six flags and superman?
Why do all of the rides have to be called batman?
Its because AOL Time Warner owns Six Flags, and they usually have the charcters of the rides come out close to movie releases.
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This seems destined to be closed, but it's actually asking a question that has yet to be answered. That is: What possible gain does a park get from naming a ride after a movie?
Has anyone in the history of the world ridden Face/Off and said, "Hey, that was fun, I think I'll go buy "Face/Off," starring Nicolas Cage, which must be just as fun as this ride!"
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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.
RCT_MASTER said:
Its because AOL Time Warner owns Six Flags, and they usually have the charcters of the rides come out close to movie releases.
AOL Time Warner does not own Six Flags...Six Flags is a publicly traded company on the NYSE. ( http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/research/profile.asp?Symbol=PKS )
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I think it also has to do with consistency and brand recognition. You know you can go to almost any SF park and ride Batman, Superman, Viper, GASM, etc. Also makes it cheaper to slap a logo on a shirt and ship the same shirt to multiple parks.
I'd imagine SF also had to get the rights use those characters and their likenesses - might as well get your money's worth while your at it.
I personally find the "Superhero" coasters to be the least creative themes and by trying to attach a personality to these rides they really give them no chance of developing a personality at all. Very corporate feeling.
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www.coasterimage.com
Dorney Park visits in 2002: 19
I don't like comic books or superheroes, but I don't mind the superhero theming at all.
Not once when riding on S:RoS and getting my ass launched out of the seat did I think to myself: 'This ride is ok, but the name Superman is *soooo* lame.'
I thought something like this: 'Wow, this is really f*cking awesome, and the air over these bunnies rules.' I don't think the word Superman crossed my mind even *once* during the ride.
I actually like the B:TR theming, and enjoy comparing the theming at all the different installations. A pretty good friend of mine was involved in coming up with and executing the original theming at SFGAm, and I like comparing his work there to what he's done in other parks and to that of the local kids they got to do other installations.
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Hallowave
I think that the superhero naming gives many good opportunities for theming. I personally have no problem with a "predestined" personality for the coaster. Something like S:UE really did bring to mind something like Superman the first time I rode it. Instant accelerations like that, going up into the air really far (well ok, at that time, really far for an impulse) it just fit the whole idea of Superman. And although I thought the theming around that ride to be rather weak, at least the opportunity to really get some cool scenery was there.
Batman, again, a good opportunity, because people do recognize things as "Batman-esque" or "Superman-esque". I think when done right, using superhero names gives a lot of opportunity to impress the heck out of GPs even if the ride itself isn't all that impressive.
And personally I think Great American Scream Machine is a great name for a coaster :)
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red: but let us not forget that Six Flags *was* once a part of Time-Warner.
Anyway, stop being dramatic. Not "Every" coaster is superman/batman/etc. "Deja Vu", "X", "Vertical Velocity", "NITRO", "Titan", "Goliath", "X-Flight", "BOSS", "Villian", "The Flying Coaster" are all non-superhero coasters.
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"To get inside this head of mine, would take a monkey-wrench, and a lot of wine" Res How I Do
True 2Hostyl, but RCTMaster used the current tense "Owns" instead of the past tense "Owned" plus he stated AOL Time Warner, which were not merged at the time that SF was part of TimeWarner, so there were multiple flaws in the statement, I just corrected him regarding the "current" status of the SF chain.
Would you not have corrected him had he said Marriott OWNS the park? (Granted, that has no impact in regards to this thread, but still...)
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--George H
---Superman the ride...coming to a SF park near you soon...
jwhoogs said:
Why do all the coasters have to be called superman etc. etc. etc.?
Because SF owns the parks and can name them anything they want. What difference does it make in the ride? None. If they decided to call their coasters Coaster #1, #2 , #3 would the ride be any different?
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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein
Also, let's not forget that these are regional parks. Most guests aren't aware of all the other iterations of Superman in all the other SF parks.
Kinda funny how nobody complains that there are more than 1 rides named Space Mountain, isn't it?
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RCT,
No reason to apologize...I hope you don't think I was slamming you...I was just trying to inform you of the current status...I am wrong too...many times a day...Just ask my wife!!! ;)
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--George H
---Superman the ride...coming to a SF park near you soon...
I don't think it is that bad that they use the names over and over (at least the concept isnt bad)...the problem comes from the fact that they do it so much and with the same damn names that it gets old quick. I mean we used to be able to say "I'm gonna go on superman" and people knew which ride....nowadays its like superman: the escape, superman: the ride, superman: ultimate escape, superman: ride of steel (in 2 damn parks no less)....
Id like it better when they used several characters from a single movie for attractions such as Riddler's Revenge or Joker's Jinx, etc. At least then each ride has a distinct personality....
And above all, if they are going for synergy between the attractions and the movies, they need to wait for more Batmans, Supermans, etc movies to come out because you can only do so much.
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