride for like an hour
I never been on Jaws ride befor and universal should bring it back
One of the only rides I remember from going there as a kid. So good 😂
Orlando local with friends who work at Universal. People still ask where the jaws ride is to this day. I remember 12 year old me being there on closing day. Still one of my favorites.
I agree with this analysis. I went on it again last month out here in Japan. It's still great!
I got to ride it once in 2011 before it closed and I’m so glad! I think I’ll remember it forever. I remember that the explosions were so close that I felt the fire, it was so close it almost hurt! I’m guessing that had something to do with it closing because it was actually kind of scary, it felt like I was in a bit of danger. I actually asked my bf at the time if it was supposed to get so close to the fire. It was really fun though despite almost burning my arm. I was lucky to be able to go at a time where part of the Wizarding World was there but Jaws was still there. I’m hoping I can get to go back and visit the other half of the Wizarding World!
I've never been to the Orlando Universal Studios, but I went to the LA one twice as a kid, and Jaws was always my favorite part (back with good ol' George). I used to beg my Pop to take me back on the tour just to do it again - to which he was, rightfully, not thrilled with going on an hour long 'ride' because I wanted that 5 minute part, but I think we did it three or four times in that day.
I would have loved to see a full dedicated ride. Japan is on the to-do list, so who knows!
I cannot convey the disappointment I had as a kid on my only ever trip to America when we saw the shark photo op and got so excited and then saw the ride was closed! We were super lucky to have got the holiday at all so still loads to be happy about but Jaws is my favourite film and there's a Kodak full of pouty pictures with that shark somewhere 😅
I experienced the tour Jaws in 2007 and all I can remember is mortal terror as that shark swam past my ride of the tram. I cried so much lol
...my parents forced me to go on Jaws when I was very little, way too little to appreciate the ride, I was TERRIFIED. Especially by the fire effects for some reason, I could remember how they made the boat feel warm. TBF I had got a massive burn on my leg before then so I probably had a small fear of fire. I remember holding back my tears until we left the ride.
In any case I really love the ride in retrospect, I wish I could've ridden it when I got older. It's really a shame it had to be replaced, I hope the JP version is still up when I (hopefully) eventually visit Japan, it will be cool to relive the ride in a positive way!
I was there a few days before it closed down. I loved that ride. True story, one time I was on it someone freaked out and tried to jump off the boat after the first time the shark comes out
Hope they bring it back someday with modern tech. 🙌🔥
Sounds good but what will it replace?
Another great video
Great video. Would love to see a video on SeaWorld's closed polar express ride
This channel deserves more likes and subs. Could you do a video on indoor waterparks sometime? Or more midwestern parks like Six Flags or outside waterparks.
They never demolished (or even changed) the bathrooms. Super clean and under-used now that there are no shows in that corner, too. When will they expand using the Fear Factor and Sinbad stages?!? Could fit a new Jaws ride into either.
JAWS needs to make a comeback!
I still think the original ending was so much cooler. I miss this perfect ride
my parents took me and my siblings to universal when i was six. when we rode jaws i wasn’t told that it was fake and just a ride. i thought it was a normal boat ride until the shark attacked lol
my only experience of the ride was the universal studios japan version and because i was a single rider i got put on the edge of the boat and oh my god i almost pooped my pants when it came out of the water at me, i was so scared to go on it before while waiting in the line because ive always been scared of sharks and of the movie watching it as a kid (nightmare fuel) so.. the ride was super effective XD
My first visit to Universal Studios Japan, I rode Jaws 5 times! It's even better than the Orlando version imo, but sadly I think its days are also numbered :(
I wonder if there is a way they could ever bring it back, maybe as a scaled down version? The Jaws ride really looks like it was one of the best ride through rides ever (not just at universal, I mean EVER)
You know why they had so many problems with this ride at opening?
They needed a bigger boat. ba dum hiss. :)
I don't know about what Spielberg did on finding out about the closing of the ride... But he has gone on record saying when he found out the "Orca" was destroyed he blew-up.. like you said he would go and send time on it and reflect..
I am not ashamed to say when I was around 5-8 this ride made me cry like too much
Seeing as the uk is going to get a universal studios now, it would be cool if they also rebuilt it there as well
14:23 "The skipper asks everyone to keep the encounter they had to themselves to avoid the closer of the tour" Ok which one of you spilt the beans...
Peter Falk as “Columbo” saw the Jaws attraction in one episode.
When I was little my family and I went to Florida on vacation, we went to Universal. We went on the jaws ride, I was about 5, and my parents sat me right where the shark came out. I'll never forgive them. But I do wish they didn't close the ride :(
Edit: They did the same thing with the mini jaws bit on the California Universal backlot ride, however this time unintentionally
I had a full on panic attack at like age 9 on whatever ride there simulated a flood, I was climbing out of the cart ready to start swimming. The guy had to tell me over the speaker "GET BACK IN YOUR SEAT" and I did NOT trust him. - Then I went on the Jaws ride and said "THAT'S IT? THAT'S THE SCARY PART? Pffft."
I was a dumb kid, lmao. That flood looked so real I forgot I was in a theme park, and was ready to go full self survival mode
I keep saying that both Disney and Universal COULD and SHOULD recreate their closed downed rides in VR. It’s a very easy solution.
Their are some fans that even found the original Back to the Future ride footage and put in VR
This along with Twister and Earthquake scared the shit out of me it's not a surprise because I was very very young
Fantastic video! Miss that ride dearly!
Small joke about the ride referencing the movie as referencing real events. The original Book Jaws (the film) was based on credits true events of a large shark caught off the coast of Long Island. The real events inspired the book inspired the film which inspired the ride. This is inception level meta
This ride alone caused me to have megalophobia. The ride is way creepier than real sharks.
Props to the skippers too. I went on just once before the ride closed, and the ride is exponentially better with the skippers just freaking out.
This ride is absolute cinema.
Man I remember going to America and going on this ride as a kid and oh my god I S#%T myself 😂 I had no idea what to expect and was sat right next to where jaws jumped out the water at the boat. Amazing memories.
The only time I rode this was with a buddy of mine and he knew the side the shark was going to come out and made us sit on that side lol 😂 loved it though
Jaws and Kongfrontation are the best 2 rides to rides in Universal history. Not even c!ose. The immersive experience everyone loves to talk was achieved by full scale animatronics and buildings not an i phone and hand held projector. Hsppy got to see both many times including the first Jaws before they redid it.
They should reopen it!
If i would fell in water i would of had a heart attack even knowing its not real
still think that they could have made the other hp area somewhere else or they remade the jaws ride somewhere else in the park
but like disney did with splash mountains atleast we can still ride these awesome rides in japan
I don’t know why I remember it with the skipper killing the shark with the grenade launcher and the charred body would bite the boat. Any one else?(W video BTW)
As a kid my dad told me the Amnity 3 boat was real :)
The phase 2 expansion of Epic Universe’s Monster Land will be a Creature From the Black Lagoon boat ride. I hope it’s similar to the Jaws ride, only with a different monster.
I’m very confused because I swear I have a memory of me riding that original version of the jaws ride but that can’t be because I was born in 2002 so I wasn’t event born when they updated it. So where’s did those memories come from
I am deadly afraid of water and anything inside it lol but even I wanted Jaws to stay just for everyone else it was that good.
I wish yheyd try another Jaws ride at Epic Universe 😢