SteveJ

This is total rubbish right here. Not a single one of these effects are new. Projection mapping has been around for years now and is usually done much better by much smaller firms than Merlin. Aroma machines (or "scent pods" as they seem to have been rebranded) have been done for decades, earliest I know is the mid 70s. And lighting should be done to a high standard on all dark rides, like they used to be. Haze and smoke effects need to be done with consideration for the rest the building like fire alarms and ventilation, etc. Other than that, what's so "complicated"? Good smoke control gear for rides has been around for years now. Merlin want to flog their commercial projects as being the most cutting edge thing ever in the UK - they simply aren't and Gruffalo in fact has far less effects (animated figures, animated lighting, aroma, water FX, misters, etc) than the original ride did in 1990. It's a decent family ride but I wish they would let people see for themselves and stop exaggerating their own work with misleading PR.

I don't think he even wanted that, or has in fact had any influence on the result of the coasters for the last 15 years. John's main role with new coasters seems to be making suggestions on layouts which are rarely listened to and to turn up on opening day to support everyone's ego when things are turning into a shambles. But still it's disappointing to see him become somewhat brainwashed / disillusioned through his time with Merlin. The Q&A is supposedly from the recent Towers Times thing when he was asked about SW8, I was told by a friend who was there but who knows, hopefully the whole thing was recorded.

Cant wait for the rumoured Q&A video to go online where John Wardley admits he hates the layout and left the project.

Thirteen was designed to be a simple, spooky family coaster with a novelty element, but was branded SW purely for hype reasons. It worked a treat for them getting 10x the attention (and 10x the disappointment) than if they had marketed it correctly as a runaway train -tier ride. This is the reason they name everything "SW8". Also worth mentioning that "SW7" was announced under the SW name in 2010 before The Smiler as we know it was even in planning. At the time it was going to be a totally different ride in a different area. Really, SW means nothing. The exact process at Merlin is that every ride MUST have a promotable gimmick (or a recognised IP) to be commissioned. The amount of fantastic ideas that have been proposed over the years but were never given the go-ahead (including 3 actually amazing wooden coasters, not the 1-minute token woodie SW8 is) because of the counter-productive "compelling proposition" formula Merlin insist on, is frightening. It even gets as ridiculous as "world's first I'm A Celebrity maze", "world's first fully dedicated to VR", etc because the designers have to satisfy this totally arbitrary criteria for every single non-IP development. Even John Wardley has spoken in the past at how frustrating and arbitrary this process is, and how it has ruined so many great proposals with shoe-horned in "worlds first" gimmicks for the sake of it. Nemesis was not built this way. It made use of the inverted coaster concept because John Wardley knew it would make a great ride, and then designed a layout that pushed it to its best. Had the "compelling proposition" approval process been in place back in the 90s, Nemesis would certainly never have been built. More than likely the awful Arrow pipeline coaster would have instead, so they could say they had the "world's first pipeline coaster". For Merlin, this is literally all that matters, because they can't do just a really good solid ride, they have to rely on gimmicks and slogan-eering. Unfortunately it is not as optimistic as you imagine with designers coming up with genuinely innovative ideas, and deciding that "this one is worthy of being a secret weapon". I can tell you they do not have any option to care about what enthusiasts think. It's more like designers having to come up with dumb convoluted concepts to satisfy the gimmick formula. It is 100% all a game of PR and marketing. Also the SW tag is very well known now - they put it on signs in front of every development and is plastered all over the internet, it very much has a presence outside the hardcore enthusiasts now for those who care to follow Alton Towers' developments. Gone are the days of trying to really innovate & perfect something to achieve the goal in mind.

Merlin constantly compare themselves to Disney in their weird Power point propaganda for staff. Every staff member for any role gets inducted with a "catch the mouse" presentation where Disney are made out to be the enemy and Merlin the brilliant competitor. Last I heard it had been updated to "crush the mouse". Uhh. And nothing really to do with visitor numbers, that's just the numerical way Merlin back up the claim. They want to open a new Legoland every other year until they reach the top spot for visitor numbers, for the only company benefit of being able to say they are "first in the world". They are more like the most incapable theme park attraction company in the world, desperate for expansion without knowing how to properly run a theme park, and winning by buying out so many commercial brands.

But we all know really the "SW" stuff is just because its a promotional ploy to fans right? It doesn't actually carry any status, they don't sit down and think "ya know what, this ride has such a clever element, I think we should code it a new addition to the Secret Weapons". They just know it will get all the fans interested immediately. Rita could have been a "secret weapon", it was churned out in the same amount of time, but just wasn't by chance because of the management of the time.

