SonofBaconator

I think the park was more than happy to let the Son of Beast station stay for as long as they could. It didn’t really cost them any money to keep it, it served a purpose as a haunted house, and it’s mere presence kept enthusiasts speculating. Now that the building is officially condemned and all of the haunt props have since been removed from it, I think the park can’t keep kicking the can down the road and finally has to address the aging structure. If many of you recall, there is an actual house that set within the loop of the train. A fort façade was built around to hide the house, and the integrity of the house began to wear overtime to where it eventually collapsed- but you wouldn’t know it because it’s covered by the fort. The Son of Beast station, however, is 100% within the public eye as guests pass it when on their way to ride The Bat. Heck, even if for some reason, The Bat was closed and they blocked that path off you could still see the station from Banshee, Drop Tower, an to an extent the Eiffel Tower. If bits and pieces of the structure begin to deteriorate and crumble people will be able to notice that. The station itself is close to The Bat so I’m sure that the park has to finally address it. I honestly think that’s why The Vortex station was never saved, same as Firehawk’s, it’s probably the best interest of the park to tear out a structure instead of kicking the can down the road.

I’m just gonna leave this here:

I’m showing my tenure on this site- a long, long, time ago there was a running joke where everything was a diversion.

This could be a…. diversion.

Maybe I’m tardy to the party but while riding WindSeeker today, I saw some structural work being done to a part of the backstage area outside of Area 72 near Orion.

It’s so crazy, if you go on reddit or even instagram you see a bunch of people begging for AFO to come to KI.

I feel like KI might have to make alterations in a few years. There’s nothing wrong with the Opening Night story, but I feel like plot based rides usually have a shelf life, or at least the story does. Compare that to Mystic Timbers or Verbolten where there are multiple story possibilities that keep the experience feeling fresh. Then look at more ambiguous rides like the Haunted Mansion and the original Phantom Theater where the mystery allows for deeper lore building and immersion, which is part of what makes them feel timeless. For more context- for the original Phantom Theater: Maestro is the main speaker where he goes through 6 different spiels in the que, I believe 2 while he’s holding the curtain open, and I believe 3 when you see him before the prop room. There are other characters with minor speaking roles I’m sure @BryanJay can list but what I’m trying to say is that there was variety in the ride. Compare that now where you hear: ”Are you ready to be an usher?- it’s 10 minutes ‘til showtime” or “with one wave of my magic wand” on repeat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy the park brought back the IP- I just hope they look into adding more variety in the audio for future seasons to add to the experience.

I just wonder how hard it is to slap a PNG logo on shirt or hoodie as opposed to asking AI to make something that’ll be sold. I did this in literally 2 minutes without AI.

I’ll leave that to @DonHelbig to answer. I thought the name Splintercat was trademarked and the park actually did some lore building with the sound of buzzing bees and Don posting a picture of a stock splintercat on twitter. From what I remember it was all a diversion.

I know there’s dozens of Phantom Theater related topics out there but I felt like I needed to isolate this one for discussion sake. Is there a correlation between Mark Hamill’s Joker and Richard Doyle’s Maestro? When you listen to how each voice actor voices their respective characters, you can’t ignore the similarities. It’s also worth noting that Batman: The Animated series debuted in 1992, which was the same year as Phantom Theater debuted Kings Island. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, if both the characters’ voices were based off theatrical individuals, or if there’s something deeper to that. Thoughts?

Seeing what @BryanJay did makes me wish they went this route with the redesign:

I rode it yesterday and I was thoroughly surprised at how immersive the queue was as well as the ride itself. I do feel like the ghost note element was not distracting and you can honestly somewhat ignore them and just take in the ride itself if you wanted. A few critiques and some that I hope they fix as a season progresses: My two cents in the new ride vs the old ride: I would honestly give it a B+. There are a lot of technical things I still think they need to work out, but overall the ride isn’t bad – I think there are a few things that I mentioned in the spoilers that kept it from being an A+ ride. I went in knowing that it wasn’t going to be a carbon copy of the original, and I have to give credit to the park and Sally for reintegrating the original IP into a layout/concept that had been altered well over 20 years ago.

A follow up- I wonder how things would’ve been if Orion was built equal to or larger than Fury in 2020.

Local 12 shared some pics

From a thrill rides standpoint- the RMC makes the most sense. Even though KD has Twisted Timbers, what BGW is “proposing” is completely different enough to not rally draw any comparisons. A giga on the other hand doesn’t seem needed right now. Even though it would be a completely different experience from Pantherian, I think people would be quick to draw comparisons. I honestly think Tampa would get a giga first and is arguably more deserving of one: Florida’s tallest/fastest/longest coaster is extremely marketable in a state with so many large parks.