CoastersLeo
TS Member
I have a sneaking suspicion that Oblivion might not be around for much longer. I've had a rough hunch since around the start of the season when Curse opened, but there's been more and more "evidence" (if you can call it that, or maybe I'm just looking for it where there is none) over the course of the 2023 season.
Curse of Alton Manor's Queueline
In the queueline to The Curse At Alton Manor, there exists many decorative graves. Some are puns, some are funny stories, but some are references to old and defunct rollercoasters and flatrides. The rides listed goes as follow:
[IMAGE: The Oblivion-inspired grave in the queueline to to The Curse At Alton Manor.]
As you can see, 3/4 rollercoasters listed are technically no longer operate as the names listed on the tombstones, whether it be through rethemes (Air to Galactica, The Black Hole to Rocket) or being moved out of Alton or Defunct (The Black Hole and The Corkscrew). Along with this, every flatride (except The Blade, which is super old and might be going soon anyway) also no longer operate as the names listed. So that begs the question, why is Oblivion here? It's very much The Odd One Out. Along with this, take note of the date. 29th February, a leap year. While to me it seems unlikely for Alton Towers to have a major Oblivion overhaul/removal in 2024 due to numerous other projects currently happening, (Nemesis retrack, 3 new flatrides, Forbidden Valley overhaul, Project Horizon,) 2028 is also a leap year. It's possible that by 2028 all these projects will be complete. It may be possible Alton Towers will want to overhaul X-Sector by then.
April Fools Day Prank
For April Fools Day 2023, Alton Towers posted a tweet saying they were getting rid of Oblivion. Now this, is of course, a prank. But you have to look at the bigger picture here. Alton offering two pieces of evidence towards getting rid of Oblivion put this theory on my radar, and throughout 2023 I started actively looking for more evidence.
[IMAGE: Alton Towers Official Twitter account: "We have sadly made the decision to close Oblivion on the 5th November 2023, (Written in the American Month-Day-Year format), in order to introduce some new and exciting Retrosquad rides on this coaster's large footprint. Buy your tickets to Oblivion's final day here: [Hyperlink] + [Image of Oblivion].]
Again, because I never saw this tweet when it was up in person, I'm unsure if it's real. I know an Alton Towers parody account posted a similar but slightly different tweet, and a guy named Ben made a Tiktok about Oblivion's closing, but I'm unsure if they were merely spreading the joke further or if one of them created it in the first place and faked the Alton Towers screenshot themselves. Apologies if this tweet is fake, I'm already skeptical of if the official Alton Towers Twitter started the joke post at all, but just in case they did I'm counting it as evidence.
National Rollercoaster Day Q&A With John Burton
On 16th August 2023, Alton Towers release a Q&A video with John Burton. While most people remember this video for John Burton side-eyeing the camera with his RMC cup, everyone seemed to miss this tidbit:
[IMAGES: John Burton asking: "What's been your favourite Coaster design to work on?" - He answers, "I could already be working on it, so watch this space!" he is stood in the pit outside of Oblivion's drop, implying something new (either a retheme or a new rollercoaster altogether) could be coming to Oblivion's area.]
While this isn't as strong of a piece of evidence as the last bit which practically confirms something is happening, Burton chose to do the RMC tease behind Oblivion's drop. Why this rollercoaster in particular? Although he said "something's on the horizon" in regards to an RMC, I highly doubt Project Horizon will be an RMC. It's too big of a building for a Wild Moose (being able to fit 3 of those,) but too small of a building to fit a traditional RMC. If we assume Project Horizon is in fact Secret Weapon 9... How cool would it be if they held off on the RMC idea for Secret Weapon 10? If they moved Just Chicken, X-Cite, and Oblivion, you could very easily fit an RMC Raptor down that hole and in the surrounding area. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.
Wickerman Merch Change
While I was at Alton Towers around June, I noticed something about Wickerman's merch. Every rollercoaster generally gets assigned a colour for their merch. Smiler is yellow, Thirteen is green, Nemesis is red, Galactica is blue, Oblivion is orange. Wickerman had to share red with Nemesis, but this year (and I don't know when the change happened exactly), Wickerman's colours seem to be shifting more over to orange.
When I got off a ride on Wickerman, I made sure to grab a picture for comparison.
[IMAGE: Two Wickerman hoodies. The newer one is black with orange accents. The older one is black with red accents. In the frame is a Wickerman vest that's black with red accents.]
It's definetly more orange. However, I looked a bit closer and spotted something. The older, redder merch is actually on sale.
[IMAGE: The old, red-accented Wickerman vest from the previous image. On it, a red "Reduced" tag reads: Was £20.00, Now £15.00.]
