The new Secret Life of Pets Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood is finally open, and it's worth the wait. If you're looking for a fun, heartwarming trip with a man's best friend, you'll adore this ride. Show
The ride is five minutes long, which doesn't sound long, but it packs a memorable, heart-warming punch. The ride vehicles resemble cardboard boxes, the kind that might be hosting kittens looking for their forever homes. This ride is very tame, with no scary drops or wild turns. Instead, the focus is on the immersive pet life experience. Instead of staring at various video screens, the ride takes guests through practical sets and puts animatronic animals in every scene. The ride is interactive, and riders of all ages will have a blast viewing their pet doppelgangers. Video screens are set up throughout the ride, and riders make gestures and facial expressions copied by their pet doppelganger. Bend forward, and your dog will copy you. Smile, and your doppelganger will smile back. Your doppelganger will remain the same throughout the ride; if you start as a poodle, you'll remain paired with the poodle throughout the ride. Enter into the Secret Life of Pets Riders enter through a newly built area of five-story brownstones near the popular Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem ride. Riders will enter through the lobby of an apartment building. A bulletin board in the lobby lets riders know that today is adoption day at the local pet store. Riders can peek in at apartment mail slots to see what the pets are up to while their families are away. These animatronic pets bring different movie stars to life. Movie fans will be delighted to see Leonard the poodle dancing to disco music. Riders move through the rest of the apartments, viewing kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms. Guests will see Buddy the dachshund using a kitchen blender as a massage tool. Norman, the guinea pig, randomly pops up through A/C vents. The Secret Life of Pets ScenesCaptain Snowball, leader of the Flushed Pets gang, is our fearless leader with a plan. Unfortunately, everything he plans "goes horribly wrong," These twists and turns take the rider through the story. The storyline continues as riders learn they've lost a puppy who needs to be adopted. Movie characters are on hand to help you find the missing puppy and save the day. Fun scenes include pets hanging out of windows, wrapping themselves around fire hydrants, and hiding in hot dog carts. Watching the Downward Dog yoga studio is a hoot. The Skyline Fireworks Factory combines video mapping, sects, and animatronics to create a delightful visual as Snowball decides to strap fireworks to pets to fly them to The Pets Store! Next, riders arrive at the pet store and see their doppelgangers before meeting their adoptive families. The Cat-O-Matic pet washing station is hysterical. The final call has riders see the adopted pets' new home and a final farewell from all the cats and dogs and includes a last sighting of the fun guinea pig. The new Secret Life of Pets is magical not only for movie fans but for anyone who loves their pets. Get Ready to Enjoy Universal Studios HollywoodIn addition to the new Secret Life of Pets Ride at Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal has non-stop rides and entertainment waiting for you. After a long day seeing the sights, let us help you find alcoholic drinks at Universal Studios Hollywood. Check out the best Universal Studios Hollywood Hotels, and we'll see you at the park! With 64 robotic animal figurines, ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ is a celebration of old-fashioned theme park storytelling, where atmosphere trumps the desire to re-enact a movie. By Todd MartensGame Critic
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The pandemic-forced closure of Universal Studios Hollywood last year came just before the grand opening of the park’s long-anticipated 2020 addition — a ride inspired by the two films in “The Secret Life of Pets” franchise. But after a pause of more than a year, guests attending the park’s reopening this week will be able to get their paws, which will be squirted by Universal staff with hand sanitizer just before boarding, on the attraction. What’s they’ll find in the Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash! is the kind of ride that is something of an endangered species in the theme park world. While there are plenty of clever uses of technology, this isn’t an attraction designed to thrill or emphasize spectacle. The Secret Life of Pets uses screens in complementary rather than starring roles, and when it comes to interactivity, the ride encourages playful silliness rather than more overt game-like techniques. Essentially, the emphasis is largely on the joy of the emotional design of physical, built environments — a New York cityscape that comes alive with dogs doing yoga, dogs taking a spa day in a hot dog cart, cats swinging from roped blankets