Matt N
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Posts posted by Matt N
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On 5/23/2023 at 6:08 PM, JoshC. said:
It's not impossible to imagine there being a spinning car, or a backwards row / rows, on this. But at the same time, you have to wonder if:
1. It really needs it. This is the UK's tallest coaster, do we need anything more?
2. If it will be too much. This is going to be a fast, hard-hitting ride, unlike any of Mack's other spinning coasters. Adding the spinning to it might be unnecessary.
I agree with the first point, but in terms of the second point; will Exodus necessarily be any more intense than, say, Ride to Happiness, which solely uses spinning trains?
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Out of interest, does anyone know how much involvement Derren Brown himself actually had in the design of DBGT?
The PR material always inferred that he'd been very heavily involved in the design of the ride, but I've heard rumblings that most of the finer details of the experience had already been decided upon prior to Derren's arrival, and his role was merely as a marketing figurehead for the attraction. Indeed, I've heard rumours that Derren himself actually wasn't very fond of the attraction at all...
Does anyone know how much involvement Derren Brown actually had in the attraction's design and development?
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I think the issue that this project always faced is that once you removed the VR and got rid of Derren Brown, there was only so much you could have done to improve the ride without spending huge amounts of money completely gutting the building.
Unlike most dark ride systems, the ride system was very bespokely tailored to DBGT and the very specific sequence of events that happened within it. With something like Duel, for instance, the ride system itself had no particular quirks that were tailored to The Haunted House as it was per se, so Merlin were able to make The Curse at Alton Manor into a pretty different ride without performing any overly radical work.
With DBGT, on the other hand, the very design of the ride system meant that the same basic structure of the original attraction would always need to be followed. Riders would need to sit on a train, be rushed out of the train for a live action sequence of some sort and then sit on another train to return to the offload station. And with the design of the ride vehicle not really providing much scope for added physical theming due to the VR being the originally intended vehicle for storytelling, that made the park's options very limited in terms of what they could actually do with the train portions in particular.
With this in mind, I think it was complicated for Thorpe Park to make a new ride out of it because in the absence of a huge budget to demolish the whole thing and start again, the basic building blocks of the ride experience would always have needed to remain exactly the same, which would have limited the park's options massively.
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From what I ascertain, the green belt at Chessington, or more specifically the planning restriction rigmarole that the park deals with as a result of the green belt restrictions combined with the noise-related grievances of local residents, was pretty much the sole reason for Tussauds even expanding their theme park offering past Chessington in the first place, let alone bringing Thorpe Park into the mix.
From what I gather, Tussauds’ original intent was to expand Chessington and turn it into the market-leading theme park in the UK. However, the installation of Vampire in 1990 caused great dismay among local residents due to noise, so as such, the local council vowed that they would never allow a ride on that scale to be built again. When considering the noise complaints combined with the green belt restrictions, it became evident to John Wardley and Tussauds that Chessington could not become the market leader that they had hoped it would be, so they instead looked to build their market leader elsewhere.
The original intent here was to build a new ground up theme park, with various site options including Woburn Abbey and Corby Steelworks being considered, but various difficulties with this meant that Tussauds instead decided to gain market dominance within the UK theme park sector by purchasing Alton Towers. They purchased Alton Towers, developed it into a market leading UK theme park, and the rest is history.
However, Tussauds still wanted a thrill park in the South, and that’s where Thorpe Park comes in. During the mid-90s, Thorpe Park was Chessington’s key competitor in the family stakes, and they arguably had a tamer offering than Chessington from what I’ve read, but they had far looser planning regulations. With this in mind, Tussauds decided to buy the park because it offered the double whammy of allowing them to operate a thrill park in the South while simultaneously eliminating Chessington’s closest competitor in the family stakes. As such, Tussauds bought the park, added loads of thrill rides, and the rest is history.
