Has technology really progressed hugely though? For Disney and Universal, definitely, but for Melrin, I believe thats a different story. Take a look at their latest ride, Jumanji The Adventure at Gardaland, their newest Dark Ride. Here's a challenge, count the amount of moving props there are in Jumanji, do the same for the original Haunted House, then compare the numbers.
From: https://youtu.be/Yj2dAH0XSuw
From: https://youtu.be/_71b0KCHoe0
So, for me, I counted 6 moving props as a whole on Jumanji, them being, the hippo that emerges from the pond, the giants head, the 3 spiders that are lowered above you, and the giants hand coming down at you. That's 6 as a whole. For the original Haunted House on opening day if you exclude electric Bill and the Goblin that was located in the Troll bridges place, we'd get 24... them being, oh, boy this'll be a long one, the Poltergeist room if you count that as one, the 2 Grand Hall Demons, the trommel, the Giants 2 sets of fingers and his eye that would follow you, the Giant spider, and the smaller one moving before it, the Ghost Corridor ghost (when it rarely worked) the 3 screaming heads each on am individual swinging arm, the Relocated Troll, the Hooded Monk, The Undertaker, The Maniac in the Garden, the Column Ghost, The 2 heads that'd fly over you in the finale, the falling tree, the falling Gazebo, the Face that opens up, and the Dragon coming out of the gargoyles mouth.
That's quite a difference in numbers, but how about their quality? Well, the Hippo is a prop on a stick that moves towards you with a moving jaw, but the Giants Head is actually really impressive! I still haven't figured out how they managed to make the entire head follow you, but very clever nevertheless. Then there's the 3 spiders, they're just still props that are attached to wire and look to be lowered by pulleys, that's very similar to the smaller spiders in the original HH. The final moving props, the Giants Hand, is again, just a big prop probably on a mechanical arm, well, it looks like it anyway. I didn't count the cobra near the beginning because that's just a still prop that shoots water at you from the mouth.
Now, it wouldn't be as odd if they were on budget for Jumanji, but they weren't, they had a budget of £17.2 million, so I guess the majority of the money went for the ride system. But if you think about it, these are really simple mechanics for the most part that I personally believe are around the same quality of the original Haunted House for the most part if you exclude the Giant Head in Jumanji following you, yet The Giant in the HH followed you, well, his eye did anyway. It really makes me think what they're potentially doing with the supposed £4 million budget on Duel.
Just wanted to say as well that Jumanji The Adventures average rating on Google is 2.3 out of 5, ouch!
