Galactica: General Discussion

[jon81uk]

The VR could have provided the "oasis" type theming that John Wardley was originally intending to add by having you flying around an oasis in the VR film. I seem to remember Wardley even saying in a Q&A once that he was initially excited by the possibility of VR on Air because he felt that it offered the opportunity to far more easily theme the ride in the way in which he had originally intended.

But ask someone what they would rather fly around, an “oasis” or space?

The oasis sort of thing works as a physical environment with waterfalls and planting but would be pretty rubbish as VR. Whereas space is almost always exciting.

 

[Matt N]

But ask someone what they would rather fly around, an “oasis” or space?

That’s a valid point, to be fair, but couldn’t that quite easily be said for the original oasis theming idea for Air as well as an oasis-themed VR film?
EDIT: Sorry, I didn’t see the second bit of your post… I think you must have added it after I posted.

 

[Squiggs]

@Matt N I think you might be falling into the trap of retroactively applying Merlin's strategy in 2023 to Merlin of 2015. Merlin in 2015 were not known for protecting and enhancing iconic attractions and brands - this was the year they were busy ripping out or shutting down 8 attractions, most without any plan for a replacement, including a couple of other iconic rides.

The current iteration and strategy of Merlin and Merlin Magic Making is very much reacting to a current trend for nostalgia, which is a relatively recent trend. 2015 Merlin very much had a strategy of 'rip it out and pop in a quick and easy replacement - and it's fine if that replacement is not a long term addition and is gone in a few seasons.'

The trajectory for the park today is very different to when Galactica was added.

 

[Matt N]

@Matt N I think you might be falling into the trap of retroactively applying Merlin's strategy in 2023 to Merlin of 2015. Merlin in 2015 were not known for protecting and enhancing iconic attractions and brands - this was the year they were busy ripping out or shutting down 8 attractions, most without any plan for a replacement, including a couple of other iconic rides.

The current iteration and strategy of Merlin and Merlin Magic Making is very much reacting to a current trend for nostalgia, which is a relatively recent trend. 2015 Merlin very much had a strategy of 'rip it out and pop in a quick and easy replacement - and it's fine if that replacement is not a long term addition and is gone in a few seasons.'

The trajectory for the park today is very different to when Galactica was added.

That’s absolutely a fair point that I didn’t consider. Had Nemesis given up the ghost during that era, we may well have not seen a retrack at all! Heck, we very nearly didn’t see one in the era we’re currently in, with a prime reason for one coming being that public surveys did not react well to the idea of Nemesis being removed…

With that being said, I still maintain that I don’t think Air (in its executed form, at least) was the brilliant, iconic brand identity that many make it out to be, and I remain surprised at the reverence it receives and the huge clamouring for it to return.

 

[Squiggs]

With that being said, I still maintain that I don’t think Air (in its executed form, at least) was the brilliant, iconic brand identity that many make it out to be, and I remain surprised at the reverence it receives and the huge clamouring for it to return.

That is fair... I don't think it was a brilliant, iconic brand per se. It's just a lot better and more iconic than a lot of the attractions that came after it, including Galactica.

I think it also gains some nostalgia points due to it being the last of the classic Tussauds additions - things took something of a nosedive not long after.
Arguably, the downward decline in quality at that time only started to be corrected when we hit Wicker Man. And there's still some way to go to correct the ship and get Alton Towers back to a quality where it's properly competing with its European counterparts again.

 

[Trooper Looper]

I suppose airs brand was never something outstanding, but it was very memorable and iconic. If anyone saw that vortex, most would probably immediately think of air, and I think that speaks for itself. The real issue with the ride though is the theming, its very lackluster outside of the portal and roller coaster restaurant building.

 

[Matt N]

That is fair... I don't think it was a brilliant, iconic brand per se. It's just a lot better and more iconic than a lot of the attractions that came after it, including Galactica.

I think it also gains some nostalgia points due to it being the last of the classic Tussauds additions - things took something of a nosedive not long after.
Arguably, the downward decline in quality at that time only started to be corrected when we hit Wicker Man. And there's still some way to go to correct the ship and get Alton Towers back to a quality where it's properly competing with its European counterparts again.

That makes sense. Some of the attractions that came immediately after Air in particular, such as Spinball Whizzer and Rita, don’t have overly strong brand identities at all.

However, I’d argue that there have definitely been some great successes more recently in this regard.

