SteveJ

The elephant is (shockingly!) the same. Its been butchered over many years, it was built to smaller scale and was meant to appear bigger from a distance, which is why it now looks tiny when closer to the track. The trunk also seems to have been shortened and the whole thing painted solid grey so doesnt look as nice or lifelike. And its movement probably has never been properly refurbished in 30 years, last it got turned on it moved pretty badly. Goes to show how standards dropped! You'd never think the exisitng elephant could look so good! The water used to be dyed a teal colour, and yes its always been a closed water system.

The DBGT music when you listen in isolation has a lot more subtleties and works better as an instrumental piece of music, sounds creepy and lends to the imagination. Which is all very good, but on the ride however it was one of the worst parts about the experience for me. Over dramamtic music constantly going from quiet to predictably LOUD in your ear, with no actual feeling created by it, largely just generic horror movie soundtrack to fill the space. Once inside, there was ambient music when I went but it worked so little that the room felt dead. It's a very subjective thing I suppose. Theme park music used to use a lot of melodies and 'themed' instrumentation, being very creative. IMA score do things very differently - not a bad thing. Their idea of themed music (wherever I've heard it largely, other attractions I'm sure are better) is to be really overpowering, create lots of soundscape, with dramatic SFX all racked up like a movie trailer, and no real rhythm or melody. Metallic sci fi sounds, crackling distortion, percussive stabs, etc, all hammering down the point. Then some VERY unimaginative, standard tunes are thrown in. The combination, to me, is all very fake, so on-the-nose without creating much real fun. And actually quite easy to create that sound with modern music tech. The biggest problem is, it seems, the studios like Merlin who think they don't need to do as much work if they choose IMAscore because their soundtracks are "so good" that it creates the atmosphere for them. Instead, it comes off like an OTT soundtrack playing to an empty space and it doesn't work. IMAscore are a fantastic studio then, but maybe arent being used in the right way. The recent 'rescoring' of whole parks into IMAscore soundtracks proves this. No changes to the areas, just get IMAscore in for the sake of it to produce the same product over and over, as required. Homogenising the whole park without really improving anything. Such a shame I think, because so much of IMAscore's popularity is through their social media and branding rather than them being the greatest composers on earth. Even so I LOVED The Smiler soundtrack when it first came out, I thought finally music that dares to be out-there, suitably overpowering and powered up for such a ride, and creative soundscape, but even that had the tiresome cliched HA HA HA theme repeating so much it was annoying.

I find IMA score make music to sound great on a YouTube clip playing from a laptop, or in a board room meeting maybe, but usually sounding way too hard, overpowering and homogenous in an actual ride. It's often like someone's playing a very over-indulgent movie trailer in your ear, in a queueline. Their sonics and synthesising are great, but it's often so exaggerated by its LOUD mastering and ends up sounding very generic with cliched orchestra thrown everywhere too. They're cool but flash in the pan compared to a lot of simpler, more imaginative theme park music. They can do fierce drama but not ambiance.

Nice to see some actual new attractions for children, they may be very basic but if colourful and fun, adds more substance to the place I suppose! If the other thing is a kind of back-to-basics walkthrough feature or puppet show (not like the talentlessly written panda show!) then that would be great

It's going any way you imagine because it's a promo graphic and the boats are sat on a green screen floor with actors pretending the ride exists yet. It's arranged in the layout of a promo poster, not an actual ride. The background is based on the Gruffalo cartoon. This image is just part of the ride's promotion, the ride could look like anything!

Theyre surely both just generic shapes and so a coincidence? The team that did the Gruffalo art I doubt ever saw that one of Bubbleworks

There were 'supposed' to be more alternative scenes but it never took off because they barely got the one version working for the ride to even open. We'll probably never see them now as it's likely the whole CGI sequences are being remade by another company.. I think

That Prof Burp art is quite cute but pretty weird, it looked really old fashioned compared to the kind of style Chessington was going for at the time and shows scenes that never really existed in the ride (probably just like that Gruffalo graphic too!). It looks like it was probably drawn by a traditional amusement park artist who'd not been on Prof Burp's. A nice drawing, but pretty schmaltzy compared to the finished ride!

Terrible state of most their UK parks behind the scenes, but these parks have all been cut down to skeleton teams and corner cutting before. The parks need to be granted more money from Merlin, they need to slow down their expansions and stop screwing their teams over, and completely rebuild the management attitudes of their parks. So much poor practice and ignorance has filtered down through managements and the company's park culture now. And then design rides properly too. Alton Towers used to have a really colourful, diverse line up of attractions that were all very charming and special. Now its all half-there, flash in the pan rides, CBeebies, and the corpses of older once brilliant attractions looking pathetic now in poor condition. It really doesn't have to be this way!

http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/detail.cfm?pagetype=detail&subject=news&codeID=329328 Interesting article about some new show tech that's been in the works for a while by Holovis (a dark ride/ simulation company), which, if it did become popularised, would make Derren Brown's nonsensical "headsets on & off" format completely redundant and outdated very quickly. Never wholly believe promotion like this one, but for Derren Brown's Ghost Train it's clear to see the concept could have been done so much better with simulation tech, but VR was used instead for the trend value.

