History YMMV / UniversalStudios

* MisaimedMarketing: Sold exclusively at Islands of Adventure are cutesified plushies of various Marvel heroes. What was one of the characters they decided to make into a cutesy plush? ''ComicBook/ThePunisher''. It appears that Universal themselves eventually realized this, as the plushie is no longer being sold.

** As far as original rides go, ''Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit'' at Universal Studios Florida has gained a divisive reputation over the course of its existence. It's either considered a solid experience with a unique gimmick due to its on-ride soundtrack, or nauseating and head-banging in the wrong ways with a confusing music selection process (enough that Universal eventually reduced the number of songs from 30 to 5). Another increasingly common complaint is that the coaster's theming [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece feels incredibly outdated]] in the modern day, as its song list and design style immediately date it to its 2009 launch date and make it feel like an eyesore. Most fans agree that it needs a refurbishment, though how extensive it should be is the main point of debate. The ride also has to face comparisons with ''Hollywood Dream'' in Japan, which has many similar traits (being a prominent coaster near the park's entrance, also with an on-ride soundtrack gimmick), but is widely considered to offer a much better layout and ride experience.

** As far as original rides go, ''Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit'' at Universal Studios Florida has gained a divisive reputation over the course of its existence. It's either considered a solid experience with a unique gimmick due to its on-ride soundtrack, or nauseating and head-banging in the wrong ways with a confusing music selection process (enough that Universal eventually reduced the number of songs from 30 to 5). Another increasingly common complaint is that the coaster's theming [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece feels incredibly outdated]] in the modern day, as its song list and design style immediately date it to its 2009 launch date and make it feel like an eyesore. Most fans agree that it needs a refurbishment, though how extensive it should be is the main point of debate.

** As far as original rides go, ''Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket'' at Universal Studios Florida has gained a divisive reputation over the course of its existence. It's either considered a solid experience with a unique gimmick due to its on-ride soundtrack, or nauseating and head-banging in the wrong ways with a confusing music selection process (enough that Universal eventually reduced the number of songs from 30 to 5). Another increasingly common complaint is that the coaster's theming [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece feels incredibly outdated]] in the modern day, as its song list and design style immediately date it to its 2009 launch date and make it feel like an eyesore. Most fans agree that it needs a refurbishment, though how extensive it should be is the main point of debate.

** ''Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit'' tends to be a source of heavy fan division, as many feel that it's a tacky roller coaster that ruins a lot of the park's atmosphere, while others highly enjoy it and think that its different theme is no big deal.

** As far as original rides go, ''Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket'' at Universal Studios Florida has gained a divisive reputation over the course of its existence. It's either considered a solid experience with a unique gimmick due to its on-ride soundtrack, or nauseating and head-banging in the wrong ways with a confusing music selection process (enough that Universal eventually reduced the number of songs from 30 to 5). Another increasingly common complaint is that the coaster's theming [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece feels incredibly outdated]] in the modern day, as its song list and design style immediately date it to its 2009 launch date. Most fans agree that it needs a refurbishment, though how extensive it should be is the main point of debate.

** The New York City area of the park. The original major attractions in the land that opened with the park were ''Ride/{{Kongfrontation}}'' and ''Theatre/GhostbustersSpooktacular'', both of which take place in New York City. By 1998, ''Ghostbusters'' was gone and replaced with ''Ride/TwisterRideItOut'', based on the film ''Film/{{Twister}}'', but the subject of tornadoes had nothing to do with the culture or society of New York, a city where tornadoes are almost completely unheard of. Then, by 2004, ''Kongfrontation'' was replaced with ''Ride/RevengeOfTheMummy'', which, like ''Twister'', has nothing to do with New York City whatsoever; only the exterior of the attraction, resembling the entrance to a museum (which New York ''does'' have a ton of), can arguably be seen as fitting the theming. The most shameless part about it was that the area remained under this state for over a ''decade''. With Comcast taking over [=NBCUniversal=] and trying to improve the image of the theme parks, however, the ''Twister'' ride was shuttered to make room for ''Ride/RaceThroughNewYorkStarringJimmyFallon'', which, regardless of what you think about that, is a much better fit as the show is taped in New York. Whether or not ''Revenge of the Mummy'' will be removed to something more New York-y once again remains unknown.

