Warner Bros. Movie World (WBMW) Discussion Thread

[australianalex]

The coaster is the world’s first ride themed around the very popular Arkham Asylum game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_City_Gauntlet:_Escape_from_Arkham_Asylum

[Jordan M.]

That is the fact sheet as provided to me from Village Roadshow Theme Parks (Movie World)

 

I am aware of Gotham City Gauntlet but from my understanding it is not themed to the video game

[australianalex]

Hmm true.

And yeah that wasn't directed at you, it was more to make fun of Village Roadshow and their crap PR. Not really sure how its the first of its kind in the world. The only thing thats "first of a kind" is the KumbaK trains, but I don't think the GP care about that.

[cfc]

I'm just hoping that they can actually do something to salvage Lethal Weapon: The Ride other than just melting it down for scrap and starting over (that was one miserable SLC). This retheme sounds like a step in the right direction.

 

I really enjoyed Movie World last year, and thought the only bummer was Lethal Weapon (good queue, though).

[ragerunner]

If they end up adding a DC themed interactive dark ride with all these other changes and additions, they are going to have a great superhero themed 'land' area.

[cal1br3tto]

The ride will feature 5 gut wrenching inversions as well as on-board audio

On SLCs, "gut wrenching" is almost never a good thing. And if they hadn't improved the restraints, you might've ended up lacking the ears necessary to actually hear the on-board audio.

[Jordan M.]

I have no doubt Arkham Asylum will still be rough but with these new trains you will not have anything to bash your head against

 

You can see a slightly closer picture of the restraints here (image was too big to upload to TPR)

[original]

Maybe the thread name could be changed to be just Warner Bros. Movie World and talk about whats happening within the park?

 

I bet LW though is now looking a little different to when TPR visited. MW have released photos on their Facebook, with on behind the work walls showing of the new theming with a caption stating:

"A little sneak peak at the themeing work for Arkham Asylum – Shock Therapy, we are getting very close people."

If you look at the photo closely on the ride hand side you can see some guys working on the track which is the break run and someone has stated that the ride is going to receiving magnetic breaks to slow the train down. It was also said the ride was in parts going to receive some re-tracking work, my guess smooth out some parts to make transitions easier or age, but in the end did not because they ran out of time to do so.

 

They also posted this photo a while back, you may remember as being the old building you would fly past on the ride now being turned into what looks to be a guard tower with the caption from MW's Facebook page being:

"The Tower themeing of Arkham Asylum begins"

They have also posted some photos on their Facebook of some of the characters you may encounter in Arkham Asylum, these include Batman, The Joker, Harley Quinn, Bane, and Croc Killer with background info on all of them!

The ride is going to open some time in April, presumably in time for the school/Easter holidays coming up.

 

Meanwhile a Parkz member, One Day Holiday got these photos of the gutted Batman Adventure building.

and

 

They are clearly wasting no time on that attraction and the old simulators are already gone. Nothing appears to be happening to the old Looney Tunes building, even though it closed first. Although with all this other work going on in the park I'm not really surprised or care, my guess is they move over to that side of the park once the DC Comic area of the park is finished!

 

I'll hopefully be heading up to the Gold Coast during our winter, so I'll get to try out Arkham Asylum: Shock Therapy, and Green Lantern, but unfortunately I'll miss out on the Batman Adventure replacement.

 

Another note, I couldn't find a Seaworld thread and since MW & SW are the same company just thought I'd tell you Sesame Street has now left SW and Nickelodeon is now there with a Spongebob parade in the Ski Lake at the front of the park and Dora show where Sesame used to be. Once again, I don't live in that area anymore so some really good pictures of the parade, which looks to be top notch, can be found on parkz.

[australianalex]

I agree this should become a "Warner Bros Movie World Discussion Thread"

[larrygator]

I agree this should become a "Warner Bros Movie World Discussion Thread"

 

thanks Einstein!

