Under oath, a Universal senior executive acknowledged that Fast & Furious – Supercharged isn’t so great.
Universal’s admission that the ride has a low rating is a revelation tucked into hundreds of pages of court depositions from a Universal lawsuit on an unrelated matter.
Universal and its former ride manufacturer for the Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon ride are engaged in a legal battle. Dynamic Motion Group, which was replaced by another company during the construction process, later filed a lawsuit.
Vice President of Attraction Development Charlie Gundaker was deposed under oath on May 19. Gundaker was a veteran at Universal Orlando, a career that has spanned 34 years since he helped clear the site for the resort. He is currently the executive project director for Epic Universe, but he had previously overseen the Jimmy Fallon and Fast & Furious rides.
Clay Townsend, a Morgan & Morgan attorney representing Dynamic, asked Gundaker about what appeared to be a Universal internal electronic document that ranks the rides on a scale of zero to ten, with ten being the best score. The following exchange was just a snapshot in a lengthy back-and-forth pertaining to the case.
“Were you involved in Fast and Furious?” Townsend asked, according to the transcripts filed in federal court.
“Yes,” Gundaker said.
“It’s got a rating of 3.81,” Townsend asked. “Do you have any understanding of what that means?
“No,” Gundaker said.
“Have you heard anybody say it was poor, rated poorly, Fast & Furious?” Townsend asked.
“Yes,” Gundaker said.
“Why is that?” Townsend asked.
“I think different opinions of people,” Gundaker said.
Townsend asked whether the Fallon ride has received positive or bad reviews.
“It’s kind of received in the middle,” Gundaker said.
The transcripts don’t provide any detail on how the rankings were created, and Gundaker said he wasn’t familiar with the document.
“Have you seen any similar type of document ranking rides at Universal?” Townsend asked.
“Yes,” Gundaker said.
“Does this seem pretty consistent with the ratings you’ve seen?” Townsend asked, which caused Universal’s attorney to object.
“Typically, we use a different rating system,” Gundaker said. “So, I’m not actually familiar with the rating system being used here.”
Have you ridden Fast & Furious: Supercharged at Universal Studios Florida? Let us know how your experience compares in the comments.
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If you sit in the middle if the busits hard to see the show. I am not crazy over the ride. I am not crazy over jimmy fallen either.
I have been on both versions of this ride, the stand-alone one in Orlando and the one that is included as part of the “Studio Tour” in Hollywood. Full disclosure, I have not seen ANY of the films. And after these rides, I’m not in any rush to do so.
While both have enormous projection screens wrapping around the ride vehicles, the Hollywood version benefits from having Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” on the same tour. That experience is in 3D, and so they have you put on your glasses a second time for F&F. When I was in the queue at Orlando, I kept thinking to myself, “when are they going to distribute the 3D glasses?” Answer, never, because their projectors are 2D.
Who asked?
I have been to Florida many times since my first visit when I was 8 years old and love every minute. My families last visit was in August 2018 just weeks before my 30th birthday, it was a fantastic experience as always and cast members in all parks all wished me a happy birthday when seeing my birthday badge, making me feel like a bigger kid than usual. After 28 years though, this ride was possibly one of the most disappointing I’ve ever been on. The build up was just too much and there really was no need. I didn’t feel excited or even crack a smile while on the ride, it was very dull. The only ride worse than this was Cat in the Hat. I’m also not a fan of Transformers. The new King Kong ride was better as it had me jump quite a few times. I hope they replace rides like this soon rather than rides such as Shrek 4D which everyone clearly loved, and I hope more thought has gone into Epic Universe. I also hope prices are lowered for all things in the future as it is putting myself, family and friends off going back to Florida any time in the next few years.
Because they also lost guests many came for graveyard. Half that cast tg found other jobs or most preferred wdw to uni anyway besides the fact… uni does not get you can not replace beloved attractions w crap no one will care about ever re fast & furious or hp that they also realized recently isnt worth the 5 royalties and is really hurting their $. Graveyard and Jaws were huge deals to the fanbase still are and reason why their #s arent like they use to have. Also furious ruins a really good spot they had for house. Some of the best were in the queue at disaster/earthquake. And having Jaws for hhn made more,sense then hp ever will hence why wdw never wanted it and they were smart!
Very lame! Like E.T. and fallen. the Simpsons 3D ride is better then all three.
What? The Simpsons ride is better than ET?? That’s a ridiculously inflammatory statement. Unless you’re saying Simpsons is better at getting someone motion sick, then by all means, yeah sure.
