A blog by Cameron and Shannon

Theme Parks #7 - Earthquake, Universal Studios Orlando

Opened: 1990. Closed: 2007

This ride was actually on my list before last Saturday’s sad news, though I do think Mr. Heston’s death magnifies the sadness of this ride being closed.

Earthquake was a ride based on the 1974 film of the same name wherein, well, you were in an earthquake. But that wasn’t all! First, you pass by assorted memorabilia from the film. As a child of the 80’s, I obviously had no memory of the film Earthquake, but it didn’t matter - this was real stuff really in the movie, so it was cool.

Charlton himself (via recorded video) gave you an introduction to the ride, and then people were selected from the audience to act out some green screen scenes from the movie. Then everyone was packed onto a subway car and sent off to their doom.

I must have experienced this earthquake at least 7 times, and I swear to you, every time the truck that fell through the street and exploded and the water came down the stairs into the subway, I screamed my head off.

Today, this attraction has been replaced by a similar ride called “Disaster: A Major Motion Picture Ride…Starring You!” I really despise how they ad the “…Starring You!” at the end, as if to say, “This is the real kicker!” The weird thing is, except for updated effects and a new theme, this seems like pretty much the same ride. When I read about some of the changes, I thought maybe they were positive. I mean, after all, the new host of this new attraction is Christopher Walken. That’s pretty cool, I can admit that.

But this ride isn’t even based on a real Universal movie. At Universal Studios, where you can ride the movies, you’re not even riding a real movie…??? In fact, “Disaster” isn’t even the name of the movie in the ride - the name of the movie in the ride is…are you ready for this? Are you really sure you are ready?

The name of the movie in the ride is Mutha Nature. I am not even kidding you. But the great minds at Universal did not stop there with the clever fake movie naming, oh no. Apparently, the queue is even decorated with “props” from other movies supposedly made by the same studio - movies like Apocageddon and Das Shurke and Super Mega Ultra Atomic Chaos. Oh, yeah, and The Rock makes a cameo appearance.

Now let me tell you a little about Earthquake the movie. First, and by far most importantly, Charlton Heston was in it. Second, when this movie came out in theatres, they developed “sensurround” which was sort of like surround sound, except instead of just making everything sound awesome, actually caused the theatre to shake like you were in an earthquake! There are even cases where movie theatre ceilings were cracked and nets had to be hung to catch falling plaster! I mean, this sensurround was serious stuff. People got nosebleeds, heads of building safety had it turned off for fear that it would cause structural damage…in one case, it even shook some glass knick-knacks off a shelf in a store next door to the theatre! Also, sensurround in this movie officially cracked a viewers’ ribs. Now THAT is a movie!!!

Adding to the awesomeness, footage from Earthquake was used in Scarface and one of my personal favorites, Quantum Leap.

Apparently for Universal, this was not enough awesome, and they had to upgrade “outdated” Charlton Heston - the man who was Moses, Ben-Hur and the gas station attendant from Wayne’s World 2 - with Christopher Walken and The Rock. As if there were an upgrade from Charlton Heston.