Say what you will about the crash, but I think that The Smiler is one of Alton Towers’ strongest brand identities, and is a pretty popular and iconic brand for the park. I think it definitely has recognition and popularity, and you only have to see the amount of Smiler merchandise and such sold and worn around the parks to see that it’s a highly popular ride and brand. It’s still mostly filling a pretty large shop with a wide range of ride-specific merchandise 11 years on from its opening!

While not to quite the same extent, I also think Wicker Man is similar. It’s a popular ride and brand, and as with Smiler, it’s still mostly filling a pretty large shop with a wide range of ride-specific merchandise 6 years on from its opening.

 

[Blackhole_Sun]

I suppose airs brand was never something outstanding, but it was very memorable and iconic. If anyone saw that vortex, most would probably immediately think of air, and I think that speaks for itself. The real issue with the ride though is the theming, its very lackluster outside of the portal and roller coaster restaurant building.

It’s almost a shame that the majority of the budget went on the “world’s first”. We’ve seen now that Alton are starting to steer away from that sort of idea and concentrate on the theming elements of rides.

I agree regarding the brand, I think it could have been made stronger had we had the whole package installed. Galactica is a nothing brand, so much so that most who rode Air still call it by the previous name. That tells you everything you need to know.

 

[djtruefitt]

I didn’t ride it at the weekend so can’t really comment on the station or ride or queue, but it was good to see the portal mostly working, with the most going strong, and the external lights working as they are meant to.

They’ve also added more speakers around the area so you can hear the audio now.

 

[Trooper Looper]

It’s almost a shame that the majority of the budget went on the “world’s first”. We’ve seen now that Alton are starting to steer away from that sort of idea and concentrate on the theming elements of rides.

I agree regarding the brand, I think it could have been made stronger had we had the whole package installed. Galactica is a nothing brand, so much so that most who rode Air still call it by the previous name. That tells you everything you need to know.

My family never went on it as air, but for some reason they all call it air , I asked why, and they said they just prefer the name air over Galactica, that and its easier for them to pronounce haha!

 

[Ian]

I think the key distinction is the difference between the theme and the brand.

Air (still to this day my favourite ride at Towers on so many levels) had a very loose theme, mostly down to the poor execution at the time. The concepts showed great promise, but what was actually delivered never lived up to it. It was a bit of a trend in late-era Tussauds really. I still stand by that both Spinball and The Flume retheme were great concepts on paper (Bathtime with Attitude was a stroke of genius ) but as with Air, the implementation left a rather underwhelming experience at the end of it. Rita, by contrast, was misguided from the start if you ask me.

However, Air as a brand was always very strong. You only had to look at how many merch lines it saw over the years, and how many people you would see wearing Air clothing or carrying Air items around with them. It managed to have a very broad appeal. People knew Air and it stuck with them well. I’ve always suspected part of this was that it was something a bit different. A very light and subdued style that wasn’t over the top and in your face like we see with most other “big rides” (in the UK at least).

The Smiler is quite similar to Air in some ways. The thematic concept was good, the brand is probably one of the most iconic at Towers (even before the accident its logo was plastered all over the place. The marketing drive behind it was very strong and it really made itself “viral”), but the execution of the final product was pretty slapdash and not built with longevity and upkeep in mind.

It’s good with the recent developments that we do seem to be seeing more of a shift back towards protecting and boosting the established brands. Towers always had a very strong brand portfolio, but many have been overlooked and diluted over the years (see Oblivion).

Personally I’d love to see Air resurrected and finally properly realised, though I don’t hold out much hope personally. Even with a new team with a much more focused direction, I’m not sure the level of investment that would be needed could fully be justified just to put something back how it was before. They’ll want marketability, and some way to pull in the guests. Even with the promising original concepts, I’m not sure the draw would be anywhere near as strong as we’ve seen with Nemesis Reborn.

 

[Josh555]

I spent about 18 months following AIRs construction and was there on opening day for it, the theme was always a bit confused, nobody ever really understood it and that is partially why people felt the e need to join the dots themselves and assume things like 9/11 had an impact on it.

John Wardley, whilst overall an excellent theme park ride designer, isn’t infallible. I suspect a big part of the issue with AIR was the time, effort and expense that went into actually creating the ride system itself meaning that the theming took a bit of a back seat.

