TheMan said:
Blue Fire looks pretty awesome, but is it super thrill and does it leave you immersed in theme and theatre?
Blue Fire is a whole different class of thrill. I'd say it's very much like Air in that it
is a thrill ride, but it handles the riders far smoother and more gracefully than the likes of Nemesis, which go for the rip your legs off adrenaline pumping experience. The only part of Blue Fire which I would say has any similarity to the massive thrill machines we're familiar with would be the final roll, which is simply down to the way the ride takes the element so slowly with only a lap bar to keep you in place. Like I say, it is a thrill ride, but it's by no means going to win worlds most intense coaster. Plus, the fact it has the long dark ride section at the beginning means that it has far more opportunity for theming than may other coasters out there.
Disney and Universal are the ones to go for if you want a totally immersive thrill coaster. They understand that the easiest way to do this is to use the coaster as part of a dark ride, with Mummy, Rock'n'Rollercoaster and Space Mountain being some of their best examples (
*ushers Crush's Coaster quickly out of the back door* 
). However, for your average park this option simply isn't feasible.
One which I think often goes unaccredited is Saw at Thorpe. They did a fantastic job of the theming with that ride, even if the coaster isn't quite to everyone's taste. The first half is fantastic, and a really great effort by Merlin I think.
Personally I think that any good coaster should be able to support itself without theming. You can't paint a turd gold, and if your ride is totally reliant on theming to make itself a decent ride then something is wrong. If theming was so important to making coasters successful then I doubt Six Flags and Cedar Fairs would still be doing so well
Ultimately it comes down to priorities. Smaller parks with smaller budgets simply need a solid thrill ride to bring in the punters. If they had the budget to theme them then I'm sure many of them would, but as they can't they have to make sacrifices. Take Drayton for example; as much as many of us dislike them, I doubt the park would be anywhere near as popular and busy as it is without Shockwave and G-Force, and yet both of them are pretty much themeless. But they still work and serve a purpose. Without wanting to make a massive generalisation and tar everyone with the same brush, there are a percentage of your average visitors which are fickle. As long as the ride excites and thrills them they're happy.
The Smiler is far better themed than many other coasters of its kind that you will see out there, though its still not the best. Coasters are notoriously difficult to maintain an immersive theme throughout (Though not impossible, as illustrated by the likes of Black Mamba and Expedition Everest), so really Smiler manages to pull something quite challenging off, what with the interaction with the marmaliser. Like I say, it's not perfect, but it's far better than it could be.
A compact layout certainly helps, as, particularly with Smiler, riders have plenty of chances to see theming which would probably be missed on a normal coaster? Why? Simply because of the speed and manoeuvres being performed. For many riders their mind is more focused on the ride itself and worrying if they're going to make it back to the station in one piece! Do you think that every rider on The Smiler pulls out of the Sea-Serpant roll and then stops screaming, looks to their left and goes "Ooh, that screen and the giant syringes look cool!"? No, they're most likely going "ERRRRMAHGAAWD!"