All effects WILL break temporarily, even the best ones. But whether they stay broken or not is what is most telling. Disney for example will test their effects at the start of every day and service them at least weekly. In the UK, from what I witnessed, a physical animation will get serviced about once every 10 years or never (ridiculous) and AV or tech will get fixed if/when the relevant technician notices it is broken and if the park cares to pay for it. After 4 years or so, the money stops, and people stop caring.

I joke

Thorpe Park is reported to have had a 0% increase attendance in 2016 by the TEA. When you spend over £30million on a ride that still requires staff to tap knees to provoke reactions, and ham-fistedly explain a 'backstory' to you through a loudhailer, you know you've lost the plot. I can't help but see DBGT as a huge Heath Robinson contraption, so much complex stuff going on, so much money thrown at it, motion simulation, virtual reality, special effects, IP - all to produce the same basic '20-somethings screaming mindlessly in the dark*' reactions as something like Saw Alive could do on a sinking boat. The new ending should have been there all along, considering it had no kind of satisfying ending before. Like Sub Terra, why are essential parts of an attraction only being added later after bad response? The attraction is much better than last year, but there are still so many fundamental disappointments with it on the whole I feel. Yet we are being told all the time to believe otherwise. A waste of some brilliant ideas and a great format, that was not planned imaginatively and then poorly managed. No doubt Merlin will refuse to admit they could have done anything differently, carry on blaming their subcontractors and blame 'dark rides' for being unpopular, and continue to build corporate bland fodder. This is a critical post obviously, so I ought to say, if you enjoy DBGT, like really genuinely enjoy it, then that is great and carry on enjoying. Personally, I think there are far better possibilities with a more wholesome format and that it was a bland, self-indulgent ride, but that's my opinion. However for those others, Merlin and many enthusiasts (btw I'm not meaning on Mania Hub, more like everywhere over this past year!), who constantly tell people how impressed they should be and how it is "something we are really lucky to have in the UK", to "appreciate" the supposed work of art that it is, you ought to take a step back and let people think for themselves and see through the hype. The wider public can be a fickle bunch and I agree something more commercial and innovative was needed to break the ground, but putting it in the middle of Thorpe was never going to work really, and the messy final outcome has rightly proved a mixed response. I am glad that it hasn't proven a commercial success because, to be honest, Merlin need a kick up the bum to bring them back in touch with reality. *I am also a 20-something screaming mindlessly in the dark but you get my point! ;p

Yeah it's a fun idea as a PR excuse to whoever put it together (they do something every election), but imagine if the video was done in an actually funny way, ie. without po faced business people talking to camera and fake vox pops. It's not just this video but the tone is dull and corporate in all of theirs now. No big deal obviously, just my opinion. As ever they seem too afraid not to be taken seriously or to show some imaginaiton.

Funny PR idea and great masks but... why do they have to be so dull and corporate even when making a joke? "Brilliant initiative, get young people involved", uhhh I am so bored of Merlin taking themselves so seriously. Please, it's a theme park, show some fun and personality. Every video they try hard to make a "viral hit" is like this. So corporate.

This is the end of theme parks I'm not too keen on, just capitalising on global franchises and ticking the boxes of what's expected. The tech and detail is amazing, but what's it all for? An inflated commercial appeal and not much else really! All a bit showy off. But the animatronics are truly incredible, no doubt about it! Crazy to see some comments on videos from US fans saying its still not "realistic" enough, come on! As bizarre as fans can be over here sometimes, thank god its not as finicky as some Disney/Universal fans! Have they forgotten that parks are about fun and creative entertainment, not fulfilling some self-indulgent fantasy where everything must be as real as possible. How odd!

I wouldn't put my trust in Wikipedia as fact, but yep that's pretty much what happened, it was mostly a H&S thing dressed up as an "upgrade", also rebuilding the laser system because it was on its last legs. The ride is now so embarrassing, especially lighting, effects and audio. No professionalism or quality control at all. They need somebody to tell them their standards are terrible, because as far as the park is concerned the Tomb redo was a great success. The "4 minutes" thing about evacuations I am not sure how that figure came about, or if it was just something staff kept saying enough that nobody questioned it anymore. The ride had a good evac plan, it was more the serious lack of maintenance on the sets requiring a respray for fire retardancy that was the issue. 4 minutes for a ride of that size seems very bizarre. I am confused why they poorly bolted in a new fire exit to the station, when there is already one direct to the outside about 4 metres right along an evac platform, I don't know. Maybe a new tighter regulation on fire escape distances, who knows. It should have been done better. It now makes for a horrendous entrance to the queue, and could have easily been made to look right if it wasn't such a rush job.