So it definetly seems like they want to get rid of their red Wickerman merch. However, this could just be because they want to free up the colour red so Merlin can really lean hard into the Nemesis merch next year. But that begs the question, why make Wickerman orange? I get that Oblivion doesn't have much merch, only having 4 hoodies/shirts in Buy The Smiler / The X-Sector shop this year, which in my opinion is a missed opportunity because I think Oblivion's logo is best suited to merch (it already looks like a clothing brand logo), but they could have used any other colour for Wickerman. Maybe more of a blood-orange / russet colour? Maroon? Brown? Brown might not show up as well against the black though, but c'mon. They had options.
Potential Retheme?
But if Oblivion did get rethemed, what to? Well... There's a slight pattern I've noticed with Alton Towers theme colours. Nemesis and Galactica are in the same area, and are red and blue. While those colours aren't directly opposites on the colour wheel, they're generally accepted to be opposites by people. Rita is roughly approximate to pink sometimes, Thirteen is green. Pink is just a shade of red, which IS opposite to green. However, Smiler (yellow) and Oblivion (orange) do not follow this pattern. Yellow and orange are complimentary colours, not opposites. Therefore, I think it may be plausible that if Oblivion were to get rethemed (or removed and replaced with something new), it could use a purple or indigo sort of colour.
Just think about it... Secret Weapon 10, a potential RMC, using Alton Tower's brand colour of purple. It could be the park's new flagship Coaster, next to one of their older and most UK-infamous rollercoasters, The Smiler. I think that could work!
So in conclusion, I believe that Oblivion will either be getting rethemed or removed within the next 5 years or so. It's an old ride, there's better things out there now. While I do admit a lot of this evidence is very situational, a coincidence, or could have other explanations, you can't deny that something definetly seems to be happening. But with that being said... What do you all think could happen with Oblivion in the future?
Curse of Alton Manor's Queueline
In the queueline to The Curse At Alton Manor, there exists many decorative graves. Some are puns, some are funny stories, but some are references to old and defunct rollercoasters and flatrides. The rides listed goes as follow:
- Ripsaw (DEFUNCT) - [Engraving of a circular saw] - Dearly Missed - Is grandad Moore - Cut in two - By a deadly ripsaw
- Around The World In 80 Days (RETHEMED) - [Engraving of a hot air balloon] Great Uncle Earl - Travelled the world - After 80 days - Never a word
- Oblivion (OPERATING) - Momento Mori - Matthew Cory - Ignored in life - Now same old story - Sank into Oblivion - 29th February 1842
- Air (RETHEMED) - [Engraving of Air Logo] - Flying so high - Our pilot Claire - Flew too high - and ran out of Air
- Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (RETHEMED) - [Engraving of a Chocolate Bar] - R.I.P - Charlie B. - Left behind - The chocolate factory
- The Blade - (OPERATING) - [I couldn't find a pic of it online to write the text, I'm so sorry. I'm confident it exists though.]
- The Corkscrew (DEFUNCT)- Drew our waiter - Full of grace - Took a corkscrew - too the face
- The Blackhole (DEFUNCT/MOVED) - Cousin Joel - Dug for coal - Pray for his soul - In that Black Hole
[IMAGE: The Oblivion-inspired grave in the queueline to to The Curse At Alton Manor.]
As you can see, 3/4 rollercoasters listed are technically no longer operate as the names listed on the tombstones, whether it be through rethemes (Air to Galactica, The Black Hole to Rocket) or being moved out of Alton or Defunct (The Black Hole and The Corkscrew). Along with this, every flatride (except The Blade, which is super old and might be going soon anyway) also no longer operate as the names listed. So that begs the question, why is Oblivion here? It's very much The Odd One Out. Along with this, take note of the date. 29th February, a leap year. While to me it seems unlikely for Alton Towers to have a major Oblivion overhaul/removal in 2024 due to numerous other projects currently happening, (Nemesis retrack, 3 new flatrides, Forbidden Valley overhaul, Project Horizon,) 2028 is also a leap year. It's possible that by 2028 all these projects will be complete. It may be possible Alton Towers will want to overhaul X-Sector by then.
April Fools Day Prank
For April Fools Day 2023, Alton Towers posted a tweet saying they were getting rid of Oblivion. Now this, is of course, a prank. But you have to look at the bigger picture here. Alton offering two pieces of evidence towards getting rid of Oblivion put this theory on my radar, and throughout 2023 I started actively looking for more evidence.
