SaiyanHajime
CF Legend
Re: The Swarm - B&M 'Wing-Rider', Thorpe Park 2012
You spectacularly miss the point Ethan. With Expedition Everest, you have a ride that REQUIRES some level of theming throughout the course otherwise it would be dull and completely pointless. It's a story telling ride. With Saw, you do not. Saw uses a well known franchise, sets up a simple story, but it doesn't force it upon you. The narrative of Saw is not the entire point of the ride, it's an enhancement. Saw is a visceral thrill ride, aimed at a skeptical, young adult, and most importantly British, audience.
Whether something as simple as a few trees would improve Saw, I honestly couldn't care less, because that's a practical issue more than anything else. Tree's take a long time to grow, and when you're opening an attraction you want immediate results. Planting some trees which won't be fully grown until the ride is reaching retirement is just idiocy and "what ifs" have no place in this kind of criticism.
And then ultimatedcoaster comes in and says Saw is poorly themed. Eugh. It does make me wonder what standards, exactly, you guys are judging these attractions on? There are elements of Saw that could have been improved vastly, but to slate the ride's theming as a whole is utterly beyond me.
Here are some, in my opinion, just and meaningful criticisms of Saw's theme... Many of the found objects in the queue just look like junk the park is storing/dumped there, none of the traps make sense or are positioned in such a way to intrigue or contribute to the narrative. The dead body under the inline is laughably crap, and that room is too light. The windows to the man who is trapped in the barbed wire in the queue are already ruined and you can't see through them, so perhaps they were a poor practical decision.
But here's a list of positive things about Saw's theme. The area is really nice overall, with a great station building and even the shop. The feature made out of the drop is really nice. The soundtrack. The effects in the queue, such as the guns, are really neat. The station is really, really well done - best feature of the ride and captures the films so well.
With regard to Saw's ride quality, I personally think it differs on an hourly basis. I've been on it and it's been dire, and yet sometimes it's great. It is what it is, and I think personally it's effective all in all. I'd rather it wasn't a Eurofighter, but it does what it says on the tin and well.
Back to Swarm, I think we're looking at something very similar to Saw from a "how will the theming look" perspective. There are going to be more obvious themed elements involved with Swarm though, with that destroyed church building looking more like we saw with Wild Asia (same theming contractor, as far as I know), but a lot of the other elements are going to be very much the same "found" objects - the helicopter, the plane wing and the fire engine as well as other minor themed elements. And also that tarnished tin shed look that has been used so many times before.
You spectacularly miss the point Ethan. With Expedition Everest, you have a ride that REQUIRES some level of theming throughout the course otherwise it would be dull and completely pointless. It's a story telling ride. With Saw, you do not. Saw uses a well known franchise, sets up a simple story, but it doesn't force it upon you. The narrative of Saw is not the entire point of the ride, it's an enhancement. Saw is a visceral thrill ride, aimed at a skeptical, young adult, and most importantly British, audience.
Whether something as simple as a few trees would improve Saw, I honestly couldn't care less, because that's a practical issue more than anything else. Tree's take a long time to grow, and when you're opening an attraction you want immediate results. Planting some trees which won't be fully grown until the ride is reaching retirement is just idiocy and "what ifs" have no place in this kind of criticism.
And then ultimatedcoaster comes in and says Saw is poorly themed. Eugh. It does make me wonder what standards, exactly, you guys are judging these attractions on? There are elements of Saw that could have been improved vastly, but to slate the ride's theming as a whole is utterly beyond me.
Here are some, in my opinion, just and meaningful criticisms of Saw's theme... Many of the found objects in the queue just look like junk the park is storing/dumped there, none of the traps make sense or are positioned in such a way to intrigue or contribute to the narrative. The dead body under the inline is laughably crap, and that room is too light. The windows to the man who is trapped in the barbed wire in the queue are already ruined and you can't see through them, so perhaps they were a poor practical decision.
But here's a list of positive things about Saw's theme. The area is really nice overall, with a great station building and even the shop. The feature made out of the drop is really nice. The soundtrack. The effects in the queue, such as the guns, are really neat. The station is really, really well done - best feature of the ride and captures the films so well.
With regard to Saw's ride quality, I personally think it differs on an hourly basis. I've been on it and it's been dire, and yet sometimes it's great. It is what it is, and I think personally it's effective all in all. I'd rather it wasn't a Eurofighter, but it does what it says on the tin and well.
Back to Swarm, I think we're looking at something very similar to Saw from a "how will the theming look" perspective. There are going to be more obvious themed elements involved with Swarm though, with that destroyed church building looking more like we saw with Wild Asia (same theming contractor, as far as I know), but a lot of the other elements are going to be very much the same "found" objects - the helicopter, the plane wing and the fire engine as well as other minor themed elements. And also that tarnished tin shed look that has been used so many times before.
