The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread

[SFMMFan76]

Not a fan of Green Lantern either, but I'll believe it when the park releases a statement saying the ride is being removed.

 

Also, whatever happened to the Solar Panel farm that was going to be installed over the parking lot? Haven't heard much about that since the press release.

[MagicMountainMan]

Not a fan of Green Lantern either, but I'll believe it when the park releases a statement saying the ride is being removed.

 

Also, whatever happened to the Solar Panel farm that was going to be installed over the parking lot? Haven't heard much about that since the press release.

 

From Sue Carpenter:

The Green Lantern: First Flight roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain is scheduled to be removed at a later, undetermined date to make room for future development. The park has no plans to open the ride before it is removed. Six Flags Magic Mountain, the “Thrill Capital of the World,” continues to have an unparalleled world-class roller coaster collection. The park is open daily and will debut the world’s first dual racing launch coaster, West Coast Racers, later this year.

[SFMMFan76]

Not a fan of Green Lantern either, but I'll believe it when the park releases a statement saying the ride is being removed.

 

Also, whatever happened to the Solar Panel farm that was going to be installed over the parking lot? Haven't heard much about that since the press release.

 

From Sue Carpenter:

The Green Lantern: First Flight roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain is scheduled to be removed at a later, undetermined date to make room for future development. The park has no plans to open the ride before it is removed. Six Flags Magic Mountain, the “Thrill Capital of the World,” continues to have an unparalleled world-class roller coaster collection. The park is open daily and will debut the world’s first dual racing launch coaster, West Coast Racers, later this year.

 

Yeah, I saw that on ScreamScape... But doesn't the park itself make an announcement to all media outlets?

[Jew]

Sue carpenter is the park spokeswoman.

[Jason Maier]

The inevitable questions now that GL:FF has been removed:

 

1. What replaces it? Something compact like an S&S 4D Free Spin or Premier Sky Rocket II? Or a flat package?

 

2. Why did this Zacspin flop while the other three (Inferno, Insane and Kirnu) are still operating?

[coasterbill]

Given this ride's tiny footprint I think that it's entirely likely that it won't be replaced by anything and honestly that's still an upgrade.

[Canobie Coaster]

I'd lean more towards a flat going there like one of those Tourbillions.

 

The inevitable questions now that GL:FF has been removed:

 

1. What replaces it? Something compact like an S&S 4D Free Spin or Premier Sky Rocket II? Or a flat package?

 

2. Why did this Zacspin flop while the other three (Inferno, Insane and Kirnu) are still operating?

 

2 has been discussed quite a bit. SFMM restricted the rocking/flipping which had the unintended consequence of inflicting uncomfortable forces on riders. Meanwhile the ones in Europe rotate more freely.

[thrillseeker4552]

I know this may not make sense from a business perspective, but I would absolutely love for Green Lantern to be replaced with a 4D Free Spin. Heck, theme it to the Joker like most of the ones at Six Flags. It would fit right in with the area and obviously be a big upgrade.

 

But like I said, I'm not sure how likely this is given its similarities to Green Lantern and any possible "grudges" held against it by the GP. Or maybe it's not that big of a deal?

[DBJ]

The only essential thing they need to keep in that area is basically the toilet. Personally, something like Batman Knight Flight from Warner Brothers Abu Dhabi would be very cool. Throw down a Disk-O coaster and you have a good DC area. Or, if they ever follow through with that Tidal Wave removal rumor, going back long time now, would be an exceptional amount of space for a large scale installation.

[coasterlvr]

I'd lean more towards a flat going there like one of those Tourbillions.

 

The inevitable questions now that GL:FF has been removed:

 

1. What replaces it? Something compact like an S&S 4D Free Spin or Premier Sky Rocket II? Or a flat package?

 

2. Why did this Zacspin flop while the other three (Inferno, Insane and Kirnu) are still operating?

 

2 has been discussed quite a bit. SFMM restricted the rocking/flipping which had the unintended consequence of inflicting uncomfortable forces on riders. Meanwhile the ones in Europe rotate more freely.