I apologise for the long ramble, but I thought it would add some context. In terms of how it relates to the question of “was the green belt around Chessington the reason why Thorpe Park became a thrill park?”, I would argue that the timeline of Tussauds’ theme park portfolio in the UK would make the answer to that question an emphatic yes. Or even if it wasn’t the sole reason, it was at very least a significant contributing factor.
The reason Thorpe Park became so aggressively thrill-focused from the 2000s onwards was because if they hadn’t, Tussauds would have had the issue of the two London parks (Thorpe and Chessington) stepping on each other’s toes, and history would suggest that two parks owned by the same company in a shared market with a shared target demographic can often end with one eventually cannibalising the other (see examples such as Cedar Point/Geauga Lake for reference). As such, Tussauds needed to differentiate the parks, and with the overbearing planning regulations at Chessington, it made the most sense for Chessington to be the family park and Thorpe to be the thrill park. So with that in mind, I think you could most definitely claim that Chessington’s green belt is a key factor in Thorpe Park being a thrill park today.
If those green belt restrictions did not exist at Chessington, I wager that we would most definitely have seen more intense thrill rides at Chessington. The construction of Vampire, a pretty intense thrill ride for the time, in 1990 would suggest that this was Tussauds’ original intent, and had Vampire been less poorly received by the locals, I wager that we would have seen more investment of a similar nature. Whether Thorpe Park would have diversified to become a thrill park to compete with this is another question entirely, but the park’s prior history of having generally been tamer than Chessington would suggest that they may well not have done had Tussauds not gotten involved. If Chessington had targeted thrill seekers more comprehensively, Thorpe may well have stuck to targeting families, in my view.
It is an interesting thought to consider, though!
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12 minutes ago, Wheezy said:
The Book of Exodus in the Bible is where the Israelites leave Egypt - how closely are coasters' working titles usually tied to their final themes?
It varies. Project Stealth ended up being the final name of Stealth, whereas Project Dylan was simply named after the project manager's cat in the case of Saw.
Normally there is some relation, though.
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I wouldn’t expect a hugely elaborate theme for this. Very few hyper coasters are heavily themed; they’re such big rides that it’s quite hard to theme them effectively, and the expense of building the ride hardware alone is huge.
I’d expect something along the lines of Mako at SeaWorld, where it has a light theme and style and a couple of nice little items, but nothing overly elaborate. And to be honest, I’d be perfectly happy with that.
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New documents have been uploaded to the council website... and they reveal that Exodus will be gold at its base, fading to white at a height of 28-33m similar to Stealth:
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It's excellent to see that construction is progressing at a good rate!
The more happens with this, the more excited I get. I was originally a tad disappointed that Thorpe didn't choose more of an overt airtime machine, but as time goes on, I'm growing increasingly convinced that the layout will be excellent and quite unlike anything ever seen before! And to be honest, I think there could be more airtime than I'd previously anticipated, even if the airtime the ride provides isn't "straight airtime" per se.
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I’m not sure I’d necessarily expect theming for Exodus. The planning application stated that “the ride structure itself is the theming” or something along those lines, and hyper coasters are rarely heavily themed anyway.
At most, I’d expect something along the lines of Mako; a light style, but not an especially overbearing theme.
With the type of ride this is, I don’t think a lack of theme should really be an issue; the height record in itself is a big selling point, and as I said, hyper coasters are not a ride type typically known for having heavy theming.
It would be nice if the ride had a mild theme, but at the same time, I wouldn’t overly mind if it had no real theme either. Of the UK Merlin parks, Thorpe Park probably has the least commitment to theme, and with the park’s current focus being on “thrills”, I don't think it really matters for them to head down the amusement park route, personally.
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Are they making the lake bigger, by any chance? I only wondered because if that is the lake’s final size, the splashdown is further up the site than I’d imagined…
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This isn’t related to opening, but I had a random thought about Ghost Train.