and one ill-advised scheme to use fireworks as aircraft. Advertisement The ride contains 64 robotic animal figurines and thus relies on old-school theme park philosophies. The focus is on animation-worthy vignettes rather than a strict beginning, middle and end to the ride. There’s an underlying narrative — you’re a pup up for adoption — but in just a few minutes the ride switches through multiple locales, from posh New York apartments to a cat-bullied alleyway to a pet wash and more. Guests are constantly looking around them, and often above them, to pick up on the screwball hijinks. Although it’s based on a relatively recent franchise — Illumination Entertainment’s 2016 film “The Secret Life of Pets,” which is reported to have grossed more than $875 million worldwide — the tone throughout is one of frantic, exaggerated goofs that place guests in an old-fashioned cartoon. Think “Looney Tunes,” “Rocky & Bullwinkle” or the work of Tex Avery as much as any big-budget, modern CGI-animated film. Throughout the attraction we encounter a sly-looking cat with a Jerry Lee Lewis scowl wreaking havoc on a piano, a sad Dalmatian trying desperately to snare a bit of ice cream, a bunny trying to commandeer a drone and more. One of the most complex animations in Universal’s ride inspired by “The Secret Life of Pets” is an alley cat playing a piano. (Universal Studios)
— Jon Corfino, Executive producer, Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash In the New York apartments, we see glimpses of how pets mirror their owners — a woman cleans and dances with a dog while across the street, another, seemingly annoyed with the racket down below, shuts the drapes to hunker down with her assortment of sharp-eared, silhouetted cats. While based on the film and featuring its characters, prior knowledge isn’t needed. This isn’t a “ride the movie” sort of experience so much as one that wants to give us weird, colorful scenarios to imagine our own storylines. The underlying theme driving the experience is that of a human-animal bond, so much so that at two points the ride turns us into pups and even shows the excitement of meeting an adopted family. While so many cinema-based attractions in recent years have put an emphasis on re-creating movie scenes, often relying heavily on screens and projections, Secret Life of Pets focuses on animal personalities and companionship. Pet owners should be able to relate to the sense of presence the ride creates, as those who share their homes with animals know that comfort comes in them simply being around — be it watching a dog sniff out new objects or taking a moment to listen to a cat purr. While our animals might not wear fireworks as hats or paw through cupcake trays meant for humans, the ride shows the power of tactile, theatrical worlds. Like Disneyland’s dark rides in Fantasyland, which are clearly the lineage Secret Life of Pets is drawing on, the attraction gives us a stage on which to imagine ourselves rather than a world to view. The exterior of the newly opened Universal Studios Hollywood aattraction The Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash! (Al Seib/Los Angeles Times) “I say this a little tongue-in-cheek, but if you’re a pet lover, it’s the only unconditional love you get,” says Jon Corfino, the creative director of Universal Creative, the arm of the company responsible for theme park experiences, and the executive producer on the Secret Life of Pets. “So you really want to see the physicality of it. You want to see that charm. This is all about the heartstrings, and it’s touching on that on a heartfelt level. The best way to do that was to work with a different set of tools, in this case a very physical set of tools.” Almost everywhere you look there’s something to imagine a story around. There are pets playing in trash, pets struggling with construction equipment and a cat trapped in a weird, washing machine-like contraption. The darkened cat alley is especially cluttered with cats hanging, strutting or just plain trying to intimidate. The centerpiece of the room is a cat playing a piano, a rather impressive piece of theme park robotics in which the scrawny cat stalks the keys. The cat moves, the piano moves, and hidden from sight are the mechanisms or tracks propelling the feline along. “That was pretty complex,” says Corfino, noting the piano and the pet are fully animated, right down to the way the cat eyes us. While the larger-than life dinosaurs of Universal’s Jurassic World ride certainly impress, the exact movements of such a tiny kitty may make this Universal’s most lifelike figure at its Hollywood park. Each scene on Universal’s “Secret Life of Pets” ride is full of stories-within-stories. (Universal Studios) “That process followed traditional animation, in which you create animatics and figure out what unique movements can be important to this character. Doing that level of animation was something that was new to us. We spent a long time on that one.” This ride, as