 

i rode it before they put those huge weights on. unbalanced and was continually thrown into and back into the seat. head and body trauma. i'm guessing my friend and i got the worst ride you could get. the possibility of getting a ride half as bad as what i did kept me from every riding again.

 

i still say that while i'm sure many enjoy it, the fact that there are only 4 total in the world says a lot about how parks felt about it if they thought about buying one.

[Jew]

I'd lean more towards a flat going there like one of those Tourbillions.

 

The inevitable questions now that GL:FF has been removed:

 

1. What replaces it? Something compact like an S&S 4D Free Spin or Premier Sky Rocket II? Or a flat package?

 

2. Why did this Zacspin flop while the other three (Inferno, Insane and Kirnu) are still operating?

 

2 has been discussed quite a bit. SFMM restricted the rocking/flipping which had the unintended consequence of inflicting uncomfortable forces on riders. Meanwhile the ones in Europe rotate more freely.

 

i rode it before they put those huge weights on. unbalanced and was continually thrown into and back into the seat. head and body trauma. i'm guessing my friend and i got the worst ride you could get. the possibility of getting a ride half as bad as what i did kept me from every riding again.

 

i still say that while i'm sure many enjoy it, the fact that there are only 4 total in the world says a lot about how parks felt about it if they thought about buying one.

 

If I recall correctly, the weights were there from the beginning.

[Superbatboy]

I'll miss GL's pretty green aesthetic the most, it gave the DC area some life visually IMO.

[coasterlvr]

If I recall correctly, the weights were there from the beginning.

 

since i only rode it once, and never gave it any attention after, i only read about the change. i always assumed it was the fins on the side, which were clearly fiberglass when it opened. then later, there's like another piece behind them.

 

original

 

modified

[kalikoasterman510]

My first, and only ride on it was horrible!! It was uncomfortable and when we were in the brakes just outside of the station, the car wouldn't upright itself to advance. Luckily my legs were long enough and I was able to push off of a ledge to my left and rock the car until it was level enough! No joke, I "singlefootedly" uprighted the car myself!

 

Sayonara to a coaster that will NOT be missed!!

[RAWKIN_coaster38]

I don’t know if I can say I’ll miss it but I’m not happy either... I got an enjoyable ride on it.... at some point? For those of you who never got to ride it, here’s my summary:

 

Whoa this lift hill is super suspenseful, I’m actually a little scared

Here we go! This is going to be insane!

Gentle rocking

This is it?

More gentle rocking

SUDDEN VIOLENT DROP

OMG WTF JUST HAPPENED??

WHAT THE ... OW!

Finally gets a full flip at the very end

Actually doesn’t go all the way around, #trollololol

Drops you on your head

Done.

 

I will forever cherish these memories.

[Twistedtatsu805]

The last ride I had on GL wasn't too bad, but I remember it ripped all the change out of my pockets on that last element before the station.

[pǝʇɹǝʌuı]

I don’t know if I can say I’ll miss it but I’m not happy either... I got an enjoyable ride on it.... at some point? For those of you who never got to ride it, here’s my summary:

 

Whoa this lift hill is super suspenseful, I’m actually a little scared

Here we go! This is going to be insane!

Gentle rocking

This is it?

More gentle rocking

SUDDEN VIOLENT DROP

OMG WTF JUST HAPPENED??

WHAT THE ... OW!

Finally gets a full flip at the very end

Actually doesn’t go all the way around, #trollololol

Drops you on your head

Done.

 

I will forever cherish these memories.

 

Literally loling at how accurate this is.

 

I rode it twice. It's been a while so I don't remember exactly, but I think the first time was sans weights. The lift hill is definitely the most thrilling element. The first time I rode it wasn't terrible but was really meh and we hardly flipped at all (until the end when we did a half-flip, like you said lol). The second time I could clearly feel the dampened spinning along with some very uncomfortable forces, and afterward I decided it's not worth riding again. Won't be missed by me.

[Intamin_coyote]

Ok some random question, but I'd like to hear some opinions on Goliath (and/or the other Giovanalo hyper for that matter, if you've ridden it.)

 

To me, they look like impressive rides, and getting on at least on one of them has been pretty high on my bucket list for well...ever!