Could the ride potentially employ UV paint in some capacity? Thorpe’s teaser video potentially hinted at this, with words suddenly appearing on the side of the building when the grim reaper-type figure appeared:
And The Curse at Alton Manor’s pre-show utilises a similar effect:
Could we potentially see a similar trick employed on Ghost Train in some capacity? -
Well, I rode this for the first time today! I'll admit that I initially struggled to coherently review the ride, and my actual first ride itself was a bit of a blur, but having watched a few POVs of the ride, I can better process what happened, and I now feel more at liberty to talk about it in a bit more depth.
Be warned; this review does contain spoilers of The Curse at Alton Manor. If you do not want spoilers, read no further.
Let me start with the area. Gloomy Wood looks brilliant; given that they haven't changed much, the area feels weirdly fleshed out and lively compared to how it did before, and I'm a big fan of the darker colour scheme that they've adopted with the facade and area buildings. It looks great!
As the ride was walk on when I did it, I didn't get to see an awful lot of the outdoor queue, but what I did see looked very nice. I particularly liked the copious amounts of smoke; this made it feel very ambient!
Moving onto the indoor queue; this hasn't changed a huge amount, but has been spruced up somewhat to fit the new theme. The vestibule looks very similar to how it did before, but they have added some cloth over the theming items to make it look like it's been "repossessed". The more notably different room is the Drawing Room, which, although quite similar to how it was before on the face of it, does feel notably enhanced to me. There's now a pre-show telling the story of Emily Alton, and this culminates with some brilliant projection mapping and a really surprising reveal of UV paint all over the walls, showing what seem to be Emily Alton's deranged ramblings. I thought this was a very clever effect, and set up the ride very nicely!
Let's move onto the ride itself. Now as I said, I found this to be a bit of a blur when I physically rode, and as stupid as it sounds, I had to watch a few POVs to actually process it. It is a lot to take in, and as someone who's a bit of a weakling when it comes to horror stuff, I did find the first ride a bit overwhelming. With that being said, I do feel that the ride is a definite improvement on its predecessor Duel, and in terms of production value, I think it's a nicely done ride overall, although there are odd things I'd improve. I won't do a scene-by-scene breakdown, but some key points of interest include:
- I thought that projection mapping was used to great effect within the ride, and I felt that it definitely did add something.
- The Trommel Tunnel is working again, and I have to say that this effect did surprise me! I'd never actually experienced this effect in a working state (I.e. spinning) before, and I never really understood what people thought was so great about the Trommel Tunnel. I have to say that its use within The Curse at Alton Manor definitely proved me wrong on that front; it is a surprisingly convincing effect, particularly when paired with the spinning clock at the end, and it was probably one of my favourite individual effects in the ride!
- The mirror scene that replaced what was previously the Skeleton Corridor now houses a very clever effect, wherein you seem to disappear from the car and Emily Alton "replaces" you. I thought that this was very clever!
- The ending is an excellently executed jumpscare; I have to admit that I audibly shrieked when the massive Emily head suddenly appeared!
- Paradoxically, the ride feels very similar to how it was before, yet also very different, if that makes any sense?
- There was perhaps more reuse of old scenes from the previous iterations than I was expecting, but I think that this mostly works well because the park have made these scenes befitting of the new storyline; they feel very different to how they were before.
- There were some surprisingly impressive physical sets built new for the ride; I was particularly impressed with what they've done with the Attic scene.
- I've heard people mention the dark area between the Trommel and the Attic scene. I think the audio does still make this area feel quite unnerving, but I do get what people mean when they say that it feels a bit unfinished. I think it could do with an extra something to properly finish it off; maybe some UV paint like in the pre-show and exit corridor, or some light flashes?
- The other scene that I don't think entirely works is the Screaming Heads scene. I'm not entirely sure how it fits into the ride, and it feels a bit out of place to me.