The Simpsons ride made me so sick, I don’t know why.
My top 3 when I went were Men in Black (mostly for the employees working the ride), the Mummy, and Disaster Movie. Shame it wasn’t more popular, doesn’t sound like it was replaced with anything good
Agree about the Simpsons, I love the show and always have it’s is nice how the whole area is themed but the ride comes nowhere in comparison to Back to the Future and that ride should have never left!
FatF ride was so lackluster. The most entertainment I received was the two real actors who acted on stage with “The movie actors.” The peanut gallery comments they gave were amazing. The ride itself made no sense, and felt thrown together.
We go every year for 2;weeks to Florida and we go to Universal ) Islands alot …Fast and the Furious is down right boring! But we very much enjoy Jimmy Fallon Tace Through New York!!
It’s not a ride. It’s a movie screen and moving seats. It’s boring. I rode it when it was still not open. I regretted in getting in line.
Slow and tedious
I enjoyed the Hollywood version simply because we essentially walked onto the tram with no wait, and got to experience not only the tram tour, but both F&F and King Kong without having to wait in any lines, and got to sit down the entire time.
In Orlando, you have to wait. For F&F it’s typically not long but for Kong it is. They really should have kept the original Kongfrontation, and simply opened Mummy at IoA
Thought the ride was booty and can’t really see the everything because how they have seating only cool thing about it was you got to see and check out some of the cars they used on the movie sets through out the franchise
I didn’t like fast and furious at all. I go twice a year and wouldn’t go on that again. However, Jimmy Fallon I can’t get enough of. Love doing that one.
how about they acknowledge the fact that they BOTH suck
We have only ridden it once, even though we were passholders, as not one single person in our family thought it was worth our time. Family members were from age 5-70 with a couple of them being avid car lovers. Thumbs down from all!
I’m usually not one to comment, but this is hilarious. My friend and I found it ironic that the fast and furious ride takes place on a slow moving bus. It is a rather boring ride, but the staff sold it. We had kids on our bus that were so underwhelmed they wanted to get off 😅
Been on both. Fast and furious was underwhelming. It was basically a bus and screens around it. It’s forgettable and definitely not a ride drawing people to the park. I liked Fallon more as did anyone I know. That said, Universalnorlando could take a page from Universal Hollywood CA.
We go every year for 2;weeks to Florida and we go to Universal ) Islands alot …Fast and the Furious is down right boring! But we very much enjoy Jimmy Fallon Tace Through New York!!
The ride was pretty awful, doesn’t seem like much thought process was taken on this one. I’d be surprised if even the little ones get any excitement out of it. There’s these small rides that come through town with a carnival, their not the best, but they are way more exciting than this ride…if that says anything
Let me put it this way (as someone who has been a UO passholder for 15 years, and go 20+ times a year) – it’s terrible. So bad we all started laughing in the middle, not because the content was funny, but because it was so BAD.
That was one expensive mistake IMHO.
Jimmy Fallon ride was one of the best at the park imo. Loved that ride and so did my family
I liked the ride.My kids didn’t want to ride the Jimmy Fallon ride.
Agree with everything said except for people thinking E.T is lame. E.T is probably one of the best rides in the park. Thinking on how it was an opening day attraction look at the theming, from the moment you walk into the building and are in line the amount of time and care they put into this ride made it a classic and always will be. Even as an adult I still watch that movie and love it. Not to mention if they get rid of the ride they will loose all contracts with Spieleerg with would have them loose the rights to Jurassic Park as well. E.T phone home!
I thought the Jimmy Fallon ride was the worst…until I rode the bus on Fast and Furious. Nothing Fast about it and nothing furious either. Could have been great, built in another area and with actually some thrills to it. Best thing about the Fallon ride was the “museum”.
Lame would describe Fast n Furious. Had extra time to reride some and nobody in our party of 11 wanted to do it again. Fallon is ok but excellent compared to FnF
I hate rides with screens. They aren’t rides. I wish they would bring back King Kong and jaws. Those are actual rides. They better not ever get rid of ET. No more screens and no more 3d stuff.
I’ve been on this ride a couple of time and found it extremely unoriginal. I’m getting tired of Universals idea of using screens and bumping seats to try and make a ride feel exciting. Story is unoriginal too. Could have done better!!
Me and my family were excited to ride it after we bought annual passes, but the only good thing about the ride was waiting in line and looking at the props etc. The ride itself was garbage. It was short, lame and just lacking all around.