The Making of Men in Black: Alien Attack at Universal Studios Florida

A Shot in the Dark

Men in Black: Alien Attack was a new genre of attraction for Universal Orlando as an interactive shooting dark ride. Guests would be part of the action while zapping at aliens and experiencing the thrill of becoming an MIB agent.

For an attraction like this, the gameplay would be just as relevant as the ride itself. The design team—being long-time gaming fans, some since the Atari 2600 days—knew the gameplay could make or break the whole experience. As such, the hardware and game design were prioritized. The team even consulted with Naughty Dog—the producers of Crash Bandicoot—for the best performance.

“We asked, ‘How do we change the theme park experience for a generation of kids brought up on Nintendo and Sega?’”
Dave Cobb, GamePro, 2000

Men in Black: Alien Attack was equipped with an infrared laser tag system produced by Heads Up Technology, paired with a laser beam for aiming. During development, the team considered installing an early version ofprojection mapping around the show building, which wouldgive visual feedback for hitting a target. However, this technology was still preliminary at the time, so it would have cost tens of millions of dollars.

While those visual effects were too costly for the project, the team was still constructing a technologically impressive attraction. Men in Black: Alien Attack would had a system of 200 computers with a wireless network to control the ride, gameplay, and effects. The infrared zappers communicated with the computer system in real time to trigger certain cues and scoring.

“Men in Black is one of those movies that has everything. This is what makes it a perfect marriage between a movie and an interactive ride. It’s something we should have done a long time ago. We’ve had the advanced technology but didn’t want to create a ride just for the sake of technology.”
Dave Cobb, The Orlando Sentinel, 2000

Telling a Universal Story

The ride’s gameplay and technology were coming along nicely, but the Creative team still had to punch up the attraction’s story.

In the Men in Black franchise, the story people walk away with was just as important everything beforehand. MIB agents in the film used neuralyzers to erase the memories of citizen witnesses, then came up with tall tales to cover up any proof that aliens exist.

The ride’s Creative team knew that was how the attraction should end—figuring out which story to tell was the next step.

One idea to bookend the ride’s story was to have guests exit through a fake Topicana orange juice production tour. This concept was considered because the park’s parent company, Seagram, had connections to Tropicana.

Another thought was to end the ride with a spoof of “it’s a small world” at Disney Parks. Children animatronics singing “it’s a small universe after all” could have been catchy, but this idea was a bit too audacious.

One more concept let riders off at the Orlando International Airport baggage claim area with visual gags like aliens in suitcases.

All these ideas were creative, but they didn’t have any direct connection to the ride’s intergalactic theme and may have been confusing for anyone not familiar with the neuralyzer bit. So, the Creatives simplified the story to make sense to all guests, regardless if they’ve seen the movie.

“The most important story in a theme park is the story guests have to tell about.”
Dave Cobb, Annual Pass Podcast, 2021

Creating The Universe and You

The story started to unfold once the Creative team mulled over the setting.

From a storytelling standpoint, the Men in Black headquarters was a top-secret location and had to be disguised. In the film, the location was hidden in the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel ventilation building. However, at Universal Studios Florida, the Men in Black attraction wasn’t located in the New York section of the park, so a New-York-based building wouldn’t make sense.

Men in Black: Alien Attack was being built in the park’s Expo Center area, which the Creatives used to their advantage. Expo Center at Universal Studios Florida was loosely themed to a world’s fair on a studio backlot, and the neighboring Back to the Future: The Ride was a “pavilion” at the expo. The new Men in Black attraction could also be its own pavilion.

The film had clear connections to the 1964 New York World’s Fair, including the mural at the MIB headquarters and the movie’s finale at the Flushing Meadows fairgrounds. The mid-century expo theme—along the lines of a Tomorrowland attraction—was a perfect launchpad.

The Creative team had the idea to hide the MIB headquarters under the alias of an educational pavilion, known as The Universe and You, relocated from the 1964 World Expo.

Composing the Music

The attraction was becoming a mashup of a World’s Fair attraction with a space-age video game inside. To fully pull off those two themes, the music had to be a mix of both styles. The Creative team brought in composer Andy Garfield, who studied under Disney Legend Buddy Baker and scored a number of video games. He paid homage to Baker’s classic Disney style for the attraction’s Universe and You section and produced a pulsating soundtrack for the MIB headquarters, using synths and samples.

Back in Black

During the ride’s production, Men in Black stars Will Smith and Rip Torn reprised their roles as Agent J and Agent Zed, respectively. Back in 1997, Will Smith took a family vacation to Universal Studios Florida, though the public didn’t catch on until later that a Men in Black attraction was underway.