[Ed Farmer]

I've been on great SLCs and I've been on mediocre SLCs. They're never as bad as people would lead you to believe, but on-board audio won't do anything to make them better. I was hoping that little fad was done with and confined to the past. I'm curious about the new trains- I've heard both good and bad reviews.

[original]

MW this morning have posted photo's on their FB of some of theming going on the Arkham Asylum, in particular the tower:

 

The rest of the photos are here:

[MacPark]

I am interested to see how this turns out. I am a bit worried about the fact they have just "wallpapered" the scenery on everywhere so i really am interested to see it this works or not.

[BDG]

That looks incredibly cheap. Another disappointment after Green Lantern.

[australianalex]

Miss the old Movieworld standard of theming as seen on Superman Escape and Scooby Doo and of course Wild West Falls. Green Lanterns theming was very cheap, especially the perspex shelter that the station is. Hopefully they'll spend more for the theming of the new dark ride.

[SharkTums]

What's the old saying again? You can't polish a turd.

 

SLC's...ugh.

[vacoaster09]

I wouldnt expect the park to throw in some expensive world class re-theming on an older ride that might not give them a great return on investment. The way I am thinking is that the park needed to replace its trains (afterall trains have a certain service life, yet trains are expensive). So like Six Flags did with Bizarro at SFNE, to help bring in some return on the new trains they needed, they attempted to retheme the ride in hopes of making it more marketable and basically help make some type of return on their investment (atleast to break even - but they didn't). In this case of the SLC... I can see the same. They are investing in track work and new trains so if they retheme it and give it a new look on a dime then they can possibly break even if not make profit on their investment. Superman was a completely new attraction so it made sense for them to go all out with the theme.

[cfc]

What's the old saying again? You can't polish a turd.

 

SLC's...ugh.

 

Oh, you can't, eh?

 

[australianalex]

Some pictures from Akrham Asylum: Shock Therapy's soft opening. The theming looks pretty decent and I think the trains look great. (Source, Outsiders Australia Facebook page).

I know the new trains won't take away the roughness that comes from Vekoma's crappy track transitions, but at least it'll eliminate head banging, hopefully making it a re-ridable coaster experience.

[A.J.]

Those two guys in the front of the photo of the train in the station have some outrageously tall-looking socks...

 

The trains make it seem as though the shoulder belts were fitted as an afterthought.

[RangaOnACoaster]

I just got off Arkham and its a super awesome improvement than what it used to be like. but the lap bars end up making your legs hurt after 2-3 rides. besides that its better than a massive headache

[cfc]

The "patient processing" desk and the cop hanging from the ceiling are nice touches. Most of the theming looks like appliques they just plastered to the walls.

[Moose]

^You're right, it looks like the stuff you buy to decorate for Halloweeen, but it is an improvement over bare walls and I applaud them for trying to plus an slc.

[cfc]

^The old Lethal Weapon theming in the queue was fairly elaborate, although I think it makes sense to go with a Batman motif for this ride (being as they already have Superman and Green Lantern coasters). I'm glad to hear that the new trains are an improvement.

[djrappa]

I'd almost go so far as creating a new thread just for discussion of these trains...

 

First on the theming, Chuck as a massive critic I can assure you the new theming on this ride is much better than anything you saw on Lethal Weapon. Yes most of it is just printed (it is coverd with acrylic though to last) vinyl however at the end of the day it's just a coaster que, it's nothing more. The theming is pretty well done, certainly enough of a solid effort to convey the theme. If this was the actual ride experience of a dark ride I'd call bad form but for a que it's good.

 

Now as for the trains, all of you Vekoma pain SLC lovers out there should have a look at what has been done with these things. I finally got to ride several times this morning before we opened up to the public and it's a total transformation from shit to awesome ride. The train still tracks like a bitch but it really doesn't have any negative impacts on the rider. Basically think of the new trains as riding with only a lap bar and that's what you have as long as your shoulder 'belts' are adjusted correctly.

I think Kumbak will do well with these trains as parks can keep their existing wheel bogies and only replace the seat hangers. The magnetic braking just completes the ride transformation to pleasurable.