** Plenty of people were happy when ''WesternAnimation/ShrekFourD'' closed at Hollywood in late 2017, although it being replaced by a mostly-similar ''Kung-Fu Panda'' 4D movie came as a disappointment to fans hoping for an entirely new ride in the space. A similar response seems to have occurred when it was announced that the Orlando version would close in 2022.
** Virtually no one was sad to see ''Theatre/TheEighthVoyageOfSindbad'' close at Islands of Adventure.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Universal Studios Japan is ''extremely'' popular with Japanese audiences. In 2017, it attracted 14.94 million visitors (with only 2 million of those visitors being foreign tourists), making it the fourth most-visited theme park in the world. To compare, Universal Studios Florida attracted 10.20 million visitors that same year, which just barely puts it into the Top 10 of most-visited parks. Due to those numbers, the attractions at USJ tend to receive far longer wait times than their U.S. counterparts. In particular, wait times for both ''Ride/HarryPotterAndTheForbiddenJourney'' and ''Ride/DespicableMeMinionMayhem'' on average weekends usually end up being over three hours.

** Over the years, Universal Studios Japan has moved away from the theme of "The Power of Hollywood" in favor of filling the park with animated properties and soon video game properties. Whether this is for better or worse varies among the Japanese fanbase.

** Universal Orlando enthusiasts deem the period during and ''after'' the 1999 resort redesign as this. During this period, many of Universal Studios Florida's classic attractions, such as ''Theatre/GhostbustersSpooktacular'', ''Ride/{{Kongfrontation}}'', ''Alfred Hitchcock: The Art of Making Movies'', ''Stage 54'', ''Ride/TheFuntasticWorldOfHannaBarbera'', ''The Wild Wild West Stunt Show'', and ''Ride/BackToTheFutureTheRide'' were closed in an attempt to "modernize" the theme park in order to keep it competitive with Disney. The enthusiasts' reactions to most of the replacements for these rides ranged from [[Ride/JimmyNeutronsNicktoonBlast extremely polarizing]] to [[WesternAnimation/ShrekFourD heavy backlash]]. The only rides that didn't have any backlash against them were ''Ride/MenInBlackAlienAttack'', ''Ride/RevengeOfTheMummy'', and ''Ride/TheSimpsonsRide'', and even the latter two had something of a BrokenBase due to them having replaced ''Kongfrontation'' and ''Back to the Future: The Ride'', respectively. It also didn't help that during this time, Universal scrapped plans for building a second resort just a few miles away for economic reasons, with nearly disastrous consequences.
** Universal Studios Hollywood had it ''even worse'' than Orlando. Most of the park's attractions from the late 80's all the way up to the ''early 2010's'' got replaced left and right just to keep the park competitive to Disneyland, and even then most people just visited the park just to ride the iconic Studio Tour.[[note]] Although the ''Nickelodeon Blast Zone'' was definitely one of the reasons some kids went [[/note]] The most negatively received of the newer attractions at the time was ''Spider Man Rocks'', a live stage show that replaced ''Theatre/BeetlejuicesGraveyardRevue''. It was frequently mocked by almost everyone who watched it, and it made ''Theatre/SpiderManTurnOffTheDark'' look like a Tony Award-winning musical by Bob Fosse. It ended up being the only Creator/{{Marvel|Comics}}-related attraction Universal Studios Hollywood had; it closed in 2004 to be replaced by ''Fear Factor Live'' (which didn't fare much better reputation-wise), and Marvel regained the California theme park rights for their characters in 2008, which fell into Disney's hands the following year when they bought Marvel. Only with the opening of Hollywood's ''Wizarding World of Harry Potter'' and ''Springfield'' areas, along with ''Super Silly Fun Land'' seemed to signal the era was starting to die down.
** Some enthusiasts have come to see Universal Orlando in the mid-late 2010's as having fallen into another Audience-Alienating Era. In particular, they cite a perceived over-reliance on motion simulator rides at the expense of more traditional rides and stage shows, especially now that, with both the original Studios park and Islands of Adventure mostly filled in, Universal had to close old attractions to make way for these new rides. While the replacement of ''Ride/TwisterRideItOut'' with ''Ride/RaceThroughNewYorkStarringJimmyFallon'' wasn't too bad (''Twister'' was a [[BrokenBase polarizing attraction]] to begin with, so replacing it with an equally polarizing one didn't change much), replacing the well-received ''Ride/{{Disaster}}'' (one of the few remaining attractions at the park to date back to its 1990 opening, albeit in the form of ''Ride/EarthquakeTheBigOne'') with ''Ride/FastAndFuriousSupercharged'', which met a scathing reception even from casual park guests, wasn't. Volcano Bay, Universal Orlando's third theme park (and first water park), also received very mixed reviews on opening day in 2017 for being an ObviousBeta, with complaints about the rides breaking down frequently, the wireless [=TapuTapu=] wristbands used for the virtual lines being glitchy, and said virtual lines being several hours long, such that Universal was forced to cap ticket sales in order to prevent overcrowding (leading to guests being turned away from the gate as early as noon). This era came to an end with the opening of the universally acclaimed ''Ride/HagridsMagicalCreaturesMotorbikeAdventure'', along with the announcement of the highly promising Epic Universe theme park, which is slated to feature the long waited ''Ride/SuperNintendoWorld''.