[IMAGE: Alton Towers Official Twitter account: "We have sadly made the decision to close Oblivion on the 5th November 2023, (Written in the American Month-Day-Year format), in order to introduce some new and exciting Retrosquad rides on this coaster's large footprint. Buy your tickets to Oblivion's final day here: [Hyperlink] + [Image of Oblivion].]
Again, because I never saw this tweet when it was up in person, I'm unsure if it's real. I know an Alton Towers parody account posted a similar but slightly different tweet, and a guy named Ben made a Tiktok about Oblivion's closing, but I'm unsure if they were merely spreading the joke further or if one of them created it in the first place and faked the Alton Towers screenshot themselves. Apologies if this tweet is fake, I'm already skeptical of if the official Alton Towers Twitter started the joke post at all, but just in case they did I'm counting it as evidence.
National Rollercoaster Day Q&A With John Burton
On 16th August 2023, Alton Towers release a Q&A video with John Burton. While most people remember this video for John Burton side-eyeing the camera with his RMC cup, everyone seemed to miss this tidbit:
[IMAGES: John Burton asking: "What's been your favourite Coaster design to work on?" - He answers, "I could already be working on it, so watch this space!" he is stood in the pit outside of Oblivion's drop, implying something new (either a retheme or a new rollercoaster altogether) could be coming to Oblivion's area.]
While this isn't as strong of a piece of evidence as the last bit which practically confirms something is happening, Burton chose to do the RMC tease behind Oblivion's drop. Why this rollercoaster in particular? Although he said "something's on the horizon" in regards to an RMC, I highly doubt Project Horizon will be an RMC. It's too big of a building for a Wild Moose (being able to fit 3 of those,) but too small of a building to fit a traditional RMC. If we assume Project Horizon is in fact Secret Weapon 9... How cool would it be if they held off on the RMC idea for Secret Weapon 10? If they moved Just Chicken, X-Cite, and Oblivion, you could very easily fit an RMC Raptor down that hole and in the surrounding area. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.
Wickerman Merch Change
While I was at Alton Towers around June, I noticed something about Wickerman's merch. Every rollercoaster generally gets assigned a colour for their merch. Smiler is yellow, Thirteen is green, Nemesis is red, Galactica is blue, Oblivion is orange. Wickerman had to share red with Nemesis, but this year (and I don't know when the change happened exactly), Wickerman's colours seem to be shifting more over to orange.
When I got off a ride on Wickerman, I made sure to grab a picture for comparison.
[IMAGE: Two Wickerman hoodies. The newer one is black with orange accents. The older one is black with red accents. In the frame is a Wickerman vest that's black with red accents.]
It's definetly more orange. However, I looked a bit closer and spotted something. The older, redder merch is actually on sale.
[IMAGE: The old, red-accented Wickerman vest from the previous image. On it, a red "Reduced" tag reads: Was £20.00, Now £15.00.]
So it definetly seems like they want to get rid of their red Wickerman merch. However, this could just be because they want to free up the colour red so Merlin can really lean hard into the Nemesis merch next year. But that begs the question, why make Wickerman orange? I get that Oblivion doesn't have much merch, only having 4 hoodies/shirts in Buy The Smiler / The X-Sector shop this year, which in my opinion is a missed opportunity because I think Oblivion's logo is best suited to merch (it already looks like a clothing brand logo), but they could have used any other colour for Wickerman. Maybe more of a blood-orange / russet colour? Maroon? Brown? Brown might not show up as well against the black though, but c'mon. They had options.
Potential Retheme?
But if Oblivion did get rethemed, what to? Well... There's a slight pattern I've noticed with Alton Towers theme colours. Nemesis and Galactica are in the same area, and are red and blue. While those colours aren't directly opposites on the colour wheel, they're generally accepted to be opposites by people. Rita is roughly approximate to pink sometimes, Thirteen is green. Pink is just a shade of red, which IS opposite to green. However, Smiler (yellow) and Oblivion (orange) do not follow this pattern. Yellow and orange are complimentary colours, not opposites. Therefore, I think it may be plausible that if Oblivion were to get rethemed (or removed and replaced with something new), it could use a purple or indigo sort of colour.
Just think about it... Secret Weapon 10, a potential RMC, using Alton Tower's brand colour of purple. It could be the park's new flagship Coaster, next to one of their older and most UK-infamous rollercoasters, The Smiler. I think that could work!
So in conclusion, I believe that Oblivion will either be getting rethemed or removed within the next 5 years or so. It's an old ride, there's better things out there now. While I do admit a lot of this evidence is very situational, a coincidence, or could have other explanations, you can't deny that something definetly seems to be happening. But with that being said... What do you all think could happen with Oblivion in the future?