well as Universal’s other Illumination properties (notably the “Despicable Me” universe) has given Universal the opportunity to more fully transform its upper lot. The New York that surrounds the Secret Life of Pets isn’t, of course, a setting on the grand scale of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but the way it feels both urban and animation-friendly is an achievement, designed here less as a movie set and more a New York that never was, one that exists the way we imagine it when told affecting, child-friendly stories. “Obviously, it’s fictionalized New York,” Corfino says. Yet it was a challenge because a few steps away Universal has a a slightly more realistic New York as part of its backlot-inspired sets. Guests will likely be drawn to the balcony across from the ride, where one of the film’s characters will appear as a talking figurine, but there are plenty of other details scattered about. You could spend a significant amount of time reading classified ads, examining tabloid magazine covers or trying to get a peek into the apartment windows. Entertainment & Arts Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion updates reveal that a purr-fect idea never diesWhen Disneyland reopens the Haunted Mansion on April 30, some upgrades and additions will be familiar to students of Disney history. An one-eyed cat, anyone? Most important, however, the ride gives Universal something it has lacked in its Hollywood park, which is a family-focused ride that doesn’t use screens or stomach-churning 3D effects or go for thrills. Here, we see how being in an environment filled with humor and silliness can allow us to dream up an assortment of stories. And in one scene, thanks to some motion-tracking technology, we’re able to lift up our hands and see them reflected back as paws as we fully transform into dogs. Fans who miss old-fashioned theme park rides — Universal veterans will no doubt fondly recall the E.T. Adventure that closed in the early 2000s — will be pleased to see that some old tricks can still feel new. “This is something we haven’t done a lot,” Corfino says. “You can take a look at our rides and attractions, and we don’t really have 64 animated characters that you’re that close to. Yet you want to pet these. You want to be around them.” You may also come home and wish you could teach your cat some jazz licks on the piano. Entertainment & Arts The pandemic has strained relationships. Can video games help us find love?It turns out games are uniquely tailored to explore love, romance and heartbreak. Consider “Maquette,” “Genesis Noir” and “Journey of the Broken Circle,” interactive conversations that ask players to think about love. Entertainment & Arts Disney unveils June opening date for Marvel-themed Avengers CampusDelayed by COVID-19 closures, Avengers Campus, which will include a family-focused interactive Spider-Man ride, is set to open June 4 at Disney California Adventure in Anaheim. Entertainment & ArtsBusinessMoviesHero Complex Newsletter It's a date Get our L.A. Goes Out newsletter, with the week's best events, to help you explore and experience our city. Enter email address Sign Me Up You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Todd Martens Follow Us Todd Martens joined the Los Angeles Times in 2007 and covers a mix of interactive entertainment (video games) and pop music. Previously, Martens reported on the music business for Billboard Magazine. He has contributed to numerous books, including “The Big Lebowski: An Illustrated, Annotated History of the Greatest Cult Film of All Time.” He continues to torture himself by rooting for the Chicago Cubs and, while he likes dogs, he is more of a cat person. Is there a Secret Life of Pets ride at Universal Studios?Discover the exciting world of Illumination's The Secret Life of Pets when you meet your favorite characters on the ride, The Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash. Join Max, Duke, Gidget and Snowball on a journey through the streets of New York City as you get ready to be welcomed into your new home.
Is The Secret Life of Pets ride a roller coaster?There is one downside to Secret Life of Pets: Off the Leash. For some reason unknown to me (and, judging by online reviews, many other guests), the attraction features restraints that fit in more with a roller coaster than a mild dark ride.
What did Secret Life of pets ride replace at Universal?In July 2018, construction of The Secret Life of Pets dark ride began in the Upper Lot, replacing the Globe Theater. On April 10, 2019, Universal Studios Hollywood officially confirmed the ride's existence and title.
What kind of ride is Secret Life of Pets at Universal Studios Hollywood?The Secret Life of Pets Ride -- An Overview
Instead, the focus is on the immersive pet life experience. Instead of staring at various video screens, the ride takes guests through practical sets and puts animatronic animals in every scene.
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