PKD renames Tomb Raider!

Instead of Tomb Raider: The Ride as what they originally announced it would be, the website is now calling it Tomb Raider: Firefall.

Thats a given since it was one of the featured rides on the survey. It sounds like something that norton anti-virus sells lol lol.

Yeah, I remember that on the Survey as well, I thought that it was officially announced as this, or did I miss something?

No, it was originally announced as Tomb Raider: The Ride. Link to the original press release is below.

If it was a given they were going to change the name, I must have missed all of the talk about it over the past five months since that announcement. :)

- Jeff

http://www.kingsdominion.com/corpinfo_press_tombannc.jsp

Sounds like they want to to be offered an escape route incase they have to drop the Tomb Raider name, just like Flight of Fear.

^Good call on their part. Paramount has a knack for theming rides around movies and shows with little to no staying power--and most of the time these rides open when the theme's popularity is already on the decline. Days of Thunder...Wayne's World...Outer Limits...shall I continue?

I'm still thanking Heaven that PKD didn't rename Scooby Doo.

Actually, I don`t think that they changed the name so that they could drop the name like Flight of Fear. They dropped Outer Limites because they did not own the rights to Outer Limits, but they licensed that name. As far as Scooby`s Ghoster Coaster at Kings Dominion, I believe that they did rename the ride to Fairl Odd Coaster, according to RCDB.

Nope, RCDB switched the name back to Scooby Doo. Carowinds' coasters now show up with new names.

Also, I didn't actually mean to imply that KD renamed Tomb Raider deliberately with the foresight that they would need to drop the 'Tomb Raider' part later down the road. Just saying it's nice they'd have that option since I predict the theme won't last more than a few years.

Paramount owns the rights to the movies for Tomb Raider, but in a few years they might have to drop it, thus, Tomb Raider: Firefall just becomes Firefall. Plus Firefall the name links up with the theme of Volcano too.

I think they did it to have a variety of rides so to speak. They probably didnt wanna have 3 TR:TR so they decided to go ahead to give it :the firewall instead.

Paramount wouldnt have to drop a name that they own in a few years because its a paramount venture. I see tomb raider with staying power because its been around for some time now and days of thunder is still a pretty popular attraction!

I think the new name is far better than the original plan to just stick "the ride" after it as it gives the attraction much more substance & I'm certainly glad to hear that they aren't renaming any exisiting coasters......yet.

Anyone planning on attending the construction tour scheduled for february 16th? if so try & get some photos of the progress made so far,the rather low amount of pics posted by the park just isn't enough to tide me over til I can get down there later this season to see this thing up close. *** Edited 2/4/2005 6:07:49 PM UTC by BATWING FAN SFA***

There is a construction tour? Cool.

I have to agree with Coasterbruh that it seems like they may just be trying to differentiate the various Tomb Raider rides (or at least these two, because they are both top spins). Kind of like they did with the two Top Guns at PGA and Carowinds. I hadn't heard anything about the construction tour at PKD. It's a shame that it's a few days before I officially move to Maryland. I would have liked to have checked it out. *** Edited 2/4/2005 9:06:46 PM UTC by Pale Rider***

^^According to an interview granted to a coasternet staff member by PKD's marketing director for their in the loop segment yes there is a construction tour coming up this month.

Nice to hear you'll be moving up to Maryland Pale Rider,you'll find the parks around here to be quite a step up compared to SFEG although SFA's not much of a step above SFEG,at least when compared to PKD & BGW.

Actually, I'm moving up from South Carolina to Maryland. Before living here, I'm origninally from Southcentral PA, so I'm allready pretty familiar with the Maryland and Virginia parks, having visited them going too and from visiting the family. I'm looking forward to them being even closer now though. Especially BGW and Hersheypark:)

New construction pics are up on PKD's official site.

The new pics show the car & seating configuration of the ride....nice color scheme using brown for the structure & red for the restraints don't you think?

Wonder how much mroe work they have to do...moreless how old those pics are...

Well it looks like they've gotten quite alot of work done since the first batch of pics were posted in november/december.

From the looks lf things it seems they just need to finish up the surrounding theming & landscaping as well as the queue area....not sure if they've completed all of the electrical work yet though & of course what ride wouldn't be deemed complete without the first test runs?