Ha ha, I mean, I won't make any judgement on the ride before it's finished. But I agree, I'm so bored of Merlin's style of theme, so bland and bleak all the time. Really, even their lighter hearted themes are uninspired and terrifically bland. As great as wooden coasters are, I don't think a wooden coaster would at all suit that tiny space, but Merlin always have to botch good ideas by leaving them half baked and making gimmicks take over. Surely the lack of opportunity would have been extremely obvious to the whole team behind this. I think the closest Merlin came to a properly engaging, surprising theme was The Smiler. That was great, enjoyable and full of energy, even though it materialised mostly as painted walls and bins strapped to metal trusses.

Oh right you're thinking of the new track they added a couple years ago as a "refresh", yes it's an unnecessary change to something that was great as it was before I think, but what you heard is now the 'correct' track. The original was a great piece, will always be the real music everyone who best knew the ride.

What music was playing in the Dragon? Unfortunately the original Pirate Falls SFX have all been removed with the redesign a couple years back.

A la the entire park for most the last 20 years

It would be expensive, maybe £1million is an exaggeration but I dont know, it wouldn't be a basic job thats for sure. Cleaning, stripping, priming and getting to every corner, and coating in the right kinds of paint for protection as well as looking good. Merlin can easily afford it, and the ticket prices are big enough to warrant the best quality for every guests, but the way they manage scenic maintenance is either A: spend the money or B: just don't spend the money, and keep the ride looking bad until they can justify rebranding it.

I believe this is because the person who cut it (as a reactionary measure), and was going to put it back after things blew over, got made redundant before they could. Or the original file was lost. It's silly.

You might be thinking of a promo image of the Big Bad Wolf they used before the ride was finished . The track was pale peach colour (oddly) and dark brown supports. It's never been repainted apart from ugly brown patches on some supports and looks pretty worn out in general. It was being considered to be painted purple at one point I think, which would have been pretty horrible. I don't know why purple and yellow was ever made Vampire's colours, it happened in around 1999 when the park was being made more goofy. It just didn't work with the original gothic look of the ride, which had less of a brand and more of a big scenic theme

The waterfalls will more than likely come back when the fuss has died down.

Yeah there could be loads of fantastic ideas done with Vampire, in fact what you describe isn't far off the original style of the ride, but sadly Merlin will only do anything if it has an IP or world's first slogan. So it will rot until further notice, such a shame. An idea like that could be done very well without an enormous cost, and be a great success.

Hmm, shame because the lighting was great as it was. Don't worry, it will probably all be cheap flashing red green blue LED floodlights in a few years anyway knowing Chessington!

Chessington could also jettison the zoo and focus on being a brilliant all-round family park with proper regeneration of its aging spaces. Since it can't develop hugely into a big ride park, keep the simpler family attractions being brilliant and with unique hook & character. Gruffalo did this to an extent - except it was a fairly vanilla ride off an IP, but in the right vein. Chessington needs actual substance rather than a really really poor hash of two things it can't be - it's too limited to be a brilliant zoo and it's too limited to be a big ride park. It needs theme substance and a special character, full of off the wall surprises and unique family attractions, like how it found feet in the past. But this is not what Merlin want of the park, so it simply won't happen, it'll be more of the Wild Adventure branding all the way - it might be rubbish, but people keep coming regardless of the shoddy state and over crowded cheap rides. And as long as people are happy to spend hundreds on a converted Holiday Inn and a falling apart theme park then why should Merlin do any different! A shame it went this way.

A zoo can be a brilliant place and very entertaining/educational. Chessington is one of the worst zoos in the UK. It has token animals and token, dated exhibits. Zufari everyone says was a brilliant way of integrating the zoo with the park more, in reality it was an awful attempt at featuring animals and is a terrible attraction. Chessington does not have half the size a good zoo needs to be worthwhile and good. Merlin only fund new developments for Chessington if the concepts have a zoo theme, or incorporate animals somehow, (unless it is an IP). They treat Chessington as "the Africa one" out of all its parks, a slogan and some bamboo constitutes a "brand" in the world of Merlin (and unfortunately, most the parks current visitors), and everything must stick to that brand - no matter how nonsensical for the park's ability and no matter how formulaic & tacky.