The blockbusters of your childhood are back in full glory at Universal Studios Florida

Hop in the DeLorean , kids because we’re going back in time at Universal Orlando Resort .

The resort’s new Universal Mega Movie Parade officially opens Thursday at Universal Studios Florida, and it’s chock-full of nostalgia for casual movie lovers and die-hard park fans alike.

“It is the first time we've ever had a daytime parade that actually celebrated the brands that people have grown to love and currently love about Universal,” Mike Aiello, Universal Orlando's senior director of Entertainment Creative Development, told USA TODAY in a behind-the-scenes tour of the floats. “I always like to say, this is the book cover. Parade is the front cover, and ( CineSational: A Symphonic Spectacular ) is the back cover of the book that is Universal Orlando right now, because everything is about to change.”

While many theme parkgoers are looking ahead to the resort’s new Epic Universe opening next year, this parade is focusing on Universal Orlando’s past and present.

Here are five things fans can expect from the new Mega Movie Parade, which was previously in technical rehearsals.

The parade will take you down memory lane

There are 13 new floats in the Universal Mega Movie Parade themed to blockbuster films and park experiences spanning Generation X to Gen Z . Some films have multiple floats. There’s also a title float with the Universal logo and media screens.

◾ “Jaws”: Universal Orlando’s Jaws attraction closed in 2012. However, a big shark statue remains in Universal Studios Florida’s San Francisco area. And there’s still a Jaws experience within Universal Studios Hollywood’s World-Famous Studio Tour and a Jaws ride at Universal Studios Japan.

◾ “ E.T. ”: E.T. Adventure is the only ride still around from Universal Studios Florida’s opening day in 1990.

◾ “ Ghostbusters ”: While “Ghostbusters” is a Sony film franchise, Aiello notes there was a Ghostbusters-themed live show at the park for years. “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” also happens to be the theme of an upcoming Halloween Horror Nights house.

◾ “ Back to the Future ”: Universal Orlando’s Back to the Future - The Ride closed in 2007 and was replaced with The Simpsons Ride . However, Doc still makes character appearances in the park.

◾ “ Jurassic Park ”: There’s a whole Jurassic Park land at Universal Islands of Adventure.

◾ “ Kung Fu Panda ”: Universal Studios Florida’s new DreamWorks Land is home to Po’s Kung Fu Training Camp .

◾ “ Minions ”: Minion Land opened at Universal Studios Florida last year.

◾ “ Trolls ”: There are several Trolls experiences, including the Trolls Trollercoaster , in DreamWorks Land.

◾ “ Sing ”: While there’s no Sing attraction at the resort, guests can meet Rosita, Gunther and Johnny at Universal Studios Florida’s Illumination Theater .

“If you've never seen ‘Back to the Future,’ I hope that you come to see this parade and see the other content we have, and then that's going to make you want to go home and go, ‘I need to watch ‘Back to the Future,’ ” Aiello said. “But at the same time, we also know worldwide, these (are) brands that people absolutely love, and to be able to have the opportunity to bring them back into the public consciousness in a very significant way in the park is a dream come true. I’ve been a kid in the candy store with this parade.”

This isn’t your average souvenir shop. What to know about Universal’s Tribute Stores.

The floats are like moving movie sets

“These are full-blown movie sets moving down the street. They're incredibly, incredibly detailed,” Aiello said. “And the guests are right there. There's no smoke and mirrors. Broad daylight. There's nothing you can hide, so it has to look the very best that it can, especially for a daytime parade.”

Some are traditional floats. “Trolls would be a good example of that, where we've got Poppy, Branch and Guy Diamond, and they are engaging the crowd. They’re just in a parade,” he said. Other floats recall specific moments from movies like the Ghostbusters battling Gozer.

Any spot along the parade route will offer good views. Still, if you hunker down near a bend in the road, like in front of The Bourne Stuntacular in the Hollywood section of the Halloween Horror Nights Tribute Store’s usual location in the New York area, you’ll be able to see different angles as floats round the corner.

Don’t forget to look at the back of each float. For instance, the front of the Sing float evokes the restored Moon Theater from the films while the back of the float takes guests backstage with Miss Crawly.

“You always want to end it with a surprise,” Aiello said.