Yes the original ride closed only for reasons of building maintenance and no budget was given, so a sponsor was needed, and then it was thought a good opportunity to advertise as a new ride and "modernise it". Which ended up removing all humour, effects and its old school charm into something schmaltzy and bare! Merlin didn't manage it at the time, but it was the same design studio that's doing Gruffalo that did the IL 2006 version. The only big difference now is the money Merlin spend on new attractions compared to DIC which barely kept the rides standing and cut corners with budget all over the place. Had the management been better, we'd probably still have Prof Burp going strong now, and still a great ride. But that's what happens with poor management and capital venture sales

If you were a child growing up with this at the time, I know from similar experiences this attraction would have been incredible. Whereas kids now have got a couple nice and cosy kiddie dark rides, all plastic and very commercialised, generic and twee. Back then this was a super horrifying, creepy, unexplained tour through the dark that surrounded you with weird cavernous scenes (the scenes went pretty far down below and above you). It certainly didn't hold back from giving you nightmares, fun nightmares though. It was a great big horror ride, full of weird animations, sinister sounds coming through the dark, always something a little different around the corner and so much detail. No video can do it justice really I'm sure. I wish there were more to see of Phantom Fantasia, the scarier, darker version. It's had a great legacy. The reason very few photos or videos have surfaced of Phantom Fantasia or Wicked Witches is because such things didn't exist publically then, and many archives have been lost over time. It was popular on a regional scale and Thorpe didn't get the huge numbers it squeezes in today. The theme park was pretty much brand new when the ride opened and it certainly left its impression. But most of the people who rode it will have grown up and too old for daft old things like theme park forums and the internet now, so of course you wouldn't read about it here a great deal. I know many people whov'e become theatre &, attraction designers because of this attraction and others just like it around the country. It's fab. And so it's pointless for someone to come along decades later and say its 'meh' based off a grainy video - unless you have something of a dull imagination!

And totally surreal and bemusing, really imaginative and simply fun. So many animations and grand scenes too compared to what's typically produced today. Of course it was best as an all round family attraction, not sure if it would have survived Thorpe's 2000s adrenaline era had it not burnt down. And this video shows it only after its UV refurb to make it more colourful and ghost trainy. Before this it was even much more creepy and gothic by the looks of things.

I think Loggers was just great fun, and there's less and less of that at the park now. That's the biggest loss with Loggers Leap. Were something big and entertaining all round to come along and fill its place, then there'd be no problem. We'd say bye to a classic and hello to a new one. But we know from everything in recent years, that it's never that simple.

Well they should have got a better idea. If they wanted the steps to come across like an ironic colourful stairway to 'post correction' heaven then they should have been designed and built that way. Instead it looks like they borrowed some spare evac stairs from a gay pride nightclub and stuck them in. Shame because the idea is actually quite funny, could have been very clever and entertaining. Same about the entire ride really. Parts work well and feel really gripping, but other times it feels like its been built on a budget of £2.

Yes, whereas the parks' greatest successes used to be the thousands it attracted from great original rides, now the only successes in Merlin (and other massive attraction companies) perspective is the inflated extra thousands who come for the IPs. A bit sad really but that hype & branding for you! The European parks do it so well without losing their own identity and replacing creativity with globalisation. I truly believe the best and most fun attractions wil be in less commercial, lesser scaled and smaller independent projects in the future. If only there was some market competition in the UK to allow it..! I believe many people will know real fun when they see it, real imagination and different from the norm, but until then...

I wonder how well IPs work, if they actually do attract hugely more attention (if attention is what a park is after, as with Merlin's parks) than a really good original concept. They seem to be more of a status achievement when parks claim they have acquired the rights to certain IPs. Sure, they work far easier to give guests a 'preset' theme they know about and so know what theyre getting into when they join the queue. But for fans of a movie franchise, or the Gruffalo for example, will they come flooding in greater numbers than the normal guests coming just for the park? Surely not that significantly, because they'd know the movie or book so well that they'd be disappointed to see someone else's realisation of it? Unless it really was stellar like the movie themed attractions in Universal. Fans of Saw for example took almost no notice of Saw The Ride when it opened and it was barely promoted by the actual producers of the movie franchise. Because it was a very thinly spread imitation of the movie franchise (perhaps that's a good thing when it comes to Saw!)

The stairs still look like a bad paintjob on a local kids nursery room. A general rule : paint steel cheaply and it will wear off. Who really cares about this. Where are the scenic maintenance teams doing this year on year to keep everything looking good?