 

However, I've heard a decent amount of "overrated" charges thrown these coasters' ways.

 

Some attack them for supposedly not having much air time. But to that I say the same thing I do when people gripe of Beast or Millie having little airtime. Which is... NOT EVERY RIDE HAS TO BE BASED AROUND AIRTIME!!. Don't get me wrong, I love airtime as much as the next fellow, but it'd be redundant if every ride was like that...

 

I've heard some say that its rough, and others say the helices toward the end are forceful to point of discomfort.

 

Thoughts?

[coasterlvr]

Ok some random question, but I'd like to hear some opinions on Goliath (and/or the other Giovanalo hyper for that matter, if you've ridden it.)

 

To me, they look like impressive rides, and getting on at least on one of them has been pretty high on my bucket list for well...ever!

 

However, I've heard a decent amount of "overrated" charges thrown these coasters' ways.

 

Some attack them for supposedly not having much air time. But to that I say the same thing I do when people gripe of Beast or Millie having little airtime. Which is... NOT EVERY RIDE HAS TO BE BASED AROUND AIRTIME!!. Don't get me wrong, I love airtime as much as the next fellow, but it'd be redundant if every ride was like that...

 

I've heard some say that its rough, and others say the helices toward the end are forceful to point of discomfort.

 

Thoughts?

 

the big camelback has some good floater airtime. but that's really it on Goliath. the drop just feels like a long ramp these days. i remember it feeling better, but that's probably just the times. i also could swear it didn't slow down at the top of the lift.

 

the second half is still pretty intense. it was way more intense when it opened and the mid course brake did nothing. now it either nearly stops, or does stop the train.

 

it's still a fun ride. but being that i live in LA, i'd rather have any hyper coaster over goliath.

[coasterbill]

We went to Magic Mountain in February for the first time in 5-6 years and sort of remembered being less-than-impressed with Goliath but we actually ended up riding it a ton and thinking it was an absolute blast. Goliath gets a thumbs up from me.

 

Titan blows.

[bluestreak]

We went to Magic Mountain in February for the first time in 5-6 years and sort of remembered being less-than-impressed with Goliath but we actually ended up riding it a ton and thinking it was an absolute blast. Goliath gets a thumbs up from me.

 

Titan blows.

 

I've never ridden either coaster but I know both have similar layouts so why is Titan such a big step down from Goliath?

[SteVeUrkle]

I don't know what Magic Mountain did to Green Lantern but man it seems like from day 1 it was destroyed. I've ridden Insane at Grono Lund and it was actually fun. Green Lantern just hurt, and it didn't spin, and I think the neutering of the spin actually made the ride experience worse, and forced the train to come into the station upside down when it wasn't supposed to. Of course ironically, it was one of the *better* themed rides in the park, that big Green Lantern logo on the side of the coaster was sweet, you could easily see it from the 5 freeway kinda like the Superman "S" logo. Ride capacity was garbage. Good riddance!

 

Has anyone whose ridden those newer S&S freespins Six Flags has been installing all over the chain been impressed? Are those actually any good? They must be they keep getting installed all over the chain. I wonder if MM will get one of those to replace Green Lantern, call it The Joker or something.

 

On to Goliath: Well, I guess you could just say considering the park made such a hefty investment at the time, and while on paper the dimensions of the ride sound great, I'm just not really sure that Goliath packs any kind of punch that you'd expect from a ride that has a 255 foot drop and goes 85 mph. I mean, it sure is pretty smooth.

 

The tunnel flashes by so quick you kinda forget it's there. It's got a kinda neat but way too drawn out floater hill. The brake run seems to kill the momentum just as the thing seems to get going. My gripe is it just doesn't seem to do *anything* particularly well to be a stand out coaster. And that first drop is okay in the very back, but COME ON a 61 degree drop when you have Millenium Force opening the same year going 80 degrees? Like another user said, it feels like a slowly drawn out ramp.

 

Consider the period of time when Goliath was built: you look at the 200 foot Intamin Supermans that were being made at SFNE, SFA, SFDL, during the exact same time period, and have infinitely better reviews. I kinda wish Magic Mountain would have done one of those with Intamin, painted it the same orange and teal, named it Goliath and called it a day.