The thing is, people have to look at AIR through the prism of 2002 rather than 2024, the vast majority of people at that point had never ridden any kind of flying coaster, I think X at Six Flags was one of the only types operating, and that is a 4D coaster rather than a flyer, I think there was the Flying Dutchman somewhere as well but certainly none this side of the USA. The feeling of flight was enough of a selling point to the public without the need for heavy theming, of course we all wanted that but the idea of being able to make someone feel like they were flying was so out there and incredible that the need to heavily theme it perhaps wasn’t there as much.

I do agree with Matt, it never had a strong brand identify. I’d happily see it go back to its original theme, especially if they did it properly, as it’s significantly better than what’s there currently but in an ideal world they’d do something new with it, im just not sure that they ever will as the point I’ve made above still applies to an extent - you need to go to Germany to experience a flying coaster (I’m not counting Hero) and, okay, if you do that you’ll experience a significantly better one but it’s still a really interesting and quite uncommon concept, my suspicion is that they’ll leave it at that rather than invest money into retheming it again.

 

[Matt.GC]

I've never been one for calling for a return to the past. Although I don't like the military theme for Nemesis at all, I fully understand the need to change it up a bit when you're spending all that money rebuilding a ride. Restoration of existing rides is different, but could you imagine if we never got Alton Manor and they tried to do some weird piece by piece rebuild of the Haunted House instead? The past is the past. Lessons should be learnt from it, but it's never the same when you try and recreate it. Growing my hair to get my curtains back and selling my car to buy a 1.4ltr MK3 Vauxhall Cavalier won't make me 17 again, and the Mrs would have me committed.

That said, Merlin's rethemes of attractions that were clearly designed for other purposes are usually terrible. I hope this changes as Alton Manor doesn't feel like an old attraction reskinned. I haven't been into Forbidden Valley yet, but I'm hoping it doesn't look like it's obviously the old area with just black paint slopped on it. Dark Forest clearly has prehistoric theming painted grey. Dr Robotnik has been clearly visible since the sticker came off one of the bumpers at the end of Spinball for a number of years nears now. Starting with the Land of Make Believe, Talbot Street has looked worse with every retheme it's had to the point where its laughably poor and disjointed, from Burger Kitchen through to the Driving School in its current Walliams Dungeon Cuckoo World guise. The least said about Transylvania at Chessington, or Angry Birds at Thorpe the better.

I really liked the concept theme for Air. It's always been jarring where it is, but was less so originally. There was some sort of transition between the distopian landscape and the proposed oasis with the rock work on the signage and station. The lack of explanation also helped it. There was none of this modern nonsense of feeling like everything needed to be explained. Nemesis was a big monster in a big pit, the area was a disaster zone where some unknown struggle had taken place and that was it. Air was just a cool brand, had a nice shop, a nice plaza area, and had something to do with flying and that was it also. The brands and themes of old didn't need to explain anything with their themes, they just existed and it was cool. It was one of the things that made Alton imaginative and unique.

Now, they feel the need to explain why you're dropping vertically into a big hole on Oblivion with Ministry of Joy signs and all that tacky "lord of darkness" fan service stuff on the website. Nemesis appears to have lost it's organic mystique by recreating some spoon fed war zone around it. Galactica without VR spells it out to you on screens, even though the ride as nothing to do with space at all. Explaining stuff just allows for inconsistency holes to be picked in thematics.

So whilst I wouldn't want to see some sort of nostalgic retheme back to Air for the hell of it per se, I do think there's something in it with the unrealised original theming concepts, especially since a partial partition is coming in the form of the new proposed flat which could help to transitionally blend the themes between coasters if done well. Far better than the suggestions of just painting it drab colours and theming it to hide it in the wider Forbidden Valley area. That's not only unimaginative and formulaic, but would clearly relegate it to being 'the other' coaster in Forbidden Valley tucked away in the corner. To a far lesser extent, it could be argued that Oblivion has partially suffered from this with the silly attempts to try and explain a link between it and the Smiler.

 

[Danscott22]

Somebody wrote "wash me" on one of Galactica's mouldy supports, and they cleaned off the "wash me" written on but didn't clean the rest of the support

 

[QTXAdsy]

Somebody wrote "wash me" on one of Galactica's mouldy supports, and they cleaned off the "wash me" written on but didn't clean the rest of the support

That somebody should climbed over the damn ride writing 'wash me' just as so they would clean the whole thing!

 

[Imagination]

I think the key distinction is the difference between the theme and the brand.

