[The Smiler] Spoiler Discussion

electricBlll said:

Well done on speaking your thoughts so well.

After initially being extremely enthusiastic about The Smiler, I have come to realise that there is an underlying problem. I get the feeling it has passed into the realms of self-indulgence now; with the deliberately inane music, copious unnecessary backstories, pointless stock footage being used on the Marmaliser screens, and the complete overuse of the logo, among other stuff... None of which seems like it is genuinely for people's enjoyment.

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They where playing the music for a bit yesterday, its not at all bad really. It's also not constant as there was a lot of sound-scape that the music flitted in and out of. My one bug-bear was it over-powered x-sector a bit... They didn't need the speakers on the entrance and it needs to be turned down a bit.

The back-story wont be that strong on the ride, as i have said don't expect lots of Sanctuary when your in X-Sector, it flashes up momentarily on the Marmaliser every now and then and adds some depth but it's not in-your-face for anyone who hasn't followed it. If i;m honest i think they have got the back-story stuff just right. It's there if you want to find it but the ride doesn't depend on it nor does it thrust it down your throat.

The Logo appears four times on the site if you don't include little ones on signs so its not too overly used and there is very little stock-footage on the Marmaliser. They where playing more of the video loop yesterday and it's really very good.

As said i;m not a big fan of the station building, to me that's where the creative juices seemed to dry up. As well as the exterior of the entrance feature.

The Sanctuary was modernised with what's his face. Taken into more "normal" surroundings, at least in public, it is still the basis of the whole ride.

I think the points made by Al, er et al, are fantastic and I couldn't have put it better myself.

It is exactly what I have been saying from the start. Well, since the new artwork came out anyway.

It is now more carnival of screams than anything, with the hints of what looks to be almost a "fun house" style exit.

Someone got confused. Surely a "check in" style area would have been more appropriate for an entrance, and yeah those signs show exactly what I mean. They ARE important despite anyone's protestations, there is just too much "oh that'll do" attitude at times.

That would not happen with people like Al or I at the top, the small details finish something, it is the french polish to a chippendale (no, not that kind), the fake tan to TOWIE, the box track and roar of a B&M - none of which are IMPORTANT to the ride/program/furniture but that give them the finish appropriate to their job.

They are three random examples, but the things that stand out, have those finishing touches that make them stand out.

You think the GP wont notice? Bull. They do. Enthusiasts seem to think that because a few, questionable, mouthy individuals spout off "wow man it's got nuff loopz innit" that every visitor does not care.

I was put BANG to rights on that one, taking a family out, who were NOT enthusiasts remotely, who were picking stuff up that I didn't notice on park. I think at times, we actually get so lost in the rides and being there, we care LESS about it whilst there than some of the GP does!! They couldn't give a crap if it is Alton Towers or not, they don't have the loyalty we do to the place.

There is of course, as all have said, a great deal indeed to love about The Smiler. It actually fits into X-Sector better than I thought, but that's because I realised straight away what some others are now starting to agree with, and I have had longer for my opinions to soften as I am sure others will.

It is such a shame though, that the theme has ended up so confused. And it has. It is a cross between The Sanctuary, Carnival of Screams, X-Sector, and itself.

Regardless of all this, I still like it. It has a charm, character, and like a puppy with a waggy tail that just p****d on the carpet, it just wants you to love it even thought it's not perfect.

electricBlll said:

Oh no, I think X-Sector really needed a change; but a change that would enhance it rather than divide it.

I have been amazed by the creativity that has gone into this ride. The theme actually feels inspired, rather than just there for the sake of it. The quality of The Marmaliser, for example, is quite impressive, with its smart black panels and animations.

But that's just the thing. It's designed to show off and be as impressively 'zany' and 'offbeat' as possible, to the detriment of the surrounding area and putting off people. And things like the music and entrance have been designed as garishly as possible, just to grab your attention. There's not the showmanship that I was anticipating.

adsyrah said:

As for the station, none of us know what happens inside. We've seen glimpses of rainbow stairs leading up to a themed corridor. The are hints of some kind of preshow. So none of us can confidently criticise it yet.

