The final day will be May 31. Universal previously closed its other two installations of Back to the Future - at Universal Studios Florida and Hollywood - to convert the attractions into The Simpsons Ride. That won't be happening in Japan, and the company has not yet announced what will replace Back to the Future in the Osaka park.
Back to the Future: The Ride put visitors into DeLorean time machines that "flew" in front a giant IMAX-style screen on an adventure that sent them through time in pursuit of series bad guy Biff Tannen. Set in Doc Brown's Institute of Future Technology, Biff had made off with one of the DeLoreans, but not before locking away Doc and his staff. That left only us, the institute's visitors, free to hop in the remaining time machines to go after Biff.
Last year was the 30th anniversary of the original Back to the Future film, and last October was the date "in the future" that Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled to in the 1989 sequel. Since that date played a role in Back to the Future: The Ride, too, that left the attraction in the ironic position over the past few months of sending visitors into the future... to a date in the past.
Here is the park's announcement, in Japanese. The park will be running a "Back to the Future ยท The Ride Goodbye Campaign" in the weeks leading up the closure. And the ride's sponsor, Japan Airlines, will move over to sponsor The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride starting in June.
What will replace Back to the Future? Will it be part of the new Nintendo land that the Universal is developing? A new Minion Mayhem? Diagon Alley? Something else? Until there's an official word from the park... fans can speculate all they want.
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Japan by May 31st..Hmmm...can't cost any more that a normal WDW vacation!!! ;)
Robert, you were the bearer of bad news but I really appreciate you sharing this information on TPI.
From here on out when I drive past the local Texaco gas station instead of thinking "One day I'll make it out to Japan for BTTF" it will be "My favorite ride of all time is officially history".
I was really hoping to go to USJ to reride it and finally make those memories more than just fragments. Now I won't be able to. Excuse me while I go rethink my life.
And my 2 cents on the replacement is that it will DEFINITELY be Dispicable Me. When you walk down the street in USJ with BTTF at the end you should be hit with this amazing view of the institute of future technology right in front of you, but it's now completely obscured by a monstrosity of a Minions shop. It felt like they'd given up on it and I even commented to a friend last week that I thought Minion Mayhem would take it over.
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