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Thorpe Park | Hyperia | Mack Hyper Coaster | 2024

Coaster said:
Curious change on the Thorpe Park app; "opens 24th May" has been changed to "opens from 24th May."

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It'll just be the team in charge of the app changing the wording to make it clearer for the consumer. It's something that happens all the time at my work. Some may read it as only being open on the 24th May so now it's clearer to the user that it's from that date.
 
Ollie said:
It'll just be the team in charge of the app changing the wording to make it clearer for the consumer. It's something that happens all the time at my work. Some may read it as only being open on the 24th May so now it's clearer to the user that it's from that date.
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Ah, that makes sense. I was thinking maybe that meant they were pushing the date back a bit or something.
 
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Well, this is very confusing... I wasn't expecting this. I'm interested in seeing what it looks like completed.

Edit: Regardless of what this is it seems like AI has been used to create the images, and pretty crappy AI at that. All the hands have three distorted fingers. Quite disappointing coming from a company as large as Merlin.
 
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I'veGotFourB&MsInMyGarden said:
View attachment 31185Well, this is very confusing... I wasn't expecting this. I'm interested in seeing what it looks like completed.

Edit: Regardless of what this is it seems like AI has been used to create the images, and pretty crappy AI at that. All the hands have three distorted fingers. Quite disappointing coming from a company as large as Merlin.
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They really couldn’t have hired artists? SMH.
 
The images have now been deleted off their page. Probably due to the incorrect order they were posted in or the huge amount of backlash in the comments regarding the use of AI. I would guess the latter.
 
Crazycoaster said:
What exactly is it that we’re looking at, and why is it so unexpected?
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The three newest posts of what looks like AI generated art of a child in a robe with rainbow wings. It's presumably part of Hyperia's marketing and I thought it was unexpected as it's quite the departure from the stylised gold, black, and white we've been seeing up until this point.
 
The image now appears to have been removed...

I don't think this was a good marketing move, though. If I were Thorpe Park, I honestly wouldn't be honing in too much on the theme/style, and I'd pretty much be solely focusing on the ride itself. They've done that quite well up to this point, to be fair, but I found that image weird and out of step with everything we've seen so far. And that's before we get into the fact that it was quite clearly AI-generated if you look closely...

I don't think this coaster needs to be marketed with any goddess imagery or anything like that. Just stick to the coaster itself and the "find your fearless" tagline/vibe and I think we're grand.
 
Matt N said:
The image now appears to have been removed...

I don't think this was a good marketing move, though. If I were Thorpe Park, I honestly wouldn't be honing in too much on the theme/style, and I'd pretty much be solely focusing on the ride itself. They've done that quite well up to this point, to be fair, but I found that image weird and out of step with everything we've seen so far. And that's before we get into the fact that it was quite clearly AI-generated if you look closely...

I don't think this coaster needs to be marketed with any goddess imagery or anything like that. Just stick to the coaster itself and the "find your fearless" tagline/vibe and I think we're grand.
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Yeah, I mean it’s not like this coaster has a lot of theming or anything. Well, I mean I guess it seems like they’re trying. But are they succeeding? No. The theming is practically nonexistent. So it’s weird that they’re trying to market the theming.
 
I like what Thorpe are doing with the stylised approach rather than theming (with exception of Swarm which I'm cool with as it's on it's own island). Has a kind of mini Cedar Point/boardwalk kinda vibe, I like it. Probs an opinion which most will disagree with.

I like the immersion of Alton Towers and it's nice spending a whole day there. I frequent Thorpe Park simply to session rides. Don't care at all as to the theme of Hyperia, it's massive and that's all I care about. It is a bit tacky, like Icon, but genuinely, all I'll be thinking about in the back row of that first drop is hoping my femurs don't snap and getting ejected from the train. The ride experience will do the talking.
 
English Coaster Guy said:
I like what Thorpe are doing with the stylised approach rather than theming (with exception of Swarm which I'm cool with as it's on it's own island). Has a kind of mini Cedar Point/boardwalk kinda vibe, I like it. Probs an opinion which most will disagree with.

I like the immersion of Alton Towers and it's nice spending a whole day there. I frequent Thorpe Park simply to session rides. Don't care at all as to the theme of Hyperia, it's massive and that's all I care about. It is a bit tacky, like Icon, but genuinely, all I'll be thinking about in the back row of that first drop is hoping my femurs don't snap and getting ejected from the train. The ride experience will do the talking.
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Couldn't agree more. Thorpe Park works great as an amusement park. Alton Towers can naturally achieve more immersion with each land because of how enclosed they are. Whereas there's no point in pretending you're by a volcano when you can see a flooded 50s town and a zombie outpost from the queue. Ride theming is always a novel benefit, but as long as the ride has some kind of identity (which it absolutely does), the park's innate summer-y atmosphere fits well enough for me, and the ride won't get bogged down by it's own premise (*cough* Sub-Terra *cough*).
 
Are there any adverts for the coaster that anyone has seen? Cannot remember something this big ever not having one from merlin since their adverts are so iconic? Even Nemmy reborn had one. Maybe it'll happen closer to the time.
 
IGwaziSolos said:
Even Nemmy reborn had one. Maybe it'll happen closer to the time.
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Thorpe confirmed a while ago that filming for Hyperia's tv advert has been taking place.

Seeing as we first saw Reborn's telly advert the day before it opened, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Hyperia's for the first time on the 23rd.
 
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IGwaziSolos said:
Are there any adverts for the coaster that anyone has seen? Cannot remember something this big ever not having one from merlin since their adverts are so iconic? Even Nemmy reborn had one. Maybe it'll happen closer to the time.
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Is that not exactly what the previous social media post is talking about? The posts on Instagram showing the girl.. the creation of the narrative.. it’s all going to be for the advert right?
 
davidm said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1786460868747882655

EDIT: and youtube link to just the video;


(stupid portrait videos! ;) )

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EDIT AGAIN (now that silly Thorpe social media interns have delted everything they posted an hour ago and reposted it...)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1786474713621115209
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I don't know why... I can't put my finger on a reason, but I absolutely love that... 😍😍😍 I keep watching it, over and over. Weirdly, felt a little emotional the first time too.

WE'RE NEARLY THERE FELLOW UK GOONS.... ONLY 30 years of waiting!!!

It's not too 'fancy,' nothing groundbreaking, no big budget, long winded, super high quality movie... But it was EVERYTHING it needed to be, and invoked something inside to raise my hype levels even further. 👏 👏 👏

(P.s is this done by the same team that did the wickerman pre show by any chance?)
 
I apologise in advance, but I’m afraid I’m going to be controversial here… I have to say that I really don’t see the point of heavily promoting the “story” for Hyperia. If there was ever a ride where an in-depth backstory was pretty much redundant, I think this is it. The ride has next to no theming, and unlike many Merlin rides, it pretty much doesn’t appear to focus on theming or storytelling at all.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If I were Thorpe, I’d be ditching any major focus on the theme or story in marketing and just going all in on the coaster itself. Just hammer home that silhouette of the layout and its giant elements and hammer home the records, with only the very vague “find your fearless” imagery present as an indication of the theme/style. To be fair, I think they’ve done that pretty well up to this point, but the marketing seems to have taken a bit of a weird turn in the last couple of days.

Granted, I’m no marketing expert by any means, but the approach of the last couple of days is certainly not how I’d approach marketing Hyperia. The coaster itself is the key strength of this project, so why not play to your strengths? I fear that this sudden focus on the theme and “story” of Hyperia will only invite criticism regarding the very minimalistic nature of the actual ride theming.
 
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