Since when has this meant anything to the final quality of the attraction? I'm sure the majority of people were looking forward to Derren Brown before it didnt open and underwhelmed "the majority" of riders according to Thorpe's feedback. I'm also sure the majority of people looking forward to the next global headline action movie would rather it would turn out to be good and not a big disappointment. Huge attention is only attracted by promotion, not the quality of a ride. Merlin constantly churn out underwhelming attractions, which shouldn't be the case for a company of their size and wealth. Why defend them over clearly shoddy work time and again? If the Gruffalo is a well design attraction, that would be a break through. But we are allowed to demand for more original ideas, otherwise they will stick with brands and IPs forever more if that's what they measure that people want. PR and promotion is a whole different thing to the design and build of a good attraction. This is why Merlin spends as much money as they do building a ride as they do to promote and market it. So whether lots of people are looking forward to it or not doesnt mean anything to the finished ride at all, especially if those expectations are based on CGI images and make believe advertising.

I see why you say this, but that attitude is more reactionary than anything I've read in other people's comments, I havn't actually seen hysterical or unjustified reactions about Gruffalo or anything. And people should be right to make their own minds up, I think most opinions people have expressed are about what they've already seen and experienced of Merlin and franchised attractions in general. Don't go if you don't enjoy Merlin's systematic product, no point hoping that by chance 'the next one is better', when you could be spending your time on better things. My favourite UK attraction last year was one that came totally out of the blue at Paultons and I only heard about word of mouth. So much more pleasant and genuinly fun than playing Merlin's dumb hype game or debating hot air before & after something new opens. Things like the sales-focussed advert (looking nothing like the actual ride as usual), Cbeebies Land or Oblivion 2 are as generic as it gets when compared to Prof Burp's - which was pure simple fun in a really surprising and addictive way. Although I don't think people should compare - at all, because they're decades apart and times are different. The industry is so different now, not "more advanced", but just different in the way it works (for better and worse). Of course it could, it could be a great attraction, there's endless potential with that transit system and building. They will surely have tricks up their sleeve too and have designers & teams working hard to built it. But the thing is, Merlin as a company are not interested in creating great attractions, they're interested in reputation, brand, market dominance and global expansion. Any projects that fall out their rigid system which do turn out decent are always stingy in their goodness, don't last long and rely largely on fads or hype to get people excited. Guests & fans should say no to more of this, if they want any hope of things improving. It's actually not that 'hard' to create a brilliant fun attraction concept with the amount of talent around in the UK. Yet that rarely gets seen now, in favour of the most commercialised stuff instead. From experience, I expect this project to be the same as all Merlin's others, and I will only care if, once the ride opens, word of mouth spreads and actually it turns out to be a genuinly fun family ride.

People do need to wake up and stop visiting Merlin parks if they don't actually enjoy them anymore. If you genuinly still enjoy them, then that's fine, but I would argue that very few of their attractions still offer a satisfying experience, even for younger families. Constant upselling, way overpriced, increasingly rubbish attractions, very commercialised themes and brands, overcrowding and poor management. But people keep going year on year, and Merlin's biggest success is in its heavy branding, annual pass schemes and what have you - to keep customers loyal regardless of what happens. It's a culture of being told what's good and what's amazing, and trying to stop people thinking for themselves or seeing the reality behind things. The Gruffalo advert, as predicted a couple posts up, is entirely CGI and creates an impossible depiction of the ride - even the damn hotel is green screened in. The emphasis is on BOOK NOW right from the start. People follow regardless and don't think twice that perhaps they could be having a better day out somewhere else, for half the cost and double the fun. Rather than be angry by Merlin or how they have now totally changed the classic parks into generic chocolates in their MAP boxes, the best thing to do is find something else that really does engage you (the European parks for example have shot in popularity in the UK in the last couple years, probably because more people are realising just what's possible outside of Merlin!) or create your own alternative. I really do hope that something counter to Merlin grows in the UK in the future, it may be niche but it will end up like music or film where the big commercial business-led releases get all the mainstream attention, but the really amazing stuff can be found if you look for it and be a big success in its own right.

It's not so much a retheme of the whole area that will include vampire, it's really just an attempt to make it "fit in the area", because changing the name, logo and colour of something is enough to persuade lots of nonethewiser people into thinking 'its ok - it fits with the theme now'. Does the theme have any charm and feel great like it did years back anymore? No, but don't worry it "makes sense" in the most contrived way. Shame that UK parks are regularly this naff. The new advert is sentimental goo as you'd expect from Chessington's current aims.

The only difference there being that Baron's promotional art uses an actual photo, or at least an honest representation, of the finished ride. I don't know many of Merlin's that use anything even from the finished rides. Recently Chessington under the current management team have been big culprits for this, in their adverts showing footage from a completely different ride that doesn't exist in the park in the Scorpion Express TV ad, or heavy CGI to make the park look 3x the size and look completely different in their resort ads. On this front, it's a ridiculous company obsessed with image at all costs. Their hype really is nothing to do with the rides they make.

This is an oversight everyone makes, this is not concept art, it is promotional art and designed with the sole purpose of makign you excited about a brand, not the ride itself. The real concept art for the ride's production could be extremely different and won't be published. As Merlin have proved with every single project they've ever done, take no notice of hype and promotion and judge only by the finished ride when it opens.