- As I said above, I do think that it's quite an overwhelming attraction overall. When combining the noise, the darkness and the jumpscares, it is quite a lot to take in. Although with that being said, that could just be because I'm not the biggest horror lover and it was my first ride on a ghost train-style attraction; I felt similarly about Duel the first time I rode that.
Overall, I thought that it was a nicely executed ride; Merlin Magic Making have done a very good job given the budget and timeframe, and they have definitely improved upon Duel, in my view! If I'm being completely honest, however, I didn't exactly come off feeling entirely blown away. I'd stop short of saying that I was disappointed, because as I said, it is a very nicely done ride with high production value overall, in my view, and my initial gut reaction upon exiting could well be due to my initial struggling to process it all. I did only have 1 ride, after all.
I must admit, though, that I'm not sure the ride entirely lived up to some of the hyperbole being thrown around for me. It's a very nicely executed ride overall, but it's not my favourite dark ride in the UK and I would still say that I prefer Hex within the park. That could be down to it not being entirely my sort of thing, it could be down to the fact that I felt a little overwhelmed by it on my first ride, or it could be down to the fact that I only got 1 ride on it, but for whatever reason, I'm perhaps not feeling as enamoured with it and enthralled by it as many others seem to be. It's nice and it's well executed, but I'm not quite gelling with it like everyone else seems to be for some reason; I don't deny that they've done very well, but I'm not quite on board the hype train like everyone else seems to be. I apologise if I come across a bit cynical or moany here, but I'm just being 100% honest about how I personally felt about the attraction on my ride.
Nonetheless, it is a nice ride overall, I'm sure that it will be tweaked and improved with time, and Alton Towers should be really proud of what they've pulled off!
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Hi guys. As of late, I’ve heard it mentioned that Thorpe Park is aiming to pursue more of an “amusement park” style vibe, with the themed areas being de-emphasised. The park allegedly even said this themselves in a recent post in their Facebook group. But in the past, the park has aimed to pursue theming more, with the themed areas being more strongly marketed and more themed rides being installed. With this in mind, I’d be keen to know; what is your stance on Thorpe Park’s alleged new direction? What path do you think the park should take with regard to themed areas?
Personally, I’m not too upset that Thorpe Park is moving away from themed areas. While there are admittedly some very heavily themed individual rides at Thorpe Park, I would never have said that the park had any real cohesive themed areas; compared to somewhere like Europa, a typical Orlando park or to a lesser extent somewhere like Alton Towers, I would have said that Thorpe Park lacked easily definable themed areas. If I didn’t know any better, I would have struggled to separate areas like Lost City, Amity Cove and Calypso Quay, and indeed the park’s own grasp on these themed areas has seemed very tenuous at times (for instance, X was always listed as being within Lost City even though its entrance was within Amity Cove, and Samurai is in Old Town even though its theme and aesthetic arguably lend themselves more to Lost City). Often, the things within Thorpe’s themed areas have had very little thematic relation to each other, and at times, I felt that the themed areas were little more than a token gesture.
I do also agree somewhat with Thorpe Park’s argument that the park is too compact to make proper themed areas work properly. Because everything is within reasonably close range of a number of other themes, I think that it’s hard to make a whole themed area work compellingly. And in a park like Thorpe, I’d also argue that focusing too much on themed areas could constrain creativity when it comes to devising new rides. The park has never seemed overly focused on immersing guests into themed areas, instead focusing on immersing guests into themed individual rides, and I’d far prefer that they do that well than try and fit things into arbitrary themed areas. And besides, not every park needs to be strongly themed; personally, I would have said that Thorpe Park’s strengths lie more in thrills than theming, and if that’s the case, I don’t really see an issue with them pursuing theming less.
But what are your thoughts on this? Do you agree with the park’s move away from themed areas? Or do you feel that the park needs to keep the themed areas in mind?
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11 minutes ago, Mark9 said:
I'd agree if that was true. But it isn't. Each time we've lost a flat ride over the last twenty years, we've gained empty space not a new rollercoaster.