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At a guess, not much will happen in the station beyond a preshow room (with your typical low-budget, postproduction-heavy video and the rumoured projections). There's not much room to do anything else. But this ride is full of surprises, who knows what they have planned?

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I have to admit that I've not had a chance to see the ride yet as I live way up North, so all I'm judging it on is photos and my imagination.

I've followed the construction of all rides since visiting the park when Nemesis was first opened and The Smiler is the first since Air that I've been truly excited about riding. Not just because of the ride, but the whole package. I'm in the realms of setting myself up for disappointment as I'm hyping it up, I know, but fingers crossed it really does live up to the hype!

adsyrah said:

I have to admit that I've not had a chance to see the ride yet as I live way up North, so all I'm judging it on is photos and my imagination.

I've followed the construction of all rides since visiting the park when Nemesis was first opened and The Smiler is the first since Air that I've been truly excited about riding. Not just because of the ride, but the whole package. I'm in the realms of setting myself up for disappointment as I'm hyping it up, I know, but fingers crossed it really does live up to the hype!

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All I will say is, I don't think any hype can prepare you for the difference when you see it in person.

Everyone who has seen it agrees that no photo does the enormity of this coaster or the marm justice. No idea why. It just doesn't.

Much of this discussion, is how it has imposed itself upon X-Sector and trampled over the theme and Oblivion a bit...

Think about that.

Being a photographer I can envisage the size of the whole project anyway. Impressive, yes, no question about it, but is this sheer impressiveness and indulgence the best kind of entertainment?

Dave said:

there is very little stock-footage on the Marmaliser. They where playing more of the video loop yesterday and it's really very good.

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Even if it's not technically stock footage, from what I have seen 60% of the video content on the Marmaliser's screens is just random people's faces scrolling round and round. When it starts displaying floating mouths and bubbles - that says to me they ran out of good ideas. Nevertheless, I do think that the screen is a great centrepiece and will engage a lot of people.

The music I personally love (very self-contradictory I know!) but only because it appeals directly to me. The relentless percussion in the bass and discordant melody creates a brilliant industrial driving force, and will no doubt sound excellent in person. The "ha ha ha" seems a bit too obvious to me, but I enjoy it all the same. However, I recognise that it is extremely polarising and, for many people, is simply too stupid and anti-entertaining.

It may have sounded so very amusing to the engineers in the studio, but playing to hundreds of people on loop at a theme park... perhaps not. Then again, music never does satisfy everybody.

Don't get how the theme is confused with the Sanctuary. The Sanctuary was created around August last year long after the Smiler's theme was finalized. They have added a few hints in the videos as The Sanctuary was such a success but The Smilers theme has not been adapted dramatically for the scaremaze.

The theme is and has always been a device for making people smile to induce social conformity. The Smiler uses a "high-tech" take on that. The ents department where asked to create a back-story scaremaze so they looked at how someone might do the same 50 years ago. Since the success of The Sanctuary Marketing have tried to get the two into a time-line hence The Sanctuary's mention on the Marmaliser.

As for trampling over X-Sector i genuinely don't think it has, interestingly the rehydrator building which is right up next to the Smiler has had some new signage. Previously it was generic hot dog signs, you might have thought they would have gone all Smiler as its about 20 steps away from the ride but its had brand new Oblivion style signs put up. The Marmaliser has many of the design styles of X-Sector especially in the leg-joints and the feet and the inside of the entrance feature is very "X-Sector".

As said i think The Smiler fits in fine with X-Sector, The Sanctuary when taken for what it is (which is something from the past) adds some nice depth and the Marmaliser looks epic.

What i am not a fan of is the Aesthetics of the entrance exterior, the station exterior and the lack of "small details", HOWEVER the latter might (and i say might) be addressed in the next week, certainly studios have been on-site a lot recently.

