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Men In Black Goes Into the Dark
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Aliens Get Special Attention
The comedy-based attitude of the aliens, as seen in the movie
was important to the design of the ride. "The aliens had to have an
instantly recognizable look even as the riders are whizzing by at
4-feet per second," Cobb says. "There is a real art to the design
and programming of a visual look that makes the aliens funny and recognizable
in the gaming sequence." Inserting alien gags into the ride was the
domain of character art director Desiree Soto, who has aliens jumping
out of trashcans, exploding out of mailboxes and swinging down from
light poles. Huge animatronic aliens straight from the movie including
The Twins, whose arm-span is 12' from fingertip to fingertip and a
bit more than 5' tall, are featured throughout. The dispatcher alien,
the last friendly face seen before you take off on the adventure,
is 6' tall and 3' in diameter. "These aliens are human scale and are
run on hydraulics and pneumatics hidden beneath skin designed to look
funny, slimy, goofy. The challenge here is to make huge industrial
robots, like the ones that assemble cars, that are warm, fuzzy and
can be continually run for hours every day," says Cobb. The largest
animatronic ever assembled by the Universal Studio talents is the
ride's finale Big Bug. A warehouse sized alien bug 30-feet high, this
bad guy has teeth that are eight to 11-feet long and 20-foot long
claws. Part of the bug is sculpted scenery with other elements, such
as the teeth, fangs, head and pincers being operated by a hydraulic
the size of a small travel vehicle with enough power to lift a Winnebago
at the rate of one time every three seconds. As riders approach the
big bug split-second decisions are crucial as they are literally pulled
into the "belly of the beast" and Agent Jay encourages them to shoot
their way out of the slimy intestinal cavity. Depending on the riders
combined skill, they are either given a hero's welcome or a loser's
farewell before being zapped with an MIB neuralizer, erasing their
memory.
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| The MIB game-ride encourages riders to
return again as every trip is slightly different depending on
game performance scores. |
The game background, conceived by artist James Pickering, is filled
with as many possibilities as New York has city streets. Taking into
consideration that the theme park has visited NYC streets within two
other attractions -- King Kong which offers a very realistic
and cinematic view of the city and in the real-life environment of
the theme park's "Central Park" rest area -- the MIB attraction
is based within a theatrically stylized setting that combines Broadway
stage with Technicolor film noir.
One More Time!
While most theme parks are designed to move large numbers of people
from one attraction to the next, what may be the most unique aspect
of MIB: Alien Attack is the way it encourages riders to rejoin
the queue and ride again. "The experience is different depending on
which track your vehicle is on and which aliens you shoot," Cobb says.
"The ending you will see will change depending on your car's cumulative
score. Even the most experienced games won't get the top ranking right
away, it takes numerous rides."
Men in Black: Alien Attack is a project that combined an array
of talents, from illustration, to painting, sculpting, architecture,
aerospace and mechanical engineering. Animators were used for the
scene and alien illustrations as well as for the character designs
and computer generated animation elements. "I like theme park work
because it gives me a chance to be working with industrial elements,
movie sets and theater design side by side with tremendous talents,"
Cobb says. "Working on a project like Men In Black is like
having the keys to the greatest toy box on the planet and each of
these people really put their hearts into their work."
Jacquie Kubin, a Washington, DC-based freelance journalist, enjoys
writing about the electronic entertainment and edutainment mediums,
including the Internet. She is a frequent contributor to the Washington
Times and Krause Publication magazines. She has won the 1998 Certificate
of Award granted by the Metropolitan Area Mass Media Committee of
the American Association of University Women.
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