Ripsaw - Nothing
Boneshaker - Nothing
Dynamo - Empty space for 9 years, it's replacement lasting only 2 and a half years
Mushroom Swinger - Nothing (although I'm still not sure if that twister is a permanent addition or not).
Enterprise - Nothing
Submission - Nothing
You can count the temporary retro squad if you want, I don't as they are literally desperate additions to spread the ride line up.
Towers is full of these empty holes where rides used to be. None of the current rollercoaster line up were made possible because a flat ride left the park.
While I admit that no flat ride was directly replaced by a roller coaster, I’ve often heard it said that in many cases, roller coasters indirectly replaced flat rides in terms of things like staffing and maintenance bills. By that, I mean that when a new roller coaster has been built, the park have had to sacrifice a flat ride to get it built.
I also wasn’t talking exclusively about flat rides either. For instance, I’ve heard many say that removing The Flume in favour of Wicker Man was a terrible move, but I think that seeing The Flume go was a price worth paying to get Wicker Man even if it did mean that the park had one less non-coaster.
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Based on the rage in Alton Towers fan circles about the recent demise of Enterprise, I’ve got a potentially very blasphemous Alton Towers opinion… while I don’t deny that the park could probably do with a new flat ride or two at this point, as well as a new dark ride in the form of the Dungeons boat ride reopening, I feel that the reduction of the non-coaster lineup at Alton Towers was overall a worthy price to pay for the strengthening of the coaster lineup.
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I must admit, I’m not too sure on that exterior at the moment… if they’re changing the theme/time period, then fair enough, but I do think that the old Victorian aesthetic was a bit more aesthetically appealing myself. I think the white and blue looks a bit strange on that wooden wall.
If it is an undercoat, though, it may look better when finished.
I’m intrigued to see what this is like. Due to a personal dislike of this style of attraction (I have a bit of a phobia of scare actors), I won’t ride it myself, but I’ll be intrigued to see what they do with that ride and what the general reception is, particularly seeing as the VR headsets are not returning…
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I wouldn’t be surprised if something was still happening to it… there are fair rumours of a retheme among those “in the know”, and construction work appeared to be happening in the shop at the end of 2022.
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3 hours ago, coasterverse said:
I've gotta disagree with the whole 'family friendly' approach you mention in your post, @Matt N. Mainly because most parks in the UK are already primarily focused on this, especially in the south. Legoland, Chessington, Paultons, hell even Adventure Island are all primarily family focused parks first and foremost. Having a theme park down south whos main focus is purely on thrills is much more likely to benefit them in the long run as it's a good niche for down south.
Hell, even the parks up north for the most part are becoming more and more family focused - Lightwater Valley, Drayton Manor seems to be heading that way too, and even Alton Towers have got an extremely large predominantly family friendly section of the park that seems to only grow larger as the seasons progress, meaning more thrillseekers will be more likely to travel down south to Thorpe to get their adrenaline fix (or to BPB I guess).
Perhaps “family-friendly” was the wrong phrase. I was more meaning that I feel that Thorpe Park should try to aim for a slightly wider cross-section of the thrill market than they currently do. The thrill market is wider than teenagers and young adults, and if they installed more attractions that would work for families with older children (aka 1.2m in height and up), I think that that would go a long way in terms of helping to widen the park’s appeal while also keeping it appealing for its current thrill-seeking clientele and not reinventing the wheel too much. Older children and adults may not necessarily want super intense thrill coaster after super intense thrill coaster, so I do feel that things like a thrill coaster with slightly wider appeal could really benefit Thorpe Park.
I agree that going full-on family friendly may be counterintuitive given the competition within both the immediate area and the wider UK, but I do feel that Thorpe Park could benefit if it focused on a wider portion of the thrill-seeker market than it currently does.
