Re: WC16 | Thorpe Park | New ??? for 2016
elephant58 said:
What I mean is that this one looks like your average industrial warehouse thing and where I live, there are quite a few of them. That's why I find it interesting. Saw doesn't look as realistic, I suppose that's the difference I mean.
Ah yes, what a great idea for theme park scenery! Something the locals see every day! Marvelous!
"But that's the point!"
No. Well yes, but no as in "that's a terrible idea". (Click me! I'm a link to an explanation!)
Also, the thing about Saw is that it's not set in London. It doesn't look "realistic" because it's reasonably foreign. It still looks believable, though. Because even fantasy worlds can look believable. And that's what theme park scenery is about. The problem is that even Disney can't get the whole "theming to something mundane" thing right. Even Disney.
Even Disney.
Merlin keep going for these wearhouse-like, mundane, grungy and industrial themes for one reason - their cheaper to create effectively. And I actually much prefer them doing that than trying to half-arse visuals that require more than cheap materials, likely often found objects (aka... rubbish - but I'm just guessing here) sourced from who knows where. At least then we get more bang for the buck when it comes to decoration. The problem is everything Merlin do is starting to look the same. We can sit here and argue about whether Smiler, Saw, Sub Terror and now this are "warehouses", but we surely all agree that they are aesthetically similar on that "mundane building" level. Out of them, Saw is the best, because it has the most... Well, stuff going on. It's not a solid block, it's wooden panels, and that matters when your eyes move over it. It's got moving parts, etc.
Going back to
even Disney, it's a growing trend with them to pick an IP and instead of put in the ...quality content, to fall back on decorating it heavily and that'll do. That comes from what they learnt about stuff they didn't decorate heavily - for example, California Adventure. Personally, I really don't think Radiator Springs Racers, as an attraction, is that moving or special or powerful, but it's jaw-dropping decoration makes me feel
bad for thinking that. Look at the exterior of Little Mermaid at California Adventure and compare it to that at Magic Kingdom - a friend told me that effort has made a difference statistically on guest feedback. Decoration, even if it's lacking depth, is good. And in some cases, it's better than depth, as in the example detailed in that link up there...