UNIVERSAL APPEAL STUDIO TOUR GETS AN OVERHAUL WITH THE HELP OF `FAST' CARS AND A CERTAIN GIANT APE'S FAVORITE ISLAND.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

In recent years, riders of the backlot Studio Tour at Universal Studios Hollywood may have felt they could have taken over for their tram guide, chatting away about the Little Europe set and feigning fear at the ``Jaws'' shark and the ``collapsing'' bridge.

But the tour is adding some horsepower, getting its biggest revamp in more than a decade. The centerpiece is the fiery mechanized stunt sequence from ``The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,'' which by Universal Studios Hollywood creative director John Murdy's estimate, cost ``a lot.''

``Tokyo Drift'' is one of a half-dozen new or improved elements in the tram tour this season. ``I don't think there's ever been that many elements that were done at once,'' said Thierre Coup, the Orlando-based creative director of Universal Creative, while showing off the ``Fast and the Furious: Extreme Close-Up'' project.

Given the studio tour's purpose, the individual attractions must be both impressive and durable.

``In a movie, (a stunt) has to look good for the camera once,'' Murdy said. ``In the themed entertainment world, it has to look good every time, every two minutes, thousands of times a day, millions of times a year.''

Murdy said the park's research indicates that virtually every guest through the gate at Universal Studios Hollywood rides the tram down the hill to hundreds of acres of soundstages, false-fronted buildings and production bungalows, 174 guests at a time. As the oldest attraction there -- in fact the first ticketed public access to the lot in 1964 -- it was ready for another facelift.

``We decided it was time to reinvest in our crown jewel, the Studio Tour, because it is so famous and millions of people from around the world come to ride the tour every year. And for a lot of them it's as close to the real Hollywood as they'll ever get, so we want to constantly amaze and wow them.''

Here's how Universal plans on doing that.

SOARING IDEAS

An automotive executive looks at huge, powerful robotic arms as efficient tools for a car assembly line. The team at Universal Studios looks at them as a means of flinging a mocked-up car through the air without the danger and unpredictability of real explosives.

``The Fast and the Furious: Extreme Close-Up,'' in all respects the hottest new feature on the tram tour, is designed to show visitors the pre-visualization process, or pre-vis, by which filmmakers use computer models and mechanics to plan lighting and camera placement for the best stunt results and fewest takes.

As the tram approaches the outdoor stage, its monitors show sequences from ``The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift,'' the third in the series of street-racing movies. Riders then find themselves in the middle of a scene, with revving cars being strafed from a low-flying helicopter until bullets trigger explosions in nearby fuel tanks, causing fireballs that send the two vehicles airborne toward the tram.

Thierre Coup, creative director of Universal Creative, says a scene shot for the movie, Universal's top draw this summer for teen boys, will play on the tram monitors and segue into the live action in the hillside set.

``The cars are being shot at by the helicopter -- they can't get anywhere, and the next thing we know we hear the helicopter in live action. Then the special effects: bullet hits ... water cannons, smoke.

``Two mega fireballs will launch our two cars up in the air,'' he said. ``The cars come barreling in the air extremely fast, doing motions and landing about an arm's reach from the tram, just freezing in midair.''

That's right about when the passengers on the port side of the tram flinch or lean back. The cars -- life-size VWs made of lightweight carbon fiber -- take a bow as the mechanisms are revealed. Then they do a few choreographed dips and spins to the Daddy Yankee hit ``Gasolina'' to show off their moves.

Those most likely to feel the intense heat of the fire effects also are most likely to benefit from the water's spray.

GOODBYE, LEAVES

The old Greens Department (pretty low on the ``wow'' scale since it was just a plot of potted trees and bushes) has been replaced by what those in the movie business call ``picture cars,'' noteworthy vehicles seen on camera, better yet with a star behind the wheel. The display in the area approaching ``Fast and the Furious'' includes the famed DeLorean from ``Back to the Future,'' as well as ``The Blues Brothers'' movie's Bluesmobile, the ``Magnum P.I.'' Ferrari, a Dusenberg used in ``The Mummy,'' and even a 1932 Ford Model A seen in Marx Brothers movies.

NO MOSES 

The '70s version of King Kong still shakes things up inside the contemporary New York City scene on one of the Universal Studios Tour stages, but Peter Jackson's remake of the great ape story is the focus when the tram rolls into that magically dividing pond formerly known as the Red Sea.

Universal's John Murdy says the decision to reinvent that very familiar tour element was easy to make. ``For the life of me, I can't figure out why we ever had the Red Sea to begin with,'' he says, noting that ``The Ten Commandments'' was a Paramount production -- and the only film ever to use that backlot location, Mel Brooks' ``History of the World, Part I,'' was released by 20th Century Fox.

``What we wanted to keep about it was the tram going through that body of water because it's a neat point of view,'' he said.

They worked with a New Zealand effects house to replicate the ``bigatures'' -- oversized miniatures -- of the boat and Skull Island as they appeared in Jackson's 2005 blockbuster. To make the scene even more realistic, the studio built a state-of-the-art weather station that gauges temperature, humidity and wind speed and direction at the pond and then prompts some 140 fog nozzles to generate just the right amount of misty air around the scene, day or night, heat wave or cold snap.

``That's the first time we've done something that complex, but we wanted the scene to look right,'' Universal Creative's Thierre Coup says. ``And when the guests go past it on the tram and they take a photo with their camera and they compare it to the film, it's amazing how good it looks because the fog is always perfect.''

SPITTING IMAGES

The 80-foot drenching plunge on ``Jurassic Park: The Ride'' is ``not everybody's cup of tea,'' creative director John Murdy says, so the park has perked up its ``Jurassic Park'' tram experience with the addition of four ``spitter'' dinosaurs who pop out from the bushes, growl, fan out their hoods and spray water as tram cars go by.

WHOOPEE, IT'S WHOOPI

Award-winning actress and sassy Oscar host Whoopi Goldberg has been tapped as the face of the video portion of the tour seen on the trams' flat screens, taking over from an assortment of Hollywood notables, including Steven Spielberg, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. Her narration lends insights and anecdotes with a family-friendly Whoopi sensibility.

MORE IS MORE

Last year's addition of the ``War of the Worlds'' jetliner crash scene has been spruced up with smoke and smoldering effects that make it appear as if it just happened. And the flash flood pouring down the hill in Old Mexico is getting a lot wetter, with 40,000 gallons of downpour and runoff splashing toward the tram.

DRESS FOR SUCCESS

In the upper park, opposite the entrance to the Studio Tour, is the new Wardrobe Dept. retail outlet selling costume pieces from ``Will & Grace,'' ``Passions'' and other TV shows and movies. Buy for investment or wearing and impressing your friends.

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Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) HOT WHEELS

Universal Studios' new tram tour ramps up the action

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Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

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(7 -- color) no caption (Debra Messing)