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Hi guys. I was scrolling through the Project Exodus thread, and I noticed that in some of the most recent posts in there, people were talking about the other things Thorpe Park needs to sort after Project Exodus is completed. With that in mind, I thought a thread discussing the things people would most like to see done at Thorpe Park after Exodus might be interesting. So, what do you think most urgently needs sorting at Thorpe?
Personally, I'd like to see the following happen at Thorpe Park in the not-too-distant future:
- Either the installation of a new dark ride with universal appeal or a more family-friendly retheme/rework of Derren Brown's Ghost Train. I feel that Thorpe could really do with a dark ride with greater universal appeal; I had hoped that this might come with WC16, but the ride that Derren Brown's Ghost Train ultimately turned out to be is/was arguably far too niche in appeal to add much to the park's lineup for most.
- The installation of a non-inverting thrill coaster of some description with a lower height restriction. I think that Thorpe could really do with a non-inverting, 1.2m height restriction thrill coaster to heighten the park's appeal for older families and add a little more depth to their coaster selection. I think something like a GCI wooden coaster would fit the bill nicely.
- The retheme of The Walking Dead The Ride back into a more family-friendly theme. As much as The Walking Dead The Ride looks very well done, I do feel that retheming a Vekoma junior coaster to such a blatantly adult theme was perhaps a questionable move, and I think that making that ride a little more family-friendly again could widen the park's appeal and offer more for the older family market.
- In general, I would like to see the park focus less on things with overly niche appeal going forward. I've used the phrase "niche appeal" quite a bit within this post, but I do feel that Thorpe Park's recent undoing has been focusing on things that don't have especially wide appeal, even within the thrill market. Within the wheelhouse of thrills, things like thrill coasters and thrilling flat rides have fairly wide appeal, but the sorts of things that Thorpe Park have been doing in recent years arguably don't have a wide appeal in the same way. Things like DBGT, Walking Dead, Black Mirror and such appeal to quite a limited cross-section of the thrill market, and I feel that focusing on thrilling things with wider appeal could reverse the park's fortunes without necessarily reinventing the wheel. I have no problem with Thorpe installing attractions like that from time to time, but these types of niche attractions have been the park's primary focus for the best part of a decade now, and I do think that things with wider appeal should be the absolute bread and butter of the park's additions.
But what do you think that Thorpe Park needs to focus on after Project Exodus?
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Oh wow... the excitement is really starting to heat up on Project Exodus now!
Seeing Logger's Leap and Rocky Express gone does look very strange, as for all the years I've been visiting Thorpe, that area has always been relatively sleepy and calm. I cannot imagine a 236ft tall coaster in that bit of the park at all, and while it's very easy to dismiss something as "not being that big" when you're viewing renderings and such, I think Project Exodus will look truly ludicrous compared to everything else around it when it's been erected!
As for the ride itself; I will make no secret of the fact that I feel that something non-inverting and with more of a focus on traditional straight airtime, such as a B&M Hyper Coaster, would perhaps have filled more of a discernible hole within Thorpe Park's coaster lineup and the overall UK industry, and if I'm being completely honest, such a ride would also have aligned with my personal taste a bit more.
With that being said, the Mack Hyper Coaster as a proposition is certainly growing on me the more I look at it. While the ride layout doesn't have many straight airtime hills per se (only the one at the end), and perhaps doesn't look like the flat-out UK airtime machine that I and many others were yearning for, some of the inversions and other elements look very cool and could provide some high quality negative g-forces.
To be frank, all of the elements look like they could really deliver. The first drop could potentially be top-class, the Immelmann looks awesome if the similar element on Icon is anything to go by, the outerbank into an inversion looks very unique and could be a really inspired element with some good negative g-forces if the fast roll on Blue Fire is anything to go by, the dive loop could provide some nice hangtime, the overbank could provide some interesting sideways forces and the airtime hill into the brakes could have some good airtime. Overall, it looks like an excellent layout with no dead weight or elements that don't really deliver.
