Earthquake (film) - Theme Park Attractions

Theme Park Attractions

Earthquake inspired the attraction Earthquake: The Big One at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood. The original attraction in Florida began by having guests enter an exhibit room in San Francisco themed to earthquakes where a guide briefly introduced and discussed the film. They then selected five volunteers from the audience, which they explained would participate in an interactive portion of the pre-show.

Guests then entered a screening room, where they watched a brief film that depicted a massive earthquake that destroys Los Angeles. Following the earthquake sequence, actor Charlton Heston appeared and explained how the previous earthquake sequence of the film was created through the use of miniatures. The movie screen then raised to reveal a portion of the destroyed model that was used during the filming of the previous earthquake sequence. Guests were then ushered into a soundstage where the volunteers who were selected from the audience earlier helped recreate various scenes from the Earthquake film.

Following this sequence, guests then entered a "Golden Gate Transit" subway station in Oakland where they boarded an open-air subway train that closely resembled the trains used on the Bay Area Rapid Transit in and around the San Francisco bay area. After boarding, the train departed the station and took them beneath the bay to the Embarcadero Station in San Francisco. Once stopped in the station, a violent earthquake would take place, destroying the entire station and climaxed in a massive flash flood. Once the earthquake sequence was complete, the subway train would return to the Oakland Station where guests would disembark the train and exit the attraction.

In the fall of 2002, the pre-show was changed to a more generic "magic of making movies" theme, with slight modifications which included mentioning special effects used in other films besides Earthquake. The pre-show sequences were eventually dropped from the attraction in September 2007, with the various pre-show theaters being used as a queue line for the ride portion of the attraction.

The attraction officially closed on November 5, 2007 and reopened several months later as "Disaster!: A Major Motion Picture Ride...Starring You!." The current attraction has a similar three part pre-show as the ‘’Earthquake’’ attraction and still utilizes volunteers from the audience. The ride portion of the attraction also remains mostly unchanged, although television monitors were added to the subway train cars to help tie it into the rest of the show.

The Universal Studios Hollywood Studio Tour also contains an Earthquake sequence, which replaced The Tower of London Set in 1986, and features the tour tram entering a San Francisco subway station and experiencing a massive earthquake.