 

But for some ungodly reason the general public absolutely loves Goliath to this day. Maybe it's because of that tall looming intimidating drop you can see from the parking lot. The big faux-rock entrance. I have friends that will ride X2 anyday, but for some reason Goliath freaks them out. They hate that lift hill. That drop freaks them out.

 

It makes no sense to me. I've probably been skipping Goliath on my trips for about a decade now. The queue line is just way too long even if it's walk on, and I would rather get on Batman or Twisted Colossus an extra time or two instead.

 

Hey, isn't Magic Mountain opening a new coaster this year lol? Or are they pushing it to 2020 now instead because nobody seems to care?!?

[dylanreich]

I'd lean more towards a flat going there like one of those Tourbillions.

 

The inevitable questions now that GL:FF has been removed:

 

1. What replaces it? Something compact like an S&S 4D Free Spin or Premier Sky Rocket II? Or a flat package?

 

2. Why did this Zacspin flop while the other three (Inferno, Insane and Kirnu) are still operating?

 

2 has been discussed quite a bit. SFMM restricted the rocking/flipping which had the unintended consequence of inflicting uncomfortable forces on riders. Meanwhile the ones in Europe rotate more freely.

 

i rode it before they put those huge weights on. unbalanced and was continually thrown into and back into the seat. head and body trauma. i'm guessing my friend and i got the worst ride you could get. the possibility of getting a ride half as bad as what i did kept me from every riding again.

 

i still say that while i'm sure many enjoy it, the fact that there are only 4 total in the world says a lot about how parks felt about it if they thought about buying one.

 

If I recall correctly, the weights were there from the beginning.

 

The photo with the added guards is somewhat of a red herring as they were just guards and while added some weight, the main change lies with the ride settings.

 

The ride has settings that manage the spin resistance, and the park cranked them up around a month after opening. It's very likely that the main reason they did it was actually to increase capacity (although this was still the park's fault entirely which I will get to). When the cars came into the station a certain way after substantial flipping, the ride ops had to call for maintenance to come "right" the cars as the mechanism would sometimes "right" them to the upside-down position. This would cause a shutdown of 10+ minutes every single time while they waited for mechanics to show up and simply walk over to the end of the track and manually right the cars. I rode this ride 36 times in one day (I know I'm crazy) back before they made the change, and I can say they probably called maintenance at least 5 separate times to come do the same exact thing, causing major downtime for something very simple that should have been able to be done by the ride ops. I'm not sure if this was due to the lack of training given to the standard ops, as I understand that the ride ops at Grona Lund and other Zac-spins handle this just fine. Either way the park blew it.

 

I think it's very unfortunate as imo the intended ride experience was fantastic; I won't forget being put on with a large male and two tiny kids on the other side, and spinning ~13 times. With the same setup but post-changes, that might still equal 0 spins and a ton of pain. RIP Green Lantern.

[coasterbill]

I've never ridden either coaster but I know both have similar layouts so why is Titan such a big step down from Goliath?

 

It's really intense, but not in a cool way... it's sort of like "gravitron intense" where it makes you feel like you're going to die but not by doing anything interesting, it just spins you around in circles so there's no payoff. I don't mind grey-out inducing elements if they're fun and do cool sh*t like I305 but that first helix is brutal and you don't recover from it by the second one so it's basically like you can't see straight for 45 seconds or so but all you're doing is going around in circles. Then again, it was 105 degrees when we rode it so it's likely that it's not always running that fast and we were probably really dehydrated.

 

I love intensity but not when it's just endless helixes for no reason. With I305 and Maverick the ride is also doing amazing sh*t while performing super intense maneuvers which is great. Titan is not doing that. Goliath pulls out of the helix at the perfect time. It's actually a really cool element on that ride.

 

I'm sure some people love Titan and I get why. It's just not for me.

[TexasParkman]

I have ridden both several times- I prefer Titan- Goliath seems tamer to me.... Titan has also been a smoother ride- but not by much. The element of heat + standing in line for Titan makes the opportunity for Grey-out that much more likely. Honestly other than "Park Pride"- both of these machines are about the same.