The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man

The ride's queue and load station at Islands of Adventure

Guests enter the Daily Bugle building from Marvel Super Hero Island at Islands of Adventure or New York City at Universal Studios Japan.[3] Guests are shown a video in which the company's good reputation is touted and a new high tech news-gathering vehicle, the "Scoop", is introduced.

After walking through the empty office, guests are shown a "live" video feed of news coverage. Five supervillains led by Doctor Octopus have lain siege to the city by an experimental anti-gravity cannon created by Doctor Octopus himself. The syndicate steals the Statue of Liberty and threatens to destroy it if the city does not surrender to them. As guests walk through the empty offices of the Bugle, it becomes apparent that all the reporters have fled, leaving The Bugle's Editor-in-Chief J. Jonah Jameson with no choice but to send the tourists to cover the story using the Bugle's new Scoop vehicle.[10][11]

After donning night vision goggles (3D glasses), the "cub reporters" get in the Scoop and leave the loading docks to a Manhattan[12] back alley where they encounter Spider-Man.[13] He warns that he is in for "the most dangerous night of his life" and for the guests to "be careful".[12] In this scene, a series of synchronized effects are used to simulate Spider-Man jumping on the Scoop.[14][15] Nearly missing a trash truck driven by a Stan Lee cameo, the guests enter a warehouse where the Sinister Syndicate are holding the Statue of Liberty hostage. Once spotted, Electro tries to shock the guests with a sparking wire. The Scoop absorbs the electricity and vibrates. After this, Scream tries to shred the guests as Doctor Octopus fires his anti-gravity ray. The Statue of Liberty is shown in the green light. Guests enter the sewers where Spider-Man is waiting. However, Hydro-Man appears behind him as he slams a pipe into the Scoop while Spider-Man attacks him. As the Scoop moves along, Doctor Octopus busts through a brick wall. Then, the Scoop approaches the river where Hobgoblin tries to attack the guests with his pumpkin bombs. Spider-Man comes to catch one of the incoming pumpkin bombs, but Hobgoblin throws another pumpkin bomb as a fireball explodes above the guests. The Scoop is then sent into the streets.[13]

In the ride's climax, Doctor Octopus lifts the Scoop up to a height of 400 feet (120 m) using the anti-gravity cannon.[12][14] A number of synchronized effects help achieve this without the vehicle leaving the ground, including a movable building set, lighting cues, simulator movements, projections and wind effects.[12] Spider-Man attempts to pull the Scoop down, but is attacked by all the supervillains.[12] Spider-Man thwarts them, but not before Doctor Octopus disengages the anti-gravity device, sending the Scoop on a simulated free fall until it is rescued by Spider-Man's webbing right above the ground[10][12][14][15] and another Stan Lee cameo. Spider-Man manages to capture all of the supervillains by tying them with webs. As the vehicle pulls into the unload station, Spider-Man thanks the guests for their help and sends them back to the Daily Bugle, where he has rigged the anti-gravity cannon to lift Jameson up to the ceiling in his office.[13] Guests unload while a modern rendition of the classic Spider-Man theme song plays and a voiceover of Stan Lee instructs the riders on exiting properly.

Track layout of the ride

Development of The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Islands of Adventure began in 1996.[14] Allen Ambrosini from At The Park Magazine stated theme park guests in the late 1990s were becoming more sophisticated, desiring rides that combined theming and thrills into a single immersive experience.[14] As a result, the ride's creators set out to develop a ride which would take the motion simulation elements of Back to the Future: The Ride, and combine them with a 3D film similar to that used on T2 3-D: Battle Across Time.[12] The result was a prototype ride system combining a track-mounted motion base vehicle with 3D projections and other special effects,[12] with the aim of immersing guests inside a comic book.[14] To develop the attraction, Universal Creative brought together a number of companies including the Oceaneering Entertainment Systems division of Oceaneering International,[16] Birket Engineering, Moog, Soundelux, Kleizer Walczak, and Rinehart Manufacturing.[17]

A model of the "Scoop" ride vehicle at Islands of Adventure

The original concept for the ride was planned as an Omnimover ride system with 3D effects combined with 4D elements, which would be make the experience unique compared to other Omnimover rides that came before.[18] The debut of Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland in 1995, in which an Enhanced Motion Vehicle (EMV) transports riders, led Universal Creative to come up with a unique vehicle design to enhance the 3D experience.[18] Moving away from a standard Omnimover transport system where vehicles simply rotate on a horizontal axis, they designed their own EMV capable of six degrees of freedom – heave, sway, surge, yaw, pitch, and roll.[18]