Air (still to this day my favourite ride at Towers on so many levels) had a very loose theme, mostly down to the poor execution at the time. The concepts showed great promise, but what was actually delivered never lived up to it. It was a bit of a trend in late-era Tussauds really. I still stand by that both Spinball and The Flume retheme were great concepts on paper (Bathtime with Attitude was a stroke of genius ) but as with Air, the implementation left a rather underwhelming experience at the end of it. Rita, by contrast, was misguided from the start if you ask me.

However, Air as a brand was always very strong. You only had to look at how many merch lines it saw over the years, and how many people you would see wearing Air clothing or carrying Air items around with them. It managed to have a very broad appeal. People knew Air and it stuck with them well. I’ve always suspected part of this was that it was something a bit different. A very light and subdued style that wasn’t over the top and in your face like we see with most other “big rides” (in the UK at least).

The Smiler is quite similar to Air in some ways. The thematic concept was good, the brand is probably one of the most iconic at Towers (even before the accident its logo was plastered all over the place. The marketing drive behind it was very strong and it really made itself “viral”), but the execution of the final product was pretty slapdash and not built with longevity and upkeep in mind.

It’s good with the recent developments that we do seem to be seeing more of a shift back towards protecting and boosting the established brands. Towers always had a very strong brand portfolio, but many have been overlooked and diluted over the years (see Oblivion).

Personally I’d love to see Air resurrected and finally properly realised, though I don’t hold out much hope personally. Even with a new team with a much more focused direction, I’m not sure the level of investment that would be needed could fully be justified just to put something back how it was before. They’ll want marketability, and some way to pull in the guests. Even with the promising original concepts, I’m not sure the draw would be anywhere near as strong as we’ve seen with Nemesis Reborn.

Everything Ian has said I echo.

Air is my favourite on so many levels as well.

You only have to walk around Towers and even speak to the GP and you’ll hear a majority of them still refer to it as Air and that’s because it stuck with people and had a strong presence in people’s minds as “the one you fly on” especially in the 00s/10s.

The launch sequence was, for me, one of my favourite things and it was gutting to see this just turn to nothing once the ride became Galactica.

It would be easier to change back to Air on “the cheap”. Focusing on signage changes, reprogramming the dispatch sequence and jet washing, reinstating the (modified) shop and perhaps a retheme of the portal into some sort of structure to fly through or just a removal of it…but, in an ideal world we’d have the station reopened to become light and airy, removal of the tunnel on the bridge, new soundtrack, painting the rock work, new theming elements, lakes and waterfalls and sorting the tunnel. I just don’t think it will ever happen.

As I said years ago about Nemesis being redone, Merlin aren’t really about preserving or reinstating original themes unless they can successfully market it - they have to be rethemed or updated with new thematic stories and even name changes (a la Nemesis Reborn).

Air, simply as “Air” and in its original guise, I don’t think will return. As much as I wish it to. Therefore I feel the team may find it easier and more of a people puller if the ride is completely rethemed into something else.

 

[Ryan]

I know I'm probably asking something stupid or that's been asked before.

But is the return of VR something people think the park might ever consider?

 

[rob666]

Good god I hope not.

 

[Imagination]

I know I'm probably asking something stupid or that's been asked before.

But is the return of VR something people think the park might ever consider?

No, it was seen as a failure on a rollercoaster.

 

[QTXAdsy]

The VR thing was a classic case of not thinking things through in which thoughts of hygiene and longer wait times were never considered. A black eye for those who approved the plan.

That said regarding a return of Air, I think it is possible since we had Nemesis coming back in which they could go for a Remastered idea in which when you think about it, Nemesis is technically that (Alton Manor maybe too) so it might be that the same thing is done for Air and it could work into not only its own themed area but part of the Phalanx story in preparation for Project Ocean next year.

Imagine at the end of this year's fireworks show, we get a clip of Nemesis causing more damage to Forbidden Valley in which the incompetent buffoons at Phalanx are all but defeated and all hope is lost until Nemesis is distracted by a mystic force behind her in which turns out to the ancient protector of Thunder Valley before it became Forbidden Valley in which is Air which has returned to battle Nemesis in a fight between good (Air), the bad (Nemesis), and the ugly useless morons (Phalanx) to see who will come out on top.

Wouldn't that be a comeback to leave everyone on a cliff hanger for the following season!