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2018: Wicker Man - General Discussion - SPOILERS! - Part One

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I have praised Merlin and Towers a lot for how much better planned SW8 has been than previous attractions, and rightly so. However I agree with Crabbe that it was a huge oversight not to have John Wardley involved from the off, just as an advisor. It is a real pity that there are other areas of the ride that could be so much better if he had been involved earlier.

No doubt that awful looking unbanked corner is one of them!

:)
 
Still looks better than Th13teen, And that was designed by John Wardley.

6 airtime hills + 3 drops + Laterals + Headchoppers > One freefall track drop + One airtime hill + Trimmed Drop. Anyday.

But it's still no El Toro eat your heart out Cross Valley woodie.
 
Can't help agree with John's comments that they haven't utilised the space fully and it's ridicolous they didn't utalise some of the woods (using some of The Flume's footprint to their advantage). They seem to bend over backwards for local planning these days.

Glad he got involved and got to make some changes. Crabbe was right in saying he should have been involved from the off. A wooden coaster has been so long in the planning for Towers, Wardley was the one person they should have had heavily involved from the start.


MakoMania said:
So are we supposed to believe that the only person out of both Merlin and GCI who could see that the profile needed improvement was JW?
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We know it's pretty much a family coaster, so maybe the ride was a really tame layout (really dedicated to being family friendly) then when John saw the horror theming proposed he tried to make it more thrilling given that it's another ride that's aiming itself at the wrong market... (just a guess of course)


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Bert2theSpark said:
Still looks better than Th13teen, And that was designed by John Wardley.

6 airtime hills + 3 drops + Laterals + Headchoppers > One freefall track drop + One airtime hill + Trimmed Drop. Anyday.

But it's still no El Toro eat your heart out Cross Valley woodie.
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I got the impression with Th13teen that John Wardley was dedicated to getting the drop and backwards section right, so presumably had less involvement with the rides layout.

I believe he was semi-retired at that point. Not to mention that Intamin also made the same mistakes on the first drop of Intimidator 305, only due to that rides scale a partial track replacement was required to fix the issue.
 
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Credit to @therollercoasterproject on Instagram.
 
Tim said:
I got the impression with Th13teen that John Wardley was dedicated to getting the drop and backwards section right, so presumably had less involvement with the rides layout.
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From reading his autobiography I got the impression he was a lot less involved in the actual layout of most of the rides than people seem to believe, more providing ideas rather than sitting there and drawing the layout out.
 
If we take our desire for a Nemesis level thrill machine out of the equation, I think this ride COULD be genuinely world class or near world beating when compared to other FAMILY THRILL coasters.

In the interests of fairness, I think these are what we should compare it to.

Incidentally, this Bradley Wynne, Creative Lead guy. He seems like a nice fellow, says the right things and comes across as personable. Seems to have some good ideas and imagination. Bradley, if you're reading this, best of luck for the future. Hope in 20 years us nerds will be writing posts praising your work in the same breath as a certain other legend.

Does anyone know... Does this guy do the same things as JW, including track layout, etc or does he specialise in theming, creativity, ideas, artwork, marketing, etc.

Is he doing JW's old job? If not, then who is,?

Don't be shy, it's time to step out of the shadows.
 
Altonadvocate1 said:
If we take our desire for a Nemesis level thrill machine out of this equation, I think this ride COULD be genuinely world class or near world beating when compared to other FAMILY THRILL coasters.

In the interests of fairness, I think these are what we should compare it to.

Incidentally, this Bradley Wynne, Creative Lead guy. He seems like a nice fellow, says the right things and comes across as personable. Seems to have some good ideas and imagination. Bradley, if you're reading this, best of luck for the future. Hope in 20 years us nerds will be writing posts praising your work in the same breath as a certain other legend.

Does anyone know... Does this guy do the same things as JW, including track layout, etc or does he specialise in theming, creativity, ideas, artwork, marketing, etc.

Is he doing JW's old job? If not, then who is,?

Don't be shy, it's time to step out of the shadows.
Click to expand...

The Creative Lead looks after the entire project from creation to commissioning. It is very unlikely he will have ride layout design and creative disciplines - rather general project management skills with devolved departments focusing on each aspect.

The layout for the Wicker Man was done by GCI, at Merlin's request and brief. Only one part (the drops) have been altered as a consequence of John's work.
 
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