Sorry, delayed response! As mentioned I think Jurassic World and Kung Fu Panda are great, it's the rest of the park that is uninspiring.
-The entire Transformers area is a weird 'overlay' of Super Hero Island.
-Potter (as I mentioned), is NOT a popular IP in China. We constantly hear about how insignificant Star Wars is in that market, but TFA performed 5x more than any of the Potter movies. It also will re-feature Flying Unicorn, a ride that only exists because Universal was in too much of a financial hole in 2007 to replace it.
-Despicable Me's Super Silly Fun Faire is the definition of uninspired. An amusement park in a theme park.
-Waterworld (while a good stunt show) holds no IP relevance, is quite an old show and easily could have been updated for the market. I'd be equally miffed if this was substituted for something in Epic Worlds.
Shanghai hews more closely to Epic Worlds in its redesign of the mould.
I get you, but I disagree personally, and I think the goal with this and Epic are different
Wouldn’t call transformers an overlay. Transformers the ride is similar to Spider-Man but is it’s own entity, and the land’s storyline seems like tons of fun and I’m excited to see how they theme the land to look like a living, thinking entity. Plus, universal seems to love having a “king of the park” trill coaster and this is the land that makes the most sense for me to put it in.
Potter is there based on the sheer quality of the attractions. Universal wants to show the great stuff they can do and hogsmede is a phenomenal example of it. Especially when they get Hagride
(also, for what it’s worth, when I was a rideshy little kid FOTH was my favorite ride and one of the only ones I could ride)
Super Silly Funland is a great example of bringing a movie location which people would love to visit into real life. As a kid, me and my friends always wanted to go there and ride the rides, and the theming seems fun and over the top. It’s a fun way to expand on a consistently sucessful land, and as much as I love minion Park, this larger despicable me land will probably be much better.
-Waterworld is a great show, and once again is a shining example of a great attraction that will carry its own weight
This park will have the three new lands to specifically appeal to the Chinese market, two of which will have all new attractions (plus attractions like the Zhang Yimou LCA and the Chinese culture Hollywood show) but is primarily a “best of” universal. They want to use and expand upon their best stuff (and most trustworthy) to establish themselves and then use their second gate in a more experimental manor with IPs that are big in China and probably wouldn’t show up in the USA. The goal with it and epic are two different things.
Also wanna note that in the JW concept art from months ago you can see the waterfall mountain too, and though I can’t post screenshots it was in the UniBeijing commercial at 4:53 as further proof the concept art I posted was legit