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Thorpe Park 2017: DBGT: Rise of The Demon

I'm not familiar with any of their 70s work @British Dark Rides - which projects are you referring to?

In terms of Alton, pre-Nemesis they did virtually nothing bar RMT & Haunted House (both good rides). Thorpe wasn't even on their radar and Chessington was nothing shy of a mess in its early years - because they were innovating!

If anything, Fifth Dimension was the Ghost Train of its time, they shot for the stars and missed. If you recall, the ride went through numerous changes in those early seasons, especially between the first and second as I remember. Change after change and they still never really nailed it.
 
It's worth noting that Air could have been the first flying coaster. B&M had a very innovative design but took their time getting it right, allowing Vekoma to debut the Lay-Down design first (I'm excluding that thing in Manchester which I feel barely qualify as a coaster). They might have missed out on the true worlds first but by building the better ride B&M conquered the market.

Innovation's great but it has to be good if it's going to last!
 
Tussauds Studios didn't do Haunted House and Chessington was far from a mess, where on earth did you get that impression? It was a big success and was the very reason Tussauds chose to buy and develop Alton Towers. They did a lot of innovation prior to Chessington, and developed a new attitude which led them to theme parks in the first place (rather than just exhibiton attractions).

The original 5th Dimension had many ground breaking effects and animations, some of the best animatronics ever created in the UK which were developed and produced themselves. The ride had difficulties and Id agree was the Ghost Train of its time, but it was done out of designing an experience, not throwing enormous budgets at a flawed concept based only on the fact that Derren Brown was popular and VR was becoming popular.

Tussauds methods at this time were far more creative and innovative, with a very positive encouraged culture of ideas, rather than the very strict marketability-based policies Merlin now have.

Pre- Nemesis Tussauds did an enormous amount of development and other effects-based visitor attractions and (without sounding patronising!), just because you arent aware what they did doesn't mean it didnt happen. Youre statements are quite sweeping, though I cant blame you, not much of what Tussauds actually did is widely known as these were the early theme park years.

Anyway I mentioned Tussauds just as a benchmark for what good innovation is, to show that Derren Brown's Ghost Train failed to really develop anything effectively, Im not trying to give a whole history of the company in a forum post
 
Tim said:
They might have missed out on the true worlds first but by building the better ride B&M conquered the market.
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Yet, if you have a candid chat with anyone from B&M they will tell you that it was Superman that created the market for the flying coaster, not Air.

@British Dark Rides - From visiting the parks and riding the rides? If you're 21 as your profile states (DOB 26th Sep 1995), Zappomatic had already been in a skip for two years when you were born? o_O Not to sound patronising...
 
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That is trying to be patronising and you know it. I'm disappointed you'd be so unprepared to consider an alternative opinion you state my date of birth to try discredit me?

I have spoken to most the design & technical teams that worked for Tussauds Studios on the developments of these projects, and have investigated most the production archives from developments around this time, over about 4 years. I think you'd actually find it interesting and appreciate a lot of great work that went into the industry at the time, if you dropped your assumptions. There are many untold stories :) A lot more than just the 5D.

Im also not quite referring to whole attractions from parks in themselves, but the innovations that went into developing the technologies and effects for them, of which there were many successes. You seem to be focussing just on any negative aspect, like the 5D's story being unpopular, to justify your existing view.

Without the innovation and design/story-led methods of Tussauds, we'd not have had an enormous amount of great attractions, or the whole of Alton Towers at its best!
 
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But to be fair, you did ask "where on Earth did you get that impression", quite forcefully questioning his opinion that Chessy was a mess in its early years. Playing Devil's advocate, maybe it came across that you weren't accepting his alternative opinion.

He was merely pointing out that he is old enough to have visited and made his opinion based on that - maybe not an informed opinion, but you can only call it as you see it.
 
Yes where did he get that impression from? Im bemused? I didnt mean it in a forceful way, just wanted to ask why he'd seemingly conflate the specific problems of one ride, which was nothing to do with its innovative successes that we were talking about, with an entire park that was a very successful venture, and was the direct reason we had the Alton Towers of the 90s. The park may be "a mess" now but 20-30 years ago, a very different story.

I didnt expect to be run into a wall of preset opinions just for mentioning Tussauds in passing, so I'd happily entertain and explain properly what im on about with Tussauds but a forum is not the place to do that. I hope you can see I am not being argumentative, if you want to debate something fine, but not just trying to debase everything I have to say and using the age card. :)
 
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Let's all calm down and get a nice cold pint at Courtyard Tavern.
No one bring up the Gruffalo though, else I'll lamp ye.
 
Anywayyyyyy, we're getting rather off topic here, so let's get back to Derren Brown and Thorpe Park! However if there is demand for this discussion to continue then let me know and I can move it to a new thread.

Thanks.

:)
 
For me, Derren Brown is far from a 'bad' ride - it's pretty good. At least, should be when all of it works properly. It's certainly very high quality.

I won't pretend that I prefer it to classics though - because I don't.

My main issue with the ride is that it appears to have become a sink hole for vast swathes of budget - when the likes of Alton Towers and Thorpe Park more widely seem to be struggling for cash...

I dread to think how long it will now be before Thorpe Park get anything else decent.
 
I dread to think how long it will be before the whole ride is simply abandoned. Probably next season I'd imagine.
 
I highly doubt it. Merlin are unlikely to abandon their biggest ride investment to date.
 
For technical reasons, they have kind of built-in a certainty to the ride becoming inevitably obsolete relatively soon, unless they continue to pay large sums of money into it regularly. Unless they have done a complete tech redesign this year with some kind of long term standardisation of the system, but that is very hard and costly with the way prototype technology is.

Merlin sadly ban most reinvestment in existing rides after their initial seasons are up, unless they have a new marketable reason, so either they make an exception for Derren Brown down the line (probably by continually rebranding it with different subtitles) or they lose it in coming years. It should have really been designed quite differently and with far more consideration for the back-end design of the ride in order to compensate this and make it a longer term success.

But there's still a chance it can last if they are willing to pay. If money is all they are worried about though, it actually makes more sense for them to shut it soon.
 
Rick said:
Yet, if you have a candid chat with anyone from B&M they will tell you that it was Superman that created the market for the flying coaster, not Air.
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Ok, then replace the word Air with Superman. My point wasn't about any individuale ride, just that B&M could have built a Flying Coaster sooner but they wouldn't have executed it so well. Both those rides opened the same year so they both make good examples.
 
Has this faddy attraction honestly cost £35 million plus!?

That is honestly truly staggering and entirely poor value for money.

You could build Nemesis and Oblivion again for that kind of money in real terms.

Unbelievable.
 
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