The Six Flags Magic Mountain (SFMM) Discussion Thread

[PAL]

Brady McDonald of the LA Times Funland blog reported the ride should spin better in the few weeks:

 

Eventually, the rocking and spinning Green Lantern cars will be allowed to rotate more freely after the initial test-and-adjust phase, adding an extra layer of intimidation to an already exciting ride in the coming weeks.

 

His review: http://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/themeparks/la-trb-six-flags-magic-mountain-green-lantern-06201129,0,6205789.story

 

Now for mine. Don't be fooled by Green Lantern's gentle look. This thing has fangs, sharp ones. A day after three laps twin spots on my shoulders are sore (in a good way). The Lantern dishes out incredible downward G forces unlike any other coaster I've experienced. The feel is swoopy, abrupt and forceful. Each of those sharp transitions is a sudden downward yank that'll get you gasping in (delighted) surprise.

 

It's a worthy addition to "The Extreme Park!" It fits right in with the Helix of Death, the adrenalized take-charge chaos of X-2, and the flat on your back crush of Tatsu's mighty pretzel loop. The GP will love the "death-defying" challenge.

 

My first trip didn't spin, but the ride was still unique and intense. The next time out we had two bigger guys on one side and two slender reeds on the other. That one gave us two revolutions, with a leg-whip coming off the final element as a rough kiss goodbye. My final trip was carefully balanced by the op, with a lady each inboard and the apes on the outer seats. That one gave us one 360 over the ending hop. Watch out for that - the grouper may instruct the heaviest riders to take the outward seats. I don't know why. Any thoughts?

 

I agree - this isn't a hands up ride. I forgot the arm guard the moment we headed up the smooth and speedy lift (the views different from the norm, the view is something to savor). The backwards seats are rich in anticipation. The front-facing roll you up to a cliff and fling you over the edge. I didn't notice the tight clearances in the station - I was too preoccupied with the ride.

 

Shorter people should expect quite a hop up into the seat. Watch out guys - the groin guard could get you good (bad) if you don't hop high enough. Also as others have said, there aren't preshows per se, but there is welcome diversion in the likely to be slow queue. No one is going to hold you back from the front of the line.

 

Finally, the entire newly refreshed DC area was lavished with fun, extra details. I wasn't free to take much of it in, but I'm looking forward to coming back and spending some time to find the hidden and not so hidden tributes. The two flats could be brand new.

Edited July 1, 2011 by PAL

[BlueFireCoaster]

Several of the cars in the You Tube videos I've watched of Insane at Grona seem to be spinning/moving almost identical to how Green Lantern is riding right now - meaning the cars are not flipping 3-4 times. There are a couple out there where the flipping is more frequent, but by watching the video you can tell the car is obviously unevenly balanced, and I haven't seen much of that, which means it is probably a rare occurance.

 

ERT will probably give riders the opportunity to organize the trains less evenly to give more of a "flippy" ride, but I'm guessing for GP rides on regular days, it will be running similarly to how it is now. That is unless they decide to adjust the trains (like described in the article above) to flip more!

 

DC Universe looks AWESOME. I am impressed with how they pulled it off, and although I will miss the Gotham City Backlot (it was the newest area of the park from my earliest memories of visiting Magic Mountain) it definitely needed an improvement, and what they did looks great.

 

I do agree with what some on here say about the G's being the best aspect of the ride. To me the flipping is not that important - the forces exerted on you through the ride are quite high, and pretty remarkable. Nice addition Six Flags! Let's try to get that capacity flying!

[fatdaddy]

 

After all, it's nice to see Cyborg bumped up to headliner, but that makes sense since DC's obviously pushing the white Hal Jordan Green Lantern because of the movie, rather the the previously pushed (from the Justice League cartoon) black John Stewart.

 

And it's interesting to see them using the classic 80's to two years ago Wonder Woman costume, rather than the current one in the comics. Then again, the entire DC Universe is devolving in a few months, so I imagine they'll go back to the classic costume.

 

Of course, all of this theming will likely go unchanged. even long after DC has changed and updated the characters. The theming on all of the Superman rides in the chain still shows the characters as they were back in the 90's, even though most of them have changed dramatically since then. (Especially the look of Superb, as well as the entire character of Supergirl.)

 

The bottom line is that mos of the GP has never picked up a comic book and only knows these characters from tv and movies. The classic characters are what brings in the cash for DC, not the comic book nerd stuff. I have tons of Batman stuff, but have never purchases a Batman comic or cartoon. In any case, the DC Universe is both very detailed for comic book nerds, a lot of references and characters most won't catch and for the superhero fan there are all the classics that everybody recognizes.

 

One comic book hero is kinda hard to see, but he's there.