The ride vehicles, co-developed by Oceaneering International, are mounted to a track-roaming platform that provides the forward motion to move the vehicle through each show scene.[16][19] The yaw motor and attached stewart platform allow the vehicle to move 360 degrees at different angles along the track.[20] The track switches were manufactured by Dynamic Structures.[21] Each of the vehicles designed by Thierry Coup are themed as the Daily Bugle's new "Scoop" vehicle for reporters, with each accommodating twelve riders.[22] Each row of four riders is restrained by a single lap bar.[2] This system was invented by Universal Creative employees Philip Hettema, William Mason, and Gary Goddard.[23] A similar system has been patented by Oceaneering International and used on rides such as The Curse of DarKastle at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Tokyo Panic Cruise at Tokyo Dome, and Speed of Magic at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi.[24][25][26]

One of the vehicles at the load station in Universal Studios Japan

The ride system used on The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man was originally prototyped for the attraction at Islands of Adventure, before being installed at Universal Studios Japan. It has since been utilized for Transformers: The Ride at Universal Studios Singapore, Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Florida.[27][28][29]

The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man was primarily developed by Universal Creative, the research and development division of Universal Parks & Resorts. Scott Trowbridge, who now works for Walt Disney Imagineering,[30] was the ride's producer.[31] Thierry Coup, who has since worked on Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey and Transformers: The Ride,[32] was the Director and production designer.[31] Trowbridge and Coup helped develop the initial storyboards for the attraction.[14] They travelled to Massachusetts several times to meet with the animation directors, Jeff Kleiser and Diana Walczak, and their team at Kleiser-Walczak Construction Co. (now Synthespian Studios) who provided all the stereoscopic animation and custom software for squinching.[31] Coup produced the film alongside Patrick Mooney and Mark Rhodes. Scott Trowbridge and Thierry Coup are given writing credits alongside Ross Osterman and Scott Peterson. Peter Lehman provided the soundtrack with Soundelux.[31]

The attraction features thirteen 30-foot-tall (9.1 m) projection screens, twelve of which use 3D projection.[31][33] The ride uses a polarized 3D system where the two projectors have polarizers designed to interact with each lens of the 3D glasses.[34] By blocking light from one projector with each lens, the 3D effect is achieved. With traditional 3D projections there is an ideal seating location, where an off-center viewing location reduces the overall effect of the 3D.

To allow the ride to effectively combine 3D projections with moving viewers, Kleiser-Walczak and their head of software, Frank Vtiz, developed a process they called "squinching". First, the amount of distortion is predicted from a particular viewing angle. This same amount of distortion is then added in the opposite direction in order to counteract the effects. Initially miniature models were used to determine the ride's path and the vehicle's point of view, with full-scale prototypes being used later.[14] Trowbridge and Thierry Coup are credited with inventing the concept of squinching, with Universal Studios holding a patent for the method.[35]

A promotional image released of the ride's first scene, showcasing the new high definition imagery used on the ride

In addition to the ride's motion base and 3D projections, special effects including fog machines, fire, wind, heat, mist, strobe lights, and water spray are also employed throughout the attraction. All of these effects, along with the ride system, 3D projections and soundtrack, are controlled by a central industrial control system which knows, to one thirtieth of a second, when they are to execute.[14] Just shy of the ride's debut, the director of show and ride engineering at Islands of Adventure, Steve Blum, described The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man as the "most technically complex of all of the attractions" at the park. The on board sound track mixed with the off board point source sound effects and music created a powerful an immersive soundscape is audio produced by Tony Miceli and Peter Lehman for SOUNDELUX Florida. Vice president of design and creative development Mark Woodbury stated that they "would not have been able to tell this particular story if it weren't for the technical tools".[36]

The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man has been the recipient of many awards from the amusement park industry. It won Amusement Today's Golden Ticket Award for Best Dark Ride for twelve consecutive years from 1999 through to 2010. It has since placed second in that category, after fellow Islands of Adventure attraction, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, took the top spot in 2011.[44] In 2000, the ride won a Thea Award from the Themed Entertainment Association for outstanding themed entertainment and experience design.[45][46] It has also won numerous public-voted Theme Park Insider Awards and Screamscape Ultimate Awards.[47][48]