It certainly looks like a very unique hyper coaster, and I think that it has a very inspiring layout design. While it won't be the longest hyper coaster on Earth by any stretch of the imagination, it won't be shockingly short either (around 40 seconds from lift hill to brakes, and 6 elements in total excluding the first drop, which I wouldn't say is terribly short by any means), and the layout looks like one that plays to the strengths of a shorter ride duration. With a very intense combination of show-stopping elements, and no real "dead space" if you like, Exodus looks like it could suit being short. I reckon it could be like the Wodan of hyper coasters, where it's not the longest coaster on Earth, but doesn't let up at all and leaves people coming into the brake run suitably amazed!
When all is said and done, though, it's just exciting to see a 236ft tall coaster being built in the UK!
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It would appear as though Derren Brown’s Ghost Train may have reached the end of the line after 6 years of operation, as all references to it have been removed from the Thorpe Park app:
I’m quite surprised that DBGT has met its end this early, if it is going, but I guess the signs were there at the end of 2022, what with the construction work happening in the shop and the limited quantity of merchandise left.
If the rumoured £30m budget is true, surely that would make it one of the most expensive theme park attractions ever per operating season? Given that it operated for 6 seasons, that would peg its final cost at £5m per season…
- coasterverse and MattyMoo
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28 minutes ago, Theme Park Fanatic said:
I have received a lot of spam. Disturbingly I have been signed up to a website of indecent nature. If anyone who is part of Thorpe Park Mania is responsible can you please undo your actions and apologise.
I feel so stupid for not editing out my email adress.
I think that's likely to be bots rather than anyone on here doing it as a joke.
It's an easy and valid mistake to make, but it can unfortunately have those types of consequences.
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While I do appreciate that John Wardley is a trusted source, I would not necessarily take his words to mean that everything is staying or that the ride will be staying mostly faithful to the 1992 original.
He could well have been briefed on what to say by Merlin seeing as he is thought to be actively working on the project. Also, it's hardly like he's going to say "We're ripping out everything and plonking in loads of screens!" to someone who is hopeful for most of the 1992 stuff to stay; I'd wager he may well have crafted that message to make you excited about the upcoming ride, as you express a lot of hope for the 1992 original to stay.
Also, I'd argue that that message does not say anything we didn't already know or at very least strongly assume. Realistically, I think that few expected this to be a drastic departure from the original in terms of basic concept, and John's message simply seems to reinforce that the basic concept and ethos of the 1992 Haunted House will be retained. Make of it what you will, of course, but personally, I would not take it as confirmation that the 1992 scenery is mostly staying put, I would not take it as confirmation that screens/projections won't be used at all, and I would not take it as confirmation that the ride will not be materially different from either of the previous iterations.
I think that John's message is pretty vague and open to interpretation; in my view, his message could still work if the ride was undergoing a significant overhaul to make it fit the 2020s. My feeling is that he is referring to the well-liked attributes of the original ride rather than specific elements, and a more modern take on the concept with mostly new scenes and theming could still deliver those attributes.
Based on the theming removal that we've already seen, my personal hunch remains that this will be a pretty hefty change and that we will be boarding a materially different ride to either of the previous iterations in 2023, even if it maintains the same basic concept.
I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, for clarity. I simply don't want folk expecting the ride to mostly contain 1992 theming to be disappointed if it turns out to be less like the original than they'd expected. I'm simply trying to reinforce that nothing is confirmed or denied at this stage; anything could be happening inside that building.
Nemesis: Sub-Terra
in Alton Towers
Posted
On the flip side, however, Nemesis Sub-Terra’s new logo still uses the modern Nemesis font rather than the original one. I’m not sure if that’s necessarily indicative of anything, but I imagine it could mean something.
If they were resurrecting the old Nemesis logo, surely they’d have updated Sub-Terra’s logo accordingly?