(they need to turn down the Smiler music though so it doesn't drown out Oblivion

Dave said:

Don't get how the theme is confused with the Sanctuary.

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I meant the theme has become confused between all the things I mentioned, like a mish mash there of.

adsyrah said:

I think it's amazing bigal can say that AT have done the bare minimum with theming when there's a bloody great metal spider with LED screens, misters etc. spanning a large trunk of the ride. You may not like the theme, but at least a great deal of effort has gone into it. Saying they've done the bare minimum because the entrance and station seem less intricate seems short sighted.

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I did state that the marmaliser is absolutely fine, but that's where the theming ends. Think about how less effective Nemesis would be if all it had was the creature cladding for the station. It's a very bad way of creating an experience. It's as if they've done it all in a systematic process; here's the functional station for the ride, here's the piece of theming for it, here's the functional queue for it which serves no purpose other than to be stood in rather than something a little more interesting like a way of building up the suspense or telling you what you're about to experience (nah, just do all that in one go to save the fuss by adding a pre-show) I never said I disliked the theme either, I said that I wasn't sure that it worked well with the rest of X-Sector.

adsyrah said:

As for the station, none of us know what happens inside. We've seen glimpses of rainbow stairs leading up to a themed corridor. There are also hints of some kind of preshow. So none of us can confidently criticise it yet.

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No we don't, but there's not much that can happen in there really. It's also a bad idea to go expecting things to happen as people end up disappointed like they were with Th13teen. People have said wait for the Games Stall and the entrance to be finished. All they did to finish them was stick more more smiley stickers on things (no chervrons?) and in the case of the entrance, a bunch of cheap fake CCTV cameras like the ones they bulk bought for all the amazingly themed hotel rooms.

adsyrah said:

And X sector... The Smiler may not be what people thought the new ride would be like, but it is what we've been wanting for a while - a true white knuckle ride. There is limited space in the park and if it means the overall atmosphere and theme for X Sector has to change to fit it, then I've no problem with that at all. And as for it overshadowing Oblivion - so what? I followed Oblivion's construction in the 90s and was amazed by it at the time. But its nearly 15 years old and it's not realistic for it to be the centre of X Sector forever.

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It's definitely what people want and what Alton Towers has needed but I don't see why it needed to rewire X-Sector in the process, or why it would need to show up the other major attraction. Why isn't it possible to add a major new coaster that's as equally impressive as Oblivion. It seems these days we can either have a ride that's not good enough or it has to overshadow something. Why can't there be a balance? It's like 'on' or 'off', and no in-between with these things.

adsyrah said:

Basically, change is good as it keeps the park fresh. I personally think focussing on the minutiae, like the entrance, completely loses focus on what Alton Towers have achieved with this ride - the first multi inversion, white knuckle ride since nemesis that's got a clear theme (regardless of whether you like it or not). Enjoy it.

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Change is good, but why fix something if it's not broken in the first place (like Nemesis' station for example). All that the rest of X-Sector needed was a clean-up and the station exterior of Oblivion fixing (and not with cheap, toneless panels either as it no longer looks like it's made from concrete). And no, the small details are just as important as the big ones. Everything about a ride at a theme park is important.

Think of it like a recipe; you need to get everything right, otherwise it weakens the dish. One or two ingredients may be the most important but the seasoning can really round it off.



Oh, and as I said before, I will enjoy it. I love experiencing new things at theme parks, or even simply riding rides I don't usually go on.

Temporary extended queueline looks as if it's been put up: (from Theme Park Worldwide Twitter)

No thanks.

and this is why I have no intention of visiting during the next month.

I would (quite seriously) rather camp there overnight than have to wait in a multiple-hour queue with potentially thousands of children (seeing as it's school trip season) pushing in front and generally being gits.

The next best thing, of course, is to get there at around 8am and then get the heck out of there once you've got your ride!

How busy do we reckon the other rides will be on the 23rd?