[fatdaddy]

One more thing they need for Green Lantern is cubbies for your stuff, I mean every few ride you would hear somebodys cell phone or change rain down on the roof of the station. They were letting you put your stuff on the side while you rode, but when it's your wallet and cell phone you have to leave, I would feel more secure if they was a cubby. It would kinda suck to have to buy a locker for tiny stuff that fits in your pocket. I actually saw two people in the same car lose their phones right as they pulled into the station, one kinda exploded and one fell and randomly turned itself on. So, pretty much I do not recommend riding with anything valuable in your pockets, this ride is extremely forceful and will shake the stuff outta your pockets like a cartoon bully.

[PAL]

^I may not have noticed the tight arm clearances between the track and the station, but I did note the lack of space in the boarding area. They better be smaller cubbies, but yes, something is needed.

[fatdaddy]

^I'm talking just big enought to fit the junk in your pockets, maybe even little pouches that would fit your cell, wallet, change, I lost a couple bucks in change at least.

[Gigalyte]

Is that Ride Hopper APP pretty reliable? If so SFMM must be having some opening day issues with Green Lantern b/c the app is saying the ride is down along with Tatsu. I know it's not uncommon for a new ride to have kinks I just hope it's running when I get there later today when it's a little cooler out, hoping to stop by for a few hours to get my GL credit hopefully Tatsu is back up hit that and X2 and I'm out

[harper83087]

Is that Ride Hopper APP pretty reliable? If so SFMM must be having some opening day issues with Green Lantern b/c the app is saying the ride is down along with Tatsu. I know it's not uncommon for a new ride to have kinks I just hope it's running when I get there later today when it's a little cooler out, hoping to stop by for a few hours to get my GL credit hopefully Tatsu is back up hit that and X2 and I'm out

 

I was thinking about asking the same thing. I noticed last Saturday there was a 15 minute wait through out the day for everything. To me that just doesn't seem like the truth.

[ABW]

^If it says "estimated" under the wait time, then don't trust it. However, if it says something like "30 minutes ago" then that means it's a real wait time that somebody submitted. They're certainly weren't 15 minutes waits at the mountain last week.

[Gigalyte]

^ I don't think that video should be here. Violates guidelines.

 

I'm just asking a question here not telling anyone how to run there site...But why is it ok for videos/pics that's in violation of park policy ok to be posted to a parks own facebook page and they say nothing about it's against their policy I've actually see a few give props to the poster saying nice pic or vid, but when a video/pic against park policy is posted to a enthusiast web site it's a problem.

 

Is it b/c it's the GP usually posting it to a parks Facebook and enthusiast are held to a higher standard b/c being an enthusiast parks feel we should know better and the GP is GP and not going to follow the rules even though they're right in their face and being blasted in their ears.

[WFChris]

^It's because taking video on a ride at SFMM is against their park policy, and we as a group do not condone breaking the rules. Some parks allow on ride video (for example, Disney), and in those cases, TPR will allow it as well.

[BaMiTsPaT]

Wow! SFMM really did a stellar job with the re-theme to DC Universe and with the Green lantern ride. I need to get back to SFMM as they now have 4 new coasters that I haven't ridden since my last visit (2009).

[CharlieT.]

Is that Ride Hopper APP pretty reliable? If so SFMM must be having some opening day issues with Green Lantern b/c the app is saying the ride is down along with Tatsu. I know it's not uncommon for a new ride to have kinks I just hope it's running when I get there later today when it's a little cooler out, hoping to stop by for a few hours to get my GL credit hopefully Tatsu is back up hit that and X2 and I'm out

 

Yes, it currently says that as of 32 minutes ago, GL is down. However, as of 4 minutes ago, Tatsu is a 40 min wait. Up to about half an hour ago before GL was listed as down, the wait time was ranging from 85-120 minutes.

 

There also happens to be a post on SFMM's FB page saying: "Green lantern is broken.... 3.5 hrs in line and just at the bottom of the stairs and it breaks".

Edited July 1, 2011 by CharlieT.

[robbalvey]

Several of the cars in the You Tube videos I've watched of Insane at Grona seem to be spinning/moving almost identical to how Green Lantern is riding right now - meaning the cars are not flipping 3-4 times.

 

Pleased don't call me a liar.

 

I can tell you that I have been on Insane.... a *lot* and the "average" we got on it, even during normal operating hours was 2-3 spins. "average"

 

Yes, even I had one of the rides with only 1 spins in our POV video (although I did ask them to try to perfectly balance the ride for that shot so I'd have a good POV without as much spinning.)

 

But from my own personal experience, having been on Insane during several visits to Grona Lund, Insane seems to have spun a lot more. And when you get a ride that spins a lot, it's an amazing, amazing, AMAZING ride.

 

They didn't name the ride a "Zac-SPIN" if it wasn't meant to spin.