Everything is intentional

The very first themed float in the parade, after the title float, is Back to the Future. That’s on purpose.

“For us, not only is it nostalgia, but also the fact that this parade goes through the decades of brands,” he said. “From here on out, we're going to take you to different time periods, different eras in which these films exist.”

Front and center on the float is the flux capacitor, which enabled time travel in the films. Other fixtures include the film’s iconic clock tower with the burnt antenna from Doc’s experiments, the DeLorean’s time circuits, flame trails from its test run in the mall parking lot, and signs for both Twin Pines Mall and Lone Pine Mall, which changed names after Marty McFly messed with time.

Every detail, down to the color schemes, was considered over the parade’s 2 ½years of development.

“Knowing Ghostbusters is going to be in these kind of browns, grays, or kind of a darker tone, we got to figure out, how can we offset that?” Aiello said.

The last float, Jurassic Park, boasts a giant puppet Tyrannosaurus rex created in partnership with Universal Pictures.

“It is the closest you're going to get to seeing a T-rex walk down the street,” Aiello said. “We do end the parade with this because at the end of ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘Jurassic World,’ you hear that T-rex roar. That's the last thing you hear, so the only way we knew we can end this parade was with a T-rex.”

Another thing guests will hear is Universal’s theme music.

“It’s constantly reprising over the course of the parade. That gives us that connective tissue, that all of this is Universal,” Aiello said, adding that he made a point to not duplicate audio between the parade and the lagoon show. “I did really treat these as kind of an Act One with (CineSational) being Act Two.”

There are tons of Easter eggs

Like all things at Universal Orlando, the parade is peppered with Easter eggs.

The E.T. float, for example, features the iconic flying bike scene from the film, Eliott’s house, the satellite he and E.T. built to phone home, and a scaled replica of the ship E.T. left in. But if you look closer, you’ll see the baseball glove Elliott wore and the pizza box he dropped when he first encountered E.T. in the shed as well as the potted flower Gertie gave the extra-terrestrial.

“So if you love this movie, when this float passes by, you're just going, ‘Oh, there's that, and there's that,’ ” Aiello said.

“Jaws” fans will notice Bruce the shark has all three barrels attached to it as he appears to rip through the Orca boat on the Jaws float. They’ll also notice the defaced billboard from the film, but longtime Universal Orlando fans will notice other things.

“ The ground talent ahead of this, you'll see the mayor, who's trying to get reelected. You'll see Brody trying to convince him that we’ve got to close the beaches, and then behind them is basically a Fourth of July parade, another Easter egg,” Aiello said. “Years ago, prior to (The Wizarding World of Harry Potter) Diagon Alley, we had Amity as a section of our park, and the storyline for that whole area was it was Fourth of July all year round.”

Not only does the parade bring the setting back, but it also brings back some of the attraction’s music.

“So all around, if you know these things, you're rekindling some memories that you had of our old attraction, even while paying tribute to this amazing film,” said Aiello, who got his start at Universal Orlando as a Jaws attraction operator, back in high school. Seeing that particular float in the parade for the first time, he said, “If I told you I didn't tear up, I'd be lying to you.”

The performers are as good as the floats

There are nearly 100 performers in the parade.

“Michelle Alagna is our show director, and she was tasked with a pretty heavy burden as far as trying to figure out how we not only cast all the ground talent – which is all the dancers and skaters, and we've got people on one-wheels, so there's a lot of diverse talent on the ground – but at the same time ensuring that we can hire people that are going to look like the characters that we're trying to replicate, which is no easy task because people have an image in their head of what these characters look like,” said Aiello.

Movie-quality makeup, wigs and costumes help, but the performers themselves bring the characters home.

“Being a former performer, you take that on with great pride,” he added. “You can't fail in that because there are so many people that love these characters and that want to see you as that character, and you've got to do your best to portray it.”

Universal Orlando guests can see them in action in the parade through Nov. 14.

The Universal Mega Movie Parade is one of several new offerings at Universal Orlando this summer, along with the new DreamWorks Land, CineSational, and Hogwarts Always castle projections.

“I don't think there's ever been a better time to visit the park than right now, even ahead of Epic Universe coming,” Aiello said.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The blockbusters of your childhood are back in full glory at Universal Studios Florida