I want everyone to stay in X-Sector, so I can whore Nemesis all afternoon.

Again, surly it wont be that busy with a majority of people ether at work/ doing exams/ not aware/ not really caring, the weekend will be the busy time, Thursday really shouldn't be that bad.

Temporary fencing (barriers) are currently lined up as in the image above. I hope they don't have to use these though as I dread to think how they'd actually manage it!


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Bear said:

I would (quite seriously) rather camp there overnight than have to wait in a multiple-hour queue with potentially thousands of children (seeing as it's school trip season) pushing in front and generally being gits.

The next best thing, of course, is to get there at around 8am and then get the heck out of there once you've got your ride!

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School trip season doesn't start until at least the end of the June (excluding the half-term). And yeah with all the multiple breakdowns going on you'll be lucky to get anywhere near this ride.

I think the current debate about whether the theming, attention to detail and backstory of The Smiler is 'good enough' really does go to show that it's not possible to please all the people all the time.

And I genuinely don't mean that in 'you're a bunch of whingers who are never happy' kind of way, but in the sense that I don't think it would have been possible - even with an unlimited budget - for AT to have come up with something that none of us could fault.

Personally, I think what they've pulled off is nothing short of remarkable.

From the very outset of this project - back when the only ting we knew was that they were building a new rollercoaster in X-Sector, there were two very clear schools of thought about what it should be like.

The first said - 'Oblivion and X-Sector is an iconic area of the park - whatever they build there must not detract from Oblivion or X-sector, but must compliment it - fit in with X-Sector's theme and design elements, and not cause any clashes or conflicts'

The other school of thought said: 'Merlin keep recycling the same theme ideas - it would be unoriginal and lazy to copy Oblivion's theme - SW7 needs to have it's own, original, unique identity'.

The other thing people were divided about was whether AT should go for another 'dark' rollercoaster theme. Some people loved the 'dark' nature of Thi13teen, but some people wanted a lighter, more 'fun theme'.

I think AT have pretty much pulled off the impossible by delivering a theme which properly integrates (an expands on) the X-Sector theme, both in terms of it's backstory and visual identity (ie, a colour scheme that uses black and another, bright, colour) while standing alone with it's own, highly original, back story and visual cues, like it's own fonts, and it's own, iconic, logo.

It also manages to be simultaneously 'dark' and 'light' in it's theme by using the idea of smiling in a sinister way.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't deliver on such a complicated thematic brief so effectively.

In terms of the execution of the theme, I think every one of us can point to areas which we feel maybe aren't as strong as they could be - be it the station building, the entrance or the marmaliser - but I think we can all find stuff that we love, too. And it really doesn't feel like they took too many shortcuts with the execution. The attention to detail is great - following the construction - every day we see new little details that seem to go beyond what we expected - yesterday we saw the hidden 'SW7' - which is a lovely touch - but these little details are all over the ride, and I'm sure we'll see more when it opens. We can probably see areas that could have been improved if a bit more money was spent - but this is AT's most expensive ride ever, and you really can see where every penny was spent - so you can't quibble about that too much.

All in all this looks like AT's most impressive project to date!

It's opening day. They know full well people will get there early to queue.

That will be the queue queue.

LordOfDarkness said:

Does that report more or less confirm facial recognition on the ride cars? Showing that your anger, fear etc will be measured on the way round? When cars where delivered didn't someone say they had a camera in every seat?

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Unless I'm missing something, surely this is a massive possibility? I'm not quite sure why nobody has chosen to discuss this point but it would make a lot of sense. Maybe this is the world first that we're looking for? The only thing is it does look quite complicated to use. But thinking about how it would fit in with the ride, the Marmaliser screen would come into good use if this was the case and they projected the riders' faces onto the screen.

Just a thought.

They specify in one of the videos (perhaps BP?) That technology isn't available yet on a coaster.

The facial reading is done with a helmet with a fixed camera on their head. This probably gives more static camera needed for registering the neutral expressions.