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OldFarmerDean

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  • 2 weeks later...

I dread to think what any kind of dark ride would be like at Thorpe. Merlin don't seem to understand dark rides. Th13teen, Saw, Smiler all had amazing potentials and they screwed all of them.

 

I guess you could argue that those three rides aren't dark rides though - they're rides with an indoor section.

 

Sub Terra, in my opinion, is a good dark ride (even if the original version was apparent rubbish and the scare maze ending is a bit of a silly idea), and shows that they can do good things.  The Haunted House at Legoland Billund is apparent decent as well.  

 

I think there is hope for a good, major, dark ride at Thorpe / Merlin parks.  Won't be easy and won't be cheap, but definitely feasible.

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I've said it a thousand times but I'll say it again, dark rides don't have to be expensive to be good, but they need to be considered well.  A simple laugh in the dark ghost train (but with better throughput than most others do) would go down a treat with Thorpe's current target audience, and they could make it scary and fun rather than spending too much money on a specific theme.  If it was a large investment obviously a theme would be necessary, but then again look at the original Haunted House at Alton Towers - didn't really have one set theme, but it was fantastic!

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Bla Taget from Grona Lund is a good example as a 'cheap' dark ride... But it wouldn't work in the UK as we don't embrace the crazy European nature of things...

Badly done cheap dark rides can look awful though... Would love to see a Huntik style ride with or without the guns, but it would be immensely expensive, as much as a coaster and I doubt Merlin would think a typical modern dark ride would get the guests coming...

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I've said it a thousand times but I'll say it again, dark rides don't have to be expensive to be good, but they need to be considered well. A simple laugh in the dark ghost train (but with better throughput than most others do) would go down a treat with Thorpe's current target audience, and they could make it scary and fun rather than spending too much money on a specific theme. If it was a large investment obviously a theme would be necessary, but then again look at the original Haunted House at Alton Towers - didn't really have one set theme, but it was fantastic!

So fantastic they felt the need to rip its heart out and replace it with a gimick after just a few years because of the general apathy towards it from the public? Just like they had to with the magical 5th dimension previously. Even something as perfect as Hex is largely overlooked by non fanboy visitors.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you entirely, but you can see why they are apprehensive of throwing money at a proper dark ride when the public are largely idiots and don't appreciate them.

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I've said it a thousand times but I'll say it again, dark rides don't have to be expensive to be good, but they need to be considered well.  A simple laugh in the dark ghost train (but with better throughput than most others do) would go down a treat with Thorpe's current target audience, and they could make it scary and fun rather than spending too much money on a specific theme.  If it was a large investment obviously a theme would be necessary, but then again look at the original Haunted House at Alton Towers - didn't really have one set theme, but it was fantastic!

 

To add to what Pluk said, Duel takes up a heck of a load of space too. Something Thorpe just doesn't have to play with.

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It doesn't have to be on the same scale of Duel though, it could be much smaller but still good.

 

Well of course it doesn't, on the other hand I can't think of many small scale dark rides, even thinks like the Fantasyland rides at Disneyland take up a chock full of room and they are very small scale rides.

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