 

--Robb

[6flagsbrad]

I found this article and thought it had some great ideas for the old monorail route.

 

http://planetsix.weebly.com/2/post/2011/06/monorail-ideas-part-i.html

[Gigalyte]

^^That brings me to another question lol In that LA Times article it says SFMM was going to do something to the trains to make them spin more? What are they going to do and why didn't they already do it, to have the trains spinning at there max upon opening?

[Chrisrad]

Is that Ride Hopper APP pretty reliable?

 

I've had good luck with it at Disneyland where there are a lot of users - most of the times are pretty accurate. I'm assuming you realize that it's user-based? So, someone can 'amuse' others by posting phony times..

 

You can only change wait times if your GPS is at the particular park location, so that sort of helps control the false times.

 

Also, as someone else said, do not pay any attention to 'estimated' times.

[John Knotts]

^^That brings me to another question lol In that LA Times article it says SFMM was going to do something to the trains to make them spin more? What are they going to do and why didn't they already do it, to have the trains spinning at there max upon opening?

 

I'm guessing they're going play with the weight distribution until they find one where most cars will get minimum 2 spins. It will still vary based on who you ride with, and that's not always something you can control, especially on busy days. Thank God for WCB.

[Six Flags Enthuseast]

Great video and pictures! I really like the new additions DC Universe got, including, of course, Green Lantern. At first, I didn't think GL would be a good fit for a large park like SFMM, mainly because of its low capacity. However, I think the single rider line will definitely help to maximize the load for each car, and it looks like the public response to this ride is pretty good.

 

GL has a neat theme, IMO. A few of the Zac-Spins I've seen seem to lack good theming, but the 'Power Ring' ACTUALLY makes sense.

 

I, like anybody who hasn't ridden it yet and knows that it's not right to completely judge a ride before riding it, agree that the arm guards aren't a big deal. I've never ridden a ride with them before, and I tend to be a hand raiser, but a Zac-Spin is the kind of ride I'd honestly want to keep my hands down on. And besides, Intamin restraints are comfy; an arm guard isn't going to make them suddenly suck.

 

Overall, I'm glad an American park finally stumbled on the awesomeness that Europe had to itself for a while, and I hope a couple more American parks can take advantage of its many benefits.

[thrillrider]

Looks pretty intense, but it looks like a very short ride.

 

I have been wanting to try a coaster of this type for a while now. Glad we have one in the states now.

[letsriderides]

I don't think that it makes sense to critizice this ride for its ride time, Six Flags had a few choices for Zac-Spin type rides and they chose the best one. (Does someone have a photo of the different Intamin Zac Spin designs available?). Be glad we didn't get a Kirnu clone!

[DBJ]

I'm blown away by the effort they took into making the area come alive with the DC universe theme. A huge step up for SFMM. Hope the trend continues as they work their way across the park over the next few years. REally, really appreiate the effort for guest comfort while in line. Although I am glad i did not do July 1 in the heat and with some of the operational bugs. It's quite a comment on the park's recent history that people / journos are amazed at the theming efforts of both RRE and now DCU (to be fair - Terminator was a huge step up). Hope they trend continues as they look at way to plus the other existing attractions.

[The SETGO Guys]

They didn't name the ride a "Zac-SPIN" if it wasn't meant to spin.

 

No Actually they named it after me!

 

The new area looks great! Fresh, I'm really impressed by what Six Flags has done here! I would love to see some more pictures of the pre-show, themeing of the area and the flats!

 

Great job Six Flags and Intamin! Congrats on getting the title of most Rollercoasters too!

 

-Zach (Zac-Spin) F

[SuperShawn]

Green Lantern is certainly a coaster that packs more of a punch than it seems and certainly took me by surprise. I have the bruises to proove it. Between the quick transitions and unpredictability of the rotation and some suprising g's this ride is a great concept. Our second ride was certainly better than our first as we had a bit more rotation and hit the mid course breaks upside down which was awesome. If SFMM actually decides to loosen the cars and allow for a little more movement I do think the ride would be better, but as it stands now it is in no way a let down or a bad ride, just one not living up to the advertisements of a 360 degree rotating coaster. As for the arm guards, they didn't bother me on the ride as your not focused on them at all once you depart the station. Simply put, I look forward to many more rides on GL in the future but it's not a coaster I'll be waiting in line hours to ride.

 

Shawn "wants to spin upside down more" Smith

[John Knotts]

I actually prefer a ride with just a spin and a half. The G's on this ride are surprisingly intense, and NOT for people who have stomach issues on coasters. The one ride I got was all I could handle on an empty stomach, and my car only did a complete spin once. It's a VERY fun ride, but unlike X2, they